I was just curious, what is under the stock black grille piece on an LS1 car?

 

I will guess plastic then ground.. Would be kewl to know what is behind it as well too!

 

From what I've seen, it's solid back there except for where the openings are on either side of the grill.

Behind that there are 2 holes stuffed with foam (which a lot of people opt to remove when replacing the grill

Everything is painted the same color as the car, but may or may not match, or be in very good condition due to fading and wear.

Saw a cool thing a friend of mine did to his 99 SS

When he removed the grill to replace it with a billet, he cut the foam and placed a pair of Piaa's in there. Really nice mounting job surrouned by the foam.

 

It looks like this

 

It is all body color back there. There is nice Camaro lettering too, seems like Chevy may have had a different grille design in mind, then changed it late in the game. There are some grille mounting holes that can be unsightly if left unfilled. There are two holes, one on each side. In them you can see the styrofoam bumper, it is an ugly mottled tan color. I opted not to cut on my styrofoam because from what I understand there are airbag sensors somewhere in the bumper area. Not a good thing to damage airbag modules... I painted my styrofoam black so it sorta 'disappeared'. Then a nice piece of $2 aluminum gutter guard cut to fit each side, and it's not half bad looking. Fill the grille holes and it looks smooth.
Pic in the sig...
Dave

 

that mesh looks nice.. clean even from a distance. I would wonder how that whoel concave area works with the the areodynamics? would it cause enough drag to slow the car?

 

Never really considered that angle.
Maybe that's why GM turned away from this design... affect on fuel economy or performance. You can tell that something along this line was their original intention.
Dave