lofreq

"...aaan dennn?"

and then, just when u thought u seen it all time for: happy fukn new year

so - in between moving house, end of yr rush at work, and xmas, not much time for what else. heres some pics of it at the railside by Tauranga Baypark/speedway on my way to the mount after new yrs - dirty girl

these just arrived this morning, so had to chuck em on and see how they looked before: plain and gay after: hooray! i think the clear corners make it look bland and featureless... the amber gives some shape and framing to the front, sharpens up the visual form of the front, and adds contrast. next update might hopefully be of a bunch of silly toys purchased from superautobacs!

more work done over the last 2 weeks - got my plates on, adjusted the suspension dampers (had them wound up too hard, was like a track car, way too aggressive for street.. rides beautiful now), and cut off the factory intake resonator and sealed it up, for a bit more noise on song. but thats all invisible - main thing is a jzx90 front lip ressurrected from the garage slipway rubbish heap - cut, halved, narrowed, trimmed, rejoined, braced, sanded, painted and fitted. carries the black side trim line around the front of the car now and balances things out visually. will do for now until proper lip kit is imported. also debagded front grille. so here we are: ohh, trent, not baad, aye. next: got some amber corner lamps on order, will fit them maybe end of the week. next up will be new exhaust, and then my focus moves to stereo and gps to make the interior a bit more of a fun place oh will also book it in for tints and alarm. meanwhile im off to tokyo on friday! so gonna hunt for some suspension arms as suggested, inquire into bodykit shipping, wheels, but will try to pick up a ton of useless interior dress up bits cant wait!!

yeah why not! id say u will know better than i about all the accessories i could get for our cars... im just starting i have no idea

oh these arent the final wheels shit no. this is just to get me around. the flat black is better than the stock silver i think so why not 18x8.5/18x9.5 +15 is the aim, but a good set will probably set me back about $1800, so i'll do that when i get the cash - not a priority for now in other news i scored those cheap flights that were on grabaseat last week so im off back to japan in 3 weeks! for a 2 week holiday u can bet i will try to do the mean superautobacs shopping mission and grab whatever i can... or maybe ship home anything too big to carry by hand. jzx100 parts here i come!!

chaser coupe conversion yeah i read up on that build its pretty remarkable work. 4 doors is ok for now. so i went to queenstown last weekend because grabaseat gave us cheap flights... so no work over weekend, however the full black wheel idea was festering in my head while i was floating around milford sound so when i got back i had to respray the wheels and see if it made a difference. also got some 5mm spacers and spaced out all 4 wheels while i was at it. checking the casting on the wheels showed they were actually 17x8 +38 front, 17x9 +38 rear - shocking offset. the spacers bring them to +33 - still shit. needs to be between +15 to +25 to have any cred really. no garage where i am since living in an apartment block, so i went round the block to a gravel carpark, and did the work there, wheels off and painting em in the carpark whilst locals walked back to their cars staring and frowning at the goings-on talk is cheap without pics doesnt look so standard now, bit tougher, will do for now. toyed with some white lettering on tires to break up the black and add a bit of rotating detail stiffened up the shocks - which have been very comfortable, and not very 'winding master' at all - wound up fronts to 18, rears to 14 (was 12, 6 before) out of 24 steps of stiffness. big difference just like that, very firm and flat - car loses grip before it begins to roll finally, i think its at a point where i can get some slipway promotion going on next up - some kind of front lip, new intake and pod filter, and some kinda new exhaust. stay tuned

sweet cheers for the link aussie cars are always funny aye i think i need a few more mods before i qualify to post on there! hehe

just read up this story - mint read and progress! amazed at ur perseverence i would have canned the whole thing and got a new motor and loom - props updates!

yeah - was advertised as a camry. hope i can insure it as a camry. lol at them fools. "slapping pastic"? do u mean 'plastic'? plastic kits? watchutalkinboutwillis. explain! thanks for the totallytoyotas hookup, i wana get some facelift taillights for this thing, and maybe some interior accessories, but thats all i think.... ill hit up trent maybe? and yeah WALD is not bad - depends whats available and affordable more than anything! whats happenbing with urs man.. new turbo? amen brother!

