-=<BLUE THUNDER>=-

[CamInHead]

I didn't mean that as a negative. Just a "typical California" house with the wire fence, wide open garage and general arid landscape.
I am totally jealous ofcourse. A two car garage and driveway (or just off street parking) over here is like a major luxury.

[Arro]

Nah didn't take it as a negative, Peter... I suppose it would seem arid... I have a friend in southern London who has been complaining about the weather this past week... and it's been 95 F here (that's around 35 C) with low humitidy... the first picture is typical most of the year... clear skies. The other photo was taken in the springtime in the evening.

Still.. there's so much more history where you're at, and I'd love to see the countryside there...

As far as the garage goes, here in California, a house without a decent two-car garage is like a man without testicles You run into one occasionally, but it's a sad scenario and you pity him.

In my neighborhood alone there are about 15 percent of these houses with an additional one-car slot next to the two-car part... and 75% of the houses in this tract also have side gate drive access to the back on at least ONE side of the house (mine included), meaning I can store cars in the back as well... actually, both sides of my house *could* conceivably do this, and I'm in the process of building a driveway on the other side with intentions of knocking down the fence there and installing a second gate.

Right now, if I wanted to, I could store three on the side, two in the back (without impacting the dedicated "yard" section), two on the driveway, one in front of the side gate, and of course two in the garage. That makes 10 total, and if I build the second drive access on the other side of the house, I'll have as many as can fit from front to back.

Of course, if I did that, the roommate would murder me, but it'll be nice to have parking options

[Arro]

Ok so I've been keeping a low profile.... school was dominating my time, and then the break let me catch up on some house projects... and then finally today I fired up the S12 and took it around the block. I was hoping for some level of customization greatness, but sadly I was disappointed. I had lined up a body & paint guy, and he promised me the sun and the moon. It didn't work out so well, and I'll get to that. What I ended up with was a sub-par paint job that I personally could have done better. Frankly, I was embarrassed because this was the car I was supposed to take to JCCS last year... and that's why the Silvia made the trip instead.

Still... it's a tad better off than it was before paint. As long as you stand at a distance. So I took some photos to finally post.













As a concept, the two-tone looks like a great idea. Too bad its execution was so piss-poor. But I'll get to that in a moment.

Gone are the Celica Supra wheels, replaced with 15x7 offset zero Konig Rewinds. I got them from a member here for a super cheap deal. I run 195/55's on the front and 205/55's on the rear. That's about as close to "staggered" as I will get. Frankly, I am done with the whole "drifter bucket" look, and I have no interest in trying to make my car look like it's from a decade it isn't. These are about as fancy as I will ever get, and the tire fitment is good. 205 is plenty of traction for my power level.

I got rid of the ugly plastic S13 intake, and replaced it with an aluminum S13 instead instead.



Clearances are tight, and I needed to shorten the return length at the throttle body. All the barbs I needed for vac connections were already on this intake, which made it easier. It would clear the hood completely if I was still using a flat hood, but the bulge hood has the extra reinforcement skeleton sections and one of them just barely touches the intake. Nothing serious, I'm going to put some thin black adhesive foam cushiony stuff on the underside of the hood where it touches. Note that I have an E-fan, only about an inch or so thick, which is also helpful in fitting this thing right. The intake came with a variety of mounting brackets, and just one was all I needed... bent it a bit and it works fine. Other than the e-fan and the minor hood bumping, it was reasonable.

The front suspension was scavenged from the Silvia RS-X. Let me explain a bit here... this car has been owned by four S12 enthusiasts before me... one of them (I think Alex) put on some Suspension Techniques front springs, originally meant for an SE... they weren't bad, but with 15's, not as low as I would have liked. I did some measuring of the Silvia's ride height, and the ST springs on the 200SX were a perfect fit. I swapped out the entire assemblies from the 200SX to the Silvia, and that's what the Silvia sat on at JCCS. The Silvia has 16" wheels and so it looked fine.

In went the Silvia's hodge-podge custom suspension into the 200SX. Understand that these assemblies were built over ten years ago when the Silvia's previous owner was tinkering with the car overseas. The spindles are from a 4-lug 300ZX. It's remarkably similar in dimension to an S12 SE's front spindle, including the brakes (any SE owner here knows the SE has bigger brakes than other S12 incarnations). The hat on the Z31 brake rotor sits a tad farther out... I think it's like 4mm or so, but the other thing to note is that the S12 spindle sits the strut tube centered with the two outer bolts, and the Z31 is offset (more outward), so this and the thicker brake rotor hat pushes your wheels outward another half inch or more. Because of this, I've had to run a bit more negative camber in the front... thankfully, these custom front assemblies have camber plates. Between that and the adjustable sleeves, the fitment looks reasonable, and the height is right where I want it... not slammed, but snug, with a teensy bit of gap.

