...and man did that thing jack up my paint.

Its been on there for about 3 years, and is aftermarket. Someone tried to steal it a while back and cracked it so I was going to remove it anyway, but decided I'd repair the crack and have my roof painted black at the same time. I removed it this afternoon and was quite surprised at the chaffing... I used heavy duty 3M tape on it so I wouldn't have figured really any considerable movement, but as you can see it jacked the paint up along the front edge as well as heavily on the sides.

Anyway... just a heads up to people that are neurotic about their paint. OEM might be better, but to be fair there didn't really seem like any excessive contact or movement from this one either... and yet:

 

how do you get the black/silver rail out of that channel?

 

the Mitsu vortex generator works minimally on the Evo. I have to imagine an aftermarket one would pretty much be useless. This thread seems to be another downside. Bummer, man. Sorry to see what happened.

 

I was planning on getting a vg for my RS, but after seeing this I'll probably hold off. Anyone else experience this?

 

It has spring-like clips holding it in.... you can just shift the strip laterally in the top/center section and pull up and it will remove, but the clips will likely break on removal due to age. I usually can get one removal out of these then the next time you will lose a good amount of the clips, but when they are 10-15 years old you sometimes don't even get one try without losing at least a few clips. The clips can be replaced separately though.... also the ones that are more common to break come on the rail if you replace the rail.

I think this has been established to death that they are visual/gimmick mods more than anything, some people just like the way they look
Yeah... it blows. At least I was planning on repainting the roof today anyway (in the body shop right now). I haven't decided on reinstalling it yet or not... I might put some NVH foam in the heavy contact areas. I dunno yet

 

I would rather look into the crappy paint job mitsu did on the reds. I owned a red awhile back and had to get a paint correction done. It doesn't surprise me to see this happen to a red and not other colors.

 

Red and Silver are more susceptible to UV damage, etc. They require a ton more maintenance to keep looking nice. Maybe that has something to do with why the paint didn't fare to well? Just thinking out loud.

 

Possible. The reds are single stage paint and don't hold up for crap, and to be fair this example is no exception so I'm sure it didn't help the situation any.
I really need to do a whole car respray at some point, but for right now it is still in the acceptable range for the most part, so it waits.
Meanwhile, roof got a shot of black/clear today. New glass gaskets won't be in until Friday though so I'll be driving around like a parts car tomorrow.

 

this is off-topic but lightning yellow fits here too. That was one color that was always off. I'm sure all evo's in some way do its just the age.

 

Well, it was doing something, it was chewing the paint off of his roof. All that paint chewing tells me the VG lives in a boundary layer separation area.

Whether the aero effects do anything is subject to speed. Airplanes don't take off at 60 mph. So, for the average car, not needed.

 

I've been looking for a vortex gen, wonder if I should lay a few strips of electrical tape under it before it goes down to protect the roof better

 

lol

I'm going to use some NVH sponge foam on the inside of the sides where it hangs over... haven't decided on the front edge yet. The material is so thin on the part I can't really attach anything there, and I don't really want to try to put a thin felt on the roof as I'll never get it perfectly lined up. I was thinking a thin rubber strip like a screen gasket attached to the under side might be the way to go. We'll see... I plan on putting the new drip rails in Friday after my glass seals get here, so I have until then to figure it out

It still bothers me that it moves that much considering how ridiculously strong the adhesive tape is. Sucks.

 

Has it been? Don't recall reading threads that reflect that or at least with any degree of certainty

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/mo...fiction-4.html

For the record, I LOVE MY VG (at least from an aesthetic perspective)

 

I have the same line under my Vortex Generator. OEM or aftermarket you are going to get that line because of the elements pounding down on top of that thing. It's only as big a deal as you want to make it, no one sees it with the VG installed.

-pal215

 

Alright well no more lines or surface rust on my roof... no more red/pink either

I also found out I have like the exact width thin felt strips that fit perfect on the front/rear of the VG. Still not sure what to do on the sides though as it is super tight fit to begin with. I'll figure it out tomorrow when the rest of my trims come in.