Hello Everyone and welcome back to FJD Performance!

Today we are covering our back side (pun intended) and going in depth with our custom Touring ZHP rear bumper!

Back in June/July ’22 we had made a trip to a local parts yard in search of some goodies, and we had come across a black sedan ZHP bumper. We originally paid no mind to it, but thought man, that would be an awesome pick up if we had a sedan instead of a touring.

Fast forward a handful of weeks and we found oursleves back at the parts yard and the bumper was still there. Ironically the yard had a sale on all bumpers and doors.

$25 each

Well… who could say no to that? And thus, this project was born!

We snagged a silver touring bumper in addition to the black ZHP one and off we went! A few weeks had passed and we decided to start cutting up the bumpers.

We soon however came to the realization that what was cut from the silver bumper was not enough to properly make the transitions work as easily as we were hoping… especially when the mouldings were not lining up correctly.

So Plan B!

No… not the baby unmaking thing…

AND NO… not the skateboard company

Snag a 3rd touring bumper! But in the correct color!

Many many many many…. many many measurements were taken many many many… many times before we started to cut the bumpers up. All of the many’s were because we wanted the final piece to look as factory as possible. Especially when the car is a daily. You want the car to look its best. That way if you want to flex on all the plebs who don’t have what you have, you can!

After the measurements were all finalized it was time to start putting the 2 pieces together. We started off with the tape you see below followed by drilling holes and drift stitching the bumpers together in problem areas before we finalized the positioning and started using our new toy. A plastic welding gun.

Which by the way is extremely useful, so I would 11/10 recommend you buy one if you don’t already own one.

By this point we were done with our initial bonding. We wanted to see how the bumper looked and sat on our car before we finished off the project. It looked pretty good even back then!

After confirming the fit we started to weld and reinforce from behind. The process didn’t take too long, but was time consuming. (Wait… but?… nevermind) In hindsight, we should have been charging shop rates for the labour…

Yes… it was like childbirth… but the bit about how much time the bun is in the oven… not the post oven removal bit…

After using epoxy, welding tabs and other bonding materials it was time to move to the front facing bit of the bumper. Over the next few months we spent HOURS filling, sanding, filling, sanding, finding low spots, filling and sanding again.

After this we spent a few more weeks perfecting the bumper until we got to the final fitting and sanding of the bumper. After confirming the fit we dropped the bumper off at a local enthusiast shop, that specializes in autobody, for them to finish off whatever they deemed necessary and for primer, paint and clear!

As of writing today, 27 April 2023, the bumper was picked up and bolted on to the car for a much needed photo shoot since the installation of the fender flares.

Elise has a whole new look and we are absolutely LOVING it here at FJD Performance.

Additional photos from the build project can be found here.