fuck me - thats the best one yet. almost as gd as your avatar. /set:newdesktopbackground for inspiration maybe 'metal lip' look is also old - flat black dish is fucking tough! inspired me to photoshop the photo i took on saturday into this - same wheels just blacked out, blacked out chrome, and i have a softspot for the orange indicators - prefer them over the clear stock ones: ...needs front lip, in flat black also... but fuck i think we're beginning to get somewhere now!

the kit above has those massive flared out bottom ends like a BN Sports kit... dont really wana go that way, i think the flared out 'street sweeper' style has kinda been ruined by all the driftboy flatpeak clowns.. thinking more subtle, and just offset stance it out - this is the Aimgain kit: very simple, unobtrusive to the pooint that it just continues the stock body lines down (rather than introduce new mad angles) i think is more where im headed?? just some ideas anyway: Aimgain: concept mockup of some kinda unrealistic dark candy brown (but kinda tough i think) with some Wolf Wheels: or here's a Traum Ares x100 kit with some CST Zero-1 Hyper's p'shopped on, and brownified (this one came out sand coloured): i like to visualise for 290 yrs and then do it all in one go suddenly, it seems. hehe. im thinking brown... either brown or olive green. however using a factory toyota brown like my old cressida would be a nice tribute? this colour: one thing u can help me out with - should i do the whole 'dark wheels with metal lip' look, or the 'concave spokes right to the edge with no dish' look? i have been trying to decide for the past 4 weeks with no real idea either way.........?? altho today im leaning to the side of gunmetal wheel+machined lip.....?? maybe make it look just like my cressida above but just 10yrs newer... also should i go satin or not try to be too fancy and stick with standard gloss for my brown shade. ??

whoops... think ive posted all these in the wrong forum - my bad! mods can you pls move this thread to 'other projects' churchur /edit: thread been moved now, cheers

1 week into it and already its time for down suspension cutting. Garage Slipway boys sourced some sweet Tein HE Winding Masters for me, from a JZX90, so was hoping they would fit thought id take the chance to try to cover up those horrid wheels by making them harder to see this was the hardest part of the whole process - masking the fuckin things. lots of backbreaking work. final result: didnt even have to adjust the height settings from the previous owners settings - came out perfectly dumped. 25way adjustable dampers so i just wound the fronts to 50%, rears 30% stiffness, since this is gonna see street much more than track. ride is perfectly comfortable, yet nice and firm, without being bouncy - wheels are still mud but will do for now till the right deal comes up a reasonable improvement wheels suffering from massive lack of offset, weird black factory sidetrim makes bodylines weird, lack of front lip makes front bumper look too high. so, just means i know what to do next. coming up (hopefully): front lip, stereo upgrade (it has a japanese FM band Minidisc player in it! all i have is newstalk ZB (anything is better than maiFM), tints i think, and an alarm of some sort...

Took her for a maiden cruise down to Narrowneck/Takapuna. Notice the incredibly high ride height, worsened by gigantic 225/50R17 tyres on some ugly as heck 17x8/17x9 rims This simply would not do, when you walked 20ft away from the car and turned around to look at it, you can clearly see all 4 tyres under the car + sky / other cars driving by behind it. absolutely ridiculous. Tyres were also so wide and balloony that they would actually scrape fender when exiting diagonally out of driveways. factory tyre size is 195/65/15, so the 225's were like 4% oversize (diameter), sluggish to drive due to larger turning radius, and the 1G doesnt need any more of a challenge really Within 4 days i had found a tyre shop to trade the tyres for something more suitable - got some 215/45R17's on it. acceleration is slightly more sprightly now muchhh better well other than the ride height...

