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If you follow my build thread, you probably already caught wind of these, but in the event that you haven't seen it yet, keep reading. It started with a desire to functionally duct air through my lower fender region while still keeping a clean look to the car at a reasonable price.
The 3 DIY options I've seen are:
Cut off the lower fender of your car and install a composite molded duct in its place over the existing unibody.
Example: Morpheus built by Moti at Blackbird Fabworx
Costs: Most expensive
Looks: Great.
Cut off the lower fender of your car and install/bend another section of a different fender in its place over the existing unibody.
Example: Ryan Passey's Hypermiata
Costs: Medium/High cost depending on if you can find color matched fenders locally
Looks: Decent.
Cut off the lower fender of your car and just leave it like that which exposes the unibody and door hinge
Example: Google it
Costs: Free
Looks: ...just like you took an angle grinder to your car = Ewwww
I couldn't afford and didn't have the skills for the Moti path, couldn't find matching fenders for fair pricing to do the Passey path, and hated the unifinished look of the angle grinder path, so that led me to my own design.
NB was the first design I went out to make, because that's the chassis generation I own. I went to the drawing board on CAD, found a water jet, powder coating, and decal source to work with me on the one-off set, and was happy with results.
Poor man's CFD (driving in the rain) showed that they were effective in letting water evacuate the fender, which is all I really cared to see. An improvement over not having them there at all (regardless on how minimal), and I was really happy with how they looked.
Time went on and I made a small run of NB vents. People started asking if my lower NB vents would work on an NA. The short answer to that is, no. Reason being is that the body lines and curves of the fenders are slightly different between the two generations.
Not to leave the NA guys out, I worked up a two-piece design that goes around the body line of the NA's, then made a small run of those. The beauty of the NA design is you are able to run just the small lower vent, the large upper vent, or both, which adapts well to the various OEM and aftermarket fenders and body kits on the market.
The NA vents also align fairly well on flared cars.
So instead of my PM inbox getting buried by people inquiring on these, I wanted to get a thread started to see if there was interest in another group buy on them. Once I get 10 people interested, I can justify making a run of parts for that generation. From kick-off date of my order to shipping date to you, it will take a couple weeks.
What's included:
Black powder coated aluminum vents - 4 pieces for NA, 2 pieces for NB. (Passenger side vents shown below)
Decal cutting templates
Rivets
Install instructions
Group buy pricing:
NA 4-piece set: $175 shipped to US
NB 2-piece set: $165 shipped to US
(contact me directly for international shipping estimates)
Have you tried the NB vents in the NA? My car is track only; fit doesn't need to be perfect.
I tried mocking that up when I had a set of NA fenders laying around, but it never looked right. You'd have to slightly pound out the horizontal body line to get the vent to tightly fit on the back side. This, along with what you will read below, is why the NA design was adopted.
I'm surprised I don't have a photo from when I was doing the design work, so a quick photoshop will have to suffice (I tried to scale it as best as I could). You can see below that the fender gap line between the NA door and fender isn't as straight on an NA as it is on an NB. The NA has more of a curve. This forces you to push the NB vent forward on the NA fender, where you can then see the lower left corner of the NB vent in the picture is starting to overlap into bend of the body line of the fender opening. Not ideal for install or aesthetics. In addition, you can see the fender well opening curve no longer matches the curve on the vent which goes back to aesthetics.
On the flip side, if you want to run a NA vent set on an NB... it seems completely feasible. Below you can see just my upper NA vent design template on my car with plenty of room for the lower NA vent to be added if you wished.
Couldn't you just cut that section that interferes out of the frame of the NB vent to make them work on an NA?
Originally Posted by matrussell122
Negative you would have to hammer it flat still.
Stock is referring to cutting the vent piece to clear the recessed body line section... I don't see why that couldn't work, but it wasn't a consideration for me given the body lines didn't match anyways.
11-26-2019, 09:07 PM
Left Lane Designs: NA/NB Lower Fender Vents
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