grille covers to protect front rads

[edo]

Nervous of rad damage, anyone tried these or similar - worth doing, or downsides?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Porsche-Boxster-987-1-04...

[996TT02]

They look smart. Definitely worth doing. My car is 11 yrs old and on its third set of radiators, all due to leaves and dead insects that turned into compost between the ac condensers and the radiators. All items were trashed.

I bought some mesh off Ebay, from a Polish vendor, comes in different specs and cut to fit, cable tied to the inside of the factory BBQ grilles. Very inconspicuous. Bumper out job naturally, and needs a bit of time to get right. Whatever, if you take your bumper off unscrew and pull away the ac condensers (very easy) and clean out. Assuming same setup as on 996 here.

[edo]

These are advertised as being easy fit, no mention of removing bumpers...

[996TT02]

edo said:

These are advertised as being easy fit, no mention of removing bumpers...

Yes that appears to be the case. I was referring to my DIY jobbie where I already had the bumper off to replace the rads.

If your car is 4 years old or more I would still look into removing the bumper and cleaning the rads out anyway, so your grille fitment options are also wider too. Not a difficult job at all, "worst" is jacking up the front of the car to remove the front wheels and also to lift high enough to enable reasonable access to the underside.

A hell of a lot cheaper than a set of rads, coolant, condensers, regas, and bumper off anyway! A bit pointless to fit grilles if you already have the muck festering there. IMHO.

[edc]

I can't see ebay links but if these are the Zunsport grilles then there was a discounted group buy organised on boxa.net . Lots of users posted up their fitted pics. Very straightforward to fit these.

[edo]

Thanks folks.

Found them on amazon for 100 quid so have ordered a pair.

Piles of leaves in there when I cleaned it last week!

[edo]

Correction, cancelled Amazon and ordered direct with the discount code!

Cheers

[spyderman8]

Don't just fit these without first taking off the bumper and clearing out the small mountain of crud you will already have between condenser and radiator on both sides.

IMHO the Zunsport grilles look horrendous - the chrome ones make a Boxster look like a Jaaaaaag. I made my own from "competition mesh" from Halfords and fitted them on the inside of the front PU using small self-tappers.

[juansolo]

Got them on mine. They're easy enough to fit. A little bit of bending to get them perfect might be needed. Also they take an anchoring screw that goes into the soft plastic underneath the spar on the Cayman, which you can't see when they're not on. They definitely keep the crap out.

[edo]

juansolo said:

Got them on mine. They're easy enough to fit. A little bit of bending to get them perfect might be needed. Also they take an anchoring screw that goes into the soft plastic underneath the spar on the Cayman, which you can't see when they're not on. They definitely keep the crap out.

Thanks. Ordered Black. Are those black?

My car is in for major service next week - would that include them cleaning out the intake/rad area, or am I dreaming despite the large cost of a major service at OPC?

[spyderman8]

No, cleaning out the cack will most certainly not be included.

[juansolo]

edo said:

Thanks. Ordered Black. Are those black?

They are indeed black. Most of the time you just don't notice them. That was the pic I had where they are the most apparent.



You'll need to click this one to see them for example.

Edited by juansolo on Tuesday 20th August 08:14

[edo]

Thanks, looks good.

[Boxstercol]

I've got them on my 987, look good & hopefully will keep the crud out of the rads.

[s3nick]

The grills are a good idea as they reduce the amount of crap going into the radiator area.

The only downside I can think of if you want to nit pick is you might reduce the amount of air flowing into the rads which is possibly why Porsche never used grills before or maybe they knew what they were doing as its a good earner to keep changing rads!

[spyderman8]

All the Cup and RSRs have grilles and they need cooling more than anything, so I don't think you need worry.

[s3nick]

spyderman8 said:

All the Cup and RSRs have grilles and they need cooling more than anything, so I don't think you need worry.

Yes but don't forget they run Motorsport radiators which are much more efficient.

[edo]

already arrived day after I ordered them. Away at the moment, will stick 'em on on the weekend.

[Boxstercol]

Make sure you follow instructions & use masking tape to protect the paintwork. I know of someone who didn't with the resulting consequences....

[FeelingLucky]

If I were doing these again I'd definately remove the bumper.

I followed the instructions and used masking tape, but the issue is once fitted the masking tape is almost impossible to get off from behind the grill.
It took me ages to remove (most) of the masking tape (some is still there).