End of season

Right, well I haven't posted in a while, mainly cos' all I've done is waited for the ABS sensors, with shaking hands read the mail every morning to see if they've come. No, they haven't, and finally I've decided to give up for this year and start taking the car apart soon again.

I figured this would be a good time to sketch out the plans for next year, for you readers & myself.
The idea is again that what I disassemble, I plan to do it once and for all.

So this years supposed to be about interior and finishing what I would've wanted to do this year, being mostly the front end of the body & suspension. The reason being, I want to have the alarm and wideband gauge and maybe a lil the stereos as well in the car before its seriously on the road.

So, #1 I'm going to take off the interior around the rear windows, as I'm going to get them tinted in a few weeks, or thats the plan.

#2, Here's a shot of the stock interior. It may not seem bad in a photograph, but to be honest, I can't understand why they've chosen this brownish color to the interior. Luckily most of it is hard plastic so it can be painted, which is probably what I'm going to do for the most parts.

I'd love to get a carpenter redo the whole interior with leather, but that costs a hell of a lot of money which I'd rather spend elsewhere.. and let's face it, sometimes even I need to think about what kind of car I am reconditioning. It's not an old classic, or much of a sports car even. While I wouldn't change it for a lot of cars it just isn't sensible throwing thousands at it for ridiclously luxurious reasons.


Anyways, the plan is to use matt black with semi gloss lac on the plastics, replace some of the fabrics (doors, center arm rest) with red leatherette, and I'm probably going to exchange the carpets to brand new red as I believe I've found a place where they make new ones pretty cheap if you bring the old ones. The headliner I think I'm gonna put in black as well. I'm not sure about the details yet, I guess I'll just whip it, or try to Photoshop it later.

#3 I'm going to install the boost meter I already have --->


And I intend to buy the wideband gauge and fit it the same time, probably this one; Innovate Motorsport






Then I also want to fit the alarm system as well. I've been looking at this one, it's pretty cheap and it's got all the gizmos you can hope for;

Falcon Predator Evo4+, 2-way, turbotimer, remotestart, etc. Some people are against cheap alarms but at least the last cheap one I installed has worked like a charm for 2 years. And after all, alarm system is pretty simple electronics.

 

Besides that, I'm going to fit a new sound system, as no car of mine is ready without it. Nothing too fancy as I don't really listen to music that loud anymore, but I'm thinking of a 80-100€ class midbass and tweeter set (probably without an amplifier), 2 x 10" subwoofers or use the one I already have (Rainbow Hammer 12"), need a new amplifier anyway, and to the rear I'm prolly gonna go with some of the better 4"x6" as thats the stock size and it's fine by me. I'll also need a new stereo unit, this time I'm thinking Pioneer, don't know how much I'm willing to spend on it yet.

 

 If I can afford it, I'd really like to buy a set of these as well. But that comes last to the interior as they are easy to change afterward.

Also, getting some small things like putting my aftermarket wheel on,getting the dials below, changing red LEDs to the rest of the buttons inside, nifty stuff like that.

#3, The front end. Some of you may remember how I left it.

And I want it to be like the rest of the car, so it means new brakes, new shocks, some grinding and painting (:D), sandblasting and powderpainting.. This time, I'm expecting it to be a lot shorter project, though as the area is a lot smaller, heh. 

If I can afford it I'm looking to get the Subaru 2 piston calipers, and I'd really really really would want the D2 adjustable coil overs, but I'm not all too sure I can afford it yet.

Then some tweaking in the engine bay, I'm thinking

Replacing the old shabby nonbrand one with a Fujita or Apexi filter, and if there's time, build a heatshield / air venting system for it.

And of course, to top it all, and being the reason behind a lot of this work, the boost controller. :P

So that's all I'm thinking. Truth is, I probably won't get everything done and bought, but as I go, I pick the ones that seem the most important. The key again is to do things so that I wouldn't have to ever take off the interior again, same goes for the front end stuff.

So there you have it, we will see what it turns out to be, reporting back in a few weeks with the tinted windows hopefully!

Mike signing out.