I Agree! *wipes drool off chin*

Seriously, is it back in the car yet?If not set upthat motha and get a good 5-6 Megapixel pic....

Would be good for a nice 8x10 pic to hang above my bed.. eerrr! --- I mean in the garage, yeah, in the garage......

 

Yeah, its in the car. I just need to pull it out eventually to repaint the engine bay and upgrade the trans- although since I don't currently have a garage, thats gonna have to wait until the end of summer probably.


Thanks for all the compliments guys.

Anyone have any suggestions of stuff I can do to make it better?

I've been trying to hide as much of the underhood wiring as possible, but thats been a real pita since some of the stuff has nowhere to go, but are there any other ideas?

 

A little loom goes a long ways, and looks tacky. Check out some of the Flexo-Pet cable covering. Now, it's not split, so you can't just put it on, you have to disconnect one end and put it on. It will dress it up and make it look important (even if you just use the cheaper black color) without making it stick out like a sore thumb.

Other than that? Cutting and extending the wires to route them in a pattern that's more hidden... good luck, Even I'm not crazy enough to take on a project like that, lmao.


For an even better effect get two kits, usechrome/body colorto dress up the important stuff, and use black for the stuff you want to blend into the background. Luckily the stuff is expandable/contractable and doesn't break the bank. It also comes in a kit with multiple sizes.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll have to look into that stuff. I'm really not afraid of cutting into the engine wiring- I've already permanently removed a couple things from it (rear o2, egr, etc)- and lengthened the passenger side fuse box wiring a couple inches (its now mounted upside down in the passenger side fenderwell under my pcm)- its kindof a pain to get to- takes about 5 minutes to access it, but in all the years I've had the car, I've never had to change a fuse under the hood. I also relocated the horns into that fenderwell as well to clean it up some more.

I'm thinking about cutting the main engine harness where it runs down the passenger side 'frame rail'- and to run it inside the frame (not really a frame- the boxed body rail that runs down that side)- so the engine harness will run into the boxed area through a grommet, and pops back out under the pcm tray to go across the front of the engine bay (I think it looks tacky with the little pop clips holding it to the body- and it would be nicer to see some of my other polished parts easier too).

I think I may do the same with the drivers side fuse box- extend it and flip it upside down in the drivers side wheel well. I haven't done it yet because I didn't have enough large gauge wire- and most of the wires running to it are pretty beefy.


I just can't wait until it gets nice out again- right now its just sitting there chilling- and I really want to drive it again.

 

what do ya think of this? i did this in microsoft paint btw. i'd put it on if it looked like this, with dual mufflers.

 

wow, nice photo chop. I definitely toyed with the idea of shaving the fins. We had a guy on MM that shaved both sets of fins, and I thought it looked goofy. I had an opportunity to paint it, but didn't have much prep time so all I did was shave the license plate holder (which is where that drop down in the center was). I thought about shaving the inner fins like that, but I didn't want to goof it up.

Do you guys think it looks too ricey- even w/o the inner fins?

I do plan on doing dual exhaust. I hate how that magnaflow muffler sounds- and its still far too loud (your ears are ringing a bit after driving it on the highway for awhile). I'm planning on redoing all the exhaust in mandrel bent 3" stainless with an electric cutout up front, a stainless 3" resonator- and dual borla proXS mufflers with polished stainless dual/dual tips. So there will be a muffler on each side- its just a matter of time when I can find a shop who has stainless (and can weld w/ stainless rod), has a mandrel bender, and doesn't mind working on a car w/o a cat.

edit- I'm also thinking about shooting the back panel to a solid gloss black (getting rid of the reverse light holes). Do you guys think that would look good?

 

Hey bumpin! I think it would look pretty slick if you did the back panel completely black since you have your windows tinted already, correct?

I also really like the fins on the BK rear, adds a lot of character IMO, i say keep em, and go with some dual tips that will fill that space up...

 

Yeah, my windows are 35/20/5 right now (going from front to back)- I've been considering going with 5% all the way around just because I like thesharp contrast of black on white. Obviously thats not gonna happen until it gets warm outside again though- I've had too many problems with tint thats done in the winter. I've been tossing around the idea of trying the 35 on the front windshield too, but I dunno if I'll go through with it- we did it on a couple of cars, and it really looks cool, but its hard to get a sense of how it is to drive without actually taking it out on the roads for an extended period of time. I guess if I didn't like it, I could always just strip it back off.


I'm still kinda 50/50 on the back panel. I'm going to go one of two ways with it- either paint the back panel solid gloss black (and either leave the blackouts or use the rest of my niteshade to tint the tails). My other possibility is to leave the panel gloss white- and rebuild the taillights to each mount a single 6" round, red brake light (built up off the taillight with fiberglass to make the brake light parallel to the back bumper)- and paint the fiberglass part gloss white as well.

I posted it up on MM awhile ago, but the response was almost 50/50, so I'm not sure what I'll go with.

 

I can see how some might say the back end looks rice-y, but to me it kind of reminds me of a late 90's Avenger. Friend of mine has a white '98 Avenger, and it sorta reminds me of your pic.

I think the ricey-ness would disappear once you have the dual exhaust on. The nightshade on the tails would look better than the GTS blackouts. Used to have them on previous cars, and they looked good, but became a pain in the backside. They'd have to be removed at times, get scratched up, and I had a few sets stolen over night in my driveway at home.

Just curious. Is your car not used on the street (show car/track)? Or what do you do about a rear licence plate?

 

You probably see the Avenger-ness of it, because the kit was designed after a kit they already had made for the Avenger (which was supposed to be an exaggerated form of their stock ones)- and they made them to fit our car with a few modifications to fit properly.

Actually, its 100% street car right now. It hasn't seen a show in almost a year (last time was a local sound comp where I won the event and got $150)- and the local tracks have been screwy with being open/temp closing- so I haven't went.

What I initially planned to do was a sliding license plate kit like this:

http://www.stylintrucks.com/parts.as...p;scid=FROOGLE

and just flip it upside down so it drops out of the center.

I dunno if I'm still going to do that or not- I'm worried about it scraping and breaking off (the muffler scrapes quite a bit as it is going over speed bumps and such)- and I'm worried about it having too high a load being a flat panel sticking in the wind (I'd obviously have to mount it to the metal bumper with some brackets to fix that problem).

I do have a backup camera mounted underneath the center of the spare tire well- so I could monitor it going over bumps and up inclines to see if I need to raise it or not.

I've also thought about cutting out the license plate section and having a thing tospin the license plate 180*- and just mount the license plate on the backside of it- so it would be a matching painted panel on one side, and a license plate on the other- so it could rotate 180* either way (I'd probably just use a rotary actuator and put the stops 180* apart). The only bad thing is you'd have to leave a small gap- so you could still see where it would go, but that wouldn't be too hard to rig up- and I could hook it to the ignition, so that it flips automatically when you start it up to keep it legal.

The car doesn't get driven at all in the cold (or really the rain for the most part)- thats what the other cars are for- so I've got a bit more freedom since it doesn't have to be able to work in an ice storm at 0*.