I was told I needed lower grilles in place to install billet grilles, I was missing my passenger side grille. (Or do you say grill?) Anyway, I looked at mounting it without the factory grille, and it wasn't easy, but not that hard, but both sides weren't the same. Even with the original grilles the toggle bolts they put with the kit wouldn't have worked, the bolts weren't long enough to let the toggle flip up after going through the original grille, and getting rid of the original grille would help airflow.
On the passenger side there's a metal rod on the outside that I used to put a tie wrap around, and I had to make a sheet metal bracket to hold the grille on the inside. On the driver's side there was no metal rod so I used a block off plate to hold the outside part of the grille. I used some scrap sheet metal to make all 3 pieces, the inside pieces were similar. I cut the driver's side and it ended up being white so I had to spray it back to hide it. I mounted the metal brackets with black wire tires, some were easier to tighten than others. Hopefully the pics explain it better than I can.

 

I used the slots in the bumper cover to mount the wire ties to the brackets, and mounted the grille to the brackets with toggle bolts. Was a little tricky to mount the wire ties before the toggle bolts, but I got it done, each side was different. On the driver's side outside bracket/block off plate I taped the toggle nut to the bracket to make a 'captive nut', I had to slot the bracket/block off plate for some kind of sensor.

 

The result looks pretty good, if the original grilles were there the billet would stick out farther.

 

The roadster we bought this summer has billet grills and just like all the others I see the bottom piece of the upper grill slopes up on each end because it hits the grill opening. It actually bugs me that its not straight. Has anyone tried to trim down that bottom rail so that it would set straight?

Jeff K

 

I thought the same thing, you would have to cut a couple inches off the ends, then put a spacer in to straighten it out, probably not too hard to do.

 

My billet grilles are specifically designed to fit to the existing lower grilles. The whole job took approx. 10 minutes. Would your best bet not to get hold of an original replacement original grille, so much easier. remember any screwed support fittings in that area would be to a PLASTIC front skirt, ???? and may in the future, with vibration, may crack and break loose, thereby losing your billet grille . I would assume that is why the originals are the Push/Clip-in type. ???? Just my opinion.