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Old 10-20-2008, 06:56 PM   #1
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Another approach to Stealth Grille blocks

Hi,
I was inspired by a lot of the great work done here to apply my first aero mods to my car. I decided to do a grille block but wanted to put the block on the outside to gain the maximum benefit in smoothing the air flow. But at the same time I didn't want to compromise the looks of my car too much.
I finally decided that a clear plastic material would be optimal. for my initial experiment I decided to make use of the clear rigid plastic packaging ( not sure which type of plastic; its used on harware packaging and covers for food take-out trays.) that is plentiful, free and easy to work with. I located a few larger panels and cut them to cover ~ 2/3 of my upper grille opening and 2 lower panels to cover more of the lower air intake, foglight openings and brake coloing inlets on the front bumper. Its pretty crude right now but it should work for testing it for cooling problems and potential improvements in FE. I'll try and post some pictures soon. It passes the 20 foot test for now.
Regards, Vic
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Old 10-20-2008, 08:08 PM   #2
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I actually used similar material for my grill block. I used some acrylic sheeting from lowes to make my first grill block.

i did very similarly to you. I made a crude one to see if it would actually work. I then made another, better looking one and painted it (still out of the acrylic) and used caulk to mold it into the body of the car.

take a look at my garage to see what it looks like. for comparison, my avatar is a very old pic of my car that has very few mods on it and you can actually see the huge grill in the front that no longer exists.
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Old 10-21-2008, 04:27 AM   #3
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Sounds good! I use a slightly different approach but the same idea. My VW's grill is a series of wide horizontal slits. I just stick a strip of clear packing tape over each slit I want to block off (2/3rds of the top set seems to work pretty well). Quick and easy!

Rick
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Old 10-21-2008, 07:33 PM   #4
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post some pics. we wanna see!
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