Using some of that plate-steel they use for mounting roll cages would be the way to go. Heat form and TIG'd in there!

I doubt we'll see anyone doing this, though. They just want to get the look as simple and easy as can be.

Like most goals, the supporting mods get overlooked, because they can be inconvenient and tack on a good bit to the price.




Ya don't say? And that is on a high quality manifold designed for nitrous. Some of them have those burst caps, this one just let the plenum pop. The IC piping was dented where it slammed into the shock tower after the couple blew off the TB. LOL


We seem to have a scary amount in common there GA

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OP: ~14hours of labour each side and $180 + shipping per tower.

That is gonna hurt. Figure a conservative $70-90/hr and $30/each for shipping & handling....

$1960-2520 for the work if they do it per the book and not flat rate and drag ass on the job. ~$420 in parts/transit.

Yikes.

 

I think your best bet is to go with a shop that works on these cars all the time. There are probably a thousand different shops in your area which are capable of doing the work, however, the one I would trust most is the one who has probably replaced a few of these before which would be a certified honda body shop.

Honda Body Shop Locator: Recognized Collision Repair Centers RESOURCES

 

Well I just want to say my car is only on coilovers nothing extremely modded about that.I'm not running negative camber the wheels that I did have were 16 x 9 but lighter than the stock wheels, I always ride my coilovers on the softest setting i daily drive it at a reasonable lowered height and I only drop it all the way down for shows so to me it's just like any other second-generation fit on coilovers

 

I appreciate all the info tho

 

Good luck and please keep us all posted. I can sincerely say that I've been in your shoes in one form or another and it sucks!!!

I used to have a friend that lived in N Bergen, NJ and I visited there a few times. Thought I was driving in a war zone. He went through 3 factory wheels on his '90 Eclipse GS Turbo before moving. Are you driving on those kind of roads?

 

On some occasion yes and it sucs but I take my time and try to avoid the severe roads

 

add to that the shock dampers.

Um, Bernardi simply lists that as shock absorber housing. Inner Fender panels are what I've been calling "liner" as in, the black plastic parts.

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I suggest EVERYONE that thinks the welds failed (for any reason)... take another look.

The welds didn't fail... the sheet metal ripped. Indicating that the welds transferred all the impact forces from the shock absorber housing onto a select few spots of the other sheet metal. Would it have helped if there were additional welds to spread the load (so to speak)?

Incidentally, I hate spot welds. I prefer me, a LONG seam weld.

 

Yup, hence why I suggested some plate reinforcement would be in order. Sheet metal is not going to survive that abuse.

 

^^Agree^^
Like I said before - Two spot welds and the sheet metal sheared.

Also:

It's a body weld failure if the stock metal shears, plain and simple. You might blame the mods, however, as has been pointed out before - our Fit's have been constructed at a design minimum. This became obvious to me while deciding on a trailer hitch set up. It's all light gauge sheet metal. Expecting it to perform beyond a minimal standard is asking for trouble. That failure should not have happened, but it did.

Design mins are not design standards. Honda is cutting corners at the consumers risk for the sake of economy. Not our economy nor the Fit's economy but theirs...

Disappointing to say the least.

K_C_

 

I agree ^^

 

Actually, there are three spot welds in the front (that you can see in the pic), and obviously should be more in the back (assuming that they did the spot welding before putting in the firewall). Leftmost spot weld popped out in a near perfect circle (it may have been a triangular tear, but the compound is still covering it). Middle spot weld is an inch from that one... creating a wide triangular tear. The right most, created a narrower tear. Edit: I went out to my car to take a closer look. There one more spot weld to the left of the bracket holding the windshield washer fluids. The bracket itself is held on with two spot welds (though I don't know if either or both pass through to the housing). Then, around the corner from the right visible spot weld, I felt 5 more (last two following the sheet metal downward). So that means, based on FitDeez pics... that it failed at, AT LEAST 6 spot welds, if not all the ones I found. So... a possible 9 failure spots (personally, I don't call it a spot weld failure unless the two sheets actually separate at the weld itself, not around it).

Ironically, if Honda made the car with thicker/stronger metals, it would gain some weight, and therefore more complaints from the monkey gallery about it. I seem to recall someone bashing the Honda engineers by acting as if he knew better then them and calling the car overweight (haven't seen him in some time).

Looking at the pictures... I think you can find out who to "blame" if you look at the rest of the housing around the strut mount... is the housing bulging up? If it is, then it's a clear indicator that it's been taking MUCH more impact abuse than the typical Fit. Because it has to bulge before the welds failed. You could even ask other owners on coilovers to check theirs out (take pics if they can/want to).

 

aww man, sucks to see

 

Actually it was after seeing this picture that I said, without a doubt, that suspension mods were at fault.




Doesn't take an expert.

 

Then I should have to worry about the driver side as well , witch is actually perfectly fine . I don't drive my car at that height all the time

 

So this is my buddy Ron's car he's running the same suspension set up and wheel set up more or less he's had it done for the same amount of time that I have, yet he has nothing wrong with his car at all, not to mention that he rides it at the highest damper setting ,now when he checked his car there's no sign of damage like what happened to My car

 

 

The damage to your car is impact related. As in, it had to be driven to break and was likely caused by road conditions. I doubt that a stock car would see this same damage, but maybe your insurance company can help?

 

I plan on doing anything possible the car will be completely stock next week and I'm going to bring it to the dealer and see what they can do, if they dont want to cover it then I will go with the Insurance route

 

When you remove the bendy bouncy part the suspension has less travel. The shocks cannot do their job absorbing kinetic energy. It has to go somewhere. Some winds up all over the car but it's especially focused at the top of the strut towers. Metal fatigue will occur normally, but much faster in this case.

I suspect the driver's side tower is compromised too.

If I were Honda I'd google your vanity plate for images. Pretty cool.

 

The driver side tower is perfectly fine