Work started straight away on getting it back road worthy, the shell and bodywork were generally in pretty good condition, but a bodged repair job of the rear arches needed quite a bit of welding work. While it was in my friends bodyshop I called in a favour for a little paintwork and had the chrome window / grill surrounds blacked. Followed by fitting some 40mm FK lowering springs.
It took me a couple of months to decide what to do with the car. I've always been a fan of the jap scene, and fancied doing something a little different to the norm swaps (although it seems to be getting more and more common now). So after a few recommendations I left it in the capable hands of Slide Motorsport
I wish I had the know how to get more involved with the swap but it seemed a better idea leaving it to the professionals, although it's something i'm hoping to get more involved in in the future.
Here are a few pics from the swap.
While Slide were busy with the conversion I start buying some new goodies.
16" Compomotive TH Mono's -
Rear brakes - 2 x 280mm rear discs from a BMW Z1, 2 x E30 M3 rear calipers (38mm pistons) and carrier brackets, 2 x Goodridge braided stainless steel hoses and EBC Yellowstuff pads.
Front brakes - WMS 4 pot brake kit, will take some decent pics soon.
- ACT organic clutch
- Blitz induction kit
- Apex short shifter
- HKS adjustable actuator
- Braided oil and water feeds
- Boost guage, and water / oil temp guage
- Cat 1 Viper alarm
I picked the car up a couple of weeks ago, and its been back to the garage for a few tweaks, but other than that everything went impressively smooth. It's currently running about 8psi of boost and i'm loving the power
Power wise i'm guessing it should be around 220ish bhp at the moment, but i'm sure the standard diff and rear section of the exhaust are restricting it somewhat. BIG shout to Slide though for doing such a great job, really would recommend them to anyone in a similar position. Here's a few pics of how it looks now...
Insurance was a challenge with only being 21, but have managed to fully insure it with all mods declared thanks to a very helpful Adrian Flux
The tacho stopped working after a couple of miles, thanks to advice from Theo have managed to sort out the new resistors but it's still not working yet, think something must have blown when running it originally.
Looking forward to the summer and hopefully meeting a few people at shows. There's plenty more planned for the car in the meantime including a full exhaust system, uprated fuel pump, new spark plugs, more boost, coilovers etc so i'll try and keep the thread as up to date as possible, and hopefully get some better pics when the weather picks up.
