A brief update. Today I picked up the benchmark face plate. Kudos to those of you with a pristine factory face plate because I haven't witness one in person as of yet.
The revision that had me worried is very close. I have a few minor tweaks to make, but it could be run in lieu of a factory plate with no discernible difference when installed. The one change that needs to happen is the spacing on the switch holes. They are spaced apart properly but they actually need to move towards the radio about 3mm (you can see this below if you look closely). Interestingly enough this change will further reduce the clearance between the blower switch and the radio, but you guys are on the money with the sideways switch.
Ignoring the single DIN hack job, it is evident that the fan switch on the e9 must be mounted sideways.
Note the clearance issues below:
I mentioned earlier that the switch couldn't be mounted sideways due to clearance issues. The switch body is larger than the distance between the AC vents. A spacer was mentioned, but my fan switch wouldn't have any exposed threads if you spaced it back far enough to clear the backside of the vents. So this is what I find out - a picture is worth 1000 words.
Other than the post length, the switch body is identical, including the manufacturer's (behr?)part number:
E3 Fan Switch:
64511358034
e9 Fan switch:
64511356020
As you can see, the threads are longer on the e9 switch, allowing you to space it out and rotate sideways. I was using an e3 switch, which is platform specific with no crossover. Both the e3 and e9 switch are NLA, but the e9 switch was used on the e12 and e21. It should be relatively easy for one to source!
Needless to say, I am one minor revision away from a production grade face plate. Lastly, I'm going
to stick with an non textured finish on the e9 face plate. This is another area where the e3 parts sent me
astray. The e9 plate is relatively smooth where the e3 plate has somewhat of a splatter finish. The vinyl print ends up having a a bit of a crosshatch texture. I will likely have the next plate tumbled to see if it helps smooth things out. It's an extra $3 or so to have your parts tumbled...