Paint Protection- I had installed some paint protection/clear bra on my 2010 Sierra. I had it professionally installed on my G8. With what I learned on my Sierra and the price that places wanted to install it on my Camaro, I thought I could do it myself. All pieces were 3M Scotchguard from Ebay. I did the following:
-Front bumper cover
-Mirrors
-Gills
-Door handles
-Door edge
Everything turned out great except the front bumper cover, which with all those compound curves makes it extremely difficult. Once you start with such a large piece, there is absolutely no stopping, and you really have to think it out to get everything to line up and roll with the curves. I had installed the upper bumper cover section (adjacent to the hood) and ever so lightly trimmed it were it matched up with the other bumper cover section (below pic) I used a brand new X-Acto knife with such a light pressure, but I went through and into the paint. In disgust with the gloss of that top piece, I ripped it off exposing my knife mark for which I tried to smooth out with 2500 grit wet sand paper. I had done some wet sanding on my '95 Z28 when I rolled the rear fender lip. So I was very surprised to see how much more thin the paint was on this 1LE
Needless to say, as someone who is very picky, I just laid the first imperfection of my hot rod
One note on the gills: within 100 miles of purchase of my car, I had stone marks (did not fully chip) on the area around the gills. If you have a Z/28, ZL1, 1LE, or other with sticky/wider tires, you NEED to protect the gills or they will be blasted!!! I got the gill kit on Ebay and its instructions are thorough enough for a rookie to do. It took my atleast 12 hours to do all of the above. Long frickin' day.
Window Tint- Almost every vehicle I have ever owned I tinted the windows. Tint makes the vehicles better. Look at the windows of cars in commercials, usually are tinted. It is much easier to do if you remove the windows from the doors, which sounds like a ton of work, but realistically it is easy and you can eliminate any dirt from the job and makes it easier to install the tint. I only did the door windows and the quarter windows. 35% tint from Northern Tint.
Splash Guards- Another necessity for long term protection. I like the OE ZL1 rears and liked RPI Design's fronts so I bought there 4 piece kit, part #ZL1-78. I changed how the fronts mounted so they would stay tighter on the fender edge. They work good at keeping the rocks off the side of the car.
Front Fender Wind Deflectors- Another ZL1 tidbit, adds a cool looking "racer" vibe. And they help with front downforce. OE ZL1, had to mod a little bit to work. Part #s 22895340, 22895341, From Maureen @Rodgers Chevrolet.