I (finally) got around to doing the grill work Friday and Saturday. This is basically a copy of Spohn's awesome idea for a grill setup, check out the pics and explanation he had over here:
Spohn's Journal.
The basic idea is: Cut out the factory's plastic horizontal grill fins completely for a nice wide open front, spray the whole center area (other than the side inner edges) with Plasti-dip, and attach a wire mesh behind the grill opening.
I used some expanded mesh from Lowe's that was probably for stucco, similar to his mesh, but I don't think they're quite identical. I sprayed the mesh w/ flat black high temp spray paint several days before on both sides in several coats. A key difference from Spohn's install is that, since I've replaced my front-under airfoil thingy once (w/ a unit from Z1), the factory rivets for it have been replaced with nuts and bolts, so I was able to attach the bottom of the mesh to these bolts instead of trying to squeeze it into the clips for the front edge of the undertray. I also plasti-dipped my towhook in red, and I haven't gotten around to cutting a hole for it in my mesh yet.
In the overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I suspect the Plasti-Dip isn't as tough as I'd like. It will probably chip and peel and I'll spot-re-spray it over time and it will look a little ugly up close, and I don't care
. I think the show-car types would want to use some sort of flexible, durable, actual car paint instead or something. Various pics of the process:
Most of the cut-out work done:
Masking and spraying plasti-dip:
Plasti-dipped the tow-hook receiver as well to avoid a big silver shiny thing behind the mesh:
The mesh install process:
Results:
