9G Doing Work Soon

I'm sorta preemptively posting here as I will be doing work through the year into next year and wanted to set up the "As it stands now" pictures to watch the progression.

I'll have to dig up even older pictures of when I first got the car and post them too, but for now I'll post what it looks like now (Which I warn you is pretty nasty)

Here's my car right after I upgraded the springs (Eibach Pro-Kit) and painted the front a little. I blacked out the front grill including the chrome trim and painted the bottom of the gap black too (though I should have waited and did matte vinyl wrap). I'm debating on taking my black matte vinyl wrap I have not and doing the whole inside of that open bottom piece... similar to the 380's front grill piece. I also did the headlight restoration with this as the bulbs were really yellowed and misty.

http://i.imgur.com/LFH3cyD.jpg

(If you don't know what I mean see: http://onlytruecars.com/data_images/...2-vr-x--04.jpg Though I know it's not the same bumper.)

More Pics
http://i.imgur.com/Dan5zvq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/V4jhPvd.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9HJKejA.jpg

I know the wheel well/drop isn't that apparent. I'll take my time and take some cool location pics soon.
Also, yeah... I know the rims painted is tacky and very teenager like, lol.

I need to clean up the subwoofer wiring, but I did like the fact that the car came with a CIT when I bought it. I love that sound it makes.

For shit's and giggles I'm actually going to paint the back rims green too for the time being. I have the factory hubcaps, but one broke and can't be on and they cost to much to replace from what I've seen so I gave up. Been rolling on the crap rims for about a year.

Then comes the worst part, but I sorta like it for now cause I'm weird... but here's the trunk.
http://i.imgur.com/x5fkHYb.jpg

So one day I thought to myself "You know what, I've always wanted a green car. I wonder how much a good paint job would cost"
I looked it up and said... noooopppeee. Then I found this stuff called vinyl wrap. Once used for cheesy company advertisements; now a semi-appreciated alternative to painting. Then I saw the cost of installation compared to the price of the good stuff....said noooooopppeeee.
But I thought it might be fun to play the what if game and see if it might be possible to do it myself over the course of a bunch of weekends.
I bought some good 3M 1080P wrap that I got for a good price and decided to test it out on my trunk. Turns out after like 4 hours of struggling to do it myself that it IS POSSIBLE, but I need a heat gun, another set of hands, a better place to do it, and some edge sealer. It was a brutal learning process but even though it turned out terrible (more pics of how bad it is later) I feel like it's something I could do myself with the previously mentioned extras.

So I'll do it, but I found another color, another supplier and I'm sorta jsut hoping I get it for a Xmas gift at this point.

Avery and 3M both were cool enough to send me a bunch of sample stuff so I can actually see colors before I commit to buying a huge roll. I'll probably post on that later since it's my new fascination...

Boom Boom in the trunk (Been rewiring and running wires better lately)
http://i.imgur.com/PhtSXEL.jpg

That was actually a left over from high school days, along with a custom box me and a friend put together when I used to do backyard car audio/video installs.

Future posts will hopefully be filled with my wishlist items. I'm trying REALLY REALLY hard right now to find someone in Australia who will ship me a front bumper and a spoiler from a 380, but unless I go there myself or know someone going it's not looking well for that happening. I bought some fog lights with my springs but they are on the way to be returned as it's been impossible for me to find them with the 9g mounting.
I'll probably tint the windows a touch darker since it's so cheap and easy to do.
The future will include a nasty in depth pain and torture of doing your own vinyl wrap on this.
Hopefully in this color maybe: http://www.exoticvehiclewraps.com/wp...ontside-wm.jpg

I also have some green underglow tubes and a little panel and stuff left over from my highschool days too I've been debating on installing...but I honestly have no clue how to do it and there's no instructions anymore. Who knows if it even works actually... But I don't know what else to do with it.

So that's it for now. I gotta spend my money trying to battle this random misfire I keep having then save for a wedding in the meantime.

Nice Ride!

I like your plans! Props for attempting to do the vinyl yourself, its a learned skill thats for sure. After using vinyl at my old job for many years I am all for trying it as an alternative for paint. Also, I like what you did with the front painting the bottom of the bumper. I want to try it with plastidip once I go back home on a break. That way I can always peel it off if I'm not happy with it. I rolled on steelies for almost 2 years until I finally found some rims I liked, I think we've all been there at some point lol. The back would look better without the stickers and with the "GALANT" Removed but thats just my opinion. If you are looking for cheap underglow LEDGLOW sells some really easy to install and cheap kits, I'll send you a link if you are actually interested. Can't wait to see more progress!

