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Homemade front splitter

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I've been looking to get the ford splitter or WC but couldn't bring myself to spend 700$ for a piece of plastic and then I broke my lower air deflector at the track :mad:
http://www.cjponyparts.com/ford-lower-air-deflector-gt500-2011-2012-boss-302-2012-2013-california-special-2013/p/AD6/

When I found the price for a ABS sheet there was no more question that I would make my own.

I used :
1x 54x106x1/4 ABS sheet about 140$
1x 48x96x1/4 corrugated plastic sheet for making the template 30$
2x longacre splitter brace 25$each. Found them here :
http://www.summitracing.com/search/department/exterior-accessories/part-type/spoiler-supports-and-components?SortBy=None&SortOrder=Ascending&keyword=longacre
I used the 8" but they are too long. I had to cut them about half inch and move the holes on the support back half inch also.

Also you will need a support for the braces. I'm using the blowfish tow hook with the support built in.
http://stores.blowfishracing.com/-strse-3/2010-dsh-2013-Mustang-%28with-LS/Detail.bok

First you have to remove your bumper cover from the car and separate your lower valance from the bumper cover.
Then remove the stock splitter and fixe the valence on the corrugated plastic.
Draw the line of your future splitter on the plastic
I marked a dot 2" from the wheel well on both side and then marked a line 4" away from the recession of your valance. This is the size of the World Challenge splitter. The Ford Racing one is 5".
Then connected my line with my dot using a piece of spring steel. So when you bend it, it form a nice radius.
Use your lower air deflector to mark the opening for the wheel.
Now it should look like this
q2ci.jpg


Put everything back together to test fit it on the car

9bd4.jpg


314d.jpg


2i13.jpg



Once you are happy with it, remove your template and use it has a model to draw on the ABS sheet.

I used sink screw and nylock nut on every holes I could find in the lower valance. No push pin or J nuts
v2rf.jpg


I also used a stack up of ABS left over to make spacers so I can screww the back of my splitter to the lower radiator support
iifz.jpg


Here's more pictures

85bh.jpg


nrxn.jpg


9q1o.jpg


5nhl.jpg



Sorry for some of the Iphone crappy pictures
 
KBBOSS1086 said:
I love the hood! Does anyone know what kind it is or where to get one?

Like Steve said, we made the hood ourselves. Along with a lot of fabrication to open the space between the engine and radiator and ducting from the front opening to the radiator. And good eye catching the spacer between the splitter and fascia.

And, yes, it is sort of crazy. What's even more crazy is that it really is still a street car with AC, full interior, emissions, stereo, power windows, etc... The only thing modified on the tub is two holes we had to enlarge in the radiator support for the hood pins.

We ended up finishing in third place in TT3 (Time Trials) at the NASA National Championships earlier this month. We were the only street legal and street prepped car in the class. The engine is still stock from the throttle body to the exhaust port. It's never been apart!

Here's an early shot during testing. We saved the original body panels and used replacements for modification. It's easy to see the front grill is blocked off in this photo. With the ducting we used air from the lower grill and had no overheating issues during our test sessions.

11_DSC1354%20copy%20as%20Smart%20Object-1%20copy-M.jpg

We relocated some of the under hood components to make room for the hood ducts.

_DSC1603-M.jpg

A shot of the hood being modified showing how deep the ducts are and how large the opening is.

_DSC1055-M.jpg

The front ducting for the radiator is easy to see here. We fabricated a new bumper beam to give the ducting more room. The gold intake tube clears the hood and pulls from inside the duct. The AC condenser is still in front of the radiator and they are both protected by a sheet of Nomex honeycomb, the brown stuff in front of the radiator.

_DSF7193-M.jpg

You can see how much wider the splitter is here. I added 4" per side to cover more of the tire. Then we built vacuum molded ABS flares.

_DSC1830-M.jpg

The entire splitter, bumper cover and grill come off as a unit. This makes it easy to load and unload the car. It takes about six minutes to remove and 15 minutes to install the front of the car.

