[evil eye]

hey whats up all? these ar my pics of my hatch handle that i won off ebay over a month ago. these were the ones that were bought and sold about 3 times! this is not the same on red dragon used on his celi beacuse this piece is a full carbon fiber piece. not an overlay. This should be exactly what you guys are getting from Fiber Images. Those that went thru Rich. It cost me $145 shipped. I need to tighten the last 2 bolts as the tool i was using wasnt long enough to tighten it to the very end. so it has two lil gaps at the ends.

heres a few pics of the backside before i installed it.

now i need to get a CF hood!

 

[Chiznarles]

yours looks different than mine from the back.. mine only has two bolts on the back

 

[evil eye]

yea i didnt get mine from Rich like you did. i have no clue who made mine actually. theres no insignia inside.

what do u mean u only have 2 bolts? as in they only gave you 2 bolts instead of the four, or theres only two brackets for the bolts to attach to the car? the stock uses five brackets with bolts. two go around the keyhole. and theres a clip on the drivers side too that you have tpush out in order to remove the factory one, after you unbolt it. even with four brackets it's still not enough to get the passenger side flush with the car.

 

[Chiznarles]

there's only 2 brackets on the back..

how do you remove the stock one?

 

[bLaH1031]

Looks good. That's a cool accent.

 

[evil eye]

thanks man!

to remove the stock one you have to remove that big gray plastic piece on the inside of the hatch. to do so, unscrew the screw where the handle is on the inside, passenger's side. after that if i remember correctly you pry the big plastic piece off with a flat head screwdriver. its held in by plastic clips so you'll hear them pop off or fly off as one did in my case, but i found it after 10 minutes! anyway with that off i started unbolting the two easiest ones which are the two surrounding the stock key lock. if you have a factory alarm there will be a ****load of wires in your way so just move them out of the way when unbolting. after that there are three more that you will see. they are the only gold colored bolts back ther so dont worry about unbolting somthing u shouldnt be. after that the handle is almost ready to take off. now from the outside of the car jiggle it off starting from the passenger side. you will notice that the drivers side is still being held down by something. turns out that theres a clip there holding it in. if you push the hatch handle in towards the drivers side, very carefully, it will start to give. be careful not to damage the paint or break the clip as in my case. I broke mine off because i was rushing it, however it wont be needed. it would have been nice to have if i ever put the stock one back on, but oh well. once it is off, you will see all that is left stuck to the trunk. which is the handle in the center, the two light harneses for the license plate lights, and the key hole/lock. you can put the new CF handle right over the stock lock without it interfering at all. once you insall it back on you will notice that the ends wont be 100% flush with the car. not very noticeable unless you put your nose up to it. the reason for this is because the furthest right bracket that was included with the stock handle is not present in the replacement part. also there is no clip for the drivers side part to attach to the car. so the ends will be slightly gapped. in your case i do not know how this will afect you as you only have 2 brackets, im assuming they are on the ends of the handle, not the middle. hope i helped ya out a lil, shouldnt take more than half an hour, took me a lil longer cuz i did the install in 30 below temperatures. my fingers were practically frostbitten.

 

[oONoGoAutoOo]

damn, i like it!

 

[rinox]

looks really good
goes well with your ride
it looks a lot better than i imagine it would

 

[PhatCellyGT]

That is alot better than that fiber images crap!!

 

[RADR1732]

That is still the Fiber Images one that someone modified so that it would be a replacement. If you look at the piece from the back it looks just like the FI one that someone custom made the brackets for.

Richard

 

[coOOlcelica]

that looks pretty nice :thumbup:

 

[DopeCelicaGT]

It looks dull for some reason you know like it has no gel coat or something!!!! Thats just my opinion thought but something is missing, it is not as shiny as a lot of the c/f hoods I see so what gives??? I would not want to put that on my silver celica unless it looked as ood or close to as good as my hood and that thing well just looks real dull or something!!!

Justin

 

[mtime04]

that doesn't look to bad, i think it would look better on silver or red

 

[DopeCelicaGT]

The fact is it still looks dull or somethinglike its missing a gel coat or something its not glossy enough, somethings missing it looks kinda like cheap plastic IMO, maybe its just me but I believe I could go by some ABS plastic in black and make something like that, I mean go and look at the IPT stuff, look how nice the weave is then look at how glossy it looks, those are some nice pieces so I would think like I stated above th quality on these things should be just as good as a c/f hood and the fact is whatever this is on dudes car is not good quality it fact it looks to me like a cheap piece of plastic, no offense or anything!!! Personally you could have got one of Bat's overlays and stuckthat on there which IMO looks better than that and saved yourself a lot of money!!! Does anybody else think that something isn't right about this piece???? Are these the ones in the group buy???? One more thing where in the hell is the place for the key hole in these things cause obviously whatever we are looking at does not have one and for people like me um we kinda might need that hole for our key to go into to get into the trunk area!!!

Justin

 

[evil eye]

to each his own i guess, i still like it. i have had bad experiences with vinyl so id rather have this piece. it's actually not that dull man. i have some pics where it doesnt look so dull. i understand that it is not as shiny as the car but oh well, i'll wax it and see what happens. right now the shininess is the least of my probs. it's all good with the keyhole for me cuz i have the remote entry, but i dont think theyre making these with the keyhole?

one more thing, the fiberglass is not thin at all. Richard said something that he has to put tape on the inside of it so that the light doesnt shine through the CF. i dont have that problem at all.
Who knows it was probally made by Fiber Images a long time ago, who else wouldve made it.

 

[DopeCelicaGT]

Well hell yeah man see it looks good in those pics, I am getting keyless entry so who knows maybe I will still get one , it coulda just been the lighting cause it just looked real dull in the other pic, now I really like it!! I may buy one after all!!

Justin

 

[evil eye]

well it was a cloudy day when i took the installed pics! i'm still gonna wax it and see how much shinier she will get!

if you are gonna get the keyless entry you might as well get the piece then. i think it looks a lot cleaner without the hole, the more i stare at it! im proablly gonna take my emblems off too. make the whole back end look cleaner.

 

[DopeCelicaGT]

Yeah I agree with you Evil eye I think I am going to debadge the back of my car soon also, makes the back end look much better plus I don't want many people knowing I got a slow GT auto LMAO!!! I know I know its a sin LOL, it was the last they had on the lot and I was getting a very good deal so I couldn't pass it up plus my woman cant drive a stick!! Oh and I am going to have to say I think it must have been the clouds when u took the poic that made it look dull, cause my car always looks a little dull, well on a cloudy day on the top parts of the car anyway, that must be it plus my car may seem a little dull on cloudy days just cause its silver!!!! Nice piece man I hopoe u weren't offended by me saying it looked dull!! Oh by the way does it have roundness to it like the stock one or is it flat across the back??

Justin

 

[redline18]

that is beautiful...i want one now