Richee3's Progress thread., Wilwood BBK installed. Options

[enderswift]

that hood is totally salvageable. My body shop managed to save mine and it really wasn't any better than this. This only looks like dramatic damage because of the bend, but it bent that way by design. Toyota specifically stamped dimples into the hood so it would always bend at that specific spot. This is great because it means it's relatively easy to pull out and straighten. The rest of the damage has to be handled with bondo, but even the most basic body shop can manage that

Good luck Dan!

This post has been edited by enderswift: Dec 5, 2014 - 8:22 PM

[richee3]

Sort of an update. I've been quietly collecting parts, and today I picked up the parts I've been waiting on. I missed out on a few nose cuts, missing one a couple of weeks ago by a matter of hours. I called the importer, Japan Direct Japanese out of Canada, to see if they happened to have another. As luck would have it, they had literally just gotten a new shipment in and it happened to have another nose cut, giving me every single part I need to repair my Celica. This is the second time I've bought from Japan Direct Japanese (first was one of the Redtops I bought) and I have nothing but positive things to say about them! I sent payment about 2 pm one day, got the tracking number the next morning around 8 am, and the clip had already left Canada, cleared Customs, and was in Harrisburg, PA. They built a crate to ship it in, and everything arrived in excellent condition. I swear this isn't a paid advertisement, but I've been very satisfied with both of my transactions with them.

On to the pictures!






Of course I immediately got to work on stripping it down to drop off the parts that the body shop needs and start selling the parts they don't. No pictures of that, since I was running out of daylight.

Even got some sweet HID's for the Supra!



No idea if they're any good yet. Just turning them on, they look a little too blue for my taste. I'll take the car for a drive tomorrow evening to find out if they are bright enough to make me happy, or if I'm putting regular halogens back in.

I haven't been bothered to open any of the boxes yet, but I ordered new Eibach Sportlines, KYB struts, strut mounts, boots, the whole works. I'm tired of driving around on creaky old suspension. It's time for something new. Also pictured is my replacement Magnaflow cat. Despite being less than two years old, my current Magnaflow cat has broken down internally. It sounds like a handful of marbles rolling around in hollow pipe, and it's decently loud. I've been putting off getting a replacement for far too long.




On top of the parts I have pictured, I've had a new subframe sitting in my garage since last Spring, compliments of Enderswift (Thank you, Luke!) and I just bought replacement control arms from Ted95 (Thank you, Cameron!)


I also bought brand new OEM bolts to put the new control arms on. The reason for the replacements is the ongoing saga of loose control arms, caused by welded nuts inside the subframe breaking free after replacing my bushings with poly bushings. So far, nobody else has ever had such poor luck with installing those bushings, but my entire experience with them has been far from positive. It's no fault of the bushings whatsoever, just issues with my car. However, I didn't want to install 20 year old rubber bushings, so I have ordered a new set of poly control arm bushings that should be here in about a month. By then, the body shop should be finished with my car and I'll be ready to install the new control arms, bushings, subframe, and suspension just in time for warm weather. I'll post pictures of the repairs and new suspension as I go, but it should be a while.

In the meantime, I've added a few parts for sale from my nose cut. Feel free to have a look if you need anything!

[Bitter]

You should check out HIDplanet forums for those Supra head lights, likely some OEM or Morimoto projector fits them nicely and gives you OEM performance (or better). As for bulbs the Morimoto XB line is really good, I'm running them in my retrofit and they're very bright and the colors very accurate. I'm using Fastbright ballasts though, which are as fast as OEM Denso slim like in the Lexus cars. From off to full on in like 5 seconds. (I'm kind of into automotive lighting, we can PM instead of cluttering your thread)

This post has been edited by Bitter: Mar 12, 2015 - 11:19 PM

[richee3]

The HID's I inherited are Startech Diablo's. Kind of a strange setup for an HID. I'm used to seeing the ballast and bulb separated, but these are all in one unit. Color, I haven't determined yet but they look like they might be 8K- too blue for me, and I'll put the halogen bulbs back in. I tried doing a little reseach on these HID's, but none of it is in Engrish and I'm too lazy for Google Translate. I definitely need to check out HIDplanet though. I bought some of Griffgirl's HID's several years ago and loved them, whatever brand they were. Since then I've bought a couple of different sets of DDM Tuning HID kits and they're decent for the money, but their bulb quality just isn't there. I want something better for sure. The stock headlights are very impressive and I'm not desperate for HID's, but I figured I'd give these a shot since I got them for free.

