08/09 DIY LGT STI Grill

I had always wanted the JDM STI grill to fit the 08/09 USDM bumper, and since the Group Buy never seemed like it'd happen, I decided to make my own. First, I should give complete credit to StopLightAssasin (I think he was the first to recommend it) for suggesting the Crown Victoria honeycomb grill. I'll also give credit to GroceryGetter for selling me his stock grill to hack-up.

 

For reference, here is a picture of the grill I was trying to replicate.

 

http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz106/squiden/bl5-spec_b_sti_grille.jpg

 

Here are the materials I used for this:

- 01 Crown Victoria Honeycomb Police Grill (eBay special for $40).

- 08 stock grill (not needed, if you trust your DIY skills)

- Tear-drop rubber weather strip (I could only find it in 20' lengths for $20 )

- Quick-set Hard Plastic Epoxy

- Jigsaw or other cutting implement of destruction

- Dremel with several cut-off wheels

- Zip ties... lots and lots of zip-ties

 

Before starting the steps, let me go through some of the logic for some of my choices. I spent ~10 hours on this project, but a lot of that time was with some trial-and-error getting the grill to fit just right, and finding the right materials. I wanted that black rim around the honeycomb portion like the actual STI grill contains. I tried several different materials (from hardplastic bathroom trim, to 4 different rubber weatherstrip trims). I think the bathroom trim would have looked the best, but I couldn't get it to cleanly bend around the corners. When I tried using a heat-gun, it would melt too much. and just didn't look good. And thus, the use of the tear-drop weather stripping (which in the end, I think looks great). You can see a picture of the stripping later in the post. Next, the Crown Victoria grill will NOT completely fit in the 08/09 grills, so if you don't want to mess with the trim, you'll need to upgrade to the F-150 honeycomb grills. The CV grill is tall and wide enough, but it slopes along the top, and thus you'll be about 1/4" short on the upper two corners. I didn't mind since I wanted the trim, but I would have been SOL if that wasn't the case.

 

Here is a picture of the stock grill and the CV grill:

 

http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz106/squiden/pre_cut_grills.jpg

 

1 - Start by disassembling the stock Legacy grill. This is done through a set of screws and clips from the back.

 

http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz106/squiden/stock_grill_back.jpg

 

http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz106/squiden/stock_grill_apart.jpg

 

2 - Cut out the CV honeycomb grill. I used a jigsaw, since trying to get in there with a dremel would have been hard. In addition, I quickly found out that this hard plastic will eat cut-off wheels (I think it's because the plastic doesn't offer any heat dissipation like a normal metal surface). Make sure you go as close to the rim as possible on the top and bottom. You'll end up trimming off a lot of the sides, so you can use the chrome portion of the Legacy grill if you want to see the cut-off area for the sides.

 

http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz106/squiden/cv_cutout.jpg

 

3 - Cut out the back of the Legacy grill. I really tried to avoid this. My original plan was to just attach the honeycomb to the chrome trim, and slap it back onto the grill backing. Sadly, I could not get this to work. Fear not! After everything is said and done, you really can't tell that the back is all hacked apart - unless you are making a show-car, I would not worry about filling in the holes. Just go for as smooth as possible for all the cuts so that you don't get any shadow effects. I used a dremel for all of this work.

 

Here is a picture with my original fitment (pre-fine-trimming)

 

http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz106/squiden/initial_fit.jpg

 

4 - I suggest re-attaching the chrome grill to the Legacy back at this point. After acidently cutting off too much on one of my cuts, I regret not doing this myself. You can actually see in the picture above that I originally shaped it to fit the back black-plastic lip, but didn't like that, so I ended up moving it forward when I started cutting for the trim pieces.

 

5 - Start shaping the CV honeycomb. Not much to describe here, just start cutting! If you are wanting to do the trim method, you'll want to angle the cuts so that there is a 1/8" to 1/4" gap at the front, but is touching at the back (so that you have some glue attachment points). Be careful not to cut too much - I had to re-glue together one of the bottom corner spars due to cutting off too much (I cut off 3/4" too much!). If you can spot it in the picture, you'll win a prize.

