dunerider13

write up!?

Grimlock

Check out this topic for more information:

http://forums.bradbarnett.net/index.php?sh...=0&#entry268126

charl1701

[attachmentid=13611]The Silver Mustang is a GT Grille conversion. The lower grille is a different shape on the GT, but that goes to show you how much you really have to look. The red mustang at the beginning of this post is my car. I have not had anyone notice the gap or that it is not stock. I will say that Mr. Wicks solution to the Fog lights is much, much cheaper than mine. I do a custom harness that plugs right into the fog lights and runs off a switch under the dasy. And for anyone's info that is interested in my solution to the grille question, I include the following from a post I put on another forum:

I am not trying to advertise, but I need to address this issue. I have seen several people that have tried to jump on the GT Grille swap for the V6 including some Ford dealers. The GT Grille is taller and wider than the V6 as we all know. I have e-mailed the dealerships that I saw advertising this as though it was a direct swap. One did not replay and the other said, "you may need to switch the bumper cover, it is a different part number", end of replay. I e-mailed the guy and suggested that if that is what was needed that you should put that in your advertisement, I received no further reply, and no change was made in his advertisement. I would also like to say that Ford is not helpful when dealing with "parts swapers" as they call us. I also noticed here that one post suggested cutting the V6 grille to allow the fog lights to be mounted in the stock grille. I don't think this will look very stock as the GT grille has a lip around the fog lights, don't think there is enough material to bolt the fog lights to, would require some modifications to the fog light mounting/adjusting brackets that I am not sure could be made, and I would hate to have some one cutting up their nice new mustang.

Saying all this, you can get the GT Grille to fit into the V6 bumper cover without modification to your bumper cover. I do sell a kit with all the parts, grille, lights, wiring harness, switch...the whole 9 yards, but you will have to find it if your are intersted, I am just giving our experience with the grille swap here for those that have an interest in doing this to their Mustang. I wanted everyone to know what was entailed.

The GT Grille can be fit into the V6 bumper cover. You will need to unhook the bumper cover on both sides of the grille. Remove the V6 grille, starting at the top clips and working your way down. DO NOT DAMAGE THE RETAINER TABS on the bumper cover. Install your wiring hanress and plug it into the fog lights. NOW HERE IS THE MOST DIFFICULT PART OF THE WHOLE DEAL.

Remove the bottom clips on the GT Grille, they don't line up, and they don't reach back far enough to clip into the bumper cover so you don't need them. Remove them with a pair of tin snips (JUST THE BOTTOM CLIPS ONLY). Clip the drivers side Grille clips into the bumper cover. NOW HERE IS WHERE YOU NEED TO DO SOME WORK AND HAVE SOME PATIENCE...Clip the passenger side in. This will require some muscling, perhaps some assistance with a screw driver to line the slot and the grille clip. Do this carefully, but it can be done. Once both side clips are done, us a pair of pliers and position the retainer tabs on the bumper cover into position as much as possible to hold the grille in the bumper cover. Replace the bumper cover to the original position, clipping both sides back into place and replacing the retainer bolts on both sides of the grille. Then reinstall the engine compartment (fan shroud) cover with the original 6 plugs, in the top of the GT Grille and radiator cross member, these holes will line up or can be made to line up.

The final result is that the GT grille will sit slightly farther out on the bottom than the stock grille. Because of the lines of the bottom of the grille, the bumper cover and the hood, it looks all pretty stock. I have shown my car to a Ford Parts Manager and Service Manager at my local dealership and they thought it looked good. There is a slight gap between the bottom of the grille and the top of the bumper cover, again because of the lines, it all looks stock. Unless you had your car sitting next to a GT and pointed out the difference, it is unlikely that anyone will notice. No one has noticed on my car.

The lights issue. You cannot just change the switch and hope everything will work. The GT and the V6 have a different wiring harness under the hood. The switch in the dash is a low power switch that seems to operate relays to power the fog lights and head lights...so you can't just tap into the switch. If you look in your owners manual you won't even find a fuse or relay for the headlights, only the fog lights and the high beams (but fog lights aren't supported in the V6 Fuse box). Because of the relay system you don't have "old school" on/off power at the head lights and the wiring there is insuficient (we think) to run both the head lights and fog lights anyway. So the best route is to wire a seperate harness that isolates the Fog lights in it's own circuit. Requires no splicing and if you do it right, no one even notices it under the hood. We use a 15 amp in-line fuse to protect your electrical system. The Fog Light bulbs are a new (of course, Ford has to switch things up all the time and use different plugs to keep things interesting) Sylvania #9145 or H10, and you can get the plug with pig tails, to plug right into the fog lights from your Ford Dealer to make the Fog Light end of your harness, if you are going to build it yourself. The motorcraft part number for the plug with pig tails is 1U2Z-14S411-FA.

The bottom line is that this swap is possible, I know cause I have done it. It looks great! But as the original post says, BEWARE OF THE PARTS GUY OR AFTERMARKET GUY ARE JUST TRYING TO THROW SOMETHING TOGETHER TO GET SOME SALES AND HAVEN'T DONE THEIR HOME WORK TO MAKE IT WORK RIGHT FOR YOU. You don't need to start paying through the nose, cutting up your nice new Mustang...shop around. You can find a lot of the parts listed here and there on the Internet. Or you can get most of the stuff I talked about here from your local Ford Dealership. But that is probably the most expensive place to buy it.

Hope this helps

I am also including some additional pictures of my car, and a couple other cars that have used the GT Grille Kit.

