Thought I would show these because they are rarely seen, Fit on the front suspension point and attach to lower lip of FACTORY LE spoiler.

FS Mark? I can use a set for my CS

Not for sale, contacted Peter at Restoration Design and he said he would be interested in scanning them. They are a must in my mind only any LE style spoiler in my opinion even if you modify the aftermarket version.

I have an original LE spoiler

A good American would ensure the rest of us can get a copy… just saying.

What is the purpose of the braces ?

Mark
Please put a ruler next to those and retake the pictures.
That's all I need to re-create those.

Mine will not be NOS.
They will not be steel either.
I'll use those on the spoiler I purchased from you.

You can sell a man a single set of uber-rare spoiler supports, or you can show all the men how to make them.
The choice is yours...

Jim, the purpose is structural integrity. The fiberglass/plastic spoiler will live twice as long with those installed. They reduce flex and cracking.

Rick

To brace the lower portion of the LE front spoiler, as shown in the image in the first post.

I will do the measurements tomorrow and post them up in a separate thread

Here are my measurements from a few years ago Mark, See how yours compare.

mate - you haven't lived until you peg out a 1.8 flat stick on a desert western australian road and feel that nose start to lift at around about 95mph.
you need about 20 minutes of your life to do it and a no cop zone that lasts that long.
western australia was once a paradise for that kind of behaviour down here in the prison isle.

wise move i see in relation to your project "improving on the original" given by your enthusiastic interest in the support brackets and the implication.

@914Sixer - fantastic find and even more fantastic that you are sharing the info with the special edition men.

(i don't think i will ever get mine pegged out again past 90 mph - the dicktator down here is on a revenue drive - i picked up a ticket a few months back for doing 51k in a 50km/hr zone. might be a bit hard convincing the cops i shouldn't be thrown in jail if i get done at 170km/hr).

How do they attach to the spoiler so the FG does rip ? Rubber grommets ?

I'm going to make mine out of aluminum to provide a bit more "flex" and I'm planning on rubber grommets with a shanked nylock fastener on the spoiler end.

I'll also try to get 1 or two more brackets between the original two.

They help big time, but I believe the span between the originals is too far for triple digit driving.


It's telling that the original picture shows cracks in the spoiler directly adjacent to the bracket mount. The steel brackets provide an excessively rigid mounting and any impact on the spoiler will probably crack it.
Having no supports is worse IMO. Just driving at high speed will hurt one without some form of support.

Jeff B's line drawing is enough for me. He has all of the critical measurements noted.
I'm betting he is dead nut on...
Thanks Jeff!



Wonkipop, it's still very common to see ALL of the traffic (between major cities) running 90+ mph here in Texas.
My youngest son got a ticket in a Honda Odyssey at 100 in a 75. just a simple ticket but because it was more than 24mph over he couldn't take driver's ed.
Cost him $250 to get "deferred adjudication".
No tickets for 6 months and it disappeared.
No effect on his insurance.

No, specific M5 or 6 carriage bolts, washers & typical lock washer nut.
The OG spoiler has small square opening formed into the lower edge in two places centered on the A-arm cover mounts
A feature you will not find on any copy ~

Complete original hardware.
Note color of plating on brackets and width of opening on tin clips.
The clips slip over thick edge or spoiler easily.
These brackets are bent 'square' at the small hole end, Marks are bent at an angle

I have seen 3 versions of the bracket. One version was in primer, one yellow cad and silver cad. The variation occurred as to when they were made.

Thanks for the detailed picture.

Where do the 10mm headed cad plated bolts with the large flat washers and the rubber washers fit?

These are in the center of the pictures.

I have been driving with my original spoiler, with two brackets, at highways speeds for many years. No cracks, no issues. I don't see triple digit speeds though.

While the original spoilers are somewhat thin they are strong, so the cracks you see must be from hitting curbs or something similar.

M6 x 12mm carriage bolts...I am looking for these too but have not found anything correct yet.

Those two are tightened from inside the front trunk through the latch panel.
The rubber discs and large flat washers are to keep the interior of the trunk dry.
Actually an 8mm tool.
The two smaller ones are tightened from inside the front fenderwells through the latch panel as well. Same screw as above, just shorter.
All four pull the spoiler against the body with the tin clips slipped onto the edge of the fiberglass.

My father, who was a bad assed pilot and an industrial designer who loves fiberglass made many, many, fiberglass / ABS modifications for cars.

He built the very first "Porsche Panels" for the 914. These are the vacuum formed plastic rocker panels that are flared on the ends and have the raised letters. Auto Atlanta is the source of these today. Originally Green Oaks Porsche Audi sold the molds and the rights to Volkswagen of North America.

I have been involved with most of his projects and have seen MOST of the ways FRP products can fail.

I am NOT a fan of fiberglass shit but have a pretty good idea on how to make stuff last as long as it is possible.