[Bitter]

The Morimoto XB line are the best aftermarket bulbs I've seen. I got some in D2S to use with my 55W ballasts and the alignment is as good or better than the OEM Philips I took out. They're seriously bright, both bulbs are identical color, and they're $50 for the pair. The Fastbright ballasts are about $50 for the pair shipped from China and amazingly good for the price, they light up faster than any aftermarket ballast I've seen and seem to have a very very low failure rate.


Those are some cool looking ballasts! It looks kind of like a D1S setup but with the ballast there too. Does the bulb socket into the ballast?

[richee3]

I didn't inspect them too closely to see if the bulb is detachable. I should hope it would be so you didn't have to replace the whole unit just to get a different bulb, but at a glance it appears to be one solid unit. The price on the Fastbright ballasts isn't bad at all... DDM kits are over $50 these days and shipping from China takes too long. I'm more than satisfied with my DDM ballasts but their bulb selection is poor. I want a whiter light than what I have. The DDM bulbs I have are allegedly 5k but I'd say they are somewhere between 6-7k in reality.

I've always been curious to see how our projector headlights would be with a proper OEM HID projector retrofit. Putting HID's in projectors is decent, gives good light and okay cutoff, but an HID in an HID projector is night and day. If our projectors weren't so expensive, I'd definitely do an HID projector retrofit. Who knows, my projectors may not be repaired and I may end up needing to buy a new set. I may just have a set of spares to play with.

[Bitter]

Likely they're a variation on some Lexus (Koito) projector, which seem to all use a similar mounting pattern. Hell just having the step and cutoff for LHD instead of RHD is going to make a big difference!

Once you get a Fastbright ballast or OEM you'll wonder how you ever dealt with the DDM stuff. They're very slow and tend to run a little below rated power which makes the output much more blue than it should be.

Here's my comparison between a 55W Fastbright and an OEM Denso slim, mind you the Fastbright needs to hit a full 45-50W output to stop and the Denso needs only to reach 35W.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3SlrOUhJYo
Fastbright is on the left, Denso (OEM Lexus) is on the right. Nevermind my cockeyed projector alignment.

This post has been edited by Bitter: Mar 13, 2015 - 12:59 AM

[njccmd2002]

good and some nice updates.... someday my car will ride again...

[Box]

Wooo parts and nerd talk about headlight optics. As bad as my night time vision is I've looked into the various aftermarket vendors, and have heard of Morimoto being one of the best, but felt if I were going to do it I might as well do it right and implement an O.E. Philips or Denso system with matching projectors. Needless to say a lot of work for a time I try to avoid driving in as much as possible.

[Bitter]

Wooo parts and nerd talk about headlight optics. As bad as my night time vision is I've looked into the various aftermarket vendors, and have heard of Morimoto being one of the best, but felt if I were going to do it I might as well do it right and implement an O.E. Philips or Denso system with matching projectors. Needless to say a lot of work for a time I try to avoid driving in as much as possible.

The Morimoto product line overall is near OEM at a fraction of the price, and TRS usually does have OEM stuff at good prices in the closeout section. Honestly yea I love OEM stuff too, but at 1/2 the price the XB D2S bulbs are as good as OEM to my eyes and the dollar value is fantastic. I'm thinking of seeing about getting my shop to stock a couple pair of D2S and D2R from the Morimoto line because we can have a better markup on them vs the OEM Philips we've been using. By the time we're changing HID bulbs the cars are usually nearly 10yrs old anyway so even if we can pass on the savings we're further ahead.

Anyway guys, go lurk on HIDPlanet forums at the very least. I run with the same name over there too.

[enderswift]

Hope that subframe serves you well. Sorry about the crappy finish, I just couldnt get the POR 15 to cooperate. It's been blasted clean of all rust though!

