Istallation of an Air Dam on a Fiat 124 Spider:



    Air dams are designed to force more air into the radiator for better cooling, and prevent less air from going under that car for better aerodynamics. After seeing a few pictures of air dams on Spiders similar to mine, I decided I would install one on my '77.


    I purchased an air dam made by DashTop from someone on ebay. Although it didn't come with instructions or moutning hardware, installation was pretty simple. I've detailed what I did here. You can click on the pics for larger images...








    My '77 came with a dirt shield that has a small built in air dam. On first inspection, it looked like the dirt shield had to be removed in order to fit the air dam, but I quickly found a solution... The air dam needed to fit between the dirt shield and the nose of the car.






    After removing the dirt shield I realized the 4 middle holes on the air dam matched the 4 front holes on the dirt shield perfectly. I was glad to find that my suspicions that this air dam wasn't made specificaly for Spiders was unfounded. I only had to drill 2 holes... YEAH!!









    Two of the four sheet metal screws that hold the front of the dirt shield were missing, and the holes in the body were getting alittle worn out to be properly tightened. I decided the best thing to do would be to replace all the screws with bolts.

    I bolted the air dam on with the 4 middle bolts(red arrows) to hold it in place while I drilled the end holes(blue arrows). Once the two bolts at the ends of the air dam are snugged, I removed the nuts on the 4 middle ones again.








    The center notch in the dirt shield(red arrow) lined up with the center brace on the back of the air dam, but the other two notches did not line up with their counterparts. I marked where the notches needed to be and whipped out my trusty Dremel. The new notches arn't real pretty(blue arrows), but they were fast and easy...







    Here is a shot of how it looks from underneath. You can see the air dam(red arrow) sandwitched between the body and the dirt shield. The little "gimped" air dam on the dirt shield(blue arrow) is more perpendicular to the ground and is completely concealed by the air dam.







    Here's the final product. I haven't driven it on the insterstate yet. I have a feeling it will help the most there with buffiting from other cars. I did take it out on some roads with long curves and straits. It did seem to force the nose down a bit and make the front bite harder, but only above 70mph or so. I had a passenger with me and he said he could see the nose dropping by looking at the lines in the road compared to the bumps on the hood. And I thought they were just there to look cool...

Overall, I think it was worth the money...