My Type R Red Carpet Install Attempt

[ChrisK]

I bought this off a friend of mine who bought it from one of the group buys and never even opened the box. Mine came with 5 pieces. Two that goes on the center tunnel sides, and the drivers and passenger floor. What is the 5th piece for? Is it for the trunk? Anyway, The molded form fits pretty well. Just about perfect but obviously not 100% like OEM. The sides need a lot of trimming as on mine where was anywhere from 1/2" to 2" of extra carpet at various spots, the rear has the most extra. I just used a razor and some heavy duty sizers to cut and trim. I did not remove the lower vents that are on the center tunnel side carpets as I never use the vents and I don't want to hack up my original carpet just to remove them from the OEM. If I can find some used carpet I'll buy that and hack them for the vents. Until then the new carpet just wont have them.

Now I need to buy some red floor mats as once I put the black mats back in it kind of defeats the purpose of having the red carpet as it covers most of it up. Is anyone familiar if the red mats that SOS sells have the same shade as these group buy carpet? It probably would be close i would think.

The big question is should I change my seat leather to all red or keep the black. At one point I was thinking of just doing the center of the seat red, I kind of want a little more OEM look as I think the two tone looks great, but looks a little more aftermarket. I'm leaning a bit toward getting some red leatherseats.com skins.

 

[CL65 Captain]

Looks good. Contact HRANT for red floor mats. His mats are very, very nice.

 

[solidol]

I would drop red mats and do red leather seats.

 

[Coconut]

I think the extra carpet is for the fuse box cover and the x2 corner pieces up front.

TFEnt sells the matching red floor mats for like $160 a set. It'll match perfectly with your carpet kit since I think he's the one who made the kit you just bought. SoS sells the OEM red carpet for like $260 I think. It won't be a perfect match since the carpet and color is a different.

Red leather seats would look real nice with red carpet you have.

 

[NSX1145]

Besides the "look", does it feel like quality carpet with a solid backing or is it flimsy and thin? I've heard mixed opinions about the tfent carpets which is why I ended up not purchasing a set...

 

[ChrisK]

Looks good. Contact HRANT for red floor mats. His mats are very, very nice.

I will look into it. I thought the SOS ones were HRANT's mats? Unless its just off his design and they use a different supplier now.

I would drop red mats and do red leather seats.

I'm still on the fence either way. When I look through the window and see my black seats, it looks stealth which I kind of like. When you open the door you can then see it's different and not your usual black interior NSX. The red seats will definitely pop, but I'm not sure if I want all that red just yet. I'll have to think about it for a while longer.

I think the extra carpet is for the fuse box cover and the x2 corner pieces up front.

TFEnt sells the matching red floor mats for like $160 a set. It'll match perfectly with your carpet kit since I think he's the one who made the kit you just bought. SoS sells the OEM red carpet for like $260 I think. It won't be a perfect match since the carpet and color is a different.

Red leather seats would look real nice with red carpet you have.

I want to NSX logo and if I'm correct after looking back at TFEnt's past group buys, he no longer sells the mats with the NSX logo embroidery anymore. I will inquire and see if that is still true or if he can make me a set with the NSX logo on a OTO basis.

Besides the "look", does it feel like quality carpet with a solid backing or is it flimsy and thin? I've heard mixed opinions about the tfent carpets which is why I ended up not purchasing a set...

The carpet has a fit to formed molded rubber backing that actually fits the contours of the NSX floor pan very well. I had no major complaints in that regard. I did notice that in some areas the rubberized backing was thicker or thinner in various areas. It wasn't perfectly even all around. It didn't seem to matter too much though. The center tunnel side carpets don't have this rubber backing, so it is much more flimsy. It works, but it could use a stiffer backing.

Here is the thing. The OEM carpet itself isn't really any thicker. What the OEM has is additional foam padding glued to the backside, as well as a plastic mounting frame for the side rails. This stiffens up the OEM carpet a lot and allows it to holds its shape very well. The plastic mounting frame is just stapled to the OEM carpet, so it is easy to remove and transfer to the new carpet. I am planning on doing this, but I don't like hacking up my original stuff so I'll have to source some used carpet before I can do this. The extra foam padding on the OEM carpet is not needed IMHO. A lot of it was under the seat pan area so you would never know. Once you put down the floor mat you wont notice the lack of foam padding in the foot area either, although I will say in that foot area on the new carpet didn't really feel thin at all.

The tunnel side carpet is what needs the most work. As you know, the OEM carpet has a really stiff fabric backing to it which allows it to hold its form. The new carpet doesn't have this. If it had a layer of rubberized backing like the floor pan carpet I think it would have been stiff enough. This side carpet is small and relatively flat, so it should be easy to add some backing to stiffen it up a bit. Also the OEM side carpet has plastic mounting taps stapled on which hook into screw hooks on the center console to hold it in place. The new carpet doesn't have this. You can transfer the old plastic tabs and re-staple them to the new carpet, but I just used some carpet tape on the floor area so it stays in place. Obviously, when I get the used carpet set in I'll make the needed modifications.

All said and done, as is it is a very good alternative to the OEM carpet when you factor in the cost. After careful trimming and cutting in strategic places, the fit is very good for the floor plan carpet, and acceptable for the side tunnel carpet. If you do some modifications like I plan on doing by transferring some of the OEM mounting hardware to the new carpet, I think it will be about 95% of OEM. Nothing can match the OEM 100% IMHO. The main thing is don't expect a drop in product. You will have to trim excess carpet from the edges, and mine had a lot of excess. The better job you with trimming the better the fit will be. I still need to do a better job of trimming, but I'll tackle that later as my hands were sore from the two day install and I just wanted to put interior back together already.

 

[Teej]

Besides the "look", does it feel like quality carpet with a solid backing or is it flimsy and thin? I've heard mixed opinions about the tfent carpets which is why I ended up not purchasing a set...

The long thin strips that go up the middle of the cockpit are not backed with rubber like the larger ones are. This is where it differs substantially to the OEM carpet where the same pieces have a very hard backing to them. The two main carpet pads are very thick, thicker than OEM. However, the looped style carpet wears very poorly under the heel. Post install, I took a 2.5 hour drive up north for the weekend and noticed that the drivers left heel portion was smushed and frayed. This is where heel guards would help tremendously. I did not have my floor mats yet so I figured they would be better.

When I came back from my trip, the floormats had arrived. They have a thick quality backing with the little grip fingers all over them. However, I have the heel wear issue again. This is why I jumped on the other group buy that TURBO2GO is putting together for a heel guard. I will most likely be going OEM red anyway in another year or two.