Coochas

I am reading a DIY for putting mesh in front of the 3rd radiator. The author used "plastic gutter guard" and attached it using a hot glue gun.

Do I need to consider getting some metal material instead? i'm wondering if a pebble or rubber bullet going over 100 mph would crack a plastic material.

FYI, this is the 3rd radiator installed on a 986. Last season I picked up a number of decent impacts on the radiator and want to protect it going forward.

From Pedro's Garage:

Circuit Motorsports

Metal all the way

J richard

go to your local ace hardware where the sheet metal screen door guards are, they carry perforated aluminum round or hexagonal holes, works great. I've also used 1/4" expanded aluminum, looks factory and pretty resilient. If you get a tube of urethane windsheild adhesive, it will stick like crazy and isn't brittle so it won't pop off if it takes a hit.

schwank

I just bought a sheet of metal mesh from Pegasus.

Coochas

Cool.
Thanks guys! Metal it is. I'll hit Ho Depot and my ACE tomorrow to check out supplies.

38D

The advantage of your approach is it wont bend. You should look for some nylon mesh, which is nearly as strong as steel, lighter and also wont bend. I have some extra if you need it.

Gofishracing

I learned what I feel is the best way to handle the front radiator guard. Thank you Peter Dawe. Home Depot blue furnace filter. One sheet $4.00- cut it and tape leading edge. Done. Replace every few events or clean. Picures perhaps this weekend. Very Cool and effective. No change in operating temperatures.

srf506

Always used "Rabbit wire" available at any hardware store. Trimmed it to shape, fabbed a metal bar frame that it was attached to and then that was mounted in the grill opening with some brackets. Strong as all get out, looked good when powder coated or painted, and easy to remove for acces if required.

A car puked a motor at Sebring one race right in front of me. The bits coming out of the tail pipe ruined a Simpson voyager helmet, and I had to refinish the nose of my car. There were three or four big impact marks on the screen and one piece stuck in the mesh, but nothing had penetrated through to the radiators.

Coochas

Thanks Colin (and everyone else). I'll keep you posted!

xupkid2

Ive got the Pegasus mesh and it works great. Its also very easy to form fit to things. I was able to mold it to cover my brake ducts as well as all my radiator/oil cooler openings.

kurt M

punched metal or plastic sheet reduces airflow throuogh quite a bit over wire mesh.

consolidated

Teamtech sells a woven kevlar netting for this use. It looks like mesh jersey material, but very open. The idea being the debris will bounce off if it's mounted in tension. It is a hassle to install, using either hot glue or cyanoacrylate adhesive. Others have run it and so far no problems on a SPB.

Coochas

I ended up buying two types of mesh from Pegasus in stainless steel. I bought the fine #10 mesh to go in front of the 3rd radiator which seems to get the most dings, and their coarse #4 mesh for the front air ducts.

This was a fun DIY project! I removed the bumper as described in the Bentley manual. I've never taken the front bumper off so it was a good exercise.

For the 3rd radiator, I cut out a section of the fine mesh about 3/4 inch larger than the hole I have in the front bumper. I decided to secure the mesh with 10 small stainless steel screws and then I went porno on the backside with a hot glue gun.

For the side intakes, I popped out the plastic vanes and fitted them with appropriate size pieces of the coarse mesh. I simply zip tied the coarse mesh onto the back of the stock plastic vanes.

If you're wondering from the pics, I painted the mesh Black but then I decided it would get all chipped and look funny so I installed the unpainted side facing front!

M758

I used to use a diamond shape wire mesh. I since moved to a square mesh I would guess 1/4 squares. I get it at home depot and I believe it has better air floor properties than the diamond shape type. As you can see here is not all that pretty, but does help keep the front spoiler from flexing and it does keep large rocks out. Rubber and sand still get in there.


Also shown is a close-up of my older screen diamond type.

Accelerator

Home Depot 1/4" hardware cloth. Less than 10/roll. Spray with flat black and tthen touch up with a q-tip sprayed with flat black. when the debris knocks off the black.