_DSF7187-M.jpg
 

ArizonaBOSS

Because racecar.
Moderator
8,730
2,734
Arizona, USA
Jason:

How did you guys attach the nomex protector sheet to the radiator? Might do this myself, as well.

Also--you guys going to do some crazy rear flares/tires as well?
 
ArizonaGT said:
Jason:

How did you guys attach the nomex protector sheet to the radiator? Might do this myself, as well.

Also--you guys going to do some crazy rear flares/tires as well?

We used some special zip ties made for attaching el-cheapo oil coolers or fans to the radiator. Google "fan zip tie mounting kit". Here's one from Jegs.
http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/53500/10002/-1

We plan on refining our flares and offering two sizes, but this car will not get rear flares. The owner (Amy Fair, Terry's wife) has forbid us from doing anything that requires welding or painting to revert back to stock. Since flares really require drilling to do it right for track use, we won't be putting them on the rear. We're already running a 12" wheel with a 315 in the back anyway. With a better rear wing I think that will be enough tire. We did the flares to run a 12" and 315 up front. Even on the 11" wheel a lot of tire was visible to the wind, even though the top of the tire was inside the fender lip. That was one of the big reasons we put flares on the front - for aero. In the shot above with the blue hood you can see how much of the tire is visible from the front.
 
I like what you have done.

I have two questions. First, where did you get the ABS material??

Second, at what point are the support bars needed?? Example, if I made a splitter the same size as an OE Boss but closing up the gap in the middle and maybe lowering it an inch, are the support rods needed for such a small difference in OE??
 
Thanks

Here's where I bought the ABS http://www.meyerplastics.com/

I'm local to them so no worry about shipping cost. Which can be pretty expensive due to the size.

I've no idea at what point you need the support bars.
I think the best is to try first without the bars and see if it moves to much by pressing down with your foot.

Before I put mine on I could push down a lot and you could see the bumper twisting since it was only held by it. After I put the bar, it's rock solid.
 
2012Boss302 said:
...Second, at what point are the support bars needed?? Example, if I made a splitter the same size as an OE Boss but closing up the gap in the middle and maybe lowering it an inch, are the support rods needed for such a small difference in OE??

Even the OE splitter isn't really sufficiently strong for track use. In the photo below one of the support rods pulled through the OEM Laguna Seca splitter at about 150-ish MPH at a track event. This allowed the splitter to sag and touch the ground. The drag pulled the lower trim off the bumper, ripping the bumper cover (there's no real support there) and broke the remaining support rod. Luckily, the splitter just got ground down and didn't roll up under the car at speed.

IMG_7198-L.jpg

We've made other splitters without support rods, but they usually had a very sturdy framework under the car.

The Subaru STi we built for the Pikes Peak Hillclimb had to endure being ditchhooked and generally driven like a rally car. For safety and wear reasons, we used plywood for this one and had a spare element in the trailer just in case...

_DSC5401-M.jpg

This one was not built to be a quick-release front end like our S197. Instead it was bolted to the radiator support and both the front and rear edge of the engine subframe. Then a new lower fascia was built out of poly sheet that fastened to the splitter and the bumper shell. This one was built on an extremely short timeline, or there would have been a few more refinements. You can see that we still hid the front tire from forward air flow and built brake ducts into the fascia.

DSC_3375-M.jpg

_DSC5303-M.jpg

smaller_DSC5428%20copy-M.jpg
 
95
0
I'm really starting to think it'd be best to make my own splitter and put the extra money into my tiger racing hood.


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95
0
Gonna bump this up cuz my question was never answered about what length struts to use.


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kody said:
Gonna bump this up cuz my question was never answered about what length struts to use.


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I'm ordering the 8 inch from longacre. a local friend used them on his splitter build with about a 6 inch front splitter
 
1,281
3
Tulsa, OK
forcefedcobra said:
I'm ordering the 8 inch from longacre. a local friend used them on his splitter build with about a 6 inch front splitter

Am I said "friend"?? ;D The 8 inch braces worked just fine on my splitter.
 

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