Woah it’s been 7 months since my last update. I couldn’t even remember where I left off at and had to go back and look. Well, quite a few things have changed over the months, and I planned on making an update at the beginning of the year. However, my phone broke and I lost all of my research and pictures of my car, along with the documentation for the next few updates. So. Here we are.
My car recently got rear ended, so I’m writing all this out since I have a little more free time right now. The damage wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, but is still about $3500 worth. So I’m fighting with insurance (again) to cover the costs.
Over the winter I pulled the dash back out and tore most of the interior apart to make a few changes. The first one being a Defi Link Meter II setup with gauges placed in the dash. I measured out the four gauges and drilled through my uncracked dash (yikes). The outcome was very nice, and I always wanted an Itai inspired gauge setup. The sensors were routed through the firewall and the link meter mounted on the dash. While I had the dash out, I went ahead and wired up my Pivot headlight controller, and cut out the cluster bezel to mount it beside the headlight button. It’s a pretty neat device that works correctly every time about 40% of the time haha.
Next was the Cusco Safety21 seven point cage. I was brainstorming how I was going to cleanly cut through the rear seat side plastics so that the rear bars could be mounted to the wheel wells. I ended up first mounting the bars in place without the plastics and drilling the holes in the wheel well to mount it. Once that was done, I made a cardboard template of the base of the bar and measured where the center of the diameter of the bar came down on the template and made a dot. I then bolted that template to the wheel well using the mounting holes I drilled earlier. Then, I rigged a laser pointer to the top of the main hoop where the top of the rear bar was mounted. I aimed the laser at the center dot on the template, so technically, the path of the laser is the same path of the rear bar. I then snapped the side plastic into place and marked where the laser landed on the plastic. I pulled the plastic back off and made sure the laser was still on the template dot, and began drilling through the plastic. I did that for each side. It worked out pretty well, the right side was a bit tricky because it had the cross bar meeting it at the bottom, so I had to dremel out some more material. I don’t know if there is an easier way out there, but I’m happy with the results. (Again, I’m sorry there’s no pictures. If I can recover everything from my old phone, I will update this post to make this easier to comprehend haha)
While I’m talking about interior, I decided to switch to a silver Nardi classic to better suite the gauges. I also added a period correct cell phone holder to the center vent (need to paint it black) and a cellstar assura. I decided to give the red interior a go with some Bride Brix 1.5’s and G-Corporation floor mats. I also bought some genuine red Bride fabric I plan on wrapping the door panels and glovebox with.
On to the outside, I finally installed my old style Kakimoto catback (although now I want a trust dd or perhaps a works9). I have a D-MAX roof wing, Koguchi Power hood, and Hot Road front lip mocked up and prepping for paint.
I decided to dress up my SR a little bit over the winter. I bought a Yashio Factory 3 layer S14 radiator that unfortunately had the upper tank damaged in shipping, so now it’s a nice wall decoration. For now I added an aluminum S14 radiator and dual fan setup. I also got a Yashio Factory water pump pulley, and Greddy power steering and alternator pulleys. I had the valve cover powder coated, added an HKS oil cap, and installed some purple Samco hoses. About halfway through doing everything I came across a forged bottom end red top for a good price, and snatched it up. I changed out the T28 it had for a TD06 20G 8cm housing. It came with an extremely cracked and repaired mid mount manifold that I’ll be swapping for a top mount. I’ll also be adding new staggered HKS cams and valvetrain along with an entire refresh. But that’s a future project.
I’m not really sure where I want to go next with the car. I’ve been dealing with so many other expenses lately, it hasn’t really been a priority. Feel free to give me feedback or ask me questions haha. I’m trying to get motivated to work on it again!!
Here are all the current pictures of the car. Enjoy~
(Overflow hose just temporary lol)
