Thursday, May 29, 2008

Couple More Things

-Avic D3 is getting installed Friday...

-Picked up a Cupra R lip... Will post pics of it when I can... will possibly install this weekend

-2 more better quality pics taken on my bro's cell phone camera



-Oh yeah, and for the record, I removed the stars from my side mirrors and rear window... Only the ones on the sunroof are left... Those are not coming off.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

A Busy Memorial Day Weekend

So I went home to Oak Park with a few projects on my agenda to complete
-Cut out my front helper springs
-Install my single -> double din conversion

Before I start...
My FK Highsports are set up like this:

The helper spring is NOT the actual spring.
It is a smaller spring used to keep the spring in place when the suspension is fully extended (like when the car is jacked up/on a lift). However, when the car is on the ground, the helper spring is fully compressed, and basically only acts like a spacer, raising the car 1-2 inches.
It does not have any effect on the suspension ride quality, etc.

I cut it out instead of just removing it because its cheaper to just cut it out than pay someone 2-3 hours of labor to fully take apart the front suspension and put it back together.


Saturday
Started at around 2:30-3, Scott came over to assist/help
First thing I did was start cutting the passenger side helper spring.
MUCH harder than I expected.... I used probably like 30 dremel discs taking it out...
Took me probably like 4-5 hours straight to get it out... Not fun...

Finally out!!


See... no cut spring


Sittin pretty


After finally finishing, there was no way I was gonna spend another 4-5 hours doing the driver side spring...

So we decided to start on the double din conversion...
No real pics of that... But it was pretty straight forward...
Definitely time consuming, but pretty straight forward, due to a pretty good DIY.
The toughest part was dremeling the air-con unit to fit the slimmer double-din setup But thanks to Scott's template-ing and my superior dremeling skills... MY air con unit fits almost perfectly now!

We finally finished at 12am...
Thats right... we started at 3 and ended at 12... the only break we took was like 30 minutes to eat a yummy dinner made by my dad.


Sunday
I cut out the driver side helper spring...
It went pretty smoothly... and a little faster than the first time thanks to some better thought out planning. Although i got stuck for ever on the last couple cuts...
This one took me maybe 3-4 hours...

After that i went for a drive to test it out!!
Wow... i was rubbing like crazy... fender and axel and all.
But damn it looked sick.

Should i drop it more? :)




Then I washed my car, and Scott kindly washed my brothers car for him... since it was filthy.


Monday
Hmm.. I dont think I really worked on my car much.
But I did help my cousin install his A-Spec kit on his TL...
It took us all night... From like 7-11:30.


Tuesday
I know, not part of the long weekend, but i didnt go back to school on monday...
I drove the car a little and decided it was just too low.. too much rubbing.
So i decided to raise the car like half an inch more...

The new height:


The extra half inch pretty much eliminated all the fender rubbing, and a lot of the axel rubbing... Although it still rubs during hard left turns...
Not sure what I'm going to do about that... just no canyon running for a lil while I guess.


One last thing:
DO NOT trust your OEM jack... or this could happen to you... :( :( :( :(

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Custom Quad Exhaust Video Clips!

I was finally able to get a good vid clip of my exhaust!
I took 2 yesterday... 1 drive by and 1 in car..
The in car sounded great... but the drive by sounded crappy!!

I was convinced that thats not what my exhaust sounded like... so i tried taking another vid w/ a different camera... and it came out 10 times better!!

The first camera didnt get the low bass sounds of the exhaust... The one did! Yay



Saturday, May 17, 2008

Revo Stage 2!!

So on Tuesday this week i had my 15k mile service...
During the service they reflashed my car with their updated program, effectively erasing my Revo Stage 1...
Needless to say, my car ran SLUGGISH w/o the software... Soooo slow...
So I capitalized on the situation to get my much needed Stage 2 upgrade done...

I went to Canyon Racer Motorsports in Mission Viejo (http://www.canyonracermotorsports.com/), cuz i found them on the Revo website for dealers...
And i headed over at 1 w/ my friend Steven w/ a Ibis White S-Line Titanium Package...

When i got there i met Mike, this older (like 40-50) whitewashed asian dude that listens to country music... hes super chill and knowledgeable.
Apparently Mike owns the entire shop, and is the only one that works there...
Despite this his shop has a dyno, 3 lifts, and one of them is awesome for slammed cars.
The garage was very clean and organized, definitely one of the cleaner garages ive seen.

Steven was there in hopes of getting his ECS torque mount insert installed (like a 30 min job, max. When we got there, Mike said that he had no time to do the install, and could only do the software because he had his hands tied in a bad-fitting PITA big turbo kit installed on a pretty sick B6 Audi A4 (Grey, Silver BB5 LM Reps, Rieger Kit, FMIC, Dual single tipped exhaust).

But after a minute he decided to just go ahead and install the insert... and does it for Steven, and doesnt even charge him.

Anyways, Mike got my software installed while we chatted, etc.

Apparently the shop is open Tues-Sun, and is close on Mondays and Tuesdays... pretty smart cuz ppl like to mod their cars on weekends.

So the reason why this post is so long, and I sound so enthusiastic about this shop is because I've been looking really hard and forever for a local/unshady/good/qualty shop to get stuff done at...
Mike seems upfront, helpful, knowledgeable, and isnt in it to rip you off - Considering the fact he installed my friend's insert for free on our first time there, despite his hands being tied w/ the A4 turbo install, plus he almost sent me off w/o having me pay for the software! I had to remind him that I had to pay.

Oh yeah, one last thing, he has a MKV GTI, so he basically knows everything about A3s too because the 2 cars share almost everything.


Stage 2:
Immediately noticeable on the way home was that I gained back my exhaust growl/agressiveness that I lost when I went back to stock programming... Something I was definately missing.
The car is Fassttt
Mike told me that the Stage 2 is supposed to give you 15-20whp over Stage 1... Not bad for 50$!!
So basically i should have around ~270hp and 300+lbs tq
(Oh yeah, and I was told it was 85$ a dyno, so I wanna get that done to get some numbers down on paper, I bet he drops the prices for group deals!)
The car pulls harder now for sure, it feels and sounds more "raw", its a pretty dramatic change.
I havnt really had a chance to really open to open it up though, since it was pretty trafficy on the way home...

But I cant wait for my chance to break it in!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

No Fat Chicks...

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The Past and Present!!

Finally got a chance (and my A3 modded enough) to do a photoshoot with my old car.

Plus Kevin tore off the splitter(s) on the E46 forever ago...
And its never clean...
Finally got the repainted bumper and re-attached splitters on the car before Bimmerfest.. AND the car was clean.
So we did a post-bimmerfest Photoshoot...

Visit the link for pics

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Almost there!!!

1. I need $2000 asap... I could get my entire bodykit and have it on my car by the end of this month...
front bumper ($1000)+ front lip ($100) + side skirts($300) + paint ($600) ... having it all done by the end of month (priceless...)
Who wants to sponsor/finance me ??? :(

2. Finally ready for the D3...

BIG thanks to OEMpl.us for double din conversion stuff...
Now i have to install the cage... and bring it to the shop to have the pac units (which i need to buy still) and everything installed

3. My newest "mod" ....
Glow in the dark stars!

:confused:


Yeah i know... kinda gay... but i'm just messing around...
I like the ones on the open sky... looks freakin cool at night... the ones on the back are kinda feminine... i just did it for fun, i'll take it off in a bit... haha

But it looks cool at night!!!

Friday, May 2, 2008

Quad Exhaust!

I know... I lag...



It sounds MEAN!!! And it barely drones.... perfect imo...
I'll get a sound clip when i get a chance