So You Just bought a Carbon Fiber or Wood Dash Kit. Well now its time to add this bad boy to your ride and make it look nice. Something as simple as a Carbon Fiber dash can make all the difference in the world on how your interior appeals to you, and others.

First of all, you need to open up that package and take inventory. Most manufacturers have a diagram that you can get off the Internet or it might come with the package. This diagram shows you how many pieces you should have received, and what the general shape of them is. Some even show you where they go on the dash, doors, and shifter. Match up the diagram with each piece in the package to make sure you received that right number and the right shapes.

Well now that you have all the pieces, you want to prep them for application.

Remove the pieces from the box and lay them out. If it’s a hot summer day, here is a trick, Lay out the pieces across the car hood. The heat of the hood heats up the adhesive side while the heat from the sun directly on the clear coating heats the topside of the piece. The pieces must be heated to a minimum of 80 degrees and no more then around 110 degrees, so be careful. I applied a kit in the winter and it made the plastic curl because it was not heated to the proper temperature. If you need to, use a heat gun to heat up the pieces. Chances are, you will need to do this again when you go to apply large pieces on contoured dash areas. I had to on every application. The pieces will be very soft and bendy if they are heated properly.

Take each piece one by one and place them against the area they will later be attached to. Difficult huh?! The whole purpose of this part is to make sure that each piece was cut correctly. One kit I installed had a hole for the light dimmer switch, too far to the right, but we managed to make it work anyhow, just not a perfect fit. Once you have checked each piece, make sure you place it back to heat up. If you do not reheat the pieces, they will harden. Keep it soft!

In every kit, there should be alcohol pads included or a cleaning chemical of some kind. This is for you to wipe off the areas that the pieces will be applied to. This step is very important! If you do not clean down the area, dirt will stick to the adhesive of each piece, causing it to lose its tackiness. That’s not good!

Well take these alcohol pads and gently wipe down the Vinyl / ABS Plastic / or whatever material the pieces are being applied to. You have to be quick or the pads will dry out. Windex works just as well, but don’t tell the companies that. Got it nice and clean? Time for the next step!

Well this is the most difficult step sometimes. On the back of each piece, there are 3M adhesive strips applied. The red film peels off and reveals the adhesive. The difficult part is getting that film separated from the adhesive. The adhesive is actually double-sided tape and will peel off of the pieces if not careful. Better made kits have the entire piece covered in adhesive, but some will come with small strips in key locations. If you have the option, get the full adhesive. Be careful not to set the adhesive sides down, they wont come back up easily and they will get dirty.

Slowly place each piece on to its proper location on the dash. Only thing I can really say is be careful and go-slow. If you don’t get it all on properly, don’t stress, a heat gun and some super glue will fix it all up later.

Sometime there will be an area where the plastic began to cool and the adhesive is lost. The contoured areas will make it even more difficult during the installs with this problem. The fix for this is to take your heat gun and reheat the plastic until it is soft to the touch again. Be careful, you will burn yourself if you touch bare skin directly to the piece (Don’t ask how… I just know). While it is soft, apply a small amount of super glue to the rear of the piece and quickly press down. The glue will adhere the dash to the piece and the piece will cool and take the shape of the dash. And there you go, all fixed and all done. Enjoy!