Lextech1

Hey guys. I've been a member here for a few months already, throwing in a occasional comment, but for the most part silently reading, fixing and planning my mods. I snagged a 03 Track in April and have spent stupid amounts of my free time cleaning and fixing the beast to get it up to my taste. Snagged it for a bit over 11k, but had a grinding tranny and several other issues. Good thing I'm a mechanic. Came with a couple tweeks, Had a great head unit already installed, Nismo titanium shifter still in the box, built in radar detector and a intake on it. It's got a lot of mods planned yet, but funding is a ever present issue, as is for most of us. Anyway no thread is any fun without pictures, so here's some to check out. Kinda a "quick progression of mods so far" type thread.

The day I bought it
The hatch is not straight here, previous owner improperly installed trunk stays.



Tinted the windows asap.

Factory speakers kinda sucked, and I bought it with a Kenwood in dash nav head unit that didn't like the 8 ohm speakers in the rear. Tear em all out. Cheap-ish Boston accustic speakers installed, I care more about speed than stupid loud stereo's, so these will do.replaced passenger window motor while I was in there.



my friend does wheel repair as a profession. I had him sand and custom paint my Rays wheels. That's a OEM Porsche dark gray wheel color. Yes i did the center caps too, but they were drying in this pic still


Wheels on car, tires have since been replaced, 245's up front 255's out back.


got fed up having to shift like a baby, and snagged a CD009 out of a 05 G35 sedan with 20k miles for 700 bucks. Of course I had to throw that in the day it showed up!


Blue bat overlay's roof and tails. Roof turned out great, tails I wasn't so happy with, they are currently getting clear coated with a bit of black mixed in. (tint removed from them)



Got rear ended waiting in line at a damn taco bell. Resulted in a new rear bumper on her tab. Never eat at Taco Bell, only bad things can come of it.





Since I was having paint work done anyway, I figured I might as well have em sand and paint the front bumper too.

I spent the better portion of a entire day buffing, shampooing, polishing and generally obsessing to get the end result. This is how it sits in storage now.


I expect to have a pile of parts waiting to go on when I pull it out in the spring.
Ordering this winter:
Invidia Gemini Exhaust
maybe test pipes, or cats, I want it a bit louder but must avoid significant rasp. Undecided yet
Stillen front splitter
Rear subframe, and diff bushings
Front control arm bushings
Motordyne plenum spacer
Swaybars of some type, undecided, leaning towards Hotchkis as I had them on my IS300 and loved it.



I've left out a lot of little repairs and minor mods here and there, but this intro thread is stupid long already. Thanks for checking it out.

Trevor

Redline Dustin

looks great man!

davidv

iTrader: (2)

Welcome. Wheels and brakes are classy.

Flo-ridaZ33

iTrader: (60)

Not a fan of the overlays but it's a very clean Z. Welcome.

jv350z

iTrader: (6)

wheels came out great!

Raybrant

iTrader: (16)

Clean ride.

Being a mechanic sure has it's benefits!

shezzzhot

iTrader: (5)

What a busy dude!! Looks like it's paying off, your ZBabe is amazing!

Don't know where you live, but check out www.zdayz(dot)com and plan on attending May 17-20!!

Well a formal WELCOME is in order then!!

Bober'z

iTrader: (40)

welcome, z looks good

VO...

iTrader: (25)

+1. Nice job...

BoomerZ33

iTrader: (23)

welcome nice Z. i love taco bell.

SirSpeedyZ

iTrader: (10)

looks good, welcome

I'd get a set of spacers to push the wheels out some

Lextech1

Thought about it, though I place most importance on how the car handles, as I plan to track it this coming summer. Because of that, I don't want my suspension geometry to be altered by spacers. How much of a impact that would have I don't know yet, I need more research in the matter.


Thanks for the compliments on the wheels, they did turn out great. I can only take credit for doing most of the sanding (8hrs or so) Todd, my friend who painted them is the one who really deserves the credit there.


I know, a lot of people say the smoked tails look is played out...but I like it, and here in Michigan seeing a Z is rare, much less a modded one. Besides, left alone, the factory tails are kinda....meh. As for the roof, I really like the blacked out look, and it's so close to paint everyone mistakes it as such. It really turned out that well. Plus, the previous owner had a xm antenna on the back of the roof, and scuffed the paint. 2 birds one stone, on the cheap.

Lextech1

Been to deal's gap twice on my R6, never brought the car. Sounds great, I'll almost certainly go. It's about a 750 mile drive for me, but I love the area, it's totally worth it.

Edit: Holy shyt there's a lot of people going. wow. I'm sold. Michigan people, I want to caravan if possible!

JCITY

iTrader: (2)

Its really great to see a guy thinking ahead before doing mods,then doing them in a quality way.I like the wheels...Alot of Z owners in this area (that still have OEM rims)are
going with a gun metal shade.A quick&easy update on the dated silver wheels.

GREAT LOOKING CAR!

resident25

iTrader: (3)

Looks great man, like what you did with the wheels

350Zdj

iTrader: (3)

Very clean and subtle mods. Good luck with your future plans man.

abarclay

iTrader: (41)

Nice work Trevor, props for getting things done on your own!