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My best “failures”:
Using aluminum sheeting for a belly pan:
I found aluminum is not the best material for a DIY belly pan, especially a first attempt. It is expensive, fairly heavy in 0.060 thicknesses, still needs supports, can develop shakes and rattles, and without specialized tools such as an English Wheel, rollers, brakes, and shears it seriously limits design. With better tools and more experience I think aluminum could be a great choice for a “second version” belly pan material, just take the first version pan and copy it, making sure to adequately dampen rattles.
Belly pan under exhaust:
I had major issues putting belly pan materials under my exhaust, even using metal that could withstand the temperatures and maintaining adequate clearance. It turns the gap between your car and the pan into an oven. If done near your gas tank it can heat your tank up and start boiling off the fuel. Even not near your gas tank the pan trapped hot air under the car and heated the cabin from below. Using aluminum or other bare metal with high reflectivity on the top and no emissivity below makes this situation worse. Cutting out 50+% of the material below the exhaust was not enough to prevent this from happening.
Using expanding foam for removable grill blocks:
Expanding foam will continue changing shape for quite a while even after the outside is hard. It will grow, shrink, warp, etcetera. Note I did not incorporate any internal support in my piece, I have seen others that inserted dowels or similar and claimed this helps.
Grill block when air can bypass radiator:
If the air can just blow under the car or around the radiator it will seriously limit the amount of grill you can block without heating problems. Simply plugging these holes will let you block more grill and still maintain lower temperatures.
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