Escort Air Dam

[Angmaar]

This a very cool mod; it reduces drag, increases engine bay temps so kind od like a WAI and is made out of "vote for" signs.

[theycallmeebryan]

gascort, what kind of metal stripes did you use for that framing? Is that 1/2" galvanized steel? Where'd you get it?

[gascort]

Originally Posted by Tygen1

I like it! Your neighbors must think you are crazy, especially the cobra owner

Actually... guilty pleasure; that's mine too. Sometimes you just have to go fast, haha. I drive it about 5% as much as the 'scort, but it is fun. And nice to have when modding the other!

Originally Posted by Tygen1

Did you put some lexan covers over your headlights to help them blend in? It kinda looks like it but I can't really tell.

Yep. I was originally going to have the lexan follow the lines of the bumper, but the angle was beyond the critical angle of the lexan, and was reflecting my headlights straight down to the ground, rather than letting light through. It was a last-minute change, but works well so far

Originally Posted by Tygen1

Also looks like you could tilt back the whole arangement to make a steeper angle, it may help it blend in better by reducing the number of edges...

Was originally going to do this, but after planning it for months, I decided I wanted it to be a safety feature as well, so the relatively tall top horizontal bar being a bit out in front of the factory bumper was necessary to comply with this requirement for me and meet more car bumper heights.
Thanks for the comments, and glad you enjoy!

[gascort]

Originally Posted by theycallmeebryan

gascort, what kind of metal strips did you use for that framing? Is that 1/2" galvanized steel? Where'd you get it?

They're 1/2 inch metal electrical conduit. Available for $2-4 for 10 foot lengths at any hardware store. Totally my best find ever for ecomodding. Materials you need to work with it are simple:
1. Hacksaw (reciprocating saw is nicer/faster if you have one)
2. Hammer (you can bend it into nice, strong, 12" radius bends with a tubing bender) but the hammer works great to bend corners of any radius on the garage floor. It's easy once you do one or two bends.
3. Drill and 1/4" nut driver attachment -
You can buy packs of self-drilling sheet metal screws at the hardware store in lengths from 1/2" to 1.5" in the #8 screw size, and I think you can get longer ones in the #10 size. The screws are really nice - just like mini - drill bits that are one-time use and less than 8 cents apiece if you buy a big package of them. They're sharp since every time you use one, it's new.. and go through the conduit, your bumper, fenders, radiator brackets, ...anything with relative ease.

I have this stuff in use as my homemade armrest support (for the wife), a hanging rack in the basement to help my wife resist temptation to hang clothes on the gas/water pipes, and on my Kammback as well. It's strong enough that you can shake the car by grabbing on the bumper or Kammback, but will easily crumple and absorb crash energy in an accident.

[gascort]

One other thing I discovered during this project - If you want to make a sheet of coroplast but just have normal size signs, like I do, you can connect them top to bottom at least by putting wire through the holes in the corrugation. I connected 4 signs together to make the belly pan on this rigid. I had a scrap piece of 12 gauge, solid core electric wire (like for your house) and split up the 3 wires and slid them (spread out to 3 different "slots") through the signs before taping the junctions with duct tape. My old belly pan fell apart because it was just taped; this one will not have any trouble. You could probably use a wire clothes hanger if you straightened it out first too.
Oh, and if you are attempting any work with Coroplast, you need to get two things to go with:
Gorilla Tape (the black stuff) It's awesome and has held up for over 2 years on my side skirts
Krylon Fusion spray paint (hardware stores sell it) - it sticks to plastic!!

[theycallmeebryan]

Another question. How much do each of the 10ft conduits weigh? Do they have them in aluminum?

This would make for great framing for an aerofairing for my Ninja, and framing for a boat tail on the geo metro i'm about to pick up.

[gascort]

They are light; I will try to weigh one on Monday - I have some at school. Probably about 5-10 pounds each. I don't think any come in Aluminum; they have plastic versions that are more popular now, so I don't know about the aerofairing frame if it's too heavy, but definitely a good idea for the Merto Kammback frame.

[gascort]

Originally Posted by theycallmeebryan

Another question. How much do each of the 10ft conduits weigh?

Found an uncut piece in the garage. I overestimated. They're about 2.8 pounds each. Maybe back in contention for your bike.

[theycallmeebryan]

In your pictures, the conduit looks flat. I just came back from lowes and all they had was 1/2" galvanized steel conduit, but it was a thin 1/2" pipe. It was cheap, like $1.50 for a 10foot length. I need to find something that is flat... something like flat metal stock that plumbers use to brace air ducts or something.

[gascort]

mine is flat in many sections. That is post - meeting my hammer on the garage floor. You were looking at the same stuff as what I used - $1.60 at Lowes here.
Flattening it slightly with the right technique results in bending the pipe, and you can flatten it. Not that you would want to take all the time to flatten a whole piece; it wouldn't be perfectly straight anymore. Sorry to get you all excited.
Just curious, why do you need it to be completely flat? The tubes are as strong as a bar 2/3 their size. (just in case you didn't know - you may already)
How an I-beam works