Again I hope this helps.
Charlie

charl1701

Sorry, wanted to give you some additional pictures but I guess I can only do that one at a time.

charl1701

Again, Sorry

charl1701

Two more...

charl1701

This is the last one. Sorry for all the photos, just wanted to give everyone a better idea what they were looking at.

Hope this helps.
Charlie

charl1701

The the subject of replacing the bumper cover with the GT cover...FORD is pretty proud of that bumper cover. It is about a $600 deal in primer. You then have to get the grilles, top and bottom and lights. All and all, about a $1000 for a complete GT nose swap. And you still have to wire the lights.

bluequad

Hey guys, I have the GT grille swap on my yellow v6,I did the swap in less than an hour.I bought one of Charlies kits and I can tell you its very easy to do just takes a little muscle.That is my yellow V6 in the post.If you want the gt look and dont mind spending a little on it(little over 300) I can tell you that this kit is the way to go.I have not had any problems and no one has ever noticed the gap and if Charlie didnt put the mention of it in his ad more than likly no one would have even noticed.I get many compliments on how it looks and I am very pleased.The wiring harness included works just fine and it looks factory.Dont get me wrong if you have found a way that you like and dont want to spend the money then by all means do it,but please dont bash a kit if you really havent seen one in person or havent had any other kind of experiance with one.
Danny

raekwon888

sounds good.im interested in changing my grill to the gt grill also.I have pretty much no experience with modding and mechanical work however.you describe the conversion as very easy.i can handle the muscle part but what can a newbie pull the conversion off.

charl1701

It is pretty simple as long as you follow the instructions. Read them first, then do the conversion. The hardest part is getting the last clip to go in. Be patient and keep working at it and it will go in. Instructions are step by step with pictures and everything.

Here is more pictures the black mustang I was just sent.

charl1701

And here is one more...

IF you need help with this via email. I am sure anyone that has put one in will be happy to help. They have installers now also in LA and FL that can either be e-mailed for assistance or to install.

AZ_05STANG

Before everyone jumps on the V8 grill conversion bandwagon, please check the below link out. Maybe we should try to be a little more stylish as a V6 and not so eager to look like a V8. Not ripping any converters, just adding my two cents.

http://www.v6mustangstuff.com/05StreetScene.htm

Rik

Hey, Charles, can you post some closeup shots of the grille so we can see how you solved the gap problem?

flight96

I agree, Thats why I like the smaller "fog lights" They look different than the GT grille. To each his own, but Im not trying to look like the GT. I like the smaller fogs ala '67 style. Thats the great thing about mods....Its your car, do your thing!!

MrWick

I agree 100% with that last statement.If you like it do it.That is the reason there are thousands of opinions on every subject.We have thousands of Mustangs out there and no two alike once they leave the dealership.I like that.

charl1701

There is no solving of this Gap issue if you are installing a GT grille into a V6 bumper cover. The bigger issue is how noticable is the gap. I have stated as have a lot of my customers that no one notices this gap that everyone is talking about. The gap so that everyone knows is where the bumper cover curves up to and meets the grille...the GT grille sits forward of where this meets on the V6 and so there is an overhang or gap between the top of the bumper cover and the bottom of the grille, again this is from the curve of the bumper cover where it curves up to meet the grille. So if you have a mustang and you go look at it, you will see the curve I am talking about. So there is no solving this "Gap". But as I said, how noticable is it, and that is a decision you will have to make. For the customers I have that have made the decision to install it, they are very happy with it...100% positive feed back. Which all of you can read if you go to my site.

Here is an shot of the gap that everyone is talking about...

cosmo

I put in the GT grill and you cant tell it was switched . Clipped off all tabs on the gt grill , put it in where i wanted it I had to push down some screwed it t the sides with black head screws and 1 up through the bottom . You cant see the screws. I marked where the gt grill sticks out past the bead on the bumper in the center Pulled it back off and trimmed the part that stuck out past the bead used a jigsaw then sanded with a air tool to smoth it out and put the small tapper along the edge then took a propane torch and lightly ran it across the trimmed edge witch smooths it out and makes it look like factory . My wife looked at it and thought I put the v6 grill back in and added lights

MrWick

That sounds like an excellent fix for installing the GT grill on the V6.The center of the grill extending out over the bumper cover lip was what I didn't like and it sounds like you took care of that.Do you happen to have a picture of how it looks?Good job.

bluequad

I took my car to its first shown since the grill install.During the show many people came up to me and commented on how nice my GT was,I then would tell them thankyou but its not a GT.people kept saying it has to be a gt you have the lights and I would tell them that I bought a grille kit.I even had another v6 guy turn around and follow me to the show because he wanted to se a gt up close.Boy he was in for a suprise!He could not believe that the grille fit and looked so good.That same night I had a gt owner come park next to me and for about an hour they didnt even know It wasnt a gt till I told them.They didnt even notice the diffrence in the bumpers until I pointed it out.This brings me to my point if you didnt know about the so called gap you would not even notice.Having the gt and my car side by side you couldnt tell which one was the correct one.The whole time no one ever mentioned or pointed out the "gap" so this tells me that this whole gap thinbg has been blown way out of porportion.it seems to me that most of the people that are making most of the noise on the fourms about this are supposed GT owners,and no Im not trying to make a fake gt as a matter of fact my car got more attention then the 2 gts that were there,because of the stripes on the yellow paint,it really stands out.Sorry about the rant,Im just tired of people bashing v6 owners for putting gt grills in our cars.Its like saying the gt guys are making fake cobras or mach 1s because they put those rims on their cars .Bottom line is its your car do with it what you want,but if you havent had any experiance or have seen a gt grille in a v6 car then I feel that you should not put up negitive comments on this subject.