REVIEW - Ballade Sports Porsche GT3 RS Fender Vents
11-19-2019, 07:22 PM
#1
Thread Starter
REVIEW - Ballade Sports Porsche GT3 RS Fender Vents
Ballade Sports sent me a set of their new "Ballade Sports 00-09 Honda S2000 GT3 Fender Louver Vents" to review. This will be the pre-installation review going over the parts I received, what I like, what I don't, and details about them to hopefully help you decide if you want to purchase them.
Full disclosure - these were sent to me completely free of charge (excl. shipping) as a sponsored item.
Product: Ballade Sports 00-09 Honda S2000 GT3 Fender Louver Vents
MSRP: $199.99 + $19.99 shipping
Official product description: "Ballade Sports GT3 Fender Louvers for S2000. Heavily inspired by the exotic Porsche GT3 fender louvers so we adapted the style for the Honda S2000. Fits all OEM fenders including Downforce and VaikhariUSA 30mm fenders. Comes complete with a pair of left and right louvers/vents, along with a cut out stencil.
Made of ABS plastic. Mounting requires cutting of fenders, and secured with 3/32 size rivets. They are considered an unfinished product, and require professional installation, prep and paint."
These are my honest, unbiased opinions. I believe that Ballade has balls of steel for sending me of all people a product to review as I am an extremely critical person.
-SHIPPING:
$19.99 flat rate shipping from CA to SC. On 11/11/19, I paid for shipping and I received the package on 11/18/19.
When I opened the box, I was a little surprised to find that there was no bubble wrap or packing materials. In the box, there were the two fender vents and two templates (more on that later).
This is exactly as it came:
There is no damage to the parts so I guess it's not a big deal, but worth mentioning.
-FINISH:
Ballade's website says "They are considered an unfinished product, and require professional installation, prep and paint." and this needs to be taken seriously. If you are purchasing these expecting to paint and slap on your car, you will not be happy with them at all.
There is a fair amount of flashing on the vents. I haven't done a ton of body work in my life, but I would estimate each vent needs about an hour's worth of attention minimum before paint. See photos below:
Here I am showing that these are raw plastic with scratches and all kinds of marks all over them. You will need to paint these like Ballade says!
There is flashing (bits of plastic left behind from the mold) in almost all of the vented areas. These will need to be removed with a small file during prep. You can also see that some of the edges are a little rough and will need to be sanded/potential body filler to get perfect.
The edges of the vents are clean for the most part and will need minimal sanding/reshaping, but be prepared to work on this as well.
Just showing some more areas with extra plastic that will need to be worked on.
I would say that the finish of the parts that you get out of the box is not great if it were being sold as a finished "ready to paint" product, however they are being sold with the understanding that these will need some work to get up to par. As long as you understand this, I think you will be happy with them. There are no major issues with them like air bubbles or cracks or misshapen areas.
-Pre-Installation:
I gotta say, this is not a strong point of these vents. Those smaller parts seen above in the first photo are the template used to cut your fenders. It's awesome that they supplied a strong and sturdy template to cut from instead of paper, but that is literally all you get. There are no instructions in the box and I had to look at the website to conclude that these are the templates. This is NOT a DIY-friendly modification by any means, but the body man doing the cutting is going to be confused as hell when you bring him these vents and the templates only. A measurement showing where to place the templates or something like that included in the box or posted on Ballade's website would be so much more ideal. You also only get the template for the larger upper opening. You basically have to figure out the long skinny section on your own.
Ballade recommends using rivets to secure the vents as well. I don't think that's the route I will take when I install these (they will be going on a friend's LBP). Instead, I am going to use either an epoxy or double sided tape. There are no pre-drilled holes in the vents so this is totally feasible; this also means that you will need to measure and carefully mark then drill out rivet holes if that's how you are attaching them.
