First outing with 2017 experience

[bFoxGt500]

So after three weeks of ownership, I had chance for open track day at TWS (Texas Work Speedway). Only a few chances left at TWS before the close the long track and only offer the short track - and then close. Anyway, on my way to the track at 5:30 AM, I hear this terrible flapping noice and pull over to the side and discover my front splitter has come lose. Are you freaking kidding me! Pull into a parking lot and jack it up to see if I can do anything. Soon becomes obvious I need a Auto or hardware store. It is 6:00.
After slowly driving to nearest auto store and waiting for them to open, I buy some screws, remove front splitter, secure belly pan and head to track. Arrive at 11:00 and get checked in.
Here is where the fun starts - this car is a beast (2017 with convenience pack). I take it easy for first session and can't believe the difference over my 2008 GT500 with plenty of performance and handling mods. The steering, the suspension and the overall feel was night and day. This car was so much fun! After a few laps into next session, I beat my old personal best by about 2 sec and I am not even used to it yet. What a great car. Now, if I knew the dealer who installed the splitter, I will be sure to not go there (bought car used so I don't know yet where it was purchased.
My dog chewed up my GoPro so no good videos. Harry's is too bouncy to show. All in all, a great day. Have a used splitter on order!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tob]

Congrats. The splitter issue is rather widespread. Seems nobody (at the dealer level anyway) reads the instructions anymore. If you track much you may want to keep on the lookout for an R version as you know well how the mod bug works...

 

[biminiLX]

My friend Scott Rod Fab conveniently lives in town. He built a skid plate for me before on my Fox.
Tob would an aluminum skid plate for the underside of the splitter help?
I've been meaning to take my GT500 for personal skid plate, but if there's a market, he could template off my local buddy's R also?
-J

 

[bFoxGt500]

So today, I bought a spare splitter and decided to try to reinstall mine since only the bottom side was scraped up. I found at least 6 screws that were missing from the dealer install. I also learned a couple things while doing the install.
The plastic belly has a front lip that must go underneath the splitter. See photo

The other thing is the splitter did not line up wth the screw fasteners on the four front tabs. I had to use a thin rod to push the tabs down to line up with the fasteners. Little tricky.

But all is good now.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[bFoxGt500]

^ when I mentioned underneath for the lip, what I mean is inside.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tob]

My friend Scott Rod Fab conveniently lives in town. He built a skid plate for me before on my Fox.
Tob would an aluminum skid plate for the underside of the splitter help?
I've been meaning to take my GT500 for personal skid plate, but if there's a market, he could template off my local buddy's R also?
-J

Hard to say if a second skin (or a portion thereof) or the coned washers that some sell for protection are better. I've studied a number of splitters, both R and non-R, on and off of different vehicles, etc. Each individual may have their own criteria due to the conditions they see where they live. For me, I've reached the conclusion that the washers, when strategically placed, off just the right amount of sacrificial area. But first you have to look at your own and note the trouble spots.

To begin with, I think the under belly pan is fine as is. I'd add nothing here.

Here's my original splitter up top with a new R model splitter on bottom. Note which rivets made contact as well as a couple of errant scrapes (as time passes you'll have a lot of these no matter how careful you are).

I have since added the R splitter along with washers from ZL1 Add Ons that were cheap and easy to install. They won't stop really bad things from happening should I hit something pretty good but they help prolong the inevitable. Even at the R's ridiculous price you have to look at these as expendable. As such, plan on replacing it X number of times and keep your eyes out for good deals on them.


With the R splitter you have to always be on the lookout. Here's the regular splitter laying directly atop the R version. Note how much more meat there is.

With the mounting holes concentric I held the camera so that you could see how much extra worry you have with the R version...

Four inches at the corners and almost an inch at the nose extra. So don't feel bad worrying about your typical non-R splitter.

 

[oldbmwfan]

^^^ I can confirm mine scrapes in places where I think it won't, and I have studiously avoided every street with a speed bump while driving this car.

 

[GT Premi]

So far, I've been fortunate enough to not scrape mine on anything yet, but I know the day is coming.

 

[Tomster]

I bought some ZL1 splitter washers to avoid damaging the splitter when (not if) I scrape it. When the car comes back from ppf, I will install them onto the splitter and install the splitter myself. Yes, dealers have been incorrectly installing splitters for a while now. It happened to me in my OW track pack almost exactly as told here. IIRC, they were $34 directly from the zl1 site. IMHO, its worth the $34.