Rear diffuser installation
Hi Randall,
I have purchased the same diffusers as you have and after trying to intall them with the bumper on the car I finally decided that this was not going to work as my hands were way too large to work in that confined space...I considered removing the bumper cover but after studying the way the cover lip and the lip of the heat shield come into play to secure the sheet metal screws for the diffuser it appeared that this was going to require a good deal of effort to replace all of that in one assembled piece...I decided to try something different that is to drill out the diffuser holes and attach it from underneath. I drilled through the three existing holes first with a very small bit to avoid chipping the diffuser and then came back the other way with a larger bit to make the hole large enough to allow the head of a small sheet metal screw to pass through...the idea being that you now screw the sheet metal screw from the bottom and pass through the threaded nut enbedded in the diffuser..use a screw that is narrower then the threads in the nut so you are not useing the threads but rather using the nut as the stopping point for the screw head to snug up the diffuser...worked fine and diffuser is nice and tight no gaps or rattles. now you are thinking what about the holes in the diffuser? This was the part I took a chance with thinking if it turns out looking like crap I throw away and am out a couple of hundred dollars, not the end of the world..but since the holes are not visible from underneath the only one you deal with is the hole in the neck of the diffuser closest to the tail pipe...If you look at the angle that the hole makes on the visible side of this piece it actually is a semi-circular opening which I touched up with a dab of touch up paint and you would think it looks like a machined little hole that appears as though is should be there...the holes underneath the diffuser are totally out of sight unless you get on your back and look at them from underneath the car...so I didn't try to plug them just left them alone.....one final advantage of this alternative installation method is if the diffuser ever gets chipped from road stones you can unscew it in about 5minutes repaint and reinstall in same time frame avoiding the job of removing the bumper cover and heat shield etc.....food for thought so good luck with your installation whichever method you decide to choose.....
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