Pinto Airdams

[MarkL]

Does anyone know of a good air dam for the Pinto/Bobcat body? I used to use one from JC Whitney. It was fiberglass and heavy as hell, but it worked okay, and looked okay, too. It has been disontinued. I saw some photos of Pinto42's car, and it looked like he has a workable airdam. Maybe we'll just have to use the plastic roll material for "oval track applications."

[LOBSTA1]

Mark, If you are running a 79-80 car that square bumper works great for making your own we used t-45 alum. with a short rubber skirt (to the rims) i.e. as low as u can go. This was good for 150 rpms at Riverside (back stright) Now I have a peice of conver belt its about 1/8" thick it is heavy but off roading does seem to hurt it (so far) there was a place in the LA Habra area that was a Pinto body kit maker called Precison pro-formance but they are into panteras and the like. Good Luck Glenn FFR

[Dick Elliott]

Go to your local plastics dealer and get yourself a 4 by 8 sheet of 1/8 thick ABS. I've always got black, but I think you can get it in colors. With a heat gun, you can mold this stuff in to a real nice air dam. It is bullet proof too. The only one I ever hurt came loose and I ran over it with the race car. On my 80 Pinto, I bolted it to the back side of the bumper and rapped it around the lower part of the fenders, and cut it off to match the wheel openings.Cheap too. DICK

Originally posted by MarkL:
Does anyone know of a good air dam for the Pinto/Bobcat body? I used to use one from JC Whitney. It was fiberglass and heavy as hell, but it worked okay, and looked okay, too. It has been disontinued. I saw some photos of Pinto42's car, and it looked like he has a workable airdam. Maybe we'll just have to use the plastic roll material for "oval track applications."

[Dick Elliott]

MARK!
The plastic roll stuff the circle track people use, is like a wet noodle when used at speed. Look at a picture of a circle track car at speed and you will see what I'm talking about. They tend to use it for side skirts. #42s air dam is a factory rice burners air dam, but I don't remember which one. Go to www.fordpinto.com and look at the picture of his car. You can e-mail Barry off of that site.DICK

[tderonne]

I used .060" ABS to make mine. It's velcroed on and works great. I do have a bit of support from the bottom of the bumper, but the bottom 4" or so is free to flex a bit should it have to, for curbs or other off road operation.

Here's a picture:


Also, I've found that real ABS glue works best. I originally used "all purpose" glue and it didn't work as well. (We don't have ABS plumbing in Michigan, I had to get ABS glue at an RV place, they use ABS plumbing.)



[This message has been edited by tderonne (edited July 15, 2003).]