Door Handles Modded on my 1LE

[Nick S]

I was inspired by SUKXOST and his custom hood wrap he did and I applied that idea to my door handles. I posted a thread and some pics in the cosmetics and lighting modification forum.

Here's a link.

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=374467

[Muscle Car Memories]

Looks EXCELLENT!----Nice work!

[BATMOB1LE]

That looks awesome!

[Nick S]

Thanks!

[BATMOB1LE]

random question, how was getting the ZL1 diffuser one your 1LE? I might be looking to do the same thing... but I'd have to get quad tips welded on.

[Nick S]

Originally Posted by BATMOB1LE

random question, how was getting the ZL1 diffuser one your 1LE? I might be looking to do the same thing... but I'd have to get quad tips welded on.

The rear diffuser wasn't too bad. I bought the templates and everything to cut the slits in my bumper to mount it just like the OEM ZL1 diffuser is mounted. The templates were off by a little but I was able to make them work. The hardest part was drilling the first hole in the bumper. After that I was commited and no turning back so I just continued on with the project and finished it. I'm happy with how it turned out. I already had the NPP exhaust though so the ZL1 rear diffuser fit perfectly with my exhaust.

[BATMOB1LE]

Originally Posted by Nick S

The rear diffuser wasn't too bad. I bought the templates and everything to cut the slits in my bumper to mount it just like the OEM ZL1 diffuser is mounted. The templates were off by a little but I was able to make them work. The hardest part was drilling the first hole in the bumper. After that I was commited and no turning back so I just continued on with the project and finished it. I'm happy with how it turned out. I already had the NPP exhaust though so the ZL1 rear diffuser fit perfectly with my exhaust.

I hear ya. I'm more worried about the quad tips. I have a Solo axel back, which took 3 separate trips to the shop for them to get it centred. Not sure I want to chop the tips off and open up that can of worms... dammit!

Thanks for the info tho.

[fatboy99]

Originally Posted by Nick S

I was inspired by SUKXOST and his custom hood wrap he did and I applied that idea to my door handles. I posted a thread and some pics in the cosmetics and lighting modification forum.

Here's a link.

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=374467

Honestly I'm more impressed with your garage setup and the organization of it that your door handles, not to say their not impressive also.

[kinematic11]

nicely done - very impressed
on a level of 1 to 5 with 5 being expert level difficulty, what would you say this difficulty level is?

Dave

[Nick S]

Originally Posted by kinematic11

nicely done - very impressed
on a level of 1 to 5 with 5 being expert level difficulty, what would you say this difficulty level is?

Dave

Thanks for the compliment!

Well pictures can hide a lot of imperfections and I wouldn't claim my work to be perfect by any means. I guess if I had to put it on a difficulty scale I'd say it would fall around a 3 for the door handles. I started over 3 times but each time I learned a lot. I also watched a few videos online so I at least had an idea of what I was getting into. A very sharp exacto knife set is also a must for trimming around the edges. If you don't have a very sharp razor knife your going to find it much more difficult to achieve nice clean cut edges.

[Nick S]

Originally Posted by fatboy99

Honestly I'm more impressed with your garage setup and the organization of it that your door handles, not to say their not impressive also.

Thanks...for both compliments. The garage sure does make it easier and more fun to work on my cars. If you want to see a few more pics of the garage I posted some in the "Garage Porn" thread in the Garage sub-forum.

[KaBoom1701]

This looks dam good.

Great job!

[Spoolin]

Well done and... do mine do mine!!

[Nick S]

Originally Posted by Spoolin

Well done and... do mine do mine!!

Well I might be able to be talked into helping you out with this.

What color is your car now? If you did not buy a used set of black handles like I did then there is a chance you would see your stock color in the gap between the handle and the key cylinder piece. I did not wrap the two opposing faces there because I was worried there wasn't enough of a gap to allow proper functioning of the door handle. I also didn't want the wrap rubbing there if it was close and potentially starting to peel it back.

Also without an extra set of door handles to swap out when completed you wouldn't be able to drive your car while your handles are off to send them to me.

Overall it's not a terribly expensive looking mod when you just look at what was done but I wanted to do it so I didn't have to use my stock handles and I wanted black handles to start with so that any unwrapped area in the small gap wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb.

My used door handles were $70/each. The vinyl wrap was $40 for a 12in x 60in piece. My letters were originally going to be thin plastic ones that I got from Emblem Pro's but the plastic letters were too thick and some of the edges were too sharp and started to tear the vinyl wrap. So I decided to use the templates they sent me to cut out my own letters out of the extra vinyl wrap scraps I had. Then I just placed the vinyl letters on the handle first and then wrapped over top of them.

So cost wise to do it the way I did it would be
1. ~$150 for a used set of black door handles
2. $40 for the vinyl.
3. Shipping back and forth
4. we would have to work out a little something for the time it would take me to do the work.

Obviously subtract the cost of used handles if you just want to use your stock handles. Then it gets much cheaper!