 

 

6 - Once you have the grill to the shape you think you need, try to fit the trim and make sure it fits cleanly all the way around. Do NOT attempt to do all the trim at the same time. Since I had 20' of the stuff, I just cut off a one foot section and did a fit check all the way around. Do not bother to stick it down at this point. I used zip-ties on the hold the CV grill in place while I did this. Since I had to pull the grill off sereral times to trim extra plastic, I ended up going through a LOT of zip ties. I also originally planned to fill the black weather stripping (since it's hollow) with silicone sealant - however, this just led to a huge mess and no gain. In the end, I gave up on that idea and just went with leaving it hollow.

 

http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz106/squiden/weather_strip_box.jpg

 

http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz106/squiden/weather_strip_closeup.jpg

7 - Once you are happy with the fitment, pull the CV grill out. Now is the time to lay down the trim piece. If you used the same stuff I did, it had a sticky backing. This actually came in quite handy for getting it layed just right. Do NOT rely on this to hold the trim, however. I highly recommend gluing this down before the next step. I did not, and I had some of it shift after attaching the grill (if you look close, you'll see my top right side is too far forward). I found out the hard way that you really can't reposition the rubber stripping once you've glued the CV grill, so make sure you are happy before that point! I had my two ends meet at the very top - I figured this would be the least visable spot on the grill. I used a dab of epoxy to hold the two ends together.

 

8 - Put back in the CV grill, and epoxy away. I highly recommend the quick-set hard-plastic epoxy. I tried some regular epoxy, and it didn't bond well. Same with Epoxy Putty - they just don't stick to the hard plastic very well. But the hard plastic epoxy made a VERY solid bond - I'm not concerned about the grill falling out. I did take some of my scrap plastic spars from trimming and used those to create extra bracers in various non-visable places around the back for added strength.

9 - Remove the badge from the old Legacy grill, and stick it to the new one! If you leave the trim around the badge, it's a perfect fit over the CV badge spot. However, it took about 7 layers of double-sided sticky tape to build-up enough pad to get it to stick. If I have one concern about my grill, it's that my badge is going to fall off. I keep checking it every week to make sure it's still fastened. As for removing the old badge, I have no recommendations other than a lot of brute strength. Do NOT try to pry from the front of the grill - you'll damage the trim. I spanned the grill across two boards face-down, and used a good portion of my weight pushing on the alignment pins poking through the back - Subaru uses REALLY good sticky tape for those badges!

 

10 - Put it on the car, stand back, and admire the end result!

 

http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz106/squiden/final_straight.jpg

　

 

http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz106/squiden/grill_straight.jpg

 

 

http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz106/squiden/grill_angle.jpg

nice write up !

 

grill looks great

Looks good; good job.

Nice write up! From the pics. it looks really clean.

awesome write up. nice job. i really need to find time to do this.

Now that you've done the hard part; how do you think it would take you to do another one. People who are not that DIY (like me) would be willing to pay good money to get one of these because it looks amazing!!!!!

Nice work...looks damn good

 

How long did it take you?

Honeycomb mesh is classy. Well done.

Now that you've done the hard part; how do you think it would take you to do another one. People who are not that DIY (like me) would be willing to pay good money to get one of these because it looks amazing!!!!!

 

It took ~10 hours to make the first one, but that was with a lot of trial-and-error time. I could easily make a second one in about half that time. That said, I doubt it's really worth the price I'd have to charge to make more of them - I had to take vacation off of work just to make mine

^That's exactly why I keep declining to make them lol

If anyone is thinking of doing this there is a seller on ebay right now who's selling the crown vic police grill for $22.90 and free shipping:

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/01-02-03-09-Ford-Crown-Victoria-Vic-Police-Grille-GRILL_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3286Q2ec0Q2em14QQhashZitem35a3e161edQQitemZ230382723565QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories

nice find! I may pick up a couple...for no reason in particular.

Yeah, I purchased one yesterday and I think I read somewhere that they have like 29 in stock.

 

I'm not sure when I'll have the time to install it though because of school and everything else that's going on...

