Hello all!

[IBCoupe]

Thanks for convincing me of what I suspected about plasti-dip all along! I think I'll be doing that to my stockers soon.

[AlexN09]

Yeah its really pretty easy and if you can spray all for at once and just make sure you do all the same way them you should be happy with the results

[IBCoupe]

How many coats? Is one enough, being that it's not really paint?

[AlexN09]

I used one cost as thick as it could be without pooling our running and then two more very light costs to achieve an even coverage and finish. Any other questions I'd be happy to answer

[mattyfo0z]

I think I did one heavy coat first, then two more coats afterwards. Make sure you get in-between the spokes, because I missed a couple and when I put the wheels back on the car I you can definitely see the spots that are lighter compared to the rest of the wheel. Not like you can spray more when they're on the car anyways

[AlexN09]

Yeah definitely spray between the spokes and also turn the wheel upright so you can spray a couple of inches past the spoke inside the wheel before you bolt the wheels back on check all around the wheels to ensure even coverage. If you don't have a lot of tools you can just use the jack in your trunk.. One wheel at a time..

[AlexN09]

Made a few orders today:

New fogs


and some overlays from LBC!!

I can't wait for this stuff to get in and to start installing them!!

[IBCoupe]

Nice! Those look like OEM replacements. How much were they?

[AlexN09]

These were $65 after shipping, a lot cheaper than OEM and they're projector lenses so I can get an HID kit that matches my low beams. They've got halo rings, and I'm going to wire them into my parking lights but idk if I'll like them yet. As soon as they come in i'll be able to install them.. hopefully. I might not have the mounting hardware, not really sure about that haha but it'll be done soon with pics.

[IBCoupe]

If they mount like the stock fogs, it's just a single bolt + nut. Really easy install. You'll have to take the bumper off, though.

[AlexN09]

Yep they're just like stock, does that single bolt aim the light up and down? I can get in there without taking off the bumper too. I hope I can do the whole install without removing the bumper lol

[IBCoupe]

Aims the housing side to side. I need to tighten it up because mine keep swiveling. It doesn't travel much, as the thing has a pretty small window within which it can travel, but it still travels and I notice the difference.

You might be able to do the whole thing without removing the bumper, but I'm not sure. I had to remove mine at least in part because one of the wiring harnesses was severed, and I needed to jury-rig a new one.

[AlexN09]

Well cool, thanks for the information. I've had the bumper finishers for a while so I can't wait to finally get the fogs in and wired up. Not trying to be mean, but that term is jerry-rigged and it comes from WWII. Brits and Americans called German forces Jerries and when they cleared their bunkers they noticed many things that were "ghetto" rigged. (ironically also from the same war) Hence jerry-rigged

[IBCoupe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_rig

And actually, if memory serves, "ghetto" goes back before WWII; it's Italian. Refers to the island where they kept slag. Same island where they kept the Jews, too. :P Comes from the word "borghetto."

[elfenlied8]

get some coilovers! and blackout the grill. that would be nice

[AlexN09]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_rig

And actually, if memory serves, "ghetto" goes back before WWII; it's Italian. Refers to the island where they kept slag. Same island where they kept the Jews, too. :P Comes from the word "borghetto."

Haha yessss never knew that


and yeah you can encourage me to get coilovers all you want but I think you're going to have to throw money at me to really persuade me. I've actually blacked out some elements of the grill with vinyl but I'm not sure how much more I wanna go. I like the way it is now I think..

[illestcoupe10]

Im also new to nico
i have the same color AC as this guy "ocena grey"
its a 2010. love the car, some mods so far are
-eibach pro kit
-Greddy Ti-C exhaust
-8k hid's
-sony in dash
-2 "12 kenwoods subs (dual bass enclosure)
-20% front tint/5% back
-Debadged
more to come!!! coils for sure, and 19" works
By the way im only 16 so i need time(:
IVE HAD THE CAR FOR 5 MOTNTHS
please leave notes THANKS!

[AlexN09]

Ha hey man, I like your car already! If you want to you could start your own thread and put some pictures up because your car sounds nice. I would love to do exhaust and drop but thats probably gonna have to wait until next summer or so when I'm back on the job.

Anyhow.. just finally finished the tint job. 15% all around, I messed up on the drivers side window just a little bit but its acceptable and not too noticeable. I used Llumar 15% base level tint for this job.
Nothing too new, in the latest pics there actually was no rear windshield tint.. until now!



Still waiting on fogs and overlays coming in the mail!

[mattyfo0z]

How hard was the tinting job, specifically the rear window? I bought my car with the two small windows + rear windshield already tinted, and whoever did it didn't do it very well because at the top of the rear windshield it's starting to bubble.

It bothers me a bit, but not enough to pay somebody to retint it.. how much does tint just by itself cost, anyways?

[AlexN09]

Well this is a topic all in itself..

