Long time lurker, first time poster. My Wag.
konigwheels
Band Wagon
Hey guys and gals, been lurking here for about a year now and decided my wagon is finally good enough to show to strangers. She ain't much, but everything starts somewhere, right?
This is the oldest pic I have of it. When I bought it it was all brown, gouged on the passenger side from the fender to the door, wavy hood, wavy drivers fender, sagging roof, worn out EVERYTHING suspension wise, no stereo... yadda yadda. Basically what you would expect for $450. It's 250,000 mile D15 ran fine so I took it. I bought the Konigs on craiglist for 200, pretty beat up but straight.
She lived like this for a while while I accumulated some things. I bought some new 195/50 Toyo Proxes 4s (wish I would have got 205s), and spray bombed it army green because it looks rad and is really easy to take care of. Cut the springs temporarily, put a prelude steering wheel in, cheap Pioneer CD/iPod head unit, Pioneer components and a little JBL 10 with a Kenwood amp.
My God, I almost forgot about the tip that was on it! Blech!
After this, I painted the wheels with Dupli-color grey, got some surprisingly good and cheap Yonaka (never heard of 'em) coilovers, replaced all the bushings with energy suspension reds, urethane motor mounts, intake, header, some exhaust work, upper and lower ball joints, axles, wheel bearings, Si rear sway, Mazda 626 front lip, rear muds, CRX steering wheel and some other little things. This is basically how she looks now.
I like the way the wheels turned out.
Dirty interior with blue handles and "mystery switch".
Brown tweed pimpin'.
And that's about it for now. I know some of you are thinking "what, no motor work?" Well, yeah there has been some but it hasn't been fun. I built a D16Y8 SOHC VTEC motor that I'm going to run a non-VTEC head on for a turbo setup but the machine shop that bored/honed the motor also ordered the bearings. They ended up ordering oversize main bearings when the crank hadn't been cut so when I plugged the motor in it ran beautifully for about 3 minutes then seized. The machine shop is currently rectifying thier mistake but in the meantime I gave the stock motor to a friend that needed it and ended up plugging another motor (D15) we had sitting around into it for the meantime. It burns a lot of oil and Wago is not happy. Soon enough it'll have it's new heart back again.
The D16 will be turboed, most likely with a VF35 or something of similar size. I'm using an EBAY kit for the piping and junk cause it's so damn cheap and replacing the crappy bits with good aftermarket stuff. I have a +-300hp goal for her which shouldn't be too difficult.
I think I've rambeled on enough here, I'll keep this thread posted as my car slowly progresses. I've currently got an R6 cafe bike project and a 2000 Focus ZX3 project to otherwise keep me busy, so the Wag doesn't always get the love she needs but hey, I rescued her from certain death so she'll be just fine.
Thanks for checking in!
This is the oldest pic I have of it. When I bought it it was all brown, gouged on the passenger side from the fender to the door, wavy hood, wavy drivers fender, sagging roof, worn out EVERYTHING suspension wise, no stereo... yadda yadda. Basically what you would expect for $450. It's 250,000 mile D15 ran fine so I took it. I bought the Konigs on craiglist for 200, pretty beat up but straight.
She lived like this for a while while I accumulated some things. I bought some new 195/50 Toyo Proxes 4s (wish I would have got 205s), and spray bombed it army green because it looks rad and is really easy to take care of. Cut the springs temporarily, put a prelude steering wheel in, cheap Pioneer CD/iPod head unit, Pioneer components and a little JBL 10 with a Kenwood amp.
My God, I almost forgot about the tip that was on it! Blech!
After this, I painted the wheels with Dupli-color grey, got some surprisingly good and cheap Yonaka (never heard of 'em) coilovers, replaced all the bushings with energy suspension reds, urethane motor mounts, intake, header, some exhaust work, upper and lower ball joints, axles, wheel bearings, Si rear sway, Mazda 626 front lip, rear muds, CRX steering wheel and some other little things. This is basically how she looks now.
I like the way the wheels turned out.
Dirty interior with blue handles and "mystery switch".
Brown tweed pimpin'.
And that's about it for now. I know some of you are thinking "what, no motor work?" Well, yeah there has been some but it hasn't been fun. I built a D16Y8 SOHC VTEC motor that I'm going to run a non-VTEC head on for a turbo setup but the machine shop that bored/honed the motor also ordered the bearings. They ended up ordering oversize main bearings when the crank hadn't been cut so when I plugged the motor in it ran beautifully for about 3 minutes then seized. The machine shop is currently rectifying thier mistake but in the meantime I gave the stock motor to a friend that needed it and ended up plugging another motor (D15) we had sitting around into it for the meantime. It burns a lot of oil and Wago is not happy. Soon enough it'll have it's new heart back again.
The D16 will be turboed, most likely with a VF35 or something of similar size. I'm using an EBAY kit for the piping and junk cause it's so damn cheap and replacing the crappy bits with good aftermarket stuff. I have a +-300hp goal for her which shouldn't be too difficult.
I think I've rambeled on enough here, I'll keep this thread posted as my car slowly progresses. I've currently got an R6 cafe bike project and a 2000 Focus ZX3 project to otherwise keep me busy, so the Wag doesn't always get the love she needs but hey, I rescued her from certain death so she'll be just fine.
Thanks for checking in!
Comments
The car looks great compared to how it looked when you got it. The wheels look spectacular! On the Vitara front, keep in mind that the company that is making the custom rods is now only taking group orders which are about 10 weeks apart. If you want a set of rods and pistons (I think they were selling for 417 shipped last time I looked), you need to get a spot in the next group buy asap.
http://fjdistributors.com/product_info. ... cts_id=285
One thing I've been trying to do is find the same style fabric used in the interior or something close to cover some more aggressive seats, I might have to cover all the seats in something similar though, I don't think anyone makes dual color brown/tan tweed anywhere anymore!
You have NO idea! Everything was shot. Balljoints, inner/outer tie rods, wheel bearings, struts, strut mounts, and almost every bushing was cracked through. It rides like a really stiff new car now. I didn't do it all at once, so every week it was better and better. It's well worth it, the full kit is around $100. You have to like a stiff setup though, I have other vehicles to drive if it annoys me, but I love it. No noise, no movement and handles great. It just doesn't have a motor that put's the suspension to good use. This car will see some auto-x and road course time, so we'll see how she does. That's still a ways off though.
The suspension will probably be lifted soon to fit some 205's and maybe some new wheels. The fronts are all the way down, and I put the rear at a 1/2 inch above full drop. It's not ideal, but I love having it dropped on it's nuts, if only for a little while. The wheels15x6.5 and I would prefer a 7 or 8 inch wide wheel, mostly for the look. I need to get some rear camber links as well, it's a little much this height, looks to be about -3 degrees at the moment. After all that a good corner balancing and sport alignment I'll have her dialed in. Gonna kill some much more expensive cars in the twisties!
I'm thinking about "FAT CRX" for a personal plate. Any thoughts?