New Air Dam for the Coupe

Here are some before, during, and after pictures of my coupe's new air dam. I took this project (along with a 5 speed conversion with ucc short shift kit) on this last spring and it turned into quite a job. The spoiler is custom made and is fashioned from a 6 series but formed to fit a e9. It was really rough when it was delivered and it took me hours and hours to get the fit right - a total of two months from start to finish.

More photos...

I have always admired that airdam

Very nice!

The Dam

Again,
Nice job Vince...glad I could help.
Al in Comox

Al,

Thanks again for all of your help!

Looks great, worth the time and effort!

Inspiration

That looks excellent - one of the prettiest looking copes i have ever seen.

It looks very nice. I am sure you already know that you will now have to be very careful with parking curbs and dips.

I temporarily mounted it and tested it everywhere I could think of; our driveway, speed bumps, etc... then it went to paint.

Mine or Vinnie's?

vince said:

I temporarily mounted it and tested it everywhere I could think of; our driveway, speed bumps, etc... then it went to paint.

Click to expand...

Did you test it with your chocolate lab in the front seat?! Haha! I immediately recognized your car by the wheels and the dog!

Looks great, btw!

Original inspiration

We should probably tip our collective caps to Paul Cain who created the original 6er style airdam for his coupe back in 2000. That august issue of the Roundel featured his spectacular coupe and ignited my coupe passion. I have one of those repro airdams but have yetto install. Awaiting funds for the total exterior repaint project

Just saw this thread. Absolutely beautiful airdam! What was the source before all of the fitting/finishing work? I agree Paul's 3.8 airdam is beautiful. Wasn't Coupeguy making these available?

Airdam by coupe guy

Yes, that is where I bought mine a couple of years ago.

Glenn,

I did purchase from Coupeguy and they are still available-either with fog light cut-outs or w/o. As Stan said, Paul Cain's coupe was a lot of the inspiration.

Thanks-

Just to clarify a few things, the airdams are still available for $390 plus shipping, with or without foglite holes as shown on my website www.coupeguy.com. The starting point was a 635 airdam, but a lot of time and money was spent adapting it to fit the front of the E9 and attaching to the front valence as was the original CSL airdam. Paul Cain's airdam was mounted as it was on the 635, to the front bumper necessitating drilling holes in the bottom of the bumper, a method I thought would be less attractive to prospective users of the airdam. With this method the airdam can be used with or without the front bumper.

The quality has been mentioined here, its the best that can be done with the layup methods used. Were I to use glass cloth, sanding and using actual primer paint would increase the cost to well over what most would be willing to pay. Tooling and development were expensive, but still is not what one might expect from a company such as BMW who can afford anything. Fit can be an issue, one reason is due to the variation in overall width from car to car. These were pretty much hand built bodies by Karmann and I have noted variations of over 12-14mm from one car to another. So I do try to make it clear that some adjustment or fitting may be necessary, and sanding and priming is the least that the surface will require before paint.

Any further questions about the airdam, its origin, mounting, availability, etc will be addressed, just email me at [email protected].

635 air dam

Let me comment...Much of the fitting time, for me, was to accommodate the front bumper. I have to assume the piece was designed originally to be used sans bumper. Myself and my wife (who has an eye for design) reviewed many cars and decided we liked the look of the 635 piece as mounted on a few cars previously and modified to accept the bumper. I think many would agree that the result on Vince's and my own car is "classy" and not so much "boy racer" Not to put down those fortunate enough to own CSL's. As my car is a '74 I did the air dam in conjunction with the euro bumper conversion. As stated in prior posts, my car is not original, what with a d-jet conversion and 3.3 motor. So I feel free to do modifications to suit my own tastes and not those of the purist crowd...again, not to put down those more fortunate than myself...mine is a "budget" car...It is all fun! Many thanks to Dan K., Carl N., and others for advice, parts, etc. for what has been a four year restoration project for me up to this point.
Does anyone have a photo of the aforementioned "Paul" coupe? I would love to see this example.

My 635 airdam is no more difficult to mount and use with the bumper than is the CSL airdam. In either case some allowance must be made along the sides where the bumper wraps around to allow the airdam to fit between the body and bumper. Basically two ways to do that, grind a bit off the bumper or loosen the joint between the bumper center section and ends to widen it. Neither method seemed to me terribly difficult. BTW, your car looks very nice, Pamp. Glad the airdam worked out to your satisfaction.