Oooh. Delivery! :)

After payin' off Mr Customs and Excise... Parcel Force decided they'd deliver my parcels.

Hmm... Boxes...

... Four Boxes. Black. Black. Black. Red.
What could be inside?

Oooh!

YaY! 320mm Momo Tuner FTMFW!!!!!!!!111111111oneoneone

From left to right:
NRG Quick Release Lock
NRG Short Hub
NRG Quick Release Mechanism - Gen 2.

It's a Thursday... not much happens on Thursdays...

Got bored. Took this today. Yeah.

Cleaned.

Well, the paint-match SUCKED. Thanks bodyshop!
But, if there's anything I've learned from this project so far, it's that the ingredients to success are experience, hard-work, patience, and doing everything your fother-mucking self!

So, I had to make the old paint match the new. Quite a challenge with 9yr old paint. The process:

-Washed the whole car with a bucket of water + washing up liquid and a whole bunch of elbow grease!
-Clay-bar'd the car to stop myself from "rubbing-in" any crap into the paintwork.
-Cut the paintwork back with Farecla G3 cutting liquid.
-T-Cut the car with good old carplan T-Cut polish.
-Waxed the whole car with Carnauba wax.

I'll post up a side-by-side before and after later. But these pics show the shiny factor.

From the ashes...

and so the Phoenix rises from the ashes. Well, okay, more like the Panda crawls from the deer-accident damage, but... that just doesn't sound as cool, ya know?

Oh, you KNOW I'm bad.

S0 JDM! y0!

Still need to do the bumpstrips!

Rar!

Fresh

s0 fresh.
Main reconstruction complete, just tidbits to do! (bump strips, handles, the like)

Back to Black

Okay, the bodyshop painted my shiz, but they painted the fact brake ducts and the main intake struts white. It looked hella-lame. I masked it off, and sprayed the stuff black myself. DIY fo' lyfe, y0!

Home entertainment heaven

My life is complete, y0!

Rattle-Can Powah!

The one man spray shop was in full effect. Ghetto-fabulous rattle cans. Everyone loves orange peel, right? Plonked my wing next to it for colour comparison. Swish.

Trying it on

Ripping off the old front was easy, even with it all caved in and crap. However, my car is missing both front and rear bumper beams... erm... the car was previously owned by a grandma, so unless she was REALLY into weight reduction, I just dont know where they've gone. Hmm. I'll investigate!


The 2a.m. fitting club made an appearence, this time with special guest DJ James Blowa. 2a.m. at 0 degrees celcius and peeing it down with rain. Swish. Mad props to Jay and Rich for holding it down though. As usual, I was acting supervisor.


^A shot in the daylight. Hmm... to the bodyshop!Well, bodyshop is booked for in one week, so the blog may be quiet for a week. But when February comes, the Sarge returns!

Another Package Delivered...

Another package from a far-away land... this time America. :] What could be inside...

Ta-Dar! The final piece of the '99 spec front end puzzle! Now I just need my bonnet replaced, and the rest spraying, and it's JDM time, bitches! Hahaha. The only concern with these lights is that I think they're different to UK ones as far as sidelights go. Well... to the point that I dont think american cars have sidelights. LoL. Hmm. Well, the Japanese ones have "City lights" but I think they're like sidelights...mabye...? I dunno. Whatever. As long as they make the dark light, and flash when I wanna turn, it's all good. I'll probably have to put some masking tape on to get through an MOT too... because the kick-up will be on the wrong side...but... whatever. This is the price we pay for the JDM lifestyle, y0!

Back to full (mechanical) health

Did some tinkering today. It basically came down to fitting the new tires, re-attaching the rear anti-sway bar, adjusting the rear camber, and lowering the ride height 15-20mm more. I'm gonna see how it sits, mabye lower the front a little more. The back however, is now all the way down as low as the Spax RSX coilover will let it go. Sniff sniff.


Mechanically my car is back to A plus condition. Just need to sort out my mashed up bumper, and it'll be happy days.

I Love Nuts!

I Love Nuts!
Haha! Ahem...erm... yeah. Lug nuts. These little pieces of metal are the only thing that keep your wheels from careering off their hubs as tremendous forces pull and push your car through it's 4 small feet of metal and rubbery goodness. They're also what stops some random from stealing your £1,400 worth of RAYS VOLK TE37s. Futhermore, don't underestimate the weight issue. 4 stock nuts weigh approximately 200grammes. Thats the difference between a Team Dynamics Pro Race 1.2 and a OZ Super Leggra.

Bah, who the hell am I kidding? It's all about aestetically value. I just love looking at nuts!

The Entrants

1. Stock Honda OE Lug Nut for use with steel wheels + plastic wheel trim
2. ROTA wheels lug nuts. Acorn ended.
3. eBay crap-o-rama "tuner" nuts. Acorn ended, but really small contact patch.
4. RAYS Duraluminum anodised long lug nuts. JDM, y0!

Weigh in

8x Honda OE nuts = 420g
210g per wheel
53g per nut
(+/- 0%)

8x Rota lug nuts = 490g
235g per wheel
61g per nut
(+15% over stock)

8x eBay Lugo Crapo Nuto = 350g
175g per wheel
44g per nut
(-17% over stock)

8x RAYS long lug nuts = 240g
120g per wheel
30g per nut
(-44% over stock)