-Personal Opinion and Conclusions:
I really like that these exist. On a stock body car, they definitely look out of place, but with more aero in other places, I really like these. If you were to install these vents and an ASM -08 rear bumper, that would be such an attractive S2000 with some awesome Porsche styling. I think for what they are being sold as, these vents are pretty decent. My biggest critique would be that there are no instructions for installation. Yes, any body shop worth their weight will be able to do a fine job installing, but with some measurements showing exactly where they're intended to go, that makes their life so much easier. Easier = less time = less billable hours = less expensive to have these completed and on your car. An educated guess to purchase, prep, paint, and install these on your S2000 would be around $500. I kind of wish these were sold already prepped and painted (for double or more the current MSRP even) so they can go straight on. As a business decision, I understand why Ballade sells them in a raw unfinished form. Once I coordinate with my friend, I will be installing these on his car and updating this listing in the first comment. I will make sure to report back how well they clean up as well as my total time investment in this project.
Full disclosure - these were sent to me completely free of charge (excl. shipping) as a sponsored item.
Product: Ballade Sports 00-09 Honda S2000 GT3 Fender Louver Vents
MSRP: $199.99 + $19.99 shipping
Official product description: "Ballade Sports GT3 Fender Louvers for S2000. Heavily inspired by the exotic Porsche GT3 fender louvers so we adapted the style for the Honda S2000. Fits all OEM fenders including Downforce and VaikhariUSA 30mm fenders. Comes complete with a pair of left and right louvers/vents, along with a cut out stencil.
Made of ABS plastic. Mounting requires cutting of fenders, and secured with 3/32 size rivets. They are considered an unfinished product, and require professional installation, prep and paint."
These are my honest, unbiased opinions. I believe that Ballade has balls of steel for sending me of all people a product to review as I am an extremely critical person.
-SHIPPING:
$19.99 flat rate shipping from CA to SC. On 11/11/19, I paid for shipping and I received the package on 11/18/19.
When I opened the box, I was a little surprised to find that there was no bubble wrap or packing materials. In the box, there were the two fender vents and two templates (more on that later).
This is exactly as it came:
There is no damage to the parts so I guess it's not a big deal, but worth mentioning.
-FINISH:
Ballade's website says "They are considered an unfinished product, and require professional installation, prep and paint." and this needs to be taken seriously. If you are purchasing these expecting to paint and slap on your car, you will not be happy with them at all.
There is a fair amount of flashing on the vents. I haven't done a ton of body work in my life, but I would estimate each vent needs about an hour's worth of attention minimum before paint. See photos below:
Here I am showing that these are raw plastic with scratches and all kinds of marks all over them. You will need to paint these like Ballade says!
There is flashing (bits of plastic left behind from the mold) in almost all of the vented areas. These will need to be removed with a small file during prep. You can also see that some of the edges are a little rough and will need to be sanded/potential body filler to get perfect.
The edges of the vents are clean for the most part and will need minimal sanding/reshaping, but be prepared to work on this as well.
Just showing some more areas with extra plastic that will need to be worked on.
I would say that the finish of the parts that you get out of the box is not great if it were being sold as a finished "ready to paint" product, however they are being sold with the understanding that these will need some work to get up to par. As long as you understand this, I think you will be happy with them. There are no major issues with them like air bubbles or cracks or misshapen areas.
-Pre-Installation:
I gotta say, this is not a strong point of these vents. Those smaller parts seen above in the first photo are the template used to cut your fenders. It's awesome that they supplied a strong and sturdy template to cut from instead of paper, but that is literally all you get. There are no instructions in the box and I had to look at the website to conclude that these are the templates. This is NOT a DIY-friendly modification by any means, but the body man doing the cutting is going to be confused as hell when you bring him these vents and the templates only. A measurement showing where to place the templates or something like that included in the box or posted on Ballade's website would be so much more ideal. You also only get the template for the larger upper opening. You basically have to figure out the long skinny section on your own.
Ballade recommends using rivets to secure the vents as well. I don't think that's the route I will take when I install these (they will be going on a friend's LBP). Instead, I am going to use either an epoxy or double sided tape. There are no pre-drilled holes in the vents so this is totally feasible; this also means that you will need to measure and carefully mark then drill out rivet holes if that's how you are attaching them.
