Well it hasn?t gone far and for a while there was very little progress. The start of a new job took up nearly 11 hours of my day, including commute. Needless to say the motivation to continue work on the project was running low. The car sat untouched from winter 2018 until March 2020, thanks to becoming a remote worker.
I had previously sold the 4 lug Yokohama Advan AVS VS6s and really wanted a more aggressive set. By fall 2019, I was able to purchase a set of them in a square 17x9 +18 spec. Shout out to Fedex for dragging my wheels everywhere and basically giving them all curb rash. Opening up a claim with Fedex literally resulted in the worst headache and them acting like I never existed.
The interior was 95% complete for the car but I had yet to wrap the visors. This was my second attempt and I?m fairly happy with the outcome. I hotdog bunned them together, stapled them down to set the glue and sewed them together.
Eastbear mirrors, thanks to Streeter. They happened to be repainted multiple times. While sanding them down I found maybe 10 different layers of paint. I took them all the way down to the plastic in preparation for some minor repairs and paint. Wet sand, wet sand, wet sand.
Ahh the engine bay, yes, the biggest waste of time during this whole project. I wish I would have just moved on after the last pictures I posted of it etched, primed, and seamed sealed; but alas, I decided to make it perfect. There was rust beginning to form under the etch primer which resulted in me taking it back to bare metal. Eventually I got a decent base primer on it and used filler? to even out my fabricating skills. Not exactly the best direction, but after spinning my wheels, I think it?s going the right way and looks pretty good for a tin can.
In late April, my friend Nick told me that a buddy of his wanted to sell a running KA24DE out of a 95 auto. The price was right and the LS bug bit another one. In the interest of keeping things simple, I did a quick refresh on the engine and took care of the leaky oil pan. I plan to have the car ready to drive soon so maybe a turbo build down the road is in order for my spare engine.
With picking up the new Advans, I went down the rabbit hole of a 5 lug swap and Z32 brake upgrades. I went with the Part Shop Max calipers front and rear. I was also lucky to score a set of rear aluminum calipers from the junkyard. This time around, I decided to press in the new bearings myself using a rented press? what a time.
In early December, another set of VS6s came up for sale with Falkens already installed and I couldn?t resist. The drive to PA for them was definitely worth it; the powder coat finish is amazing. I made a stop along the way and picked up a Nismo strut bar as well. The wheels' specs are okay: 17x9 +35 and 17x9 +18. I?m currently going to just run a 10 mm slip on spacer to make the fronts work.
Hopefully by late spring I?ll have a lot more accomplished and another update. As always I appreciate the support of this community a ton.