Guess the Grill...

[merlin's S4]

Well after lots of cutting, filing, wet and drying and painting here's the test fit of my new grill onto my S4. So what do you reckon and who's gonna be the first to spot which member of the 4ring familly donated the grill?

[RustyNut]

Does it begin with R and end in six by any chance?

[rotoryboy]

Looking good. I'd say the same, RS6

[Nuvo]

I'd guess RS6 too. Nice piece of work . Can you buy the honeycomb mesh separately and cut to suit or...

[merlin's S4]

Spot on!! Yep RS6. Seems like you all know your stuff!

I'd guess RS6 too. Nice piece of work . Can you buy the honeycomb mesh separately and cut to suit or...

I spent ages looking for some mesh for the job but with absolutely no joy so bit the bullet and bought the RS6 grill (Kerching, Kerching!!!!). As you can see from the close up pic it's not exactly mesh, but molded in plastic. By chance it was almost the same size as the original S4 grill which I was obviously pleased about as any smaller and I'd have just wasted £??.??p. In fact it was slightly oversize so I used the original grill surround as a template, closed my eyes, said my prayers and attacked the new grill with first a jigsaw then a stanley then a file and then a jigsaw again etc. etc. until it fitted inside the old surround.

Test fit number 1: Not quite fitting, needed to file away some of the bonnet metal in the grill recess to be able to push it back far enough. No problem!

Test fit number 2: Bo ll ox!!! There's no space for the bonnet lever to pop out!
Closed my eyes again, said my prayers again and cut out some of the honeycomb just above the rings where the lever should pop out. Filed and used wet and dry to smooth the plastic where the rings mount so you'd never know honeycomb existed there and repainted the grill in satin black.

Test fit numbers 3, 4, 5.... Bonnet lever works but still need minor cutting of the grill and more filing to the bonnet to make it fit snug. Once happy I painted the original grill surround black to match (tried alluminium but didn't like it!) and used a hot glue gun to fix it to the RS6 grill. What a brilliant invention those glue things are!

Test fit number 1,067,991: Hurray it fits and looks smart (in my opinion anyway!). Now just gotta work out how to permanently hold it in place. Where's that glue gun....

[Nuvo]

Hi MerlinS4, so a case of trial fitting to the nth degree to get it fitting right. Worth it though. Nice little write up too. I think I can forsee others doing this mod

Go on you can tell us how much the grille cost. Nobodys reading this

Nuvo.

[OOOO]

That looks superb!
Isnt there anywhere we can buy large diamond shaped mesh?
I thought maybe I wasnt looking in the right places
But seeing you take this step...

I want this look for the bottom part of the bumper but can't spend money buying OE grills for the job.
I wonder what can do the job (?)
A masterplan is required...

[S2 Ant]

I looked this up a while ago now, im sure the price was on par with the normal RS2 item.

[Bibby]

I looked this up a while ago now, im sure the price was on par with the normal RS2 item.

I'm still under therapy to get over the price of buying one of those....

I like the one that Jas has bought, same as the original but with black surround. Suits the S2 as the fins are the same as the lower grilles.

[Henka]

Wonder if that would be doo-able with a S2??

[rs2coupe]

Merlin, the RS6 is quite rounded at the grille/bonnet. Did you find that it made fitting a problem? I can see it wouldn't be much of a problem with C4 S4 grille surround as it too has a rounded bonnet and yours fitted well but on the RS2 grille it might be a funny fit because of the flat shape.

Ya think the plastic honeycomb mesh will flex enough for what I want to do? Iam starting to get a headache

[merlin's S4]

The mesh part will not flex at all. The curve on the grille was actually slightly less than that on my S4 so I had to glue it bit by bit very carefully to get the surround to mould to the grille shape. The glue gun was perfect for this as the glue sets so fast!! I've not seen an S2 grille close up so I couln't tell you whether the curve is similar. I would probably get some measurements for the RS4 item. Surely you can just measure the grille from any A4 !??! Good luck!