How important is that plastic thing that is under the front bumper? Mine got ripped off today.

Thanks for the help.

 

can you be more specific? (rt, left, center, size of 'thing')

 

I guess is it the air dam, it connects to the lower lip of the front bumpert and to the suspension at the back of it. it covers the bottom of the radiator.

 

what did you hit to rip that off?

 

I have run it up on a couple of parking stops in the past and broken the fasteners on the front of it, car is lowered, but today I dont know what I hit. I was driving and heard something hit the bottom of the car and when I was in a parking lot later I heard it dragging. I backed into the nearest spot to look at it and push it back up behind the bumper and when I reversed it came off, the rear of it had 2 huge chunks missing where it fastens to the car.

 

that's a wind deflector.. attaches to the bottom of the front bumper with 5 screws.
it decreases turbulance underneath the car, and guides the air that comes in through the lower grille into the engine compartment, rather than let it escape right away from underneath.

mine was broken during the GT500 conversion, and i can't find the invoice for the replacement part, but i think it was something like $80-100 USD or so

 

cool, thanks. guess I will email Kevin.

 

$80 to $100 for a piece of plastic that is concealed and almost useless

The GT500 chin spoiler is half-that, is visible, and is very useful (cosmetically, at least)

They must be providing gold fasteners with that part

 

I hear that if you break the air dam on the C5 Z06, the engine eventually overheats. Then again, we don't have Z06s.

 

I don't think that's an air dam. It's a splash guard. I've been running without it for ~4 months now (I did the same thing as you, hatchttu) and haven't seen any scary temp warnings. And a new one cost me 45 bucks.

 

Gofaster, thanks, did you order it from a dealer?

 

Hmm... so that's what that is.

 

Tore mine off too . I got a new one from Kevin and think it was only $40-50.

 

that will happen on quite a few cars, that was a problem in Phoenix where I used to live. Anyone having over heating troubles on the freeway, most likely one of the reasons was due to the air dam being missing. It's there for a reason

 

Well if you put on a CDC or other kind of spoiler isn't that going to defeat the purpose of this piece anyway?

 

The CDC and other aftermarket body effects weren't subjected to thousands of hours of testing by the OEMs and subcontractors. It was probably designed by someone, slapped on a test car, and approved because it looked cool and because people were buying it.

 

I lost mine 3 times so far. It runs $45.00 from the dealer.

 

Mine came off also. I am going to the dealer tommorrow to pick one up.

 

Geez, u guys oughtta blanket up your ponies fer chrissake..........How about some BILLET curb feelers too?

 

+1 It's a splash shield. Airdams hang down below the radiator support/bumper. The airdam creates a low pressure area that actually draws air through the radiator and dumps it below the car. They are most often used on cars with limited frontal grille area or no grille at all - i.e. a Vette. You shouldn't have any operational issues without it, but your engine compartment will likely get pretty sloppy.