-Personal Opinion and Conclusions:
I really like that these exist. On a stock body car, they definitely look out of place, but with more aero in other places, I really like these. If you were to install these vents and an ASM -08 rear bumper, that would be such an attractive S2000 with some awesome Porsche styling. I think for what they are being sold as, these vents are pretty decent. My biggest critique would be that there are no instructions for installation. Yes, any body shop worth their weight will be able to do a fine job installing, but with some measurements showing exactly where they're intended to go, that makes their life so much easier. Easier = less time = less billable hours = less expensive to have these completed and on your car. An educated guess to purchase, prep, paint, and install these on your S2000 would be around $500. I kind of wish these were sold already prepped and painted (for double or more the current MSRP even) so they can go straight on. As a business decision, I understand why Ballade sells them in a raw unfinished form. Once I coordinate with my friend, I will be installing these on his car and updating this listing in the first comment. I will make sure to report back how well they clean up as well as my total time investment in this project.
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WilloW (10-06-2020)
11-19-2019, 07:22 PM
#2
Thread Starter
-Installation Review:
Sorry for the long wait, but today the vents were installed.DISCLAIMER: I made zero decisions involved in this installation. You will understand what I mean by decisions as you read further.
To start, I reached out to the local Charlotte S2000 owners to see if anybody would be interested in installing these vents for free since my original friend (the Laguna Blue AP2 mentioned in the first post) couldn't find spare fenders and didn't want to cut his original fenders. Another friend of mine with a Berlina Black AP1 said that he wanted to install them.
His fenders had cracks from layers of body filler and he wanted to "cover" the damage with these vents.
Since there were no instructions, we looked at pretty much the only reference photo available online from Ballade (product photo here) but that car has Voltex front fender flares so we were confused on where exactly to place these vents. The bottom portions of the vents are not flat so laying them onto the car to find the correct angle where the flare will fit flush does not work. Basically you just have to lay the plastic template down and make a choice. This is where he decided to put the vents.
We traced the bottom of the vents and the template in a spot where he was happy then measured about 1000 different angles and matched it to the driver's side. This is a HUGE area that Ballade could easily fix by providing a paper template in the box. This template could have a cutout or even a line showing common body lines on the car such as where the headlight and fender meet so there is no question where the vent should be placed and exactly where to cut. Sending this instead of the plastic templates would honestly have been cheaper for Ballade and saved us probably 90 minutes of measuring, marking, remeasuring, and hoping it will all work out after he (not me!) cuts. At every point during this project, I made sure he was 110% satisfied with each step that I was involved in before moving forward and this is where my involvement level fell to basically zero.
After all of the measuring was done and he has happy, I sat back and let him go to town with the body saw. I wanted absolutely no part in this since if I messed up his fenders, I'd either feel horrible or end up buy him a new set of fenders. The process was pretty straight forward. Drill a pilot hole big enough for the saw blade then start chopping away. Once the rough cuts were made, test fit, dremel material off, test fit again, dremel more material, repeat for a few hours.
First cut:
Final cut:
Once the vent fit into the hole, to no surprise to us or anybody reading this, the vent wasn't in the correct place in the fender so its corners were popping up and didn't sit flush at all. We grabbed a heat gun and massaged it into place so it would fit well.
Final result:
Repeat on the driver's side. Final placement:
And finished product:
A note about the above photos: he decided to adhere the vents with silicone, not rivets. The vents protrude very far into the wheel well which caused clearance issues since his car is pretty low and the vents will need to be shaved. The zip ties were put in place just in case his drive home knocked the vents out of place. That way they would at least stay on the car and not be gone forever.
-Final thoughts:
11-20-2019, 01:39 AM
#3
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Following. Really interested in seeing how this turns out cause I would love a setup like this. Hopefully someone can come up with a better product than Ballade Sports with better instructions and fitment.
Last edited by Dann664; 11-20-2019 at 01:46 AM.
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afzan (04-29-2020)
11-20-2019, 06:37 AM
#5
Kudos to Ballade for staying in the game, especially after repeated bashing from this forum when they fall short of reasonable expectations (which seems to be too often).
This seems like a decent product for what it is. Decent proce too considering its a low volume part and likely took a decent amount of r&d to produce.
But I gotta say, they really need to step up their game. For all the negative reports they get here, if they made a real effort to improve how they do business, it could really change their reputation here. Everyone loves a come back story.
