Ok, so the fiance's Lexus ES300 has a massive grill up top and then a giant one below the bumper. No idea why really, yeah it's a V6, but the radiator is bigger than the one in my pickup!
Anyway with it being so cold it definately doesn't need all that grill.
Ok, so I can't do a stealth mod from behind:
This car has a crazy body pan, it's almost impossible to change the oil filter or anything else from under the car for that matter. But then if that's what helps it get 33MPG@65MPH with a 3L V6 at 3500+lbs then I'm ok with that.
Anyway, so we have to go from the outside, so the other day I cut a piece of coroplast to fit (the grill part is actually recessed a bit in the bumper), sprayed it black and ziptied it at diagnols. I even patterned the zip ties
.
Anyway I think it looks pretty good, it's recessed flush with the bumper and doesn't look too obvious, there was just a black grill there before anyway. The trick will be if the fiance notices because I'm sure I'll catch hell for it if she does.
I think should be fine for winter, probably for summer too except she likes to idle for hours with the AC on
. So we'll see. I also found out it's 3 bolts to remove the part of ducting that draws intake air from up and over the radiator (you can see it in the last picture just over the right horn). After removing this its should draw from in behind the radiator instead. I'm also curious if this will even help any, with the belly pan it has and all that grill openning, it must have air movement in mind and be piping it out the bottom behind the tranny or something and it's probably in some way it's not disturbing air too much, who knows.
itjstagame 
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