My Fancy New Skid Plate...

This weekend, I finished up work on a custom skid plate for my GTO.

A few months ago, I bought an extra skid plate in the For Sale section. Taking the idea Svede1212 did with his skid plate here, I decided to take it a step further and paint mine to match my car.

This past week I took the skid plate to a local welder, who plasma cut the pieces out for me. After that, I sanded the entire skid plate down, put a few coats of primer on it, then finished it off with several coats of SVT drum/caliper paint.

It's not an exact color match with my Impulse Blue, but it'll be under the car anyway so I wasn't too concerned with it.

This is going to go onto the car when I do my fluid changes this week...

Here's a pic...

hmm...

i like it

Did you weight how much you cut off? I'd like to know how much you saved.

yeah i remember seeing that awhile ago. haven't seen that done in quite some time. so how much weight savings was it anyways? i wonder what would be the strongest design of cutting this out

creative

nice. it saves about 5# but more importantly it lets out engine bay heat while still protecting the car from bottoming out. this one like mine is cut along the flat spots while retaining the embossing where most of the strength is.

would most welders who own a plasma cutter be willing to do this? and how much would they charge?

im sure you arent able to change the oil til u remove the plate right? would be cool if u had a spot to where u can just remove the filter and plug thru the plate...

nice idea!

Quote: Originally Posted by Letchworth40... Did you weight how much you cut off? I'd like to know how much you saved.

Quote: Originally Posted by jamesbiz... yeah i remember seeing that awhile ago. haven't seen that done in quite some time. so how much weight savings was it anyways? i wonder what would be the strongest design of cutting this out

What Svede said... roughly 5lbs.

Quote: Originally Posted by j-cash... im sure you arent able to change the oil til u remove the plate right? would be cool if u had a spot to where u can just remove the filter and plug thru the plate... nice idea!

Haven't tried it yet, but judging by the way it's cut out, I'll still have to remove the skid plate. However, I'm sure if you wanted to DIY, you could make a cutout in the plate for this.

Nice, I was thinking about this when I first changed the oil. I might try this with a sawzall if I cannot find a plasma cutter for the work.

Looks good

If not a sawzall, a die grinder would work.

haha sorry, looks good though.

This looks really cool, wondering if it worked out for grave since thread is about 2 years old.

This guy, Goss's Garage, on PBS Motorweek show, often talks about how these shields on bottom of car (especially at very front, I believe) and even the radiator shield are designed to direct airflow, and he says not to remove them. So, I have the SLP verrrry lightweight skidplate but this Goss guy has made me wonder if the stock piece, lead-heavy though it is, had airflow benefits. Then again, I am sure there has to be some heat-relief (as mentioned above) benefits from changing out the stock piece.

Quote: Originally Posted by jamesbiz... would most welders who own a plasma cutter be willing to do this? and how much would they charge?

I would charge $15-20$

Why not use a hole saw and make a uniform pattern with the holes. This is a great idea.

Quote: Originally Posted by canttouchthis... Why not use a hole saw and make a uniform pattern with the holes. This is a great idea.