Thanks guys.

When I redo the vinyl I'm going to Plastidip the Mitsubishi emblem instead of spray paint it and leave off the Galant (even though I love the font). The stickers will go too, though I'm a fanboy so I'll probably get some sort of Walking Dead and Wwise decal put back on the car somewhere "more classy".
The bottom bumper thing was just something I tried and liked... though I deeply regret not waiting for my black matte vinyl to arrive and using that instead of sanding and spray painting it on. Though, hopefully I'll eventually get a 380 VRX front bumper and I wont really care either way.

I have underglow right now that's sitting around old... but I'm just really on the fence about it. It's not something I can ever see myself actually using is my biggest issue with it. The kit I have is literally worthless now though as it's probably 10 years old or more. I might see if I can't rig it up to be indoor mood lighting for my studio instead, lol.

Hopefully I can get some vinyl for X-Mas or my birthday and have a good update soon. Lately it's been maintenance and saving up for my wedding. This might not go as quick as I'd like it too.

Congrats on the wedding!!! That's awesome! And I feel your pain with progress being slow, I've been looking for coilovers for a year now and haven't found anything that makes me want to jump on it. You can always but the "GALANT" somewhere else, zequel ( I think thats spelled right) and other members have put it along the doorsills so when the doors are open they are visible. I like the idea I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Have you thought about using the tubes inside your car for interior glow? Or are the tubes too big?

Sorry for delayed response: Thanks for the congrats. I'm pretty excited, though financially terrified, lol.
The tubes are way to big for inside the car. They'd look awful. I removed the Galant from the trunk and yeah...it looks a lot better.

In other questions (no clue where else to post this):
Anyone have any advice on international shipping? Basically I'm at a point right now where I found out the only way for me to get the parts I want is to get them from Australia. The only problem is that leaves me with only 2 options. One is that I buy the products from a wrecking yard or similar and find someone that lives there to get them, pack them, and ship them. The other is that I fly there myself and get the parts and pay for the extra freight on the return trip.
I don't even know how feasible option one is. I wish there was a service that could do it for me that was reliable, but all I'm seeing is UShip, which has really hit and miss reviews and apparently doesn't screen the shippers, so whats' the point?

I'm just curious if maybe someone has got some JDM stuff direct and knows a good process for doing this whole overseas shipping/handling business.

I took the car and lady to a trip to MT to see my family last week. Put another 1420 miles on it.
On the way there we were driving down a steep pass at night going about 80mph when I realized my brakes suck. Not the best time for that. Needless to say the lady was sorta terrified out of her mind and so I spent a bit of one morning redoing my brake pads and rotors. I was in a mood so I did all 4. I think this is my first time ever having all 4 rotors brand new with pads. The way back was much less shakey. Pretty awesome.

I'll post pics tomorrow, but before I left I painted the back two rims green so they all match now. It's still silly, but looks a lot less dumb then it did.

Also, I did some research, talked to a few people, and eventually got to a point where I totally give up on trying to get 380 bumpers/foglights. The shipping is just insane and it's a whole thing to try and get anything from there aside from flying out to Australia myself and paying extra baggage. Issue with that is plane tickets alone are $1400-1600, which isn't going to work for me.

I'm still planning on doing the vinyl wrap and I'm still looking into maybe just getting the 380 spoiler. Looking up the value of my car with my miles in it's condition even private party the most I'll sell it for is under $4k though...so I'm not sure if I'm peppy to toss down a few K on body style stuff.

Well, like an idiot I hit another car in a parking lot. It did nothing to the other vehicle except put two tiny scratches in it... but not my fender looks like this:http://i.imgur.com/j3zqd7a.jpg I'll need to repair that now. Boo.

I was bored today though and had some black vinyl wrap around doing nothing so I put it on some interior pieces. I'm gonna have to poke around on here and see how to take apart the center bit of the dash that has the CD player and everything so I can do the rest of the silver crap in here. I like the look. I'm still not the most awesome vinyl wrapper though.


http://i.imgur.com/tnQkotO.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/XIMMoPy.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Eh8ZUXi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/yR9oMv6.jpg

Sorry to hear about the fender bender, it could have been worse tho.

True. It was really low speed when I was backing up in a really really tight parking spot. I'll try to take the fender off and hammer it back out soon. If not, new fenders are pretty reasonable online and really easy to replace.

Sorry about your fenders Bro easy can be fixed the process is harsh when mines got hit they had a special Tool with a Screw that add's hole in the metal and pulls it right out after that they well sand it down and than add on clay with prime and than paint. the exterior want be shown but inside the metal there are holes but not visible.

