Hey Guys,
There are actually a couple of things coming into play here.
#1) Mike received a very early fascia (actually Mike's fascia shipped before we even finished ours) because his car was in the body shop and he needed one ASAP. Unfortunately, we found the same thing on our car that we will be changing after we already shipped Mike's fascia out. The main cause of the bubble is actually the mounting points. We developed our fascia using a factory fascia, which also means that we use the factory fascia mounting points. We saw on our car that the mounting flange underneath the headlight does not extend all the way to the end of the headlight. So we end the flange right at the end of the factory flange. We are in the process of fixing the mold right now to add an extra support flange in that area to prevent the part from flexing in that area. Basically there was not enough support in that particular section of the part.
#2) We are also going to analyze our urethane and verify its rigidity. We are concerned that our latest batch of urethane from a relatively new vendor may be too "soft" and is having issues with holding its original shape. We are going to have it sent out for testing and will know soon. Either way, we have notified our suppliers and we will be working to correct this immediately.
In the mean time, no 370Z fascias will ship until this issue has been resolved. The 370Z fascia is the only that we have seen this happen with so we are halting production on these fascias until we can resolve these imperfections.
Major manufacturer's like Nissan, Toyota, and everyone else who utilize "urethane" body components use a material that is substantially harder than our urethane. For example, if you were to drop a factory fascia and our fascia from the same height, chances are that the factory fascia would crack whereas the STILLEN fascia would bend. With that being said, there is a fine line between too soft and too hard.
The bubble or warp in the material is in no way a result of outside temperature. Keep in mind that when the poly-urethane material is injected into the mold it is around 120 degrees. The chemical reaction between the two chemicals skyrockets that temperature to well over 200 degrees. When these parts cure, they are curing at over 200 degrees! It would take a lot more than outside air temperatures to have a significant effect on the material.
I will notify everyone when the molds have been finished and of course will follow up with our results after testing.
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