O.K., here are some additional angles on the rear tail light conversion....
That came out really well. One of the only things I'm not too partial too on a 348 are the stock taillights. Your conversion IMO makes a big diffrence.
Nice car. Beautiful wheels. Do you have pics of the lights from a side angle? I wanted to see how much they stick out. Thanks
FWIW - After seeing those pics, I still think that conversion looks best on black. Red just wouldn't look right.... my bad luck Nice job though - HUGE difference!
LAFUN2- I tried to get you some close up side shots of the lights, however the battery in my camera went dead. I will try to get you some shots when I get off of work tomorrow.
Wow, you've got my attention. That looks much better! Does the 355 panels bolt right on to the 348... or... is there some tweaking involved?
Nice cars guys - really make a +ive difference to the way the 348 looks. What's the overall width of a 348? One of the hassles of the 355 is it's quite wide for city centre use. Is the 348 narrower?
The 348 is exactly the same width as 355 most body panels are the same, apart from the bottom sections.
The red one is fitted with a 355 chalenge grill, but I would not recomend this as it was a hell of a lot of work, had I known about the carbon fiber one fitted on the black car I would of bought it , it looks a realy good product.
What exactly needs to be done to retrofit a F355 Challenge grill on the rear of the 348??? For those of you who are wondering about this conversion, the F355 Challenge gril (or even the regular F355 rear panel) IS NOT a directly replacement for the 348...Some modification is needed. I have not done it myself so maybe someone who has can chime in and explain... For reference purposes, the F355 Challenge gril is rounded around the corners (see photos)...So unless the Challenge grill is reworked, it will not fit correcly...The person who installed the F355 Carbon Fiber grill on the Black 348, purchased a modified version on the F355 Challenge grill, specifically for the 348. The carbon fiber 348 rear grill is for looks only....The Challenge grill is a mesh screen and provides extra cooling in the engine compartment. VK
ok, I have not seen a challenge grill on the 348 before. I may be changing my opinion.... Just curious, from the rear, can you see the engine? A couple more pics of that grill would be nice! dave
To fit a challenge grill. You need to reshape the whole thing, the ends need to be shortened by 5mm each side, the height needs to change at each end by 10mm and in the middle 15mm this may vary on individual cars, but this fits mine. You need to cut off all the fixing brackets, and spotweld some new ones on where you can get a fixing into the rear of the car,You will then need to get some more of the material used to make the grill, I got a suspended ceiling tile with the same perforation patten powdercoated black, then you can spend 2 days trying to bend and shape the side infills,(a very shiiit job) then you get another tile made because you f--cked the first one up. You need some black neoprean to stick around the sides of all the components. If you get this far you are then ready to start cutting the rear of the f car to set the round lights in, (this is not for the faint hearted,) I managed to mount the lights using a bendy metle strap bolted to the steel framwork inside. Then you just need to screw the side sections to the car and bolt the challenge grill inplace, then let people on this board tell you that you should of left it standard.(not something ever said by people that have seen the car up close. In imho it changes the car to what it should of looked like. Anybody wishing to try this, good luck and if you need any advice just ask. If you wish the car could be made standard again in about half hour, I hade it wired so both sets of lights are on a plug you just swap them over. davey-jones, yes you can see through the grill it is to sunny in the picture, Andy.
30 minutes is not all that bad I must say. That is what I like about this mod, the fact that it suits you. If you ever get rid of the car or tire of the look, the new owner or you will have little work to do in order to return the stock look. Very cool. Great job guys!