I mean, for all the effort it took to create these. Adapt the basic Porsche design to something that fit the S fender lines. Make sure it worked for popular aftermarket fenders. Make a nice template. Make sure the adapted design translated to something functional and aesthetically pleasing. Find someone to manufacture them. After all that, they can't offer he simplest of instructions on where to place the template? X inches back from corner where headlight meets fender, etc.
And yeah, its nice the template isn't paper, but a template that doesn't include the tail section, what good is that? A complete paper template would seem to be better than a really nice incomplete one.
Suggestion to Ballade. Just add a complete, paper template. Make paper template so its an underlay to plastic template. So paper so front part lines up perfectly with plastic template.
It appears the plastic template is superior to paper in thatits not flat. It presumably follows fender contour, so it lays down correctly. It mightbe too easy for a paper only template to sit crooked, resulting in vent not fitting and fender destroyed.
But a composite template, one piece plastic, one piece paper, would solve both issues. The plastic lays on fender matching contour,so it can't be crooked. The paper aligns under plastic, so its easy to align in the same orientation. The paper would only be used to trace cutout for tail section. It keeps template production cheap and easy.
The paper template needn't be cut out. It can simply be a printout of the shape. Installer can cut along the lines to make template usable. That will save costs. All you need to do is make a printout of template footprint. The only real cost is the size of the paper.
Including such a paper template meant to be usedalong with the plastic template, and some basic instructions on template placement, would go a long way to making this kit less intimidating, and facilitate more sales at a very low increase in costs.
It would also go a long way to improving your reputation as a professional supplier of quality, well thought out components.
This seems like a decent product for what it is. Decent proce too considering its a low volume part and likely took a decent amount of r&d to produce.
But I gotta say, they really need to step up their game. For all the negative reports they get here, if they made a real effort to improve how they do business, it could really change their reputation here. Everyone loves a come back story.
I mean, for all the effort it took to create these. Adapt the basic Porsche design to something that fit the S fender lines. Make sure it worked for popular aftermarket fenders. Make a nice template. Make sure the adapted design translated to something functional and aesthetically pleasing. Find someone to manufacture them. After all that, they can't offer he simplest of instructions on where to place the template? X inches back from corner where headlight meets fender, etc.
And yeah, its nice the template isn't paper, but a template that doesn't include the tail section, what good is that? A complete paper template would seem to be better than a really nice incomplete one.
Suggestion to Ballade. Just add a complete, paper template. Make paper template so its an underlay to plastic template. So paper so front part lines up perfectly with plastic template.
It appears the plastic template is superior to paper in thatits not flat. It presumably follows fender contour, so it lays down correctly. It mightbe too easy for a paper only template to sit crooked, resulting in vent not fitting and fender destroyed.
But a composite template, one piece plastic, one piece paper, would solve both issues. The plastic lays on fender matching contour,so it can't be crooked. The paper aligns under plastic, so its easy to align in the same orientation. The paper would only be used to trace cutout for tail section. It keeps template production cheap and easy.
The paper template needn't be cut out. It can simply be a printout of the shape. Installer can cut along the lines to make template usable. That will save costs. All you need to do is make a printout of template footprint. The only real cost is the size of the paper.
Including such a paper template meant to be usedalong with the plastic template, and some basic instructions on template placement, would go a long way to making this kit less intimidating, and facilitate more sales at a very low increase in costs.
It would also go a long way to improving your reputation as a professional supplier of quality, well thought out components.
04-29-2020, 07:32 PM
#7
Looks like they were placed a little closer to the front compared to the Ballade installed photo; the tail of the vents is closer to the side marker in their photo. I'm guessing the cracked filler played a bigger part in that decision though. Big kudos to your friend for trying this, but man that looks terrible imo.
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04-29-2020, 08:54 PM
#8
Looks like they were placed a little closer to the front compared to the Ballade installed photo; the tail of the vents is closer to the side marker in their photo. I'm guessing the cracked filler played a bigger part in that decision though. Big kudos to your friend for trying this, but man that looks terrible imo.
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1993 (04-29-2020)
04-30-2020, 02:44 AM
#9
The installation looks good but Ballade is still Wish.com Science of Speed.
I still kick myself about getting their TCT for my second S2k years ago and being told it was installed wrong, it's the car's fault etc when it needed replacement.
