Thought some of you may be interested in my experience with front grills that protect the 3 radiators from track and road debris.

My car came with Motorsport grills installed by Porsche Germany for original owner. These grills were attractive, convex grills painted black. The center grill however was mounted in the white painted area of the car's center scoop, making it impossible to clean the paint behind the grill, all 3 grills were hard to clean around where the convex grill protruded close to the bumper cover's painted surfaces. Well after 50 track days the paint was off the grills and they were smashed into flat / concave shapes despite frequent efforts to reshape them. Finally, the passenger side grill was ripped off & shoved into the radiator after a fun high speed session on Pocono's NASCAR Tri-oval. The grills were beyond repair.

I searched the web and decided to try Rennline's new grill kit in black. I installed them yesterday and am pleased with the quality and fit of the kit. They seem a bit sturdier than the Motorsport grills & the mesh is finer, so less debris should sneak past the grills. The installation clips make the installation easy - they seem a bit flimsy, but once installed the whole grill assembly seems very sturdily attached. I also liked the fact that these grills install behind the black plastic ducts so cleaning the painted areas of the bumper is easy when you are so motivated. Also the design also protects the small vents on each side of the large center vent - areas left unprotected by the Motorsport grills. The Rennline grills were also about 1/2 the cost of Motorsport grills. Rennline's website has good pictures and an installation video so I won't try to replicate that here.

I followed DIY instructions on the Renntrack http://www.renntrack.com/forums/show...Bumper-Removal and Rennlist http://gallery.rennlist.com/gallery/album430 websites to remove the bumper cover – they were a great help! I will make a couple comments based on my experience removing the bumper cover that may help any of you who decide to try it. First, if you are going to reinstall the bumper you do not need to remove the side marker and parking lights, they come off with the bumper if left in place - just make sure to disconnect the wiring plug on passenger's side inside the wheel well after the liner is removed as described in the DIY. If you have headlight washers they disconnect on driver's side in wheel well after removing the liner and headlight - just pull the small blue clip and the line separates. My 2007 GT3 wheel well liners required removing more screws than the DIY instructions mentioned perhaps the setup was modified along the line by Porsche. There were 4 T25 screws securing the liner in the wheel well, 2 more securing what I will call the upper brake duct to the liner and 3 more T30/T25 screws securing the lower part of the liner under the car. Also, I did not understand from the DIY description where the mounting screws were near the side marker lights (I incorrectly thought they were accessed by removing the sidemarker lights after reading the DIY) - they are behind the lights and are accessible after removing the fender liners - they screw upward into the body.

As a side note - I was surprised at the amount of debris I found behind the side radiators (on wheel side) when I removed the liners - there were several handfuls of stones and tire marbles on each side - I may make removing the liners and cleaning the debris out of this area part of my off season work each year.

Rennline (left) vs. Motorsport (right)

 

They look good. Or you could do what I did. Have Viperbob come by with $50 of FVD PC'd black radiator mesh and have him cut/mount them

 

excellent, thanks for the post!

I just ordered the same from them last week.
my car has been nekkid from day 1
radiators are peppered

Rennline seems to have a good product at a relatively reasonable price

I had planned on making my own, even bought the hardware mesh
but time is not on my side... And I like fit of the pre-formed mesh from Rennline

 

How long did it take? Singer person job?

 

Radiator grills are a must on these cars even if only used on the street. I had a piece of tire thrown from the road from a car in front of me that landed on one of the sides of mine and protected the radiator. Even though the grill was bent in bad I was able to pull it out like new. Thank goodness I have clear film on the car also as this saved the paint.
thanks for posting the bumper removal reality as I have been curious about this,

 

I did the job by myself and don't think having help would make much difference in ease or speed (unless the helper had experience doing this and could lead you through the process). Having never removed the bumper cover before I was careful and took my time. About an hour to remove being real cautious. I could probably do it in 30 minutes if I need to do it again - now that I have the experience. Also following the DIY instructions I removed the side marker and parking light assemblies before removing the bumper cover - but this turned out to be unnecessary.

Reinstalling was quicker since I understood where the various screws and clips went after removing them. Putting the Rennline grills in was maybe an unhurried 1/2 hour. I spent some time cleaning debris out of the radiators and from behind the side radiators before reinstalling the bumper cover. I put front end up on jack stands during the whole process for easier access, and put a mover's blanket on the floor to lower the bumper cover on.

My conclusion after completing the job is that removing the bumper cover is easy and quick once you understand how to do it, and that it probably would not be hard to cut your own grills and wire tie or screw them on but the Rennline kit was well made and convenient.

 

This is a great post. Thanks for taking the time to document it so thoroughly. I plan on doing the same install one of these weekends.

MGR

 

Glad to help. These forums have helped me with lots of projects.

Here is another bumper removal write up that is well illustrated and describes wheel well liner removal more like what I found on my 2007. https://rennlist.com/forums/997-gt2-...r-removal.html Only comment would be that I think removing the headlight as described in your owners manual is very easy and gives easy access to the clip holding the bumper cover to each fender below the headlight - if you remove the headlight you can simply push the clip out towards center of car/trunk with a screwdriver inserted from the headlight hole.

 

Just did this project myself on a 997.1 GT3

As has been said by a few others - while initially intimidating, its not a hard DIY project as you get into it. And much easier with all the guidance from those who have gone down this path before - thanks !

I did NOT remove the headlights or the side marker lights. There is no need. Removing the fender liners was a PITA (cold temps here probably making the plastic less flexible) but perseverance wins out.

Looking at a photo posted by Edgy01 re. headlight removal - https://rennlist.com/forums/9147638-post7.html - it looks like it may in fact be possible to do this bumper removal without removing the fender liner at all (the washer hose, wiring harness and the two "hidden" screws look like they might all be accessed from behind the headlights - the screws would need a small ratchet). However, I don't have access to the car until Spring so can't really confirm that one.

The Rennline clips were a little finicky on the first couple but then you get the hang of it - found I needed to almost flatten them completely, get them positioned then use a flat blade screwdriver to "dress" them into a nice position.

Anyway - I think it looks a lot nicer than stock.

Note, with the bumper cover off its dead easy to swap the side marker lights since you can see that pesky spring clip that can be hard to release. So did that at same time.

before -





after -

 

Great DIY info. I did this on my 2008 GT3 today.

did anyone else have issues with fitment of the bumper after the grills were installed? I ended up needing to move a couple of screws (for the grills) to new positions because they didn't seem to be allowing the air duct flanges to fit together properly when trying to push the bumper back into place.

After a few attempts I was able to get the bumper to fit back on, but it still seemed like the mounting holes on the underside were 3-5mm off from their original positions. With a fair amount of effort, I was able to get it back together, but again - didn't seem like a factory flush fit.