Do-it-myself powdercoating

So the car is on downtime while i wait for a gasket refresh kit to come in. I purchased a powdercoating gun and some powder quite some time ago but never put it to use.

Today i tried it out.

The crossover pipe was my first try, has a small hot spot on it, but barely noticeable. The spark plug cover came out exactly as i had wanted.

back to business

The car is back in working condition

Wiring is all set, the motor primes and starts right up. Every wire has its place or has been removed, I wired in a consult connector in case i might need it further along the line.


It's still a bit stinky but i'll have to put that off for another day

My car is a fortress of bad wiring boobietraps

Today is the third day i've taken time out this week to work on the wiring. The wiring job from earlier last year has a lot of loose ends and bad connections that i have to go back and redo. So far in this venture i have de-pinned about 20 wires that were cut and left to hang out the back of the clip and unwrapped a couple harnesses. I'm going back over diagrams to figure out why certain things haven't been working.

The reason for this is that earlier last week i got stranded downtown because the source power to the fuel pump went out. Luckily my dad brought down a gator wire and pocket knife so that i could rig a hot lead to drive it home.

I am determined to get this car wired up properly so that its reliable.

Back on the block

Finally after finishing up the suspension, radiusing and tacking the fenders (thanks for letting me use your welder, Jason) , and ghetto aligning, i was able to finally drive my car again for the first time in several months.

Since the last post, i got another pair of front strut housings from Keith (kais) since my previous attempt at fronts were still too low. Henry (jumbosandbox) was nice enough to let me use his welder and helped me with the difficult areas. Serei mounted my tires for me just the other day, so i've had all these components sitting still for quite some time because i havent had a lot of time to work on the car until now.

Today i put it all back together for the most part. It still needs a couple things to be dailyable but its at a decent spot now. Aileen helped me with some nuts and bolts on the lip as well as brake depressing so that i could torque the wheels on. Ok, enough words, here are the pics

overshooting low

It's been a few weeks with the car up on jackstands having to wait for parts and plates. The front coilovers are set a bit too low for the time being (i will check height when the other wheels go on). I'm using tein flex that I bought from the good people at r-crew, cut the bottoms off and welded them to the oe strut housings. My cousin made me top spacer plates

I had initally tried the short stroke route with mr2 kyb agx and they just weren't low enough. With these coilovers, my downpipe pretty much touches, but hey, i'm on 14s right now and the flexpipe has always been a bit low. If its still too low with the new wheels I will redo the fronts a little higher.

In other news, i put in t3 control arms (which took much longer than they said they would take to make) and a solid differential mount from thezstore.

Ring around the rosie and other maintenance

On Saturday, I replaced the headlight rings (god, zstore ships sooooo damn fast, got in like a day and a half of ordering) because BOTH rings failed on me and were bouncing around all crazy while i was driving at night. It was so bad I had to not drive the car for a couple days. I also replaced the window channel felt strips, which were totaled out when i got the car (the driver's window would be quieter while halfway open than closed.

In terms of non maintenance stuff, I test fitted one front flare.

Fat lip and the bling

On saturday of last week, i put my front lip on (with the helping hands of chris i. and corey). It fits well, but i need to put some bracing in. I also replaced some of the fuel hose going betweeen the pressure reg and the fuel rail.

On friday, I got brand new c pillar emblems from Aileen :].