Good Luck in the fixing

best bet not to add holes probably to hammer it down inside the chassis or remove permanently and try to adjust from the inside.

I was planning on pulling that piece off and seeing if I could smack it with a rubber mallet. I haven't done body work before though so it's just a guess. I thought it that didn't work I'd buy a new one off a site online (they are cheap) and either vinyl the piece or do something silly for now like comic book it, lol. I'll look inot that tool though. Might be useful the salvage the piece.

dude just fix it and your best methods are youtube it tips and hints for type of such scenario that occur for body damage fixing it helps otherwise if they are cheap as you mentioned go for it but my opinion its still good and no need to change just saying... Good luck

I broke down and bought some more stuff for the car. I have some fog lights that fit along with a switch and relay and a new custom spoiler (factory color painted) coming in the mail in the next few days. On my next day off before Xmas I'm hoping to install the fog lights and maybe the spoiler. This also means I'm going to take off the vinyl from the trunk putting my car back to all factory silver. I figure I'll wait until I can afford the color I want to do the entire car in before I go on anymore vinyl adventures with the exterior.
The tires are all green painted steelies right now. After some researching online it seems that's the world's most unapproved car decision a person could make. At this point since proper wheels aren't even on the imaginary radar I'm really considering painting them black again and putting the hubcaps back on. I originally took them off because one broke and I didn't like the price of a new one. The other day I was enjoying a drive through my neighborhood on the way to pick up groceries when I passed by the local white gangsters house hanging all over his IS200 with wheels at a 45 degree angle and giant welded rusty sheets over the wheel wells. As I passed by he and his lady friend stood up, looked at my car, and made some violently negative remarks about my car. I'm obviously doing something very wrong.
So with that in mind, seriously considering the ugly hub caps again and the return to all silver. I'm a weird person and I like my car to be a little different, but until I can afford to do it properly I'm just going to not do it. I'll also fix up that fender. Pics in the next few days hopefully.

Fog lights arrived from Amazon and are installed. That was a heck of a deal. $115USD and they came with the mounts, lights, relay, and switch. Free shipping, but was a little slow. Still, way cool. They work great and took me a whole 15 minutes in the dark to install. Eventually I'll get LED replacement bulbs for them I think.
The spoiler I bought had a shipping delay due to FedEx's load during Christmas (probably). It was supposed to arrive on 12/26 but instead won't get here until tomorrow, which sorta stinks, but I can't really install it until Thursday anyway.
In other crap I did with my car news, I was silly and bought some cheap universal mudflaps and installed them to see if I liked the look or not. If anything it'll reduce the amount of sludge on my car for now. They look OK. Also, I bought some LED replacement lights for the dome,map,trunk, and license plate lights. I hope I like them. I also tossed on my hubcaps (the three I still have unbroken) so I could remember what my car looked like with them on. The answer is BETTER. All of them have pretty nasty curb rash from the previous owner though so I'm gonna look into replacements and go that route since I'm obviously not gonna get decent wheels for a long time.
The next update won't be until I install everything, so it should be cool. No more green, more black vinyl on the interior silver parts, a new spoiler, fog lights, mud flaps, and some LED lights. Pictures galore. I know it's all for looks stuff, but i don't have the money to do much else besides maintenance right now.

I've been really busy lately with the holidays, birthdays, and my dad visiting. Here's a picture of the spoiler.
http://i.imgur.com/qYbgSvCh.jpg
I need to take all around pictures, but the weather has been really rainy lately. I'm starting to like the look of the car more at this point. I don't think I've said anything on other posts but I hand painted the emblems to be a gunmetal/black/metallic green color which I personally like. I think I'm going to clear coat them since I decided I like the look.
Obviously need to pull the bumper decals off.

My birthday is coming up and I told my girl that I didn't want to celebrate or get gifts and instead want some new wheels. So I guess my family/friends are just going to give me money and I'll see what I have to get them. I'm pretty excited about it. There's a few guys on CL selling some stock Mitsubishi wheels I might get but I'm going to look around. I won't be getting something crazy but it'll be a lot better then busted up hubcaps and green painted steelies.

Also since lowering my car I've had some really bad wear on the outsides of my tires so I made an appointment to get an alignment done and I'm currently pricing to get my timing /serp belts replaced along with the water pump. If I find a good enough price I'm debating getting the RRE underpulley.

Rainy phone pics:
http://i.imgur.com/AGvLxSEh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/fRfwxvsh.jpg

I really want to do the whole car vinyl wrap, but hopefully I'll get the wheels and underpulley and feel better.