I received my Vararam at the beginning of the week and finally installed it last night. as a first impression I'm a little disappointed in the build quality. its built out of some molded and assembled parts plus what appear to be a new set of stock fog light bezels. the hinge point which I've read about online which makes it easier to install is only the pop-rivets being installed on the top edge and not the bottom allowing the two parts to flex by bending the plastic pieces. during installation I got my driver's side to line up almost perfectly. the passenger's side on the other hand I couldn't get to align just right. it was pushing the fog light out of alignment or even putting pressure on the front clip causing it to bow up in front of the fog light. when I look at it I can tell that something doesn't look quite right. although I think I got it into a pretty good position by the time I was done.

The part I'm sill concerned about is the radiator shroud though. It didn't look like it did this according to the pictures (I downloaded and followed the color instructions from the internet) the Vararam is in the way of the radiator shroud. it was difficult to get it back into the car at all, but it his highly bowed in the middle because of the intake on the other side of it. it would not line up with the screw holes in the bottom and was very difficult to get screwed back into place. it is still bent down in the middle and there is a lot of pressure on the mounting points. is this normal? I haven't read any other posts regarding this problem online and I did read a lot about the vararam before I bought it. I have pictures of just how out of alignment the radiator shroud is, I can try to upload them later if it would help anyone tell me what's going on.

thanks!

 

Make sure the condensor is still in place. When I installed mine (l;ast week) when I put the shroud back on I had a similiar problem.

The condensor was not aligned properly, must have move when I was remocing the shroud. I put the condensor back on the grooves and all was good.

 

MCGILES - your's sounds just like my installation - I bolted the left and right air tubes together AND put the filter cover on BEFORE I screwed either ram air tube to the front bumper - that was the only way I could get everything to line up correctly - and you are right, it DOES put a lot of pressure on the front radiator support and it bows it in quite a bit - just have to live with it I guess.

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one! now that everything is put back together what's the best way to get to the condenser to make sure that its properly positioned?

 

Just make sure the radiator support trim (palstic cover) fits flush on top of the condensor. If not, the condensor is not on properly. It is slotted and there are tabs on the mounts to slide it onto.


Hope this helps.

 

I had a similar problem with mine. I re-installed it with only the outer bolts securing the ram tubes to the bumper, and it fit much better. Some have gone so far as to use no bolts to hold the front of the ram tubes, as it's already a slip-fit and won't really move anyway.

Good luck!

 

 

Even after only having the VaraRam on mine for about a month it permanantly bowed the shrowd, and cause of the force actually bent some other sorruounding plastic pieces. Now I have a different intake and the bowed plastic is so bent that it has rubbed through the paint on the underside of my hood in two spots...

And I cut the fog holes way larger when I did my install, cause my PIAA 1100x fogs were half covered by the intake tube...

 

Same problem here when the coloradoan and I did both of ours but in the end you dont really notice it. End results were great !
Good luck you will enjoy it!

 

I guess I was lucky, bought a used one off the board and it fits like a dream.

Installation was still a bitch though

 

I just had my Vararam installed today. The shroud was bent in big time so they left it off. What condensor are you talking about? I would like to know so I can check it out and get the shroud to fit the way it supposed to fit. Can some give me some help here thanks.

 

I assume he's talking about the A/C condenser. I haven't had a chance to check back, maybe this weekend I'll pull the radiator support bracket off again and see, I don't remember it being able to move much though.