I'll take some tomorrow when it's light out. The OEM TII mounts were a bit too soft, causing sloppy shifts. I figure these will work better with my setup, plus they are cheaper than OEM replacements.

 

Just an FYI. Theres 3 mounts that hold the tail of the trans. The 2 on the sides i went with OEM replacements and the one in the center on the bottom (round ~1.5") I went with Poly. Why the combo? Its what i had laying around. I'm sure it will be plenty stiff especially with the motor mounts being as stiff as they are.

 

Or you could just swap out all the bushings and mounts for an armature that runs from the transmission tail shaft back to the differential. That would keep tail rigid and maintain a perfect pinion/trans angle.

 

I see what you did there....hahaha!

 

haha Yeah! Let me know when you get yours finished.

 

My favorite shot of my car to date, taken by the guys over at Grocery Getter Crew at the First Class Fitment show this past Saturday:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ggcgozer/6248189595/

 

Looks sweet. New desktop background!

 

^^ Wow cool!

Couple more taken from some of the photographers at the event:

 

Man, those make me want to do this shoot even moar! Car looks fantastic mang.

 

You really did a phenomenal job on your car. That engine shot shows an air filter screaming for a cold air box with all that real estate in front.

 

Thanks, me too!

Yeah It's something I'm going to look into this winter. I'll write more a little later about what I did and the new parts, etc.

 

So I have some time, thought I would update as I did a bit of work for this show. I'll refer to the pics above for the engine stuff.

In the engine bay, I ordered a Garage Star wiper cowl plate in brushed aluminum. I also fabbed up a new rad block-off plate out of an aluminum sheet and deleted the cutout for the stock hood latch as I no longer have it, then hit it with a scotch brite pad to give it that same brushed look as the Garage Star piece. I also replaced every nut in the engine bay with a SS acorn one, and any old nuts where an acorn couldn't be used with some new SS bolts. I wetsanded the engine bay as well with 1000 grit.

On the exterior, obviously I did a ton of wetsanding. Started with 800 on some of the rough spots, then 1000, 1500, 2000, followed up by rubbing compound and polishing compound with a buffer. After that a bit of wax. I ordered touch-up paint to fix the lip and a few small rock chips, but it didn't arrive in time, but yes I will be taking care of that.

Here's a shot I took after I did the rubbing compound with the buffer. I'm standing in the doorway of the garage, hence the tree in the reflection- not too shabby!


I also got a set of NB Zoom carbon fiber side mirrors. The mounting plates are different (bolt spacing is the same), but there is more than enough adjustment in the mirrors for them to work. So for anyone out there wondering, yes you can mount NB Zoom Engineering carbon fiber side mirrors on your NA and have them be functional.

Here's a shot of the mirrors, and also one of a sweet wooden MOMO wheel I recently picked up (reused my old horn button)


If you look closely in this pic at the HVAC controls, it looks like there is a carbon fiber trim piece. This is actually a piece of aluminum etched to look like carbon fiber. I bought it like 2 years ago, decided not to mount it, put it away somewhere safe and forgot all about it. I rediscovered it looking for something else the other day so I thought, hey why the hell not?

I also wrapped the 2 upper bars with electrical tape. Don't really like it, but it is better than the zip ties I had. Over the winter I'm going to have my wife sew up some canvas covers like what came on Jeeps from the factory.

On the front of the car, I decided to put the stock lights back in as it was supposed to rain Friday, and good thing too as we drove through a downpour pretty much the entire way down to Jersey. I decided to leave them in for the show too.


I also picked up a set of crap wheels with some almost new 225/45/15 NT-01s mounted on them. Bolted them up last night and went for a spin and my god do they grip!




Makes it looks like a complete sunken battleship, but they'll certainly do the trick. I signed up to do my first auto-x on the 30th with this thing; can't freaking wait.

 

Do you have a camera mount and a decent video camera? I gotta see this.

 

My first and second designs failed miserably, still pondering about what to do next. My 2nd design worked great up until 5k rpms, then there were too many vibrations for the camera to deal with. I've been trying to take video of the car I promise....haha I'm too embarrased to share the videos I've taken they are that bad.

Worst case I'll just make someone stand there and film it.

 

http://www.ogracing.com/catalog/2-Ca...MERA-MOUNT-KIT
This is cheap and works fantastic. I use a Contour but works with any camera.

 

I was messing with my camera, and found out that image stabilization was turned on for photos, but not for video, so I'm going to retry this mount again.

 

Obviously didn't do the auto-x this weekend due to the snow, so I'll be patiently awaiting next season.

In other news, my car is in the gallery for Work Equip 01s on their homepage: http://www.workwheelsusa.com/gallery-photo.php?photo=1

 

Cannibeats covereage of First Class Fitment is up! My car is on pg. 1 and 6.





Here's the link to the rest of the photos:
http://www.canibeat.com/2011/11/firs...verage-part-1/

 

car looks ******* sick!

 

My car got it's first feature in juststance.com! Here is the link: http://www.juststance.com/exclusive/cloud-9/