Originally Posted by maxxm
Your gallery looks great. You have some very tasteful mods that are discrete and look OEM. Well done.
Here are some sales shots of the VMaxx slotted lower grille inserts. VMaxx makes three versions of the lower grille -- the diamond pattern you have; the slotted pattern below; and one with small round holes. I have the slotted version too, but haven't installed it yet. Believe it or not, the installation instructions are written only in German, and two good friends of mine who grew up in Germany and now live in the US have trouble understanding what it says to do. The part that makes no sense involves the hook bracket into which the screw is inserted; the location where it is attached to the bumper is unspecified. Assuming that all three of the VMaxx versions attach in the same way, how did you determine where to place the bracket? Thanks.
And, damn, your front plates are rather large, aren't they? Arizona doesn't require front plates; that certainly keeps the front end looking cleaner, but you probably have no choice about it.
Thanks for the compliments. As you have pointed out, the standard South Korean front license is WAY too big for its own good. Luckily, the government has just recently issued white European spec license plates (the slender and elongated ones) for both front and rear. Although it's not mandatory to replace the old licenses for the new issues, I think I am going to go ahead and make the switch anyway, for the sake of showing off the X-fires good looks as it was originally intended. ^^
In regards to installing the lower aluminum grilles, I had an enormous amount of trouble installing the bracket that you are talking about. The left one wasn't too difficult as the bracket locks quite well into the grill "support". The right-hand side is a completely different matter. It requires you to actually get behind the bumper in order to secure the bracket in the most adequate position (which would mean having to raise the car first to get under and behind the bumper). Even after all that trouble, the install was shaky at best.
Although it may sound low-tech, I think the tried and true way of zip-tying the grill to the support beams would probably work best, or if you don't have any reason to change the grille back to the OEM ones after install, then I suggest using silicon to make a permanent attachment. Hope this helps. ^^