Blacking out the grille

[GL-1970]

While we're waiting for the Chromed Grille photos:
http://www.msprotege.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123659314

I thought I'd go the other way, and black out the honeycomb pattern.

There are some grille patterns for the RX-8 here: http://www.grille-tech.com/detail.html?prodid=10272&view=1&imgid=1910

Mine is two sheets of offset diamond-cut aluminum, trimmed and framed to 1/4" smaller than the grille opening. I painted it with bumper-match black.

To mount it, I removed the license plate holder. Drilled 6 holes in the honeycomb, and pushed in Mazda plastic bolt assembly plugs (the large kind from inside the wheel wells). Instead of the easily strippable Mazda plastic bolts, I used aluminum screws with rubber bushings, and painted them all black.

The main drawback, is gonna be a lot of bugs getting stuck !


Before:



After: - not such a clean car



Closeup

 

[motopilot]

WOW that looks so much better. That is a another thing I would like to do. And yes the bugs, when the spring "love bugs" come out that is going to be a nightmare. Someone needs to come out and produce this.

 

[SuperStretch18]

Just to clarify; does Grille-Tech have the pattern for the CX-7 already or did you buy a sheet and fab these yourself?

It looks great BTW; you should think about doing the upper grilles too...

 

[GL-1970]

Just to clarify; does Grille-Tech have the pattern for the CX-7 already or did you buy a sheet and fab these yourself?

It looks great BTW; you should think about doing the upper grilles too...

To my knowledge there isn't any grille for the CX-7 available on Grille-Tech.

I removed the license plate holder and traced the opening on a large sheet of cardstock and trimmed it until it fit. The aluminum I got from Canadian Tire, basically a 2' by 4' sheet. The edges should be covered once they are cut, I made a frame out of thin aluminum sheet, about 1.5" wide, and folded in half, then bent around the grille pattern - removing a few notches to go around the corners.

 

[wongster]

looks very nice... wouldnt mind doing that, but one question... i guess i cant see it in the picture, but is there any air going through it?

 

[GL-1970]

looks very nice... wouldnt mind doing that, but one question... i guess i cant see it in the picture, but is there any air going through it?

Sure, it's just aluminum mesh. When you look at an angle, it just seems like it's solid.