Dodge Magnum Transformation

[Coelacanth]

After my 2008 Pontiac Torrent GXP got totaled, I decided to buy a car I'd always wanted--a Dodge Magnum. I bought this 2005 RT AWD in pretty nice condition and have some fun plans for how I want to "make it mine". Here's the transformation progress.

I'll eventually get around to repainting the hood and front fascia to get rid of the orange stripe, but I started with replacing the Spyder LED taillights and chrome projector headlights with Altezza taillights that have black housings and more red lenses than the stock taillights...and I don't like LED lights because when some LEDs invariably burn out, they look like ass. I replaced the front headlights with VipMotoZ Infinity Black headlights with black frames and clear lenses. The LEDs with projectors gave the car a googly-eyed look. I like the new look much better. So at least the facelift has begun.

My wheels will hopefully arrive this week, I'm excited to see them on the car! I also have a Danko Reproductions shaker hood kit on order but I'll be lucky if that arrives early enough to get it done before the end of summer.

Taillights before:

Altezza taillights after:

Headlights before:

VipMotoZ headlights after:

[TRX-1-3]

Nice Gangster Buggy.

[Coelacanth]

After I removed the el-cheapo billet grille overlays practically the day after I bought the car, I saw why they were installed in the first place: someone had a go at spray-painting the original stainless shiny stock grille inserts that pop into the outer black plastic frames. It was a terrible job and flaking all over the place, and only half of it came off with a good deal of work. I popped the badly-painted stainless horizontal grille inserts out from the plastic frame. I found some nicely-made hex grille replacements on the 'net, my favorite being this Danko Reproductions style, but at $400 USD (hex mesh inserts extra cost), it was out of the budget.




I decided to mod the stock grille myself after seeing someone do something similar, but he just attached the hex mesh to the plastic frame with zip-ties, and some suggestions to glue it with epoxy. I didn't want to make a gluey mess with epoxy and didn't want only zip-ties as it's not sturdy enough, so here's what I came up with. I removed the 2 inside sections of the plastic grille frame with a Dremel, then placed the section of plastic hex mesh behind it with an overlap on all sides, and secured it to the center horizontal bar with 3mm screws, locknuts and a piece of sturdy plastic I cut from a 6 x 9" speaker cover I had lying around. Once the hex was lined up the way I liked, I further secured the hex mesh with 4 zip-ties and 4 additional sections of plastic, bolted to the frame. It's very sturdy now and won't deflect inwards when you press it, i.e. when you need to wash the bugs off after a road trip. I think it looks pretty good. I got the hex grille mesh from some eBay seller from Latvia for $20 per piece, each piece being the perfect size to cover each grille frame.

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/UNIVERSAL-BLACK-ABS-30cm-x-45cm-HONEYCOMB-GRILLE-GRILL-MESH-VENT-RR-VOGUE-Gitter/132636480938

Grille before, after removing the cheap billet overlays and stock stainless inserts from the plastic frames; looks rather naked and ghetto:

Grille mod under construction; the screws and backing plastic sections won't be visible when installed as they'll be hidden by the existing crosshair section of the front fascia:

[Coelacanth]

A pic with the new wheels I chose for the car, I think they look much better than black-on-black. The tires I put on are also slightly larger than stock (255-45-20's instead of 245-45-20's). I bought a DiabloSport InTune i3 programmer and one of the features is to calibrate for non-stock tire sizes, so the speedometer will read correctly. Also added an aFe Stage 2 Pro 5R intake, replaced the stock too-hot 203* thermostat with a 180* t-stat and put in a 91 octane CAI tune, decreasing all the fan set-points by 20 degrees to coincide with the new t-stat. Now the car finally breathes in as well as out; it already had a Flowmaster stainless exhaust when I bought it, but strangely no intake improvements.

[BooGTS]

Could always go the plasti-dip route to cover the red/orange stripe? Good thing about Mopar muscle cars is that matte hoods were a thing.

[Coelacanth]

True, and there's also just doing a gloss black vinyl wrap on the hood...the issues would be the hood not matching the metallic black paint everywhere else, and that bit of orange stripe extending down into the front fascia. If ONLY the stripe were limited to the hood, it would be a much easier thing to fix!

On a good note, I received my Danko Reproductions Shaker Hood kit, which will give me a functional ram air duct to the aFe CAI I installed a couple months ago. My plan for next spring is to paint the shaker scoop electric metallic blue and the caliper covers to match, to break up some of that blackness. The blue would be a memento of the '98 Dakota Sport I used to own, painted in a similar blue. That was a good truck!

[BooGTS]

I had to look up what that might look like and I found this pic that reminds me of a G8 / Magnum mash up, though I realize they were going for the 69 Charger look:

http://www.dankoreproductions.com/wp-content/gallery/dodge-magnum-shaker-system/1114BEST.jpg

Funny thing about the modern shakers is that you can't see them shake all that much.

You already modded the headlights, but if you have to paint the nose, might as well go 2007 Magnum SRT8 conversion I know that's an illogical statement, but I love the last year nose on these.

[Coelacanth]

I agree, I like the SRT fascia more, it's not as rounded under at the bottom and looks a bit more brutish. However, the swap isn't as easy as you'd think, judging from the threads I've read over at lxforums.com. And, the price for the SRT fascia is a LOT more expensive than repros of the non-SRT models. I'll probably end up buying a chin spoiler eventually...I like this one:

[Coelacanth]

I bought a different kind of ABS plastic hex mesh from eBay that's solid plastic rather than having a stackable U-shaped cross-section...it's thinner and has smaller hex holes so it was easier to cut to size and fit better in front of the bumper crash pad on the bottom. I made it the same way I made the previous one. I wanted to see how they both looked and go with the one I liked more. I think with the easier trimming, the second one will be the keeper and I'll make a matching one for the passenger side grille.

[Coelacanth]

Here's a pic of the original grille after removing the el-cheapo billet overlays and original horizontal steel fins...basically just the plastic grille remaining.




And a pic showing both versions of custom-made grille inserts. I actually think the left side with larger plastic hex mesh looks better, but it's a bigger pain to make and it'll be less durable. I'll make another to match the right side.