New custom grill pics on car. finally lol.

[THUMPER20X]

What do you think? Ill try get some better pics later with a good camera. $300 bucks and like 20 hours of work. For those that may not followed this I took the upper and lower and combined them for a more consistent look and wanted to accent the open front deeper than the heritage grill. Install went flawless. I so want to drive it now damn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[winston2ss]

Nice job. I like it.

[One Sick Camaro]

came out nice good job

[68/2010]

looks good

[midnighter]

That looks great

[2SSRS@Gen5diy]

Now that looks like it was meant to be that way, Love the look do you have a DIY.

[THUMPER20X]

Originally Posted by 2SSRS

Now that looks like it was meant to be that way, Love the look do you have a DIY.

Im trying to find all the pics. Its quite a bit of manipulating fiberglass. Especially when it came to molding the notches for the inner grill. Definitely a project where you need to take time and extra parts to build.

[2SSRS@Gen5diy]

Did you start with the heritage grill, or the stock one and added the lower grill?

[slick rick]

Great work!

[khislop007]

Damn, that came out good!

[showstopper]

looks good. a nice factory look.

[THUMPER20X]

Just trying to find pics lol.
Basically I started by fiberglassing the outside perimeter of the stock grill so when I lopped out the horizontal and verticals the grill would keep its shape because there wouldnt be any rigidity left, this was really important and it would be impossible to keep the shape. Not doing this first would have ruined it for sure. After dremelling out the grid, there will be cut out areas so I simply filled them with some bondo and levelled it out with the inner part. I then fiberglassed 2 layers of the weave stuff on the inside perimeter. Basically sandwiching the plastic within the outer and inner layer. 1 solid piece per layer guarantees it wont ever crack. I sanded all the plastic that would get covered with 80grit so the resin bit into the plastic. In actual fact the resin really adhered to the plastic which I was worried about, but it wasnt a big deal. Which is good if you want to do the grill with only the horizontal and the middle verticle, that would be a really easy grill to do. So heres a pic with the bars removed and the outer and inner laid up with 2 layers in and out.

Here's a pic of the lower grill behind the opened upper one so I could get the shape and the lip on the bottom edge just right. I first heat gunned the lower to angle it to a bit of a V both horizontally and then to the contour of the grill. this was tedious but with some even heating and alot of nerve it worked out well you know its right simply by laying the bottom in behind the opening and it all lays nice and the lower edge almost lays in the cutout perfectly. The pic is before any bending or trimming so you can get an idea of how the angles are a lil different.

I cut the grill just larger than what lined up with the edges just so it could be trimmed afterwards. Using the lower edge of the lower grill to set the piece I then simply used one of the cut horizontal scrap and traced the shape against the sides of the fiberglassed sides and then dremelled out the sides so the grill slats slipped into the grooves that I grinded out. After that I just did another 2 layers on the outside of the cutout so the ends were capped off at the ends of the grill. To secure the grill inside the cavity I simply drilled holes into the sides and used screws to go into the grill slats, the slats are a hollow V shaped so the screws kinda slide in, I then used a lil Ultra-Black just to set them in. Here's the best pic showing the slats into the grooves.

This pic is the outer part primered with the grill set in. It really shows off the lower edge of the insert and how it lays fluch inside the cutout.

Thats about it. I made a simple vertical brace just in the middle to make sure it stayed sturdy, even though it seemed really solid anywayz, I like to overdo things lol. To mount the bowtie was a pain lol. I remover the gold insert and then ground down the tabs and ran 2 longer screws with wide and ground down heads through it and made 2 small "L" brackets that slid into the hollow parts of the slats, when tightening the nuts from the back the brackets set nice into the slats and locked the chrome part of the bowtie on. Then I simply used 2 way tape to reattach the gold insert.
That's really it, its probably the worst DIY instructions ever but I just took pics at major development intervals. Theres alot of this and that done as in improvised fabricating so you could basically do whatever you needed to do it. Theres no rules to doing it so whatever works lol. If you wanna do one you could message me if you got stuck and I could try help. If you are handy with stuff and can fiberglass I would say a 7/10 on a difficulty scale.

[2SSRS@Gen5diy]

!1 more mod for me to do i like it a lot.

[The_Blur]

That looks very OEM. You did a great job on this grille. Your hard work definitely paid off.