Unfortunately, the top of the strut doesn't poke through the pillow ball joint far enough. It's a bit less than halfway up into the main nut. Not good eh? So I'm going to have to build some new assemblies with adjustable sleeves. Using S12 spindles/tubes will also put my wheels a bit back inward, so I can take out some more camber.

After seeing another member's work slotting his rear boltholes, without the need for any custom welding *he only slotted a bit), I'm convinced that doing the same will get my rears more reasonable. I won't ever drive it much because of the fact that I have other cars with more amenities.

Ok... so now about what happened. Some guy with AE86's moved into a house on the street behind me. I'd seen his cars parked outside for awhile... but the KA wasn't finished and the car wasn't running. Once it was, I drove over and met the guy. He seemed cool, knew what S12's were immediately. He did a lot of custom work... body work, paint, interior, and mechanical. He was a big Toyota-phile, obviously, but he had other cars. Seemed to be legit. In exchange for some things, we bartered a deal where if I bought the paint, he would shoot the S12. The body work he did wasn't bad... but he took FOREVER. We agreed on things in the spring. Spring ended and I bought paint only after his insistence that as soon as I did, he would paint it. August came. September came. He finally took the car... I'd had the paint since July. He knew very well that wanted it done in time for JCCS, but he made all sorts of excuses, was never available.... he never had a cellphone and was borrowing other peoples' phones. I had to get pushy and finally he said he was doing it. Said he needed a bit more paint, so I obliged. Finally I got it back, in a hurry... he said not to worry, it wasn't done and he would come over to my place to "finish" it.... buff it, sand, respray small parts. It was late that evening, I couldn't see much.

I got it home, and looked it over the next day. It was shit. Where to begin? First off, it's a good thing I left the Celica Supra wheels on, because his lazy attempt at masking shit off left silver paint on my tires. Not overspray, no. Actual paint that looked like he didn't cover them at all.

I noticed some things missing... one of my door panels... a light... little shit. The rub strips were *partially* put back on (the rest left in the cab), and crooked, with tape showing gaps underneath... tape I also paid for.

The engine bay was a mess... grey wet-sanded primer runoff everywhere... thankfully, I had plans to strip and sand down the valve cover, and replace the intake, but it took me many hours and some gasoline and lots of scrubbing to get it all off the rest of the engine bay. Obviously he wet sanded the primered hood without the bulge on the middle. Dumbass.

He left some blue masking tape on some spots... some of it I can and have been removing. Some of it, like the trim on the front bumper, was put on while the bumper was off, so I will have to remove the bumper to get to it all. What a dick.

There was a set of SE ground-FX with front lip and rear flaps, painted silver and "installed". I have never seen such a ghetto install of body components, and there were gaps in some places on one side where there were not on the other. Absolutely horrible.

But the worst was the paint. At some places, there were big runs in the clearcoat. It looked like he didn't spray multiple coats, but shot one bit superheavy coat on.. in some spots, the runs look like little icicles under the panels. It looks like a resin nightmare up close. There are also paint chips of blue in parts of the silver, some of the chips the size of a pinky nail. And silver chips in the blue. The cut-lines are crappy, too... I bought him tape to mask those areas, and yet they are rough at best, and do not even follow the wheel arches properly... one glance at the right angle shows how far off from the actual wheel lip they really are, and from the side, two of them aren't even curved... there are definite lines.

But the worst part of this were the ground-FX... in the dark, they looked silver like the car's bottom half. But in even the least sunlight, you could see the original red paint shine through. This fucker swore up and down that he primered them, but I know better. He insisted that he just didn't use enough, but... he didn't count on me sanding through a spot on one of the. No primer. Just painted with lies.

He insisted that the paint flakes could be removed from the clearcoat, and that the runs in the clear could be sanded smooth, and that he would come and do all that. He never showed. I haven't seen him since JCCS, where he had his own car. That was what, October? He has Greg's RX-7 in his back yard, too... Greg has been trying to get ahold of him, with no luck. He moved out, and rented the house to some other guy who says he hardly ever sees him. Greg's car is presumably still in the back yard, but after what he did to me, Greg doesn't trust him to paint his car reliably. It wasn't just the dragging of his heels and how long it took... he did an absolutely shitty job, made excuses, swore he would fix it, then never did. I talked to the paint store I bought it from, showed them the picture of the car. Their first thoughts were to wonder why it took as much paint as it did, and they think either didn't know how to properly thin the paint, or he ran off with some good quality paint from all this (I think a little of both really).

