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Old 03-11-2014, 12:01 PM   #10 (permalink)
ksagis
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Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: LA
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Called Spoiler Solutions and left a voicemail, have not heard back yet.

I think I have a new plan:

I am going to silicone around the mounting holes and on the "washer" area of the screws. Per Bummer's excellent comment that doing everything to keep water out being a good thing, I'm going to silicone around the inside of the gasket (without any gaps). I'm also going to silicone closed the extra holes in the bottom of the spoiler.

This approach should preclude any water getting into the volume between the trunk and spoiler, and if it does, it can't get into spoiler via the manufacturing / vent holes since I sealed them.

However this would leave no exit for internal pressure to be relieved (which Spoiler Solution said were needed) To address that, I drilled a hole through the center of two of the screws which will allow internal pressure from spoiler to relieve into the trunk area. The tip of the screw is roughly 5/8 inch above the trunk metal (and at the highest area of the spoiler) so there would have to be a lot of water intrusion into the gap between the truck and spoiler before the water could get into the trunk. (It also looks like to me that this would drain outside the trunk gasket anyway, so I'm telling myself I don't care about this failure mode)

From my poking around the internet, there was somewhat inconclusive data on whether spoilers need vent holes, I'm tending towards thinking spoilers should have vent holes based on my calculations that showed that temperature induced pressure buildup can cause over 5 psi of pressure (100 psi of stress). Depending on manufacturing quality, 100 psi of stress for a laminate shouldn't be too much if they have fiber throughout, but who knows how consistent the matrix is.

I'll post again if I get any additional useful information from Spoiler Solutions beyond what they told me the from my first call when they said the vent holes were needed.

Like I said, these might be more details than some folks want, but I totally hate reworking things, and the only thing I hate more than rework, is causing detrimental things like rust.
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