After you remove the front bumper support and put a FMIC in the stock bracket is only attatched to to outer front bumper shell. I had to grind mine down because it was hitting the FMIC at speed.

 

Stock bracket, redrilled license plate (to move it upwards), very little airflow restriction, bolts digitally removed...

 

mine is just hanging on their with half a stock braket and some zipties...


In the pic it's croked, but I alined it much better....

 

The air pressure pushes it back and it doesn't obstruct the airflow, I think?


Gil

 

Here is mine, i am not sure if this is the stock part or aftermarket-

 

That would be even worse. Anything that can change the visibility of your plates, i.e. flipping them around, changing them, or blocking them, has a higher penalty than not having the plate. They don't want people making "get-away" cars like in the movies.

In WA it is illigal to have your plate in the window, it has to be on the outside of your car, visible from the front. My idea of just painting one onto the bumper never got a straight answer, but I think that would be the best.

 

That one is the stock bracket.

 

heh.. put it out front a little further, angle it just so, and "mAd D0WnFoRcE, y0!" :p

as for not drilling your new bumper.. bumper? bumper cover? There was no drilling required for Mazda bumpers.. the holes were on the underside of the bumper.. I guess you're saying there's no such holes on whatever you've got? The stock holes were a threaded and anchored in the bumper.. I don't know if a slap-dash drill job is what you'd want anyway if the stock ones aren't there.

It's possible the new bumper may have screwed you over..

 

I just took mine off because i couldn't clean under it when i wash my car. haven't had it on for a while now and i haven't had any problems. it doesn't make your insurance go up for getting a ticket anyway, at least for me. my dad doesn't have one on his porsche and he hasn't had problems either.

 

I live in CA and I have never been pulled over for not running a front plate. I think they are ugly and the previous owner was one of the stupid ones who bumped something with the front end and now I have two nice dents in my bumper. Basically, front plates suck.

 

I bought my Rx7 in 1986 and never had a front license plate in CA. I've lived in WA for five years, and still never had a front license plate. Both states require front plates and after 19 years and 184,000 miles . . . I've never been stopped for not have a front plate. If they do, I will "tie wrap" it to the lower part of the air dam and get it signed-off by the law. After sign-off I will remove it. Why? I figure that I'm good for at least another 19 yrs. :-)

 

anyone know how the JDM cars have theirs sidemounted "from the factory"? i.e. whats the JDM sidewmount plate bracket look like, and where does it attach?

 

thanks for that xtremeskier97 i wasn't sure =]

 

Front plates are in poor taste.. you have no chance to survive, make your time, take off every front plate.

 

if you want to do away with the bracket, I mounted mine off center on the front. But the catch is i drilled new holes.

 

umm. is that like some kind of JDM licesne plate poem?

 

i think thats more of a haiku.. =p
and they are in poor taste maybe, but in australia it is very illegal to not display front plates.. and you will get pulled over straight away

 

i put mine waay top the side and kinda high. i think it loks kinda cool but you cant really see it in this picture:

 

Wow, I like how that looks. Gets it out of the airflow too.

 

All your plates are belong to us.

 

There's no such thing as a factory "JDM" side-mount license plate bracket. I have no idea where that crazy idea came from...

Any side-mount plate you see is either on a custom bracket or, far more likely, simply screwed into the bumper cover.

 

I'm in the process of fixing my car's body and as a temp measure to drive around I hung the plate with zip ties from the bottom of the bumper. It's angled ~30 degrees from verticle (like this \) and I think it creates a visual improvement by allowing one to see the full lines of the front of the car. I'm not sure that it's a great idea from the perspective of curbs, etc. Thoughts?

gildardo: With your plate down so low, how does air get to the rad and oil cooler?

 

a good guide to whether or not they enforce the law is if you have any type of photo radar in the city. if there is, then you can be pretty sure that they enforce. if they don't, that's no guarantee, but don't give it a second thought if they do have it set up.

 

Hah..

"Do you know why you were pulled over sir?"
--"...uhhm... No...?"
"I couldn't radar you, wheres your front license plate"
--"I removed it so the police couldn't radar me"
"Hey, it works"
--"Guess so"
"So heres your $200 fix it ticket."
--"Uhhmm.. thanks"
"Have a nice day"

 

heh, actually i meant photo red lights. and i guess photo radar too, but because they can't mail you a ticket is there's no license plate in the picture.