Project: Clean Daily Driven GSX

[aaronth777]

aaronth777 submitted a new DSM Profile :

Project: Clean Daily Driven GSX


Read more about this vehicle here...

 

[aaronth777]

Here are the first pictures that show the condition of the car when I bought it. The body is a little rough, but as you can see the engine bay is really clean. Almost no rust anywhere, and runs like a dream!

 

[aaronth777]

The first step was to remove the 3M wrap that was on the car. I tried pulling it off in the morning when it was still cold, but man that was a pain! So I let the car sit in the sun for a little while and it peeled right off. Then I took all the body pieces off to get the car prepped for painting. Next step will be to sand the car down and all the body pieces to get ready for primer
(P.S. don't worry, I'm not putting the blitz front bumper on my gsx. That's going on my old GS that you can see in the background)

 

[aaronth777]

Got the car all sanded down and taped off, all ready for primer! Only had to fill in a few holes

 

[aaronth777]

Primer is done! Next is to sand the primer down to get ready to paint

 

[aaronth777]

Primer is sanded down and the car is re-taped for paint!

 

[aaronth777]

Time for paint! When we first laid the paint on the car, i was a little worried that it wouldn't turn out very well. It was really dull and not at all like I imagined. Then we hit it with the clear and oh man did it shine! You can see the difference the clear coat makes in these pictures

 

[Mauispyder]

Wow!
Great work!
Wish you lived here.

 

[aaronth777]

Got most of the body panels back on just to make it easier to work with, those bumpers are really flexible. We sanded the clear coat down to get rid of any orange peal and imperfections, then buffed it out and it really shines now!

 

[aaronth777]

Wow!
Great work!
Wish you lived here.

Thank you! Yeah i wish we could get all the dsmers on here in one spot one day

 

[aaronth777]

The weirdest thing happened, it's almost like the trim around the windows absorbed the primer somehow and stained it. There were other marks on the trim anyway, so we decided to paint it black with vinyl paint. It's all the details that make a car go from average to show quality. This is one of those things where most people wouldn't have noticed it if I left it the way it was, but it looks so much better afterwards

 

[aaronth777]

The car is back together and paint is all done! Now just for the finishing touches...

 

[aaronth777]

We finally got it back together and were able to drive it! Everything is mostly done, just a few small details we have to do. But I'm very happy with the way it turned out, she's a beauty!

 

[red96eclipseRS]

Nice job on the paint! Looks really clean.

 

[fastone1967]

Have to agree you did a dam fine job of painting it and its all the small details along the way to really makes it stand out.

 

[aaronth777]

Haven't updated this in awhile so let me show you what all I've done in the past few months. The old carpet in my car was a weird grey that didn't match any other grey in the interior, and just wasn't in good shape (Sorry I don't have a picture of it, forgot to take one before I trashed the carpet). So I ordered new carpet from Rockauto and installed it myself. I decided to go with black and got the extra insulation to reduce the cabin noise. It looks 10x better now and made a noticeable difference in cabin noise!

The previous owner had dropped the car using only aftermarket springs, so as a result the front was too low and the rear a little too high for my taste. Also I'm fairly certain all of the struts were shot. So I decided to go all out and get Tein Flex Z adjustable coilovers all around. Adjustments are a breeze with these and the ride quality is really impressive for how low the car is. These have 16 adjustable dampening settings with 1 being the hardest. I have them on setting 14 right now since it's my daily, and it rides much smoother than you'd expect. I highly recommend these.

Lastly I upgraded the headlights and got new fog lights. The headlights were a personal preference, I wanted to give the car a more modern look with HID lights. These have halo lights in them but honestly they're pathetic, I'm going to take them apart some day and install actual good halos. The stock fog lights were removed by the previous owner because the front mount intercooler piping was in the way. So I took some measurements and found some cheap slim universal fog lights on Amazon and fabricated a harness to make them fit. Both the headlights and fog lights are 6000k.

 

[jkuga]

Nice color man it looks sweet. Just out of curiosity why did you go with the teins over something like feals or the ground control stuff? I am trying to decide between them all myself and the teins are cheaper but the others seemed to be more popular on here.

 

[aaronth777]

Nice color man it looks sweet. Just out of curiosity why did you go with the teins over something like feals or the ground control stuff? I am trying to decide between them all myself and the teins are cheaper but the others seemed to be more popular on here.

Thanks man, and I went with Tein for a few reasons. First the price was really good, around $700 for all 4. They also have some cool features like adjustable dampening, and adjustable ride height that adjusts independently from the spring rate. On most coilovers when you adjust the ride height, it affects the spring rate, so the lower you go the worse the ride gets. But on these you can go just about any height you want without affecting the ride quality. I think most people don't have these because they just came out with the Flex Z a few years ago so they're fairly new. I highly recommend them, installation was a breeze once you get the old rusted stuff off the car .

 

[Dentor]

Looks good. What kind of Vinyl paint do you use for the window trim?

 

[spyderdrifter]

Any updates to this car?

 

[aaronth777]

Any updates to this car?

Nothing major since then, just minor things like slotted and drilled rotors and painted brake calipers. I've been saving up to do some major mods soon though. My next project is the cooling system with a Mishimoto X-Line radiator, 2 Spal pusher fans on the condensor to replace the factory fans, and new silicone hoses. I moved to california so I need to replace this 22 year old radiator , so I figured may as well upgrade as I go. I have other project ideas after that as well like manual steering rack/power steering delete (the plan is to go to electric power steering in the future), and I want to upgrade the interior. Will update this thread as I go

 

[aaronth777]

Just wanted to post an update since I haven't in a few years. I still have the car and it's still going strong. I just made the trip from California to Ohio and it ran perfectly, making the 2250 mile trip in just 38 hours. This car has now driven across the country twice so yes, DSM's can be reliable and practical! Before the trip I did a bit of maintenance, with the worst being the heater core. They don't make the right one for the 2Gb anymore so I had to get one for the 2Ga and bend the pipes and trim some plastic to make it work. I also completely redid the AC system in the car replacing the compressor, evaporator, expansion valve, drier, condenser, and the AC lines. Heat and AC work beautifully now. I don't think I ever mentioned this but about a year ago I upgraded my radiator to the Mishimoto X-line 3 core radiator and silicone coolant lines. I also added a SPAL AC pusher fan in front of the condenser since the factory AC fan no longer fits with the bigger radiator. Car runs pretty well with only minor quirks that still need sorted out. But hey that's just the reality of owning a 25 year old car