I finally had a bit of time these past few days to work on a proposed mod that I have been planning.

I wanted to put something in the oil cooler area since seeing the X-Men kit and feeling it was a bit too busy but needed something else. I looked at the single pieces of the kit and thought that 2 would look better and that they needed to be designed after the styling of the head light, tail light and side strakes as models.

With that in mind I chose to make these prototypes out of acrylic plastic. I have worked with plastic several times in my life making items from screw driver handles, letter openers in a mandatory shop class in 7th and 8th grade, to making home made bongs and selling them to a local head shop when I was in college (hey, it was the late 70's :D) to creating the window for my K&N Intake on my RX-8.

Working with this plastic isn't much different than working with wood products. Thankfully I have a host of tools to enable me to fabricate items as such. So, now that I have written history and experience, here are the first pics of what the design is and what they look like on my RX-8.

The first two pics are of the four strakes with two shaped and sanded and two still in rough cut out form. The third pic is of the driver side upper strake sanded and polished up from the front profile.

 

Next, I finished all four and made some final fitting and polishing. Then I primed and painted a silver base coat and then applied a clear top coat. Here are three pics after the final clear coats were applied.

 

I'll take a set when they are in production =) (I imagine a grill screen is needed)

Looking good !

 

I was going to wait for tomorrow daylight but decided to put them on tonight and take a couple of pics as to what they look like. I applied them with the 3M trim tape that is used on most of the accessories that are applied on our RX-8s.

SO, without further ado, here are a few pics of the prototypes.

 

DAMN ! That looks great.

 

I am planning on making a different set before I cast a mold for mass producing these. The changes I will make is that they will be narrower at the outside corners of the oil cooler area and they will be about a half inche further apart.

The 3M tape mounting is very tight but, as a precaution, I am going to extend the outside corners around to the inside of the nose with a slot to give it a bit of a snug fit.

An additional feature am thinking about adding is an aluminum grill that will be black in color to help protect the oil coolers.

The final product will most likely be made out of a resin cast. There is no need to make these all silver in color, they can be painted in any color. I have also thought about making a clear set and setting some hyper white LEDs in them on the sides so that when you turn on your lights, they will light up as an accent.

Why doesn't a car manufacturer higher me? LOL :D

 

I give it a thumbs up





So does she

 

I'd give her a thumbs up and a few other ups too! :D

 

Do you have an estimated price for them ?

 

that is very unique
I like it alot

 

Disregard that - forum rules

 

I like it alot.

 

Good idea and seems you are well on your way to getting a finished/fitted prototype, bravo!

 

Look good ...

Dennis now you have an eyelid and the fog light stake is like WHISKERS :p :p :p

 

great job ,i wounder how 3 lines would look or would it be too busy.it's guy's like you that save us alot of $ on mods.

 

2 lines is probably better since he is trying to match the 2 lines in the back on the taillights.

I for one love these and would order of the price is right.

 

If and when I go into production on these, I will have to become a vendor and I will make that announcement at that time. The chances are I will be doing this along with producing affordable side strakes and a couple of other ideas. Thanks for the interest, everyone.

Dennis

 

affordable side strakes? can you combine items to save on shipping? I'd order strakes and those front oil lines at the same time!

 

Will have to wait until all is in production and going.

 

I just processed some of the pics I took today. This is what they look like in the daylight. Ignore the fact that this is the first day in over a week it hasn't rained and that the front passenger side aero package air dam is loose, I haven't got the nuts to fasten it yet, I bought it damaged and repaired and painted it.

 

two more this time close up...

 

That, sir, is fine work indeed. I will be a customer.

 

Those look awesome! Count me in on a set of them.

 

Looks good - but I think two strakes make the front a bit busier than I'd like. Do you have any plan to do just one per side?

 

looks great ,now what can we do for the front air dam.set a set aside because i will buy .keep up the good work