Barry in Wyoming

I've been seeking the best compromise for my "front plate" problem. Wyoming law officers do stop you for a missing front plate even with no other cause for a stop. I think the "official" front plate spot disrupts the lines of the front.

I've considered: (1) using the "official" spot, (2) breaking the law and seeing what happens, and(3) mounting the plate on the inside upper right of the windshield.

I finally settled on the following solution:



What do you think?

I had a local metal fabricator trim the plate to 5 1/4 inches high and put four extra holes in it. Then I used black nylon fasteners (free from my Honda dealer) to attach the plate to Dennis Cunningham's Stone Guard. Then I pretty much followed Dennis's instructions for putting on the stone guard.

Here's two more links to pictures of the front plate. One is a close up of the mounted front plate and the other is a comparison of the untrimmed back plate and the trimmed front plate with a ruler to show scale.

Close up of finished front mount:
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1316...9455&p=35102592

Comparison of untrimmed and trimmed plates:
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1316...9455&p=35102598

I know this placement will adversely affect cooling but I doubt it will make a significance difference for me. Right now, I have no plans for track time in the car. If I do, I'll take the front plate off. If I find the car overheats on the highway, which I doubt, I'll take the plate off and put it in the front windshield temporarily.

The service writer Ken and the sales manager Les at Valley Motor Honda both helped with suggestions for this project. They felt it wouldn't make any difference on engine cooling and certainly not on warranty. Ken suggested the metal fabricator in town Craftco. The shop man was great. He "stamped" off the edges after we ran a test on an old plate to be sure the stamp wouldn't crush the numbers. His charge for cutting and drilling was $11.93 and it came out straight, parallel, and the perfect size to fit inside Dennis's stone guard.

I really like Smokin's stone guard whether or not the stone guard front plate solution works. For those who don't want to look up old posts, Dennis's email is drclgc@gate.net and he was really fast at sending me the stone guard and mounting instructions.

Right now the car is hiding from the beginning snow of the blizzard of '00 scheduled to give us a foot of snow tonight. The car has a tankful of fresh gas, a couple ounces of fuel stabilizer and is under its comfy Honda cover in our unheated garage.


Oh yes. It has 538 miles on it and it has discovered the rev limiter. I didn't remember anyone mentioning that those red bars at the top of the tach can flash! I love the security of Valentine One. Aerial speed patrol doesn't happen in this part of Wyoming. I didn't think a few minutes of high rev, high speed would hurt the car with 500 miles of break-in, cool air, and five weeks of ownership. I love how little traffic our interstate has. The nearest traffic jam is in Chicago a thousand miles away.

Barry
'01 #52

cdelena

Looks nice but I guarantee that it would overheat in the Texas heat (I've tried it in the past). May be ok where you are.

Barry in Wyoming

...

where the current temperature is 3 deg F.

Barry

Acceleratrix

Looks great. But when spring comes you should move to a place where they don't care, I would suggest Texas but that be as bad as mounting the licence in the front. Other wise you are out of luck and will have to mount it in it's proper spot.

Zero-60in5

I think that looks sweet. Wyoming doesn't get that hot in the summer, so it should work out for you IMHO. Great work!

Barry in Wyoming

Thanks for the compliments Chris, Acceleratrix and Zero-60in5.

I figure as long as I keep an eye on the nylon ties and on the temperature gauge, I'll be okay.

A lot of Wyoming plates are pretty mangled and get installed on all sorts of vehicles in weird places, so I thought the inside-the-windshield trick would also work. Our Honda dealer's manager got stopped for "no front plate" when he was driving a demo to work with a dealer plate. Dealer plates are rear only.

There is no routine inspection or routine pollution inspection in Wyoming.

If I really do get any significant loss of cooling, I could keep the license plate where it is and direct some air from the false brake duct intakes to the radiator.

Or I could perforate the plate, perhaps drilling out the cowboy and numbers and leaving the white background.

Or I could just use the official mount and forget it. After all, it is only a car.

Barry
'01 #52
where the temp is +1 F (-17 C)

wileecoyote

Try mount it over the fake airduct with a bracket with mounting holes drill at the upper inner side of the duct. At that way even if you don't like it later nobody can see the holes unless you craw under the bumper. Proper Cooling is always important.

Rick Hesel

That's a much better solution than the stock mount or in the windshield. Hope it works when the weather warms up.

pfb

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Barry WY Silver/Black '01:
[B]...it has discovered the rev limiter.

Barry in Wyoming

I'm usually shifting by sound at around 6000 rpm. That's fine for around town especially with a car that's only 540 miles old.

I don't know about using the flashing red bars as a shift indicator.

Barry snowy Barry