traxtar928

My 928MS skid plates have bent my tow hook plates so many times, I think the tab on the frame that holds those plates and guards is going to break off with any more serious impacts. Greg, can you show a picture of your design? If it uses more than just the tow hook tabs in the frame, it may be worth it to switch. I'm definitely curious. EDIT: Just saw Roger's pic... I don't think that this design would be any better in terms of preventing my tow hook plates from bending after an impact. the 928MS kit did fit without issue for me personally, but now that the plates themselves have bent, I need to put them on a vice and hammer them back into shape every few months for them to align with the mounting tabs properly.

Some other comments on my 928MS parts... the lack of drain plug on my 928MS radiator is a huge pain, that was a big design oversight for serviceability. That being said, the radiator itself performs wonderfully. and I'm happy with it.

I also have the 928MS side skirts, which arrived so poorly fitting that I had to spend almost $1000 for my fiberglass guy to build them up with dynaglass, section them shorter, and do quite a bit of other modifications just to get them to fit up to the body in the right way. They still don't fit perfectly, but I wasn't about to spend another penny to have them further modified... so, on the passenger fender there's a small gap, and the dimples on both skirt bottoms don't line up with the holes in the under-body. The mold for those parts (which are the same molds used for the American International Racing Aero Kit) are WAY past their prime, and they don't have the sales volume to re-create the mold. When I bought up these issues to Carl with photo evidence, he said he wasn't going to sell them any more, but they're still up for sale on his website for other poor souls to realize are going to require HUGE work to fit right after they arrive in the mail.The whole thing was a big pain in the butt. Anyway, thought I'd chime in with my personal experience.

ROG100

This is what a high quality well designed - fits first time - product looks like.
Thanks GB for taking the time to do the job properly.

Carl Fausett

Since 2015, our plates have elongated holes in them so that the owner can continue to use his tie-down hook easily.

merchauser

+1

not sure I am completely understanding about whether the plate should have an angle, or the point about using more than one tow hook tab. ???
are these made of aluminum? do most people paint them? wondering if the bare

merchauser

sentence was cut off

is the bare metal an eyesore after install? best to paint them??

ROG100

Greg's are extra light for weight saving while still retaining total strength.

Carl Fausett

Colin,

The part you are bolting the protection plate on to is triangular in shape. I have circled that for you below.

Because of this, neither Greg's plates or our plates are going to point perfectly straight ahead - and they do not need to in order to do their job. They will be slightly toed, and they work just fine that way.
Even in this picture, you can see impact damage from all the times those protection plates saved the motor or chin spoiler from damage.

potdog

Just a shame the correct fixings are not suplied ie fixings with a shoulder.

merchauser

say what??? I have no idea what this means???

potdog

Look at the plastic bags with the bolts in.Any good enginer fitter knows the why there is a shoulder on a fixing.

Bigfoot928

I have no idea what a shoulder or a fixing is, but If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding!

Adamant1971

Shoulder bolt. I speak Scottish when I get drunk so I kinda understand. LOL

In this case I would want a bolt that will fail, not a stronger one with a shoulder.

GregBBRD

Let's get back to the thread topic!

I refuse to make a product that someone else produces, if their product even remotely works for the purpose it is intended to fit on....for a couple of reasons.

#1. The 928 "market" is tiny and there is little reason to make two competing products.
#2. In my little personal "moral" world, it is wrong to copy something that someone else has made.

That being said, a couple of years ago, I ordered a set of Carl's protection plates for an S4 application. What came did not fit on an S-4 and was obviously designed for....some other unknown vehicle. (After my S4 plates were introduced, Carl "magically" came up with a new plate for the S4 application.....see #2 above.)

I proceeded to hand make (cut out in a rough shape, grind down, fit, grind again, fit, repeat, go out and drive, grind down.....seemingly forever) a set of plates that were appropriate for an S4 application. And then drove them around...on a really low (140mm ride height) S4. The vehicle spent way too much time "on the plates"....which I considered to be potentially dangerous (if the car is sitting/hitting the plates, the front wheel could be off the ground and compromise the steering.)

I kept reducing the size of the plates to find out what dimension was needed to protect the oil cooler, the oil cooler protection/air guide, and the front undertray. I then cut out 10 sets of these plates and gave them to clients to test...for a year....on vehicles with various ride heights.

I made a few additional changes (over this year)....and what you see it the final product. Designed, tested, improved, re-tested, re-improved for the 1987-1995 vehicles. (And obviously one can use the original toe-hook with my protection plates (seriously....that's a main selling feature?)

Pretty obviously, from the pictures, Carl's plates "hang down" a whole bunch more than mine do. While these may be acceptable for a car with stock (180mm ride height), most every car I deal with is lowered some.)

These protection plates are perfect for the application. Yes, they will wear and eventually you will need to add material (they are made from 6061 T651 material, so material can be added as they wear) or replace the plates.

Perfection......as always. Guaranteed to fit and work.

And yes, I'm not saturating the Internet trying to sell everything I make (I've got many products I refuse to even disclose to anyone except clients)....for obvious reasons, recently proved. (How about an S3 oil ventilation system that eliminates oil in the intake system....which will never be on anything but my own engines......just one example.)

Also, you might want to read the "tagline" after my name, below. That's not bull**** or something cute to say. That is one of my main lifelong tenets.....it is literally how I live my life!


A final note: People without any morals will copy perfection.....it's a whole bunch cheaper and quicker to copy something than to design and test your own idea. (see the recent thread about oil baffles.)

merchauser

[QUOTEObviously you are referring about me, Just missing " couple of realy important features that can't be sean in pictures of my pieces intentionally " . The only differance is that you have nip off one of the plastic lugs on the neck the hole is there for the other lug. People with moral's do not lie, ][/QUOTE]

Adamant1971