Hey everybody. Long time lurker here finally posting some stuff on my car. I bought mine about 2 years ago and she looked like this:
I got it from an old man in clarksville, tn. it had 190k on the broken-for-10-years odometer. It had all new front end components in the suspension, and i paid 1200 for it. First i redid the whole front of the motor but thats about where the mechanical side of things stop sadly...
Now i work at a body shop so naturally aesthetics came before mechanics. I know thats not the proper way to do it, and i wish i had the money to do it proper but as the title states, im ballin' on a budget here.
So anyway, my cars already been through several stages. First thing i did was get wheels and cut (yes, i know, i know) my springs. I went with some 15x9 and 15x8 et0 xxr's because theyre cheap and look decent.
She looked good but of course i wasnt near where i wanted to be. Only cool/different thing i did before completely redoing it was added this sweet lip off of the new dodge challengers. i had to cut it in the middle and shrink it down but i thought it looked decent for a diving board car. And i also got some projector/crosshair headlights
So then came tax time and i got some money to really make it what i want. First of all i wanted to ditch the diving boards. However, i didnt want to go mtech or IS kit because well...as gorgeous as they look, i wanted to do something different while maintaining a simple OEM+ kind of look to the body. In came fiberglass bumpers and ford taurus side skirts. And while i was at it, i stripped the whole outside of the car down to bare metal. This damn thing had EIGHTEEN LAYERS of paint/clear/primer on it.....I also bedlined the engine bay/trunk for easy cleaning and durability.
I went, at first, with e36 m3 style bumpers front and rear.
Paint stripping
After a few layers removed i dug in to find how deep it went....
Then i made a custom color. started out as a chrysler green, i blued it up and added blue and green pearl to it. wish i had better pics of the color but this was immediately after the car was finished. The black e30 is my friend, chase. That damn thing was insane. 12' wide diamond racings under completely custom fabbed fenders....fuck yeah it was awesome..
I got it done just in time for SoWo 2012
I wasnt too pleased with the front bumper, i thought it was too bulky looking for the clean and simple look i was going for. But then, enter bambi.
I slayed a small deer 50ft down the road from the body shop i work at and drug it about another 100ft down the road before i pulled off in a driveway. Heres the aftermath:
(those bolts holding the bumper on were post-deer lol, not my original mounting procedure)
So then i decided, hell...my insurance is paying for a new bumper, i can find a better one, and i did. DTMFiberWerkz offered one they called "BRYTN" and its a slightly cleaner looking/ more compact version of the e36 m3 style. even uses the e36 fog lights just like the first bumper.
Repair time just around halloween last year, i gave the car a halloween costume:
Also decided to make a diamond plate skid plate/splitter for the new bumper. This ended up not working because it hung too low and got effed up pretty quickly but it looked good for the week or so it was on.
All fixed up: much happier with this front bumper
Then i finally got around to doing a 5 speed swap. Got the whooolle swap for $300
Changed the front splitter to a plastic one made out of old skate ramps haha plus repairs again after the metal one smashed into the bumper.
And that is pretty much how she sits now. BUT i do have this:
*Insert pic of wrecked e36 convertible that i lost the pic of*
I got the car for $200 and the motor still turned over and ran!! Smooth as could be. So im going to be putting an m52 in there real soon! ill keep this thread updated as i go!
I got it from an old man in clarksville, tn. it had 190k on the broken-for-10-years odometer. It had all new front end components in the suspension, and i paid 1200 for it. First i redid the whole front of the motor but thats about where the mechanical side of things stop sadly...
Now i work at a body shop so naturally aesthetics came before mechanics. I know thats not the proper way to do it, and i wish i had the money to do it proper but as the title states, im ballin' on a budget here.
So anyway, my cars already been through several stages. First thing i did was get wheels and cut (yes, i know, i know) my springs. I went with some 15x9 and 15x8 et0 xxr's because theyre cheap and look decent.
She looked good but of course i wasnt near where i wanted to be. Only cool/different thing i did before completely redoing it was added this sweet lip off of the new dodge challengers. i had to cut it in the middle and shrink it down but i thought it looked decent for a diving board car. And i also got some projector/crosshair headlights
So then came tax time and i got some money to really make it what i want. First of all i wanted to ditch the diving boards. However, i didnt want to go mtech or IS kit because well...as gorgeous as they look, i wanted to do something different while maintaining a simple OEM+ kind of look to the body. In came fiberglass bumpers and ford taurus side skirts. And while i was at it, i stripped the whole outside of the car down to bare metal. This damn thing had EIGHTEEN LAYERS of paint/clear/primer on it.....I also bedlined the engine bay/trunk for easy cleaning and durability.
I went, at first, with e36 m3 style bumpers front and rear.
Paint stripping
After a few layers removed i dug in to find how deep it went....
Then i made a custom color. started out as a chrysler green, i blued it up and added blue and green pearl to it. wish i had better pics of the color but this was immediately after the car was finished. The black e30 is my friend, chase. That damn thing was insane. 12' wide diamond racings under completely custom fabbed fenders....fuck yeah it was awesome..
I got it done just in time for SoWo 2012
I wasnt too pleased with the front bumper, i thought it was too bulky looking for the clean and simple look i was going for. But then, enter bambi.
I slayed a small deer 50ft down the road from the body shop i work at and drug it about another 100ft down the road before i pulled off in a driveway. Heres the aftermath:
(those bolts holding the bumper on were post-deer lol, not my original mounting procedure)
So then i decided, hell...my insurance is paying for a new bumper, i can find a better one, and i did. DTMFiberWerkz offered one they called "BRYTN" and its a slightly cleaner looking/ more compact version of the e36 m3 style. even uses the e36 fog lights just like the first bumper.
Repair time just around halloween last year, i gave the car a halloween costume:
Also decided to make a diamond plate skid plate/splitter for the new bumper. This ended up not working because it hung too low and got effed up pretty quickly but it looked good for the week or so it was on.
All fixed up: much happier with this front bumper
Then i finally got around to doing a 5 speed swap. Got the whooolle swap for $300
Changed the front splitter to a plastic one made out of old skate ramps haha plus repairs again after the metal one smashed into the bumper.
And that is pretty much how she sits now. BUT i do have this:
*Insert pic of wrecked e36 convertible that i lost the pic of*
I got the car for $200 and the motor still turned over and ran!! Smooth as could be. So im going to be putting an m52 in there real soon! ill keep this thread updated as i go!
Comment