Mounting a lower grille for my CDC Aggressive Chin

[cavero]

Ever since I installed my first aggressive chin spoiler, I planned to close off the lower valence, at least with a billet grille to give it a more finished look, plus I want something to fix the wavy inlet (take a close look at the pic):

When I bought the upper grille off American Muscle, it came with a lower one, meant for the stock lower, with square corners. The first part of this involved me making a cardboard mockup and then trimming the corners so it fits in the lower inlet w/ the CDC spoiler:

Then I sat on it for the last 4 years because...lazy...and I couldn't think of a way to mount it. There's not much to attach it to:

I originally sketched this up, which I think would technically work. But I've got reservations -- 1) it would have to be metal, which means corrosion, 2) it doesn't finish off the edges, and 3) it doesn't take care of my wavy inlet. The billets would just end a couple mm from the bumper, with no trim:

BTW, if you're saying "Ok, doesn't look that wavy in the 3rd pic", that was right after I hit the bumper with a heat gun and left 10 lb disc weights sitting on it overnight. 6 months later, the waves came back:

 

[cavero]

Right now I'm thinking about heat forming some lexan or plexiglass --some kind of plastic to the shape of the lower inlet--which would form the outside bezel of the grille. It'd be held in place using the mounting hardware for the chin, and then I'd need some vertical bars integrated into it so you could attach the billet piece using its original hardware.

Anyone got ideas on what kind of plastic would be best suited to this?

 

[cavero]

Beuler?

 

[mavisky]

Make the brackets out of aluminum. Easy to bend and manipulate and corrosion resistant.

 

[cavero]

Make the brackets out of aluminum. Easy to bend and manipulate and corrosion resistant.

Yeah that's way too easy... plus I really want a surround around the billets.

This is what I was planning. I'll do the mock-up in paper, make it into a pattern, then try in cardboard before going whichever plastic.

Step 1: Fold the material into a sort of oval-shaped short cone. The inlet is tapered, so the insert has to have a matching contour:

Step 2: Trim accordingly

Step 3: Trimmed

Step 4: Add brackets to the surround to attach the grille to. I'd probably have to route out/notch the outsides of the surround so the brackets will slide in. Maybe rivets or plastic weld to hold them in place.

Step 5: and then use the spoiler's screws to hold the entire thing in place:

 

[cavero]

Starting work...

 

[908ssp]

Nice good luck. Don't give up if you fail the first time you are on the right track it just might take a couple tries. I know I've been there.

 

[Tbone]

When I cracked my CDC spoiler it got a bit wavy. I took it off, put a aluminum bar across the top and bottom of it with about 50 clamps so it was perfectly straight. Then I fiberglassed the underneath with a ton of resin. Straight as an arrow last 2 years and strong as hell lol

 

[cavero]

Nice good luck. Don't give up if you fail the first time you are on the right track it just might take a couple tries. I know I've been there.

I have a feeling it's going to be a couple tries at least. And it looks like it's going to be expensive.

I finished my paper template and roughed out a cardboard one too.

The taper on the inlet is a lot more extreme than I realized, so you can see how much more the material has to curve. As it sits, I would need a single 30"x70" sheet to make it in one shot. They definitely sell them, but they run around $100 a piece.

Now, if I make it a top half and a bottom half instead of it looping around to the top in one piece, then it only requires two 48x10 sheets. Hell, I could get enough for that from Home Depot for $35 )not sure how good that would be for my purposes:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Veranda-...ersible-Cellular-PVC-SHEET-H120ZWS1/203836508

 

[cavero]

When I cracked my CDC spoiler it got a bit wavy. I took it off, put a aluminum bar across the top and bottom of it with about 50 clamps so it was perfectly straight. Then I fiberglassed the underneath with a ton of resin. Straight as an arrow last 2 years and strong as hell lol

Haha, NICE, that's a great idea . I may go that route for strength reasons.

If I have to build the surround in multiple pieces (esp to keep it cheap), I know it won't be nearly as strong. I might have to make some brake ducts or something like this (they'd probably still be hidden behind the grille):

 

[cavero]

Well, I finally got around to trying out my plastic idea. It's not as easy as I thought it'd be. It definitely will shape with a little heat gun persuasion. But it dissipates QUICK, which makes it pretty much impossible to do this freehand:

So I need to do this a different way. I can either make a form to bend the plastic around, OR, I can try to build a mold and pour resin.

I'm thinking I can use this stuff to make either one. Anyone know how it reacts to plastic cling wrap? If it doesn't eat it, I can mask off the car in clingwrap and use the foam to make a negative mold.

 

[o2sys]

Reviving an old thread, did you ever finish?

Can't you just trim the opening surround and just reuse the stock lower grill?

 

[cavero]

Nope, never did. I asked around on other forums, tried some stuff (the Great Stuff foam does eat plastic wrap) but ultimately gave up. It started looking expensive, and then I bottomed out the chin one too many times on a deceptively steep driveway and the paint started cracking off.

I tried reusing the stock grille right after getting the spoiler years ago. The problem was the CDC spoiler has the grille surround built into it, so if you trim the stock grille enough to fit, you've completely cut off the stock grille surround. You'd be left with the flat honeycomb sections, which I guess is a start, but how do you mount those?

In the end, with the cracked paint I plasti-dipped it and liked the look. Started researching grilles again and then found the MMD spoiler on American Muscle. The opening still sort of had that oval shape I liked about the CDC aggressive spoiler, but there were no modifications needed for a stock bumper so I could get another stock grille. In a lot of ways I like the new one better, the size looks more proportionate and I like the cleaner look.

[/IMG]


Repairing the damage from the CDC definitely took some work though.

It involved aluminum brackets, clamps, a heat gun, epoxy, cut up Ikea cutting boards, and lots of blue painters tape

There turned out to be so little structure left to the bumper that the only way to keep the stock grille in anymore was to bolt it in place using the same cap screws that the CDC spoiler used (and you can see some small air gaps between the chin and the grille):

 

[o2sys]

Well I was thinking of completely cutting off the grille surrounding as I’ve seen them get wavy over time.

The one I’m looking at is not even by CDC actually, it’s a replica and doesn’t come with the grille surrounding.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/182500934527

The only drawback is that both CDC and rep is they are both made out of urethane which is more durable than tpo or abs but less stable.


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[cavero]

Interesting... you look close at the pics of that replica on the car and you can see the cap screws on the side for securing the CDC's grille surround, but its hard to tell if there actually is one in the pics.

Personally, i'd be more for the urethane. the MMD on my car now is ABS and you can tell all it takes is one good wack on a curb and its going to crack. Nice thing about it though is it isn't much lower than the stock bumper.

Your bumper completely stock right now? It looks like that eBay deal fits a lot like the MMD one, so you probably don't even need to do any cutting, and you could keep the stock grille.

 

[o2sys]

Yea it’s stock with classic cdc (the real one lol) and was looking for a change.

The mounted pic might be a real cdc but if you look at the part pictures it doesn’t have the surround.

With the cdc classic I was able to retain the stock lower grilles.

Why did the paint crack on yours? Is it because how flexible the urethane is and the paint cracking because of flex?


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