The top of your windshield is probably bubbling because of the dot-matrix. These are the little ceramic, sometimes teflon coated, black dots that line the edges of the windshield. On the top of our rear windshield there is about five inches of this stuff and there are several methods to fix this, none of which i have ever tried. These processes are: 1. sanding over the dots and applying the tint over the matrix, sometimes using stick glue on the dots right before the tint is applied, sometimes letting the tint cure for a couple days and then reapplying the tint to the dots, 2. the dot matrix is left un-tinted and then taped off and spray painted to complete the blacking-out. or 3. A solid black glossy vinyl is applied to either the inside or the outside of the window. Many tinters will apply a piece of black vinyl to the exterior side of the dot-matrix on Mustangs, this looks fine but there is a problem with our Altimas. The lines that you see running through the top of the dot matrix are actually our AM FM radio antennae. So the vinyl is applied on the inside of the glass over the dot matrix.

I havent tried any of these processes... yet. I'm going to try and install a piece of black vinyl on the interior of the glass tomorrow. I'll probably scrub the dot matrix with some steel wool carefully and apply the vinyl wet to the glass. The difficult part about interior installation is that you have to butt the vinyl right up to the edge of the tint on the inside of the glass. This can be difficult because you cannot see through solid vinyl so you can't just put it on the outside of the glass and cut it like you can with tint. The solution to this problem is often applying tint film to the outside of the glass and cutting it to shape, then transferring that piece of film onto the solid vinyl and copying exactly.

So in short it really is not easy to do the tint yourself at all and tinting the back window of the coupe (not even talking about the vinyl) is difficult in itself due to the curve and size of the back glass. You could learn how to do this but you'd likely waste about five tries before you actually were satisfied with the job. You can only buy quality tint from a tint shop were you could buy it by the roll or possibly get pieces pre-cut for your vehicle. Most shops will charge you between $50 and $80 bucks for a set of precut tint pieces and the normally charge under $80 to just retint the window for you anyway.

If you're only worried about your one car than I would not even try to tint it yourself.

[mattyfo0z]

Wow, thanks for the detailed reply!

So you think if I just removed the top inch or so of the tint, then it wouldn't continue bubbling all the way down? I don't mind removing a bit, if it's only starting to bubble because of the dots that are on the window. I wonder if it'll be that noticeable, anyways.

[AlexN09]

Yeah you're welcome. Well go ahead and take a look at it and verify that your tint does in fact go all the way up past the dot-matrix. if it does and it is bubbling you could try to push it back up with a hard card.. a credit card with a paper towel could do the trick. If this fixes it for a while then maybe you could save up for a tint job or something. if you just cut off the top few inches or so this wont look terrible from the outside at all, but you might hate it on the inside because it will look much brighter than the tinted glass. if its bubbling, then almost anything you do to help could look better, even if you end up cutting it all off or scratching the tint or something trying to push it back up.

I would recommend cutting it to just 1/4" into the dot matrix and then finding an alternative solution to fixing up the dot matrix, such as those I mentioned above. Currently, my coupe is only tinted up to the dot matrix as I am going to apply a vinyl film. I could do a good picture write up if I get a good result I'll post it. I'm sure other coupe owners have un-tinted dot-matrices as this is often the solution at many tint shops.

[IBCoupe]

The folks who did my tint job put tint up to the dots, then put black vinyl over the rest of the window. Don't even see it from driver's seat, because the ceiling blocks that part of the rear window.

[AlexN09]

Hey thanks for the info, is the vinyl on the inside or on the outside?

[illestcoupe10]

Thanks alex, i'll make my own thread soon with some pics im just always busy with school. I forgot to mention that i tinted my taillights as well. not black but kind of dark they look nice. I need fogs:/

[AlexN09]

How'd you tint your tails? I'm about to apply some 3/10 overlays. I'll post some info when I install the fogs too

[illestcoupe10]

i tinited them with night shade. people talk down about it but i think it looks good if you do it right. pretty much just give it as many coats as you want so that it'll be as dark as you want! and then after put a clear coat, or else they will get dirty really easily and look dull. which is a no no

[AlexN09]

Yeah, I would do the same but I really don't want them to be very dark. I'm trying out some overlays and if I can't get them to work them i'm going to try a very light application of paint followed by some clear and some finishing techniques

[AlexN09]

So finally got my fogs in! These are Halo projector fogs from ebay. They are pretty low quality. The left foglight halo circuit does not fire anddddd the connection between the mounting hardware and foglight housing is stripped. So I sent an email to the company and they're sending me a replacement.

The plastic outer ring of the mounting hardware is totally unnecessary and does not fit the coupe. The foglight and foglight cover do fit perfectly in place though. I need to go get some bolts, washers, and nuts to actually mount these guys in. Then I'm going to have to figure out a wiring solution. I almost just want to wire the fogs into the existing positive lines to the headlights or parking lights and forget about installing the switch, but I'm not totally sure yet.

I am going to have to remove the front bumper which I'm not excited about and kinda nervous about how much time, trial and error this will take. When I'm finished I'll try to write something up on how I installed them.

I still haven't heard back from Longbeach Coupe regarding the overlays that I have already paid for.

[DJ_B_Easy]

Alex did you ever get these fogs installed? I believe they are made to fit the 08 coupes, hence why you might have had some trouble. I think you have a different trim piece.

Anyway, did you get them installed and how do the projectors look?

EDIT: Nevermind guys, found it. For anyone else who was curious: post5788214.html?hilit=projector%20fog%20light#p5788214