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V8 Vantage brackets for bars -- 4-bar grille question
Very specific question here. As some of you know, you can convert the standard 8-bar grille of an early V8 Vantage to a 4-bar grille by simply removing some of the slats. I always thought that all the GT4 race cars that had 4 bar grilles used this method, and they just filled in the empty slots for the unused brackets or something. But recently I noticed that's not true, some of the N24/GT4 race cars have specifically designed brackets for 4 bars that are more evenly spaced.
For instance, you can tell the following cars definitely used the standard 8-bar grille and removed 4 bars. The kermit green car started by removing the top bar (so it has a little gap at the top), but the yellow car started by removing the bottom bar (so it has a little gap on the bottom):
Neither option for me is ideal, because either you have a gap on the top or a gap on the bottom. I saw on Rich's video from Redpants that it's better not to remove the top bar because the gap would be more noticeable on top. But if you decide to remove the bottom bar and have a light color, the bottoms of all the brackets are exposed as you can see on the second picture of the yellow car. To me this looks ugly as I don't want to see the brackets.
But then I noticed these, which are more evenly spaced (i.e., no gap on bottom or top):
You can definitely see that the bars are spaced evenly. For comparison, the lower-middle bar is almost exactly in line with where the lower and upper body panels join, which you can't get that position if your 4-bar grille comes from a converted 8-bar grille -- that lower-middle bar would be either right below or above that line (depending on which slats you removed) if it came from an 8-bar grille.
I know this is an extremely esoteric question, but just wondering if these brackets that are evenly spaced are available or can be made to order, and if the existing bars from the 4-bar grille can be used or if special bars need to be made for this.
Last edited by Christian Cameron; May 14, 2023 at 09:59 PM.
I have seen some people 3d print those parts but usually they do it to fix broken one, I am sure that if someone take the time to measure they could make some 4 bar attachment with the space you are looking for. Just look for someone with a 3D printer and knowledge of CAD software