This whole thing started for me when Ron (sLOWDOHC) wrecked his car for the second time and sold his spoiler to me. So I blame him for all of this, and you guys are welcome to as well. But seriously, I bought the wing from him in, I think, early March and it sat around at my place till about two weeks ago.
I wasn’t satisfied with the two-bolt version that it was. I wanted to be able to remove the wing if I ever desired to do so. Thus, my journey began…
So basically what I decided to do was glue a block of something on the underside of the wing, what that material would be though I hadn’t quite figured out at that point. The idea was to just put a threaded insert in the added block and be done. You have to add material to the underside of it because the wing itself isn’t thick enough to accommodate a threaded insert where they would need to be.
The first time I mounted the wing right away I noticed the trunk holes needed to be extended forward more to get the wing to line up correctly, so I went ahead and did that.
As far as the material I added to the wing, I started off by creating some blocks out of Styrofoam that I had lying around and fit them to the bottom side of the wing, test fitting and repositioning/shaving more off of the blocks until I had something that would work. Then I just attached the test blocks to the wing, mounted it and marked the blocks from the underside where the threaded inserts should have gone.
Test fit of the Styrofoam pieces…
Now, where my Father and I work, back in the engineering shop we have some huge chunks of polyurethane. So last Friday my Father took the mock up Styrofoam blocks out there and he and the head engineer recreated them into polyurethane blocks for me.
The car went to my body guy on Monday. He was actually telling me about how he accidentally didn’t get one of the blocks in the correct place the first time he glued them down. He said he had to take an air chisel to get it off to correctly reposition it. The glue was that strong. He tells me it is higher than aircraft grade. But in his words “that son of a bitch ain’t going anywhere…”
I got everything back this afternoon, and brought the car home during my lunch hour. I just had to make up some correct length studs (they’re infinitely better than using bolts, imo) and mounted the spoiler late this evening. I’m very pleased with how it fits now and the end result/look for the car is amazing…
The wing when I got it back... paint was PERFECT
Check it out, Ron. No more bumps…
What the underside looks like…
Wing sits perfectly flush… no problems at all
Finally installed. They’re crummy pictures but daylight was fading fast. At any rate, say hello to the (that I know of) worlds first 2 bolt to 4 bolt converted S281 spoiler
Aaaaaaaaaaaalso, just thought I’d throw this in, I had them repaint my front bumper too. It was nasty, the previous owner... I don't know what they did to it. I also had them fill in the license plate holes. It's a virgin bumper once again... It is nice to not have to take pictures in certain ways to hide blemishes on your car.
Before:
Without the bumper cover… lol
After:
This is the second time in three years of owning this car that I've taken a picture of it from this angle... hehe
I’m so satisfied with the way the car looks nice. The only other thing I need to make me happy is springs, and those hopefully will be on in about a month…
So that's my story. And some people told me it wasn't worth it or couldn't be done. It was relatively easy to be honest...
I wasn’t satisfied with the two-bolt version that it was. I wanted to be able to remove the wing if I ever desired to do so. Thus, my journey began…
So basically what I decided to do was glue a block of something on the underside of the wing, what that material would be though I hadn’t quite figured out at that point. The idea was to just put a threaded insert in the added block and be done. You have to add material to the underside of it because the wing itself isn’t thick enough to accommodate a threaded insert where they would need to be.
The first time I mounted the wing right away I noticed the trunk holes needed to be extended forward more to get the wing to line up correctly, so I went ahead and did that.
As far as the material I added to the wing, I started off by creating some blocks out of Styrofoam that I had lying around and fit them to the bottom side of the wing, test fitting and repositioning/shaving more off of the blocks until I had something that would work. Then I just attached the test blocks to the wing, mounted it and marked the blocks from the underside where the threaded inserts should have gone.
Test fit of the Styrofoam pieces…
Now, where my Father and I work, back in the engineering shop we have some huge chunks of polyurethane. So last Friday my Father took the mock up Styrofoam blocks out there and he and the head engineer recreated them into polyurethane blocks for me.
The car went to my body guy on Monday. He was actually telling me about how he accidentally didn’t get one of the blocks in the correct place the first time he glued them down. He said he had to take an air chisel to get it off to correctly reposition it. The glue was that strong. He tells me it is higher than aircraft grade. But in his words “that son of a bitch ain’t going anywhere…”
I got everything back this afternoon, and brought the car home during my lunch hour. I just had to make up some correct length studs (they’re infinitely better than using bolts, imo) and mounted the spoiler late this evening. I’m very pleased with how it fits now and the end result/look for the car is amazing…
The wing when I got it back... paint was PERFECT
Check it out, Ron. No more bumps…
What the underside looks like…
Wing sits perfectly flush… no problems at all
Finally installed. They’re crummy pictures but daylight was fading fast. At any rate, say hello to the (that I know of) worlds first 2 bolt to 4 bolt converted S281 spoiler
Aaaaaaaaaaaalso, just thought I’d throw this in, I had them repaint my front bumper too. It was nasty, the previous owner... I don't know what they did to it. I also had them fill in the license plate holes. It's a virgin bumper once again... It is nice to not have to take pictures in certain ways to hide blemishes on your car.
Before:
Without the bumper cover… lol
After:
This is the second time in three years of owning this car that I've taken a picture of it from this angle... hehe
I’m so satisfied with the way the car looks nice. The only other thing I need to make me happy is springs, and those hopefully will be on in about a month…
So that's my story. And some people told me it wasn't worth it or couldn't be done. It was relatively easy to be honest...
