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Originally Posted by GMP
They do look nice but forget about bling for a minute. What do you see that makes these potentially inferior to the flatland guard? No tie back to the head stay, no side coverage, and judging by the hole placement they sit much closer to the radiators, which hurts airflow and provides less room for front impact damage.
For less than $100 you get a set of Flatlands, add TWO sets of GP braces for $60, adding an upper shroud mount.
For less $$ this is the most bulletproof radiator protection setup you can get. I crashed hard enough last week to flex the right shroud to the point of breaking the brake fluid resevoir. The side of the Flatland guard was bent toward the rad only about 3mm in the center between the GP braces, they did their job. The shroud was fine, the rubber isolator I use for the upper mount separated and was eaisly and cheaply replaced.
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Glenn,
I have damaged both radiators on my '01 XC300 using precisely the set up you describe. I have since changed to using a combination of 2 GP braces and radiator brace angled back at about 45 degrees to give true triangulation. The angled braces I hand made years ago for my ’01 XC300 are much like the CRD braces I put on my ’06 EC300. I can say based on my long term crash testing on my ’01 XC300, the set up with GP braces and an angled radiator brace is significantly stronger than the GP braces and Flatland guard combination.
I also run the stock radiator louvers, which do a far better job than a radiator guard at keeping mud out of the radiator. We have mud for about 9 months out of the year. Mud is a big cooling inhibitor when it gets in the radiator.
Here is the set up on my ’06 EC300 with modified CRD braces and GP braces…