Chris at Mina was a delight to deal with, and he made sure I had the right hardware kit for my installation.

I wasn’t keen on putting the Mina grille over the existing XKR grill and overrider bumper extensions with their plastic covers. Also, I wanted the Mina grille to be inset as much as possible. Just a personal preference, I’m sure others are perfectly satisfied with the layered installation.

So for my requirements, the 2 middle aluminum bumper extensions and their plastic covers, aka “buck teeth” were removed. That involved a couple of hours of Dremel work to slice off the rivets that were holding on the bumper extensions. After that things went pretty fast.

I used a couple of long zip ties to temporarily hold the Mina grille in place while I fussed with the location and attachment points. I ended up with the ends of the Mina grille tucked in behind the bumper cover (I call it the nose cone), and the rest of the grill just in front of the massive aluminum bumper.

At the center 10” on the grille I spaced it out from the bumper about 1.5”. From 5” on either side of the centerline the grille has a nice slight convex curve to the ends where it is resting directly on the underlying bumper.

So it’s curved top to bottom and also side to side. To the casual observer it probably looks flat, but I know it’s curved, and that’s all the matters

I ended up with a 3/16” gap along the bottom edge on each end for about 3-4 inches. I’m not too eager to drill holes in the “nose cone” to pull it up tighter, so have not decided if I’ll fuss with the gap or leave it as is. I might augment the rubber seal that came installed on the Mina grille with a section of 3/16” windshield washer hose that would be sliced open lengthwise and cupped over the existing seal where needed.

Anyway, I’m done for now with only one minor setback during the process. When removing the side bolts of the nose cone, several of the captured nuts broke loose and would just spin. All but one of those were located where I could get some needle nose pliers on them. However, the forward most bolt was inaccessible so I had to hacksaw blade the dang bolt off. Fortunately my neighbors were out of earshot and didn’t hear my cursing.


Z

PS the only thing wrong with dealing with Chris @ Mina is now I want matching hood grilles


PPS if any XK8 owner is looking to change their grille to the XKR style , PM me and we’ll work out a deal beneficial to all on my take off parts that are in good condition.