Slant 6 Turbo 68Dart Project
I had a quick thought about it, but then I don't want to run oil to the rear of the car, then have a sump push it back... and have to plumb in all that intake tubing under the car... too much - especially when I have room under the hood for all of it and I'm not looking to hide it.
Well, today I started a new project that was kind of 2 different things in one. I modified the front grill, and I also started repainting it.
This is where I was at currently, I had blacked out everything except for the silver, and the "chrome" across the center.
it didn't look bad, but I was ready for a refresh. I took the bezels and grill out, and pondered a way to leave it out completely, but that just wouldn't work with the headlights and the parking lights that would just dangle there, so I knew I had to push forward with my idea, which was to do harmful things to this grill...
Basically the new Intercooler coming from my sponsor has this really cool logo on the front, reading out "mishimoto" and looking at the intercooler through the grill before hid it too much. Hiding it was an option, but the rest of the car screams "turbocharged slant six" so I'm not keeping any secrets.
The new intercooler has the ports in the center of the core, not at one side like the current one, and is a little smaller, so it will be visible right across the open port I made at the bottom of the grill. I guess it will make sense once it's in - it's hard to explain. But this is what I did today.
Once the grill was off, I made some notes to myself on things I want to fix before it goes back on, - one being a small bend I need to lift up on the bumper.
Anyway -
You gotta make the first cut to do it, and I went all in - no going back. I used side cutters and removed the lower half of the grill combs.
Side cutters cut right through them if anyone was ever wondering. Then I took my dremel with some 80 grit on it and cleaned up the excess, and made everything nice and smooth, and rounded over any sharp edges that came about.
I cleaned and sanded everything except for the chrome around the edges. That part I masked off so it would still be chrome. Then I shot some wheel paint by Dupont (I think it was) at all three pieces. It was not overly bright which is perfect, and is very similar to the silver that was on the lower part of the grill, but a touch lighter.
I got on about 6 coats about 10 minutes apart, and it looks real good.
My next step was to take my small sword brush and a lettering brush to paint the black in with a satin, but once I saw what the grill looked like as just silver, I'm debating leaving it. It's kind of cool I think. I did a "mock up" by just resting it where it goes after it dried.
I'm thinking I might paint the black lines on the top section so that the grill looks like horizontal strips up there - but not sure. The complete silver field up there makes it look like a fence or something. But I don't think I should make any final decisions till the new intercooler gets here. I might put that in and wind up thinking it looks just fine. We'll see. The whole front definitly needs just a bit of accents somewhere. Tomorrow I'll think more on it.
One other thought is to remove the center section entirely, so the grill ends at the parking lights on each side, and just has the frame portion running horizontaly on top and bottom, then I could clean up the area behind the grill real nice, and maybe add some aluminum plates to clean up.... so many ideas, but basically I'm invested now, and eventually I will wind up with a product that looks nice, right now - not so much. But I'll get there!
I had a quick thought about it, but then I don't want to run oil to the rear of the car, then have a sump push it back... and have to plumb in all that intake tubing under the car... too much - especially when I have room under the hood for all of it and I'm not looking to hide it.
Well, today I started a new project that was kind of 2 different things in one. I modified the front grill, and I also started repainting it.
This is where I was at currently, I had blacked out everything except for the silver, and the "chrome" across the center.
it didn't look bad, but I was ready for a refresh. I took the bezels and grill out, and pondered a way to leave it out completely, but that just wouldn't work with the headlights and the parking lights that would just dangle there, so I knew I had to push forward with my idea, which was to do harmful things to this grill...
Basically the new Intercooler coming from my sponsor has this really cool logo on the front, reading out "mishimoto" and looking at the intercooler through the grill before hid it too much. Hiding it was an option, but the rest of the car screams "turbocharged slant six" so I'm not keeping any secrets.
The new intercooler has the ports in the center of the core, not at one side like the current one, and is a little smaller, so it will be visible right across the open port I made at the bottom of the grill. I guess it will make sense once it's in - it's hard to explain. But this is what I did today.
Once the grill was off, I made some notes to myself on things I want to fix before it goes back on, - one being a small bend I need to lift up on the bumper.
Anyway -
You gotta make the first cut to do it, and I went all in - no going back. I used side cutters and removed the lower half of the grill combs.
Side cutters cut right through them if anyone was ever wondering. Then I took my dremel with some 80 grit on it and cleaned up the excess, and made everything nice and smooth, and rounded over any sharp edges that came about.
I cleaned and sanded everything except for the chrome around the edges. That part I masked off so it would still be chrome. Then I shot some wheel paint by Dupont (I think it was) at all three pieces. It was not overly bright which is perfect, and is very similar to the silver that was on the lower part of the grill, but a touch lighter.
I got on about 6 coats about 10 minutes apart, and it looks real good.
My next step was to take my small sword brush and a lettering brush to paint the black in with a satin, but once I saw what the grill looked like as just silver, I'm debating leaving it. It's kind of cool I think. I did a "mock up" by just resting it where it goes after it dried.
I'm thinking I might paint the black lines on the top section so that the grill looks like horizontal strips up there - but not sure. The complete silver field up there makes it look like a fence or something. But I don't think I should make any final decisions till the new intercooler gets here. I might put that in and wind up thinking it looks just fine. We'll see. The whole front definitly needs just a bit of accents somewhere. Tomorrow I'll think more on it.
One other thought is to remove the center section entirely, so the grill ends at the parking lights on each side, and just has the frame portion running horizontaly on top and bottom, then I could clean up the area behind the grill real nice, and maybe add some aluminum plates to clean up.... so many ideas, but basically I'm invested now, and eventually I will wind up with a product that looks nice, right now - not so much. But I'll get there!