So this guy, Izzy, really did a number on my and my car. I still don't have one of my door panels. I'm lucky I got back my rub strips. It had me so upset that I almost didn't go to JCCS, and were it not for the Silvia sitting in the garage pretty, I wouldn't have. It left me tired of cars, tired of S12's, and almost done for good.

BUT...

Not completely. The paint store said "Fuck that guy, just buy yourself a beginner's paint gun kit and you could do better yourself." So that's what I'll probably do... I don't need to respray the entire car. I just need to FIX his shitty work. The cutlines need to be redone... and moved a bit lower anyways (he has them literally down the middle of the the rubstrip gap, I want them at the bottom of it)..... redo the wheel arches. Get rid of the crazy icicle runs, and rub out and reclear the areas with flakes. Sand down completely and primer and paint and clear the SE kit. Then it might look alright. The rear passenger wheel lip has been reworked by his brother, and the guy didn't bother to look at the other side to see that our wheel lips have a flat face on the outer edge... so I'll spend a little time sanding and squaring the edge a bit more (not much needed tho).

For now, it's "alright". I'd still be embarrassed to put it in any kind of show.... especially when I pop the hood. Every time I pop the hood, it pisses me off... first, because some stupid dumb fucker who owned this car previously (not Alex or Hung or Sterling) thought it would be "cool" to remove the hood latch cable, so I have to rig it and reach into the airdam at a stupid angle to get the hood open... and now because the asshole who painted the car didn't bother to paint the underside of the hood, so it's still dingy reddish.

Anyways, so there's where the car is at. A two-tone shabby paintjob, a KA24DE swap, some shabby custom front adjustable suspension, and some shabby lowered rear suspension. At least the wheels are nice.

Part of the problem will be funds this year. It has been for awhile now... school schedules don't offer the classes I need at night now, and jobs around here do not want students. They want people with wide-open flexible schedules. A news story even talked about how while unemployment in southern California is less than in 2010, it's almost exclusively retail, and the retail outlets they talked to want people with no schedule restrictions.

Grr....

Anyways, at least it looks decent. And at least I posted a full update.

[cutter67]

what a shame.... the story you tell has been told thousands of times and will be told a thousand times more.

[kelso840]

Not to bring you out of the pits Arro; but I am STILL jealous of your car. I'm guessing it's not so much the shotty work you got back on your end of the deal as much as the way this guy screwed you that has you raw. It's increasingly rare that somebody can be taken at their word. All things considered, your car is still pretty cool to me. 

[CamInHead]

Shame dude. I've had had similar indifference and bad service just about everywhere with mine and it really mnakes you question why you bother.

You've got so0me pretty impressive scenery there too, BTW.

[sideways_s12]

Blah not a fan of that two tone and what i mean by that is those two colors just don't look right to me car looks good otherwise....lovin the wheels
Post Merge: 12:32:50 AM / 15-Jan-12
also I'm curious because I haven't seen to many 2 tones is the bottom tone supposed to go over the wheel like that? sorry if it's in your post lol it's a bit long and im tired and don't feel like reading lol

[Arro]

That's how RS-X Mark I two-tone paint looks... over the wheel arches. I just wish the dick who painted the car had followed the actual arch better. The right angle shows the reflection and how far off from the crease he actually is

I'm actually not all that thrilled about the color. It's more purplish blue in some sunlight angles. Previously the car was more dark metallic blue. Mind you, I gave the paint shop the paint code right off of the VIN plate. I think they got the mixture wrong in the computer program, actually... because I went back to get a bit more and I got more of exactly the same as the first gallon. And when you open the doors, pop the hood, or remove rear panels, it doesn't look like that at all. There's no purplish tint, just dark blue metallic. I think if I repaint it in part I will make sure I get dark metallic blue and lose the purplish tint.

The silver was also supposed to be pewter from an 86 Mark I... the turbo bulge was pewter original paint before it was repainted, and now it's more bright silver. Basically, the paint shop I went to has shitty computer mixtures for "factory" paint codes. Next time I will go elsewhere and will test spray something... so if it's wrong, I will ask for them to replace it or give me my money back.
Post Merge: 11:09:18 AM / 15-Jan-12
I just went outside... looked again at it all. They DID give me the wrong damn paint for BOTH colors. Even on an overcast day the blue paint under the carpet is NOTHING like the new blue paint, and the underside of the hood bulge still has the original pewter, and it looks a LOT darker than the "pewter" they sold me that's on the bottom half of the car and the top of the bulge.

