As you all know, there are zero grilles made for our car that look worth a

I'm bored with the factory/OEM grille and I feel it is too "busy". This is an older pic of the car, but the grille hasn't changed much, other than the 03-SSM part that goes around it..

What I have painted in red is whats going to get deleted. Its going to look somewhat similar to ACCURATEin's (Erik) 3G TL. Minus the red "H" emblem, going to keep the A in the middle. Its still going to have the SSM piece around the outside, black on the inside, and the chrome "A".

Not really sure how I'm gonna go about this; but don't worry, I ordered another OEM grill to work on... just in case I fuck it up royally, I'll have my spare.

 

I like the grille.

Good luck.

 

Thanks man. Which grille you referreing to? OEM or Eriks?


Don't get me wrong, I still like the OEM... just ready for a change

 

Im doing the same thing, but luckily for me there is someone who makes a grille like that for the 02-03 TL now. All i have to do is slap the "A" on it. Good luck with the work, im sure it will look good.

 

^ yea I saw that. Too bad its not interchangeable with the CL

 

I like Erik's.

Damn TL's....they always get the hookup it seems.

 

I sanded, and painted the chrome insert grill on my 03 flat black. and it looks pretty awesome IMHO. The only chrome is on the Acura "A" emblem, and surrounding circle. My car is also black fyi.

 

i have that "project" grill sitting in my garage, i'll take shots (if i remember) once i get home this weekend...

i'll trade u for ur exhaust...

 

yea d00d send pics. I wanna do it right now, since my spacers wont be in until Wed

you get my e-mail I guess?

 

yeah i got your email. but didn't listen yet still at work.

i was thinking of doing vertical lines somewhat like the mugen 8th gen accord grill or the more relate-able 1st gen tsx kenstyle grill...

but idk, our grills arne't large enough and the bottom point isn't low enough so it looks round.. and ugly

 

yea I know what you mean bout it being ugly. the kenstyleusa grille does look pretty good. thats it, starting this right now.

 

what can I use to cut this plastic w/o destoying it

 

dremel with a cutting wheel

 

+1, havn't seen you on much
noob. sand paper. sandable primer, fiberglass, duraglass instead of bondo, or use bondo if you wish. some kind of cloth for fiberglassing

 

gonna heat it up and cut it with wire, then the sand/duraglass... I thought about dremel but this plastic will just about shatter

 

oh fuck yea, this is gonna look way better

actually, you're right. that would be ideal

newb this

 

ya because i know nothing about cutting plastic with a dremel. the wheel spins at such high RPMs it melts right through the plastic. i promise it will not shatter if you go slow and it will give the best results. with scissors and heat, when you go to cut it the surrounding plastic will deform. then you will be fighting a raised edge trying to smooth things out. dremel FTW! get the fiberglass reinforced cutting wheels. ya they are more expensive but last much longer than the cheap thin ones.

 

yea I know you and Ross don't know a damn thing about fabricating. Always knew you guys just photochopped the pics of the kits on your cars, and those movies on YouTube

I was pretty much just making excuses not to use a dremel, cuz I don't have one. Yet But I'ma go get one from Home Depot tomorrow; I've been wanting to PnP upper/lower IM and TB anyways...

 

yeah dremel ftw

 

cutting out all that bullshit from the grille FTW, also.

 

I'm already in the process of doing this to an extra grill I have. I have all the middle sections cut out and the bondo in, i just need to spend good time sanding it but other than that its ready to go. If my camera hand't been stolen in my recent house robbery I would post some pics...I'll try and get some up here.

 

ya I got all those stupid verticle tabs off and i've began on the middle chunk. Yea, my digi cam got stolen from work this summer. Fucking sucks. Can't imagine how violated you must feel tho haven your house broke into

On a side note, dude is that you in your avatar??

 

haha yea thats me.

It sucks, we got about 20k of stuff stolen from out house, including my laptop with all my writing samples and notes from law school. And of course, they only sent 2 cops out to check it out, and nothing came of it. Oh well. Now I have renters insurance...although I have nothing to insure anymore, haha.

That big middle chunk is a pain. I epoxied a panel of plastic underneath so i didn't have to fill that entire area with bondo, just basically fill in, in between the plastic and the original grill. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I'll try and get some pictures.

 

lol ya pics please

 

yep! hours of editing.

i was so tired of having flaming hot chunks of plastic stuck to my face and arms. btw keep your receipt in case you burn that mofo up. i went through one dremel about halfway through the second kit. home depot doesn't ask questions.

 

you'll need to fiber glass it..

and guess what, the middle section will sag because of the missing support...

 

kevin. yea i've heard that about keeping recipts, no questions asked

What middle section Its all coming out accept the verticle part that houses the "A"

 

that should be easy to do then. I took out the vertical slat as well, that makes a very large hole to fill.

 

you will have to fiberglass it no matter what. where you cut out the vertical supports will leave gaps in the inner grill area.

 

the middle top that touches the hood WILL SAG. the fiberglassed replica that a few members bought off ebay sagged as well.

fix? when you epoxy the chicken wire, make sure it "pushes" it up, only thing else i can think of is to use some kind of metal support but its not a big problem, sure you can find a creative way to fix it.

 

My grill has a piece of thick plastic epoxied underneath (but effectively overtop) of the hole, in order to bridge the gap better and provide more support. hasn't started sagging yet (but its not on the car yet)

 

I really dont see what is going to sag? As shown in my mad photoshop skills, only the red will be removed. There is still going to be the middle vertical piece of plastic in there that houses the "A". Thats a good 3" - 3.5" of plastic. I'll just post up pics later tonight of my progress and show you guys. I'm not leaving anything horizontal accept the very top...

 

Possibly a noob question, but what will support the (A)?

 

i'm not talking about sagging. where the verticals meet the outside, it's not solid plastic. you can't just cut it, sand it down, and it will be smooth. nope. when you cut them out, their going to leave gaps.

 

oo oo yea I see what you are saying, and yes they will leave pretty big gaps in it. I got some bondo layin around to take care of that. I just wasnt sure what Phillip was speaking of since theres going to be a big chunk of plastic support.

The blue circle is whats going to remain (that houses the "A", well some of it, its a bit bulkey now that the wing-type horiz. supports are coming out. The red is where you can see that I have began. The red oval to the right is where I kinda just tested a few different methods to remove those beams:



The final product is going to be painted black and clear coated.

 

i have the thing completed, it SAGS, probably by 3mm in the middle top. reason why it sags?

you see this blue circle here? its supporting the overall shape, how "tall" it is, if its gone, the top section can be bent up and down.



test fit it and you'll see

 

no man, that part is staying

1/2 the cutting is done:

 

will look something similar to this. just gonna cut a few small pieces -- then sand -- bondo -- sand again -- paint -- reinstall

 

damn dude looks good, will have to see the progress this week, are we meeting on wed or thurs?

 

tomorrow night in buckhead for sushi