[JoshuaM]

Has black car; buys blue clip.

Has white car; buys black clip.



Good work though

[richee3]

Finally, an update worth posting. First and foremost, the front end damage is repaired now.




Along with that, I finally got a rain tray for the hood, so no more rain failing directly on my header heat shield. While I was spending a ton of money to repair the car, I decided it was time to refresh a few other things that have been bothering me. You guys are all familiar with my ongoing subframe and control arm issue. Luke (enderswift) hooked me up with a new subframe a while back, refinished in POR15. So I bought a new set of control arms from Cameron (ted95), a new set of poly bushings, and set to work on cleaning up the old paint and getting some new paint on them.








No pictures of the new stuff installed, but I got the new subframe and control arms mounted tonight. It goes in for an alignment in a few days but for now, it drives 1,000% better! I was tired of riding on noisy old suspension so I picked up new Eibach Sportlines, KYB GR2's, KYB strut mounts and dust covers. Rides much quieter and smoother now.




Before anyone asks, I didn't go with coilovers because I'm perfectly happy with struts and springs. I'd literally never adjust the height or damper settings. Sportlines ride smooth enough for me to be happy with and sit at a height I'm happy with. And the setup is significantly cheaper than the coilovers that I would put on my car.

So, with the new suspension, subframe, control arms, poly bushings, and getting $5,000 worth of damage fixed, I'd call that a decent update.



For the last year or so, my exhaust had been rattling. Quite loudly most of the time. At first I figured it was a loose heat shield, no big deal. When I crawled under the car to investigate, I discovered the worst. No heat shield was loose, but the cat had a loud internal rattle. Yep, the honeycomb was breaking down. My Magnaflow high flow cat was becoming a Magnaflow higher flow cat. I had no idea how bad it really was until I got it replaced a few weeks ago. Turns out it was a really fkin' high flow cat.....



So, new catalytic converter in place, new suspension, needless to say the car sounds much better. The fuel filter decided to spring a leak last week so I have a new OEM fuel filter that will be installed in the next couple of days. That's about all for now, and the car should be good for many more happy miles.

[enderswift]

looks good Dan. Still wish that POR coat came out better on the subframe. I have no idea why it wouldn't flow out. Either way hope it serves you well

[Box]

Wooo car looks great and I'm sure it drives just as good.

Cats are for losers. I've heard of Magnaflows going out before, which is kind of disappointing since I've never had an issue with their mufflers.

[navseal345]

That's pretty sad that Magnaflow cat broke down so fast.

[1994Celica]

Looks great! Your car is probably my favorite one one here. It's just done really well.

[richee3]

looks good Dan. Still wish that POR coat came out better on the subframe. I have no idea why it wouldn't flow out. Either way hope it serves you well

Are you kidding? It looked great to me! I had to give it a couple of love taps with a 12 lb sledgehammer to get it to line up so I need to touch the paint up now but otherwise you did a pretty good job.

Wooo car looks great and I'm sure it drives just as good.

Cats are for losers. I've heard of Magnaflows going out before, which is kind of disappointing since I've never had an issue with their mufflers.

It certainly is driving much better now that I have no play in the control arms. It's been a long time coming. I've just been procrastinating. Always prioritizing other cars first for different reasons and lately I've been working on my house. You say Magnaflow cats have an issue? I need to look into that. I just had another Magnaflow put on it.

That's pretty sad that Magnaflow cat broke down so fast.

No joke! It's only a couple of years old. I know the BEAMS naturally runs rich but shouldn't be running that rich. I'm going to look into it soon and check my AFR's just in case.

Looks great! Your car is probably my favorite one one here. It's just done really well.

Thanks! I've made my share of mistakes when I was younger. Now that I know better, I'm trying to do things right the first time and fix my older mistakes as I go. Little by little I've been removing crimps I've used in the past and properly soldering my connections.

[cheela]

yay update!!

glad you're getting all the suspension bits fixed too.

[bloodMoney]

Looks good brother! Making me kinda jealous.

This 'vert has me so pissed off at it, that I've spent the last 3 days looking for GS300s....

Not sure what's worse.