FAWK.

Screwed by the painter. Screwed by the paint shop. :facepalm:

Like I said before... as a concept, I like the idea of the two-tone... but it was poorly executed, and now I realize that it was poorly supplied paintwise, too

FAWK.

[seishuku]

That's why I try to do everything my self, if something is screwed up... It's my fault.

Of course, paint isn't something just anyone can do either.

[Arro]

Maybe not, but judging from what a crappy job this asshole did, I could have done at least this good, probably better because I would have taken the time to prep it properly and lay down coats carefully.

Which, come summertime, may very well be what I end up doing.

[vg30e_x2_200sx]

Jason is that the car I drove when I was down there?

[Prolowtone]

That seriously blows. If it was a darker silver and a Truer dark blue it would look pretty good IMO... Hope you get it fixed and that the other guy gets his car back :S

[sideways_s12]

That's how RS-X Mark I two-tone paint looks... over the wheel arches. I just wish the dick who painted the car had followed the actual arch better. The right angle shows the reflection and how far off from the crease he actually is

I'm actually not all that thrilled about the color. It's more purplish blue in some sunlight angles. Previously the car was more dark metallic blue. Mind you, I gave the paint shop the paint code right off of the VIN plate. I think they got the mixture wrong in the computer program, actually... because I went back to get a bit more and I got more of exactly the same as the first gallon. And when you open the doors, pop the hood, or remove rear panels, it doesn't look like that at all. There's no purplish tint, just dark blue metallic. I think if I repaint it in part I will make sure I get dark metallic blue and lose the purplish tint.

The silver was also supposed to be pewter from an 86 Mark I... the turbo bulge was pewter original paint before it was repainted, and now it's more bright silver. Basically, the paint shop I went to has shitty computer mixtures for "factory" paint codes. Next time I will go elsewhere and will test spray something... so if it's wrong, I will ask for them to replace it or give me my money back.
Post Merge: 11:09:18 AM / 15-Jan-12
I just went outside... looked again at it all. They DID give me the wrong damn paint for BOTH colors. Even on an overcast day the blue paint under the carpet is NOTHING like the new blue paint, and the underside of the hood bulge still has the original pewter, and it looks a LOT darker than the "pewter" they sold me that's on the bottom half of the car and the top of the bulge.

FAWK.

Screwed by the painter. Screwed by the paint shop. :facepalm:

Like I said before... as a concept, I like the idea of the two-tone... but it was poorly executed, and now I realize that it was poorly supplied paintwise, too

FAWK.

Ahh ok I see what happened now that fuckin sucks I'd raise all kinds of hell lol....I want to repaint my black car but the color I want the whole would need to be repainted so I might just have it resprayed black and call it good i'm not sure yet.....

[Johnny_boi]

it looks good in the pics. but it good you dont have to fix the whole thing, like you said

[EightySix200SX]

THE FUCKING THRONE LIVES DAMN YO!!!! THE KONIGS SUIT THE CAR WELL. NICE!

[seishuku]

Maybe not, but judging from what a crappy job this asshole did, I could have done at least this good, probably better because I would have taken the time to prep it properly and lay down coats carefully.

Which, come summertime, may very well be what I end up doing.

Summer time? Come on man, you guys have 60+ mid day temps now!
That's warm enough for paint!


Hopefully you'll figure out something, it doesn't look too bad in the pic, but I'm sure it looks worse the closer you get.
I'm hoping to get my paint fixed up and actually clear the whole car for a change, and have an actual shine.

[Arro]

Took out the throne, and put back in the matching factory seat (thanks again, Justin) along with the rear seats. Did lots and lots of scrubbing with interior fabric cleaner, turned out well. Too bad the years of exposure to the California sun have turned them from blue to purple




Still, it looks cleaner. Put a tonneau cover back in the hatch area, too. Next I'll repair the vinyl on the door panels and backseat areas.

[IggyEGuana]

Too bad the years of exposure to the California sun have turned them from blue to purple

match the paint!!

[rednucleus]

How do you repair the door vinyl? Both of mine plus the back seat vinyl needs it. Thought my only fix was replacement panels.

[Arro]

http://www.club-s12.org/v2/faq/general/vinyl.html