If I was making a spoiler today I'd want a different plastic than glass. Urethane is much better regarding cracks but it shrinks/warps with age.
The FRP material that the Fieros/early Saturn body pieces were made out of is the best material for car body parts IMO. I have a buddy who is the president of the North Texas Fiero club and I see Fieros quite often. At 40 years the Fiero plastic is problematic as well, but it lasts 3 times longer than straight up fiberglass

Fiberglass is easy to use/mold and manufacture, but it is very prone to NVH damage/cracks.
Worked into sheet metal with bondo it will NEVER last. It always cracks/delaminates.
We have a 916 clone that is all fiberglass and at least the fender flairs will go steel.
A bolt on/dzus fastener attachment is best, but the mounting points need a little bit of "give" or you will quickly see cracks form around them.

Making an LE spoiler out of glass I'd want a composite honeycomb spine through it and I'd want the attachment points all slightly "floating" so that it was both rigid and had a tiny bit of wiggle in them. On a forward-facing spoiler I'd want a mounting point every 12".
Another way that works kick ass is to have a "guide bar" that is rigid and rubber coated (heater hose works great) and not quite touching the spoiler. This puppy would be 1/8" away from the back side of the glass so that the only time it comes into play is above 75 mph. It would let the spoiler bend just a little tiny bit before it went solid.

Properly braced this set up would allow you to hit a raccoon at 50mph and not lose the spoiler.

Mount fiberglass solidly on a car that can bend (they all do a tiny little bit) and sooner or later it will crack/fail close to the mounting point.

The first picture in this thread shows this.

I bought a nice fresh LE reproduction from Mark and even with my anal/OCD tendencies I DO NOT believe it will stray crack free for a decade.

The original LE spoiler is not fiberglass. It’s made from molding dough compound and a two part mold if you are familiar with that process.

All repro spoilers are laid up fiberglass and none come close to the details of what the originals are about.

Smooth on the inside and often the mold is pressurized during forming.
Very similar to the Fiero/Saturn stuff then. It has glass in it but it doesn't look like it does on the back side.
Much, much better in my book. It's the expensive way of doing fiberglass.
If I had a real LE that was nice, I'd want all the original mounting stuff and I'd be far more careful with the car.
I'd also bug the crap out of Mark for those original brackets.

My 75 1.8L is nice enough that I'm going to be very careful in the mods I do to the car.
It's nothing special and it's still nice enough that I will refrain from making new holes in the body and any cutting of the original harness. All of the mods have to be true "bolt in only" and easily swapped back to original. I am keeping every single original piece I remove from the car. Zip ties (the bane of originality) will be used for the additional wiring I will require, and I will make a legend showing the location of all of them for later removal if a future owner wants to return to stock. The 75 will get the LE spoiler I have with aluminum braces that you guys have mapped out for me.

i'm packing up and moving to texas.
with my rhd car just to give @clayperrine a good laugh.

i'll be in houston. loved the joint (but that was 30+ years ago!).
dreamin. my female accomplice wants to live in marfa.
i'm sure we can manage even if its a fantasy.
i'm over north antarctica. its gone to the dogs.

Sometimes I find my lack of "mechanical common sense" appalling. When recommissioning my 914, I wondered why Porsche would install the spoiler so that you needed to almost remove the bumper to get it off.
As my spoiler was long gone I had no template and assumed they fastened from the outside in.

In retrospect inside out makes more sense as you can see in the far lower left, and far lower right, there are slotted cutouts in the "latch panel" to allow some variance to align with the captured speed nut locked onto the spoiler.

I used thin bits of rubber on each side, of each spoiler mounting point to reduced vibration fracture possibilities.

While my spoiler was unfortunately long gone, who ever put the cow catcher on as a replacement was a little to lazy to fully remove the original supports.
Like Jeff's example mine had slanted creases on the bottom which I suspect ever so slightly allowed for better alignment to the spoiler when properly installed L/R.

My LE's spoiler wasn't original but I think the hardware was. Now I need to go find the box that I stored them in and check.

UPDATE: Here are mine. They look original but who knows. I will clean them up and get them looking that way thanks to this post.

Click to view attachment

Ok, this is definitely original hardware. Once I got the rust and old paint cleaned off, you could see the crease lines (arrows). I went ahead and bent the pieces back to something close to original. I'll finish prep on them later. I know they'd zinc plate but I think painting them might be the better option.

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

where did you get them Mark?

George, I got them from you. They were listed on Ebay. One right side left still I think.

OMG I found some of that hardware in a bag that came with one of my LE's I still have it and now know where it goes! Almost Where does that large fender washer type of bolt go exactly. Thanks Roy

Never mind Roy I looked at your other comment, I think I figured it out. thanks for the post!!

TonyA, it's Rory

That's what I said in my head but spelled it differently.

Not to hijack this thread too much but I had a question. I'm under no illusion here. I realize that my LE Spoiler is NOT original. While it's in pretty bad shape, I did notice it had a serial number on it: 7PW 201 914 V3. Does this mean anything to anybody? I was going to trash it but if it's worth saving I might consider repairing. I'm sure I can get this looking new again but it'll be a lot of labor. To me this is junk, am I correct?

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

That’s the vintage VPC aftermarket LE-style spoiler. A nice example is prolly worth a Little more than todays reprise but not much more. I have details on my Classics site .

Thanks for the info, Jeff! Is the "classic site" the LE registry? Or, something else? I may go ahead and repair it.

My Classics page link is in my signature block.

https://bowlsby.net/914/Classic/

Accessories page, about half way down.