I still kick myself about getting their TCT for my second S2k years ago and being told it was installed wrong, it's the car's fault etc when it needed replacement.
04-30-2020, 10:03 AM
#10
Nopeeeee.
Owner is way too much of an egotistical prick for there to be any kind of comeback unfortunately.
Kudos to Ballade for staying in the game, especially after repeated bashing from this forum when they fall short of reasonable expectations (which seems to be too often).
This seems like a decent product for what it is. Decent proce too considering its a low volume part and likely took a decent amount of r&d to produce.
But I gotta say, they really need to step up their game. For all the negative reports they get here, if they made a real effort to improve how they do business, it could really change their reputation here. Everyone loves a come back story.
I mean, for all the effort it took to create these. Adapt the basic Porsche design to something that fit the S fender lines. Make sure it worked for popular aftermarket fenders. Make a nice template. Make sure the adapted design translated to something functional and aesthetically pleasing. Find someone to manufacture them. After all that, they can't offer he simplest of instructions on where to place the template? X inches back from corner where headlight meets fender, etc.
And yeah, its nice the template isn't paper, but a template that doesn't include the tail section, what good is that? A complete paper template would seem to be better than a really nice incomplete one.
Suggestion to Ballade. Just add a complete, paper template. Make paper template so its an underlay to plastic template. So paper so front part lines up perfectly with plastic template.
It appears the plastic template is superior to paper in thatits not flat. It presumably follows fender contour, so it lays down correctly. It mightbe too easy for a paper only template to sit crooked, resulting in vent not fitting and fender destroyed.
But a composite template, one piece plastic, one piece paper, would solve both issues. The plastic lays on fender matching contour,so it can't be crooked. The paper aligns under plastic, so its easy to align in the same orientation. The paper would only be used to trace cutout for tail section. It keeps template production cheap and easy.
The paper template needn't be cut out. It can simply be a printout of the shape. Installer can cut along the lines to make template usable. That will save costs. All you need to do is make a printout of template footprint. The only real cost is the size of the paper.
Including such a paper template meant to be usedalong with the plastic template, and some basic instructions on template placement, would go a long way to making this kit less intimidating, and facilitate more sales at a very low increase in costs.
It would also go a long way to improving your reputation as a professional supplier of quality, well thought out components.
This seems like a decent product for what it is. Decent proce too considering its a low volume part and likely took a decent amount of r&d to produce.
But I gotta say, they really need to step up their game. For all the negative reports they get here, if they made a real effort to improve how they do business, it could really change their reputation here. Everyone loves a come back story.
I mean, for all the effort it took to create these. Adapt the basic Porsche design to something that fit the S fender lines. Make sure it worked for popular aftermarket fenders. Make a nice template. Make sure the adapted design translated to something functional and aesthetically pleasing. Find someone to manufacture them. After all that, they can't offer he simplest of instructions on where to place the template? X inches back from corner where headlight meets fender, etc.
And yeah, its nice the template isn't paper, but a template that doesn't include the tail section, what good is that? A complete paper template would seem to be better than a really nice incomplete one.
Suggestion to Ballade. Just add a complete, paper template. Make paper template so its an underlay to plastic template. So paper so front part lines up perfectly with plastic template.
It appears the plastic template is superior to paper in thatits not flat. It presumably follows fender contour, so it lays down correctly. It mightbe too easy for a paper only template to sit crooked, resulting in vent not fitting and fender destroyed.
But a composite template, one piece plastic, one piece paper, would solve both issues. The plastic lays on fender matching contour,so it can't be crooked. The paper aligns under plastic, so its easy to align in the same orientation. The paper would only be used to trace cutout for tail section. It keeps template production cheap and easy.
The paper template needn't be cut out. It can simply be a printout of the shape. Installer can cut along the lines to make template usable. That will save costs. All you need to do is make a printout of template footprint. The only real cost is the size of the paper.
Including such a paper template meant to be usedalong with the plastic template, and some basic instructions on template placement, would go a long way to making this kit less intimidating, and facilitate more sales at a very low increase in costs.
It would also go a long way to improving your reputation as a professional supplier of quality, well thought out components.