That actually came out pretty darn good looking.....I may have to give it a shot....

And it really isn't that hard to do - just time consuming! You have nothing to lose but some time

Bumping this thread - I've had several PM's about the grill.

Looks great. I might have to get off my ass and do this...

Getting tempted to try this. Looks great on DGM. The Crown Vic Police grills are now $25 on ebay

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/01-02-03-09-Ford-Crown-Victoria-Vic-Police-Grille-GRILL_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem27afdc88bcQQitemZ170454190268QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories#ht_2167wt_1167

 

A member with a Garnet Red Legacy did this and it seems like his honeycomb section is not curved like yours. Yours seems to be coming out from the inside.

 

Anyone else taken the plunge and followed this how to?

 

edit: Oh and does anyone know where to get a stock grill? Just wondering if they're easy to get in case I screw up.

Getting tempted to try this. Looks great on DGM. The Crown Vic Police grills are now $25 on ebay

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/01-02-03-09-Ford-Crown-Victoria-Vic-Police-Grille-GRILL_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem27afdc88bcQQitemZ170454190268QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories#ht_2167wt_1167

 

A member with a Garnet Red Legacy did this and it seems like his honeycomb section is not curved like yours. Yours seems to be coming out from the inside.

 

Anyone else taken the plunge and followed this how to?

 

edit: Oh and does anyone know where to get a stock grill? Just wondering if they're easy to get in case I screw up.

 

 

The GRP LGT is an 05. 05 - 07 have the same grille as do 08/09s. Since the GRP owner followed the walkthrough for a 08/09, there are a few differences. If you follow Squidden's walkthrough, your grille should look just like Squidden's since you have an 08.

 

You can get a stock grille in the member classifieds.

 

Don't worry about messing up the grille. You won't. If you don't like how it turns out, cut out the new piece, sand, paint, and stick a piece of mesh behind the grille.

Yep, I agree with SLA. In fact, you have a greater chance of screwing up the Crown Vic honeycomb than you do the stock grill.

Yep, I agree with SLA. In fact, you have a greater chance of screwing up the Crown Vic honeycomb than you do the stock grill.

 

Cool. I had been procrastinating and today I find that the the seller has 20% off on the crown vic grill. So it is now $19.98 with free shipping. I had to buy it

Damn it. I had typed a whole post and it got deleted.

 

I finally decided to do this today. I like the results. It's not perfect, the angle is not the best, but it looks a lot better than the stock grill.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/havanahjoe/IMAG0025.jpg

 

Hopefully in the daytime the imperfections won't be very noticeable.

 

Thanks for the great write up Squiden.

The project took several hours, about 8 from start to finish having all the materials on hand. It took a long time to get the CV grille to fit correctly. The dremel was very useful in sanding down and detailing most of the CV grille. A saw was much faster to get the OEM grill hacked up.

 

The 6 screws that need to be removed on the 08-09 models were mostly easy, but the top two were impossible for us to remove without removing the bumper. Bumper removal was actually very easy, so I recommend anyone with an 08-09 to just remove the bumper if you're removing the grill.

 

Now that I've seen how easy it is to remove the bumper, I think I'll tackle a horn replacement and doing something with the headlights.

 

I used double sided tape on the Subaru emblem just like Squiden did. I don't know exactly how he got his done, but I used different layers to fill up the gap between the CV grill and the back of the emblem. After putting it together, I think it might have been good to cut the original base of the emblem and maybe screw it onto the CV grill and then use the tape in order to get the maximum amount of surface for the tape to adhere to. Right now I'm not sure how much my emblem is being held by the tape, but it survived the drive from my friend's house to mine.

Looks like it turned out great!

 

Yep, my emblem is just stuck on with double-sided tape. I was concerned about it falling off as well, but after surviving all winter, I'm no longer concerned. Every couple washes I try to wiggle the badge just to make sure it's still firmly attached.

 

I would try to put some screws into it, but I mangled the holders on the back of the badge when trying to remove it from the stock grill.

Looks nice Havanah.

 

 

Hey Squiden...does the 08/09 Subaru emblem completely cover the CV emblem holder?