| Well I finally received my Driven Authority aluminum front shield and lip. To be honest, I really didnt know what to expect. Friday I started the installation process. I thought it was just plug and play so I went in completely unprepared as usual. There were no instructions but it seemed pretty straight foreward. It was actually very easy but it required some additional drilling through the plastic of the bumper at the very bottom. I took some initial pics of the installation process but I determined that I installed the shield upside down because the "nuts" that are fused onto the metal were facing down rather than up. I originally thought it was designed this way but it turns out that when you tighten the lip to the shield with the bumper in between, the nuts facing down make the bumper have gaps and what not. So obviously it needs the flat surfaces to mate together to give the lip a good flat seal. Here are some pics from the first night with it installed wrong: 
It was interesting that night because I had the lip sticking out kinda far and it honestly felt like it was adding down force to the car in front. Maybe 80-100lbs at 70mph. Which was something that I was not expecting at all. Here it is yesterday after I installed it correctly and got the car detailed. I pulled the lip back to as close to the bumper as possible. It is adjustable 1/2" - 2". I tried to take pictures in all different light conditions. Unfortunately none of them are very good: 
And here is one of those very dangerous highways that I am always putting innocent people at risk by driving on:
These pictures make me want to go home and start adjusting my front fenders to perfection. Sunset can bring out those small flaws. As you can see the lip is not overbearing and often not even noticable from some angles. The best thing to me about the lip is that it really is like a grille guard. And for someone like me that is great. You can see on my front bumper where I have already lost some paint due to impacts. This should work to greatly reduce the damage to the actual body. And I can even completely remove the lip whenever I want, like for a show or whatever, and the aluminum belly shield is still there. There is room for improvement and it wont be a big deal to modify the bumper and lip further for a better look. But this is how it sits. I had to drill 4 or 6 additional support holes for bolts in the bottom of the fascia, and these small holes I made can most likely can be improved upon to let the lip sit more symmetrically. Right now it sits very very slightly like 3/8" more to the passenger side if you are facing the front of the car. But it is not noticable to anyone unless they know to look for it. I totally blame myself and when it gets on a lift I will get it all nice and perfect. There is not a hole in the aluminum lip at the rear, inner most tips where the bumper curves under and meets the lip. This is where I will most likely modify the lip so I can bolt it up for a nice seal at the wheel well. There is already a hole in the fascia here but it is used for some other plastic splash guards that an owner may or may not have replaced at this point. So I can see why they left these holes off the lip. Plus, it would have been a bigger ordeal to start cutting/drilling into the aluminum over the weekend. Obviously there is a slight amount of modification to take place but for 3 hours of work (including beer drinking, changing diapers, and grilling up my mule deer), this is fine for now at performing its main function, which is protecting the paint and integrity of the front fascia. Also I have been thinking about having a vinyl shop go over the top of the lip in flat black. Feel free to photoshop the lip to black and see how it looks. Please post if you do. And if you have any questions I will try my best to answer them. Also I dont know how many of you noticed earlier when I had posted a thread regarding SPL Parts. I deleted it because I felt that it was sending the wrong message, especially after I got an email from SPL stating that they would be releasing new lower arms for the Z32. I love SPL if for no other reasons than they make great parts and they are from Texas. I didnt want to be yelling fire when there wasnt one so I just deleted the thread. But up until that point some email miscommunication led me to believe they were slowly ending overall support for the Z32, which isnt the case. Apparently they are re-focusing on in house suspension parts only, not engine parts and all that stuff from other manufacturers.
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"If everybody is thinking alike, somebody isn't thinking."
~~ George S. Patton |
Driven Authority 1/8" Aluminum Front Lip (and other pics) - 
