My Easy 996 C4S Front Mesh Guards and Daytime Running Lights Project

A recent weekend project of mine. My 2003 996 C4S is like the wide body turbos which have the large twin front intakes that feed air to the radiators............ these large wide open exposed ribs also feed the radiators lots of leaves and other road crap too. I wanted to add white LED daytime running lights. So a DIY here we come: Go to Lowes and buy this $5 powdercoated zinc nice heavy metal gutter guard. Used frugally one sheet will cover both vents both above and below the Running Lights. On the way home Buy Beer. Shop Spectra Armour Lock Metal Gutter Screen at Lowes.com Pull the bumper skin. Pretty easy to do. Buy more beer and much mentally over-engineering WTF am I going to do now pondering. Cut a cardboard template for the intake from the back side. Take your time, trim to fit the whole thing, (you'll cut in half later for the 8 LED strip lights.) and want excess material so you can roll back the mesh edges. Buy these super bright white LED's, has 8 per side. YUP only $5 for the pair. geez the project is up to $10 now. 2 X Car 8 LED Driving Daytime Running Head Lamp Day Light White - US$4.29 Get double sided sticky-tape Velco to mount light bar on top/bottom. At $175 for each side of a new OEM Black factory guards, I'm not going to drill any friggin' holes in the Genuine Plastic that's for sure. Make sure to Velcro mount the light bar recessed pretty far back, but just slightly protruding. Looks very Classy and not Ricer in any way. With the Velcro you can always adjust angle/depth. Transfer cardboard pattern to Mesh, I used painters tape, then cut on my bandsaw, but even small wire nippers or tin shears would work fine. I used Wire Dikes for fine trimming, but Band Saw = Power Tool = Good. Use super thin 3" black zip ties to affix black screen through and around vent ribs. Radius back the edges of tin with pliers, or roll the mesh on a table top thinking like a English Wheel. Hey Where did all the beer go?, after 5-6 hours into this project? Use some 20 AWG Speaker-wire to cleanly to wire them both together, I routed cleanly through the middle grill, then on the drivers side a single speaker wire will snake up tying into my Side Marker lights for power. I didn't want them Key On, I wanted them on the running light dashboard light switch. This DIY turned out GREAT for super cheap, heck the beer consumed cost more than the products used. I've got a fair amount of hours in this project, hope it inspires someone else. While the bumper skin was off, I installed a new aftermarket front spoiler air dam lip as mine was pretty thrashed on the bottom. Where the OEM factory skirt went straight down, this one has just an ever so slight Aero lip on the sides: Porsche 996 911 Turbo Carrera 4 4S Front Bumper Lip Spoiler Urethane Bodykit | eBay Protection of Radiators + Daytime Running Lights = easy DIY. plus it looks awesome! These next photos really sum up the installation. VERY CLEAN INSTALL and worthy of high speed track days. I'll post some night photos of it later once I get the bumper mounted back up, gotta buy more Beer first. But I really think this DIY project turned out as a 12 on a scale of 1-10. Hope this shows the way for someone else.........Go for it, easy project. SmileWavy

Well done! Thanks for sharing. Love to see it in action on you car.

great idea - that front bumper looks familiar - thx for posting!

Great job! You must not have kids or the kids moved out! My problem is my 6 and 3 year old needing all my time. Nice job!

Identical stuff used as I used which in total cost $15 tops. Gutter guards and DRLs. My gutter guard stainless. I got fleck from the posters with 'more money than common sense' types. BTW did you come up with the idea yourself or see my posting from last year? Which ever way, a great job and well done to you. You can see mine from the following link. I added the DRLs later. Mine come on with the ignition. https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...ir-scoops.html

Yeah Hurdi has been there done that awhile ago. Nothing new... Just don't post another DIY on replacing engine mounts. I hope you cleaned your radiators while the bumper was off. That would've also been a good opportunity to reroute the emergency frunk cable release too.

Thanks all. I emulated and hybrid various other designs, both DIY and retail kit purchase, then I just added my own engineering flair and touch with everything weatherproofed with hot glue, and solder/heat-shrink joints. Bullet connectors up by the Side marker light power source, so I can remove the bumper. Total hours invested was close to 8-10 all said and done but that was beer-thirty time too which is metric. Question: if I was wanting to run power Key on, instead of Lights Switch on via Side Marker Light, what's the best way to route wiring through the Frunk Wall into/under the dash board? Then I could tie into the fuse block, or I believe under the radio left hand side behind the panel, is an factory accessory loom open connector to tap into. Thx for the reroute the Emergency cable idea. could be a life saver someday if I need a jump. What started this whole project is having to replace the front right radiator which had started to weep/leak a bit. Don't know if I took a rock into a fin, or just a tired 13 year old factory part or what. But it was weeping. I will be weeping too once I see the replacement part cost at $450-600.

Thanks for your contribution and it seems like you definitely thought it out well. If you remove the cowl by the windshield, you'll see there are a few places with grommets on the firewall you can use to route any wiring. IIRC, there should be one on the driver's side next to the battery. That might be the best bet. Once again, I'm going by my cloudy memory as it's been awhile.

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While I always love a proper DIY solution, I'm not sure that your engineering prowess has been improved by your use of hot glue...in many houses, hot glue guns fall within the wife's domain and are used for applying sequins and other sparkly things. The visible wire ties and the gap in the material in the corner of the DRL keep this from being GREAT - but I imagine neither are very visible from a few feet away. There is an unused grommet behind the battery - poke a hole in it and you'll be able to pass wire through the firewall. Bonus: The grommet will prevent the wire from chafing, and a dollop of RTV will seal things up nicely.

Porsche made the openings larger to increase flow through the radiators. The mesh and LED light does nothing but decreases this extra flow. Seems like a step in the wrong direction to me. As for the aesthetics, the mesh is a livable modification but that light screams ricer mod to me. I see them on all kinds off "boy racer" cars in town. Sometimes less is more.

While I don't mind the LEDs, they're now played out. LED DRL's are on Jeeps, Kias, and just about everything else - so it's no longer a cool differentiator...

Tough crowd... Thanks for taking the time to post!

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Here's an option I'm using, but you might want to check against the amperage draw of those lights. I wired mine into the windshield washer heater circuits (which are powered up with the ignition switch on). These are right behind the battery.

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This is a great idea for DRL tap. If you get a relay, you don't have to worry about amperage draw issues. If you get a DPST relay, you could even tie it into your turn signal to turn off the drl side when the turn signal goes on, just like all the newer OEM setups on some cars.

Does a mesh like that actually catch anything or just chops up the debris (leaves and such) and still send it into the radiators?

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Those are some valid points. One can argue it may catch leaves but in the process, cover up airflow to the radiators, thus making the engine run hot. As for the Home Depot gutter guard, it does have curves to it that can disrupt airflow from flowing in a laminar fashion however this is probably negligible on a street vehicle. Porsche does make OEM radiator guards for their GT3 cars that does use straight mesh but at $1300, I don't see too many people buying the OEM versions.

By your right foot there is a removable snap off panel. You will see in there a hanging four pin plug. Half of that plug comes live with the ignition and the other half is always live. I took a link from there straight to my DRLS. via a hole in the firewall in front of the plug. The DRLs come on with the engine. So too does my radar detector.