kastle

I (Aaron) installed the WRX rear underskirts on my RS and had one hell of a time doing it. I was trying
to do it without taking the bumper off. It took me a long time to come up with a good way to do it, but I think
I came up with a very good procedure that will help others to do it much faster and better looking.





Kastle ordered rear underskirts as well, and the pictures are from the installation of his. We tried out my
new install ideas and had it done in about 1.5 hours including taking pictures, drinking breaks , and me remebering
what my new ideas were.





It is strongly recomended to have two people working on this install so one can help hold the underskirt in
place, while the other installs the hardware. It is also very helpful in keeping the spats from rubbing on the
car while positioning them.





Please be very careful while doing this procedure as you can quickly ruin your bumper with scratches and
incorrectly drilled holes. As always if you aren't comfortable with any of the steps involved please don't try
it yourself. The author's and contributor's of this site can NOT be held responsible for any problems that incur
form this or any other pages hosted here. Please follow at your own risk.





Thanks to Michael Stewart on the i-Club for his documentation of installing them with taking the bumper off,
and to David2Z24 for his tips on how to install them without removing the bumper.




INSTALLATION GUIDE:


Here is what comes in the package from subaruparts.com






The first step is to assemble the tip of the underskirts hardware, to enable it to be fastened to the car. Here is a pic of the the hardware needed:







Here is the hardware installed. The brackets are labeled L and R so you will know which is for each side. We did the passenger side first. Here is the hardware installed:







You will need to test fit the underskirts and trim the tip where it contacts the bumper preventing it from fitting correctly. They are easy to cut with scissors. The driver's side needs to be trimmed, while the passenger side fits fairly well without trimming. Just trim as much as you want for the look that you want.





The next step is to screw the bolts into the tabs and slide them in backwards (so the bolt faces the car) As seen in this picture:







Then with help of someone else position the underskirt in the grove that follows the bumper, when it is where you want it apply pressure to front are that has the bolt sticking through (the one closest to the front of the car). After this has been done, set the underskirt down and look at the car. There should be a mark where the hole
will need to be drilled. Remove the front-most bolt and position the spat again and apply pressure to the rear-most bolt area. The front bolt must be removed in order for the rear bolt to rear the car. When both locations have been marker it will look similar to this: (it is difficult to see the marks on Kastle's dirty-ass car )







One plug that holds the bumper cover on needs to be removed in order to put the bolt in from the back side. Here is pictures of the fastener and it is removed with a flat head screwdriver and some prying action:







Now for the scary part. Get a drill with a 7/32 bit and get ready to destroy you beautiful Impreza. I drilled the holes with the bottom of the drill bit just a portion below the top of the mark to ensure that the underskirt would be high enough. Once the holes are drilled you need to enlarge the top and side of the hole just enough for
the bolt to be pushed in from the back.







The bolts are fairly hard to get in, and I scratched my hand up nicely putting them in. Once those are in place the metal plate on the rear bolt only, I also didn't screw it dwon very far, maybe 50%. Like shown here:
(note: this picture is from the drivers side unlike the others, so it looks like it is the front bolt, but trust me it isn't )







Then with the help of someone else postion the underskirt so the metal piece will slide into place on the underskirt. It VERY helpful to have someone holding the underskirt so it doesn't scratch up the paint while postioning it. With the underskirt almost vertical I found that was the easiest way to slide the metal plate into the underskirt. A screwdriver helps to rotate the plate if it starts to slide in incorrectly. This is how it looked when we got it to slide in correctly, notice the near vertical angle. (note: this is also from the driver's side, obviously):







Then with someone helping you, rotate the underskirt down into position. Line up the front-most metal plate, which should be installed in the underskirt, with the bolt that you have pushed through from the back side. When in position I got the bolt started into the plate by hand (jamming my hand under the bumper near where you remove the tab holding the bumper on). Once it was started I had a stubby screwdriver that fit in behind the bumper and used that to tighten it down. Once that is tightened you need to slide the plastic tab over the bumper in the wheelwell where the front bolt will be. Insert the long bolt into the hole in the underskirt and through the plastic tab and tighen it down. I used my hand and then an 8mm socket (I think it was 8mm). Here is an image to help visualize this ( this is from above the wheel looking down towards the ground. You can barely see the plastic clip that slides over the bumper in this pic):







Now have someone position the tip of the spat and drill a hole for the the end mounting point. I used a zip-tie to fasten this point, since the supplied fastener wasn't long enough. I also drilled an extra hole through the plastic where the metal plate sits on the underskirt. Then I drilled another hole above that point and ran another zip-tie through that hole as well. The second zip-tie helped position it much better than the stock location.





Here is the finished product of all of your hard work. The ends are still a little low, and after they have been painted we are going to try to use some 3M heavy duty tape to scure the end a bit better. The first three pics are Kastle's and the last two are Aaron's.

Good luck and we hope you find these instructions easy to follow.