So i got a chaser ;> i will be holding on to this for a while and most of the major work wont be happening till a year later, because im off overseas next yr. so why buy another car after just selling the boso markII if im leaving? well i just felt like it because frankly im sick of relying on mums auto corolla between now and then. this thing sat on trademe and at the docks for like a year i think doing nothing. sat in my watchlist constantly for months. went back and forth over buying this as an "old" car (1996) but only 75,000k's and factory manual, or buy a newer facelift model (1999+) with nicer interior and whatnot but higher k's and auto and footbrake instead of handbrake and all kinds of gay shit like that. so fuckit, figured a newer lower mileage car with all factory manual options but a shit motor was better than high mileage car with better motor but all wrong options. bargained price with the wholesaler and got a good deal on it Here it is as per dealer photos sitting in the yard: 1996 Toyota Chaser Avante - GX100, 1G-FE straight 6 twin cam, W57 manual. nothing else worth mentioning really. But a perfect daily for me and a great base for more mods later. So plan is: build a tough daily streeter, full creature comforts, + grunt for grins. ideas are: - 18x8.5, 18x9.5 +15 rims, in the weeds - Aimgain kit or similar, straight lines only, no ducts/scoops/vents/etc, no spoiler/wing - Toyota brown, contemplating satin finish, not sure yet - 2JZ-GTE, VVTI, all stock incl air con, but with more breathable dump pipes nice and simple, tasteful and tough. see how we go.

leaking oil from diff fixed with replacement seals rocker covers also got new seals - unless youre meaning the spitting of oil from the breather from blowby, thats something else. stock grille might still be on the wall of my old shed in st heliers, can go have a look maybe, i believe i left all my old parts screwed to the wall when i moved out heh. steering wheel and gearknob probably there also, if not at the Slipway garage with Mr Dori etc and yes as pointed out, its sold, and somewhere in NP now presumably no verossa for me, thats a bit hideous! haha. my heart is set on a jzx100 chaser, just as a tough daily streeter, that has aircon that works... this sort of stz: need a newschool car for reliability and usability sakefor now, until more settled, then i can get another oldschool project on the side. later probly import a top spec gx71 from japan as a classic and go to work on that. afterall, i never got to sharknose my 71....... ;D

cheers guys glad you enjoyed the read - theres been some good times ive had the priviledge of experiencing, i guess everyone will have their own glory days, but being there from the time the import tariffs came into effect, and then watching japanese car modification popularity take off, everything between 1995-2005, pretty fuckin cool - and will never be the same again. well, last updates to the project now in the project thread: viewtopic.php?p=466528#p466528 but as mentioned after alot of umming and ahhing i finally bit the bullet and shes now down in New Plymouth with new owner for god knows what else, so its a wrap for me. for this car at least. anyway thanks to you fellas for the interest (for years even), all the conflicting opinions and critisicm, tried my best to make something unique and cool and anyway i for one am proud of what i ended up with, so i guess thats all that matters. special mention to lowlancer since from his very first post in the discussion thread he made, begging to make sure i updated on this project, well there you have it from start to finish 2004-2009! thats a helluva way to go especially with the thread title - best part. now... i DO have my eye on a manual X100 down at the importers yard............

full set of the above pictures here: http://www.defy.net.nz/lofreq/pics/Car% ... index.html anyway, with that, ive been testing the waters for a sale for a while, as plans are to head to europe for a yr or so to live and work and explore... and this would exceed my baggage limit (although how baddass would it be to cruise thru cobblestoned paris roundabouts in this thing amongst all the fiats and austins!) - ive got my visa etc all sorted and looks like im outta here after new yrs. so thats that. so had a few rounds on trademe and whatnot, and finally got an offer for it that i could not turn down. as of yesterday it has changed hands and the machine is now down in New Plymouth, for goodness knows what else will happen to it (motor swap? new wheels/paint? wrapped round a tree? dumped to rust in paddock?) thanks for all who followed the build, props and criticism alike. its been fun - on to the next project! ok wave bye bye...

so here are some final shots of the car: behind-the-scenes of the photoshoot how bout a pink car how bout a blue car

they asked heaps about the old days and how the scene used to be, so i wrote heaps in response to what it was like for me they cut alot out of the magazine for it to fit but ended up putting the whole interview up online today, even got front page limelite! hehehe. thats my 15mins thanks very much full writeup here: http://www.performancecar.co.nz/news/59 ... iew-online cheers!

full interview has been loaded online! http://www.performancecar.co.nz/ front page steez haha

haha chur fellas zeb thats sweet logo why havent u sent me a sticker of it!

whored out to NZPC, but pretty cool all the same. hope u like the article!