So it all began 12/24/12, I purchased a '93 CRP TT in San Francisco located about 10 minutes from where I was born...I made all the arrangements and flew down, and drove her back to Tacoma, Washington the same day.
My plan at the time was to have the TT as my DD and do few if any mods to it, with my NA as my project car...but that all changed quickly as you will see.
Here is the original ad pic.
Unfortunately, within a month the stock brakes got fired after they were unable to stop fast enough one morning when this idiot completely stopped on the freeway in front of me for no reason, and nearly no one around, and I inserted a low-slung trailer hitch 8" into my front bumper...
This shot is of my fit mockup after initial repairs, but shows the damaged areas best.
This stirred things around a bit, thankfully mostly cosmetic and replaceable pieces. I put the NA back into service and snagged a treasure trove of parts off a couple of Z's I amazingly found close to me and from a couple of other sources, and did all the repairs myself because I trust almost no one to do quality work and especially in this arena.
Here she is with everything repaired and painted before re-assembly, larger pieces removed for paint. I used a Duplicolor OEM match paint that was pretty close, but not perfect although for this area of the car it really isn't noticeable.
She got some upgrades along the way of course, an Earl's oil cooler...
...Jspec bumper and "crash bar", and single POP (for now).
I prefer and installed the '90 nose panel, and finally after about 3 months everything is all together again and she's on the road.
So then the NA went down for good, and major parts swapping began. My GTR Brakes from the NA went in first to combat no-stoppee-fastee along with my 18" Enkeis, and Hankook Ventus tires.
Same pads are on the brakes as when I got 'em in '09, and the Hankook's are going past 24K miles (on the TT...they took on at least 5K on the NA) with only the fronts worn down bad enough to replace soon. The rears are 70%! The Ventus V12's (255/35/18 front, 275/35/18 rear) work as well as anything else in the rain and I have no complaints, especially for the price.
While the car was down I had added dash rings...
...and I also did the switched injector voltage mod and brake booster brace, and added a few pieces such as the mud guards and a few other items I had snagged at the junkyard- here is how she was after all of my repairs and upgrades, but no paint yet.
This was my sig pic for quite awhile.
I have had nothing but bad experiences with paint jobs and would need to do some research for a quality painter and save, as I had depleted every single cent I had saved for Z work...almost 2 grand.
I enjoyed the car from there until I finally saved enough $ for paint in February 2013, and found a painter whose work I could trust. Turned out to be a guy I knew pretty well whose shop is next door to a shop I worked in as a kid, it was cool to have an old acquaintance do the paint work 20+ years later.
For the record, there was NONE of the overspray/runs/bad masking/lousy paint BS I had from a crappy MAACO insurance paint job years back on my NA, my only complaint on this job was taken care of in a half hour while I had lunch. Doug also did some touchup painting around my repair work to finalize that as a quality job top to bottom.
Here she is frickin' glassy-fresh from the shop, Darnell's in Tacoma...DEFINITELY recommended!
So, having done very little to the car for many months this got me going again freshening everything up in front, starting with painting in the jspec body the stock gunmetal color...
...and also the side body lines.
I repainted the front cowls and lower side window trim that was getting faded or tarnished. The gunmetal color I used for my OEM gunmetal paint areas is just a tad light and sparkly for these areas I feel though, and I may re-shoot them later a darker color and with a satin finish instead of semigloss.
Additionally, the replacement headlights I installed after the accident were not so great as one was fogging up, and they finally got the boot when a rock knocked a large chunk out of the cover of the other one. I had kept the original units, as the only problem with them was the plastic case mounts were broken, so I decided while all this was going on to rebuild the four units I had into two "new" units.
I peeled the perfect glass of the originals along with all of the useful bits like the mount base and adjusters...
...then set about working on the junkyard units, a HELLACIOUS task that took me three solid days of screwing around cleaning butyl and painting the inner liners, resealing and reassembling the units, and changing over the good adjusting mechanisms off the broken units onto the good replacement bodies so I could correctly adjust my headlights finally.
Ready to disassemble and paint.
I painted the liners a gunmetal color, the one on right is the OEM color.
Finished, ready to seal up!
I was planning on doing a how-to on this process but it was SO troublesome and inconsistent that instead I can advise anyone interested in the details via PM or otherwise, but can offer no guaranteed solutions.
Next, I also painted the jspec grille gunmetal and added my Z logo- the result I think was worth the effort.
So here are some updated car shots, I had some trouble with lighting and my brother's fancy camera so I will have to get some better shots later and these will do for now.
And the new sig shot!
And, some even newer shots.
Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the background...
...and some pics on the grounds of Chambers Bay Golf Course, Puget Sound in the background.
I like the way this shot looks even though the color is messed up.
I've also played around with the interior a little, something I'm sure will not be the most popular move with many but is something I like which is what it is all about.
As many of you may know my NA was the Super White/Red interior combo which I really like and miss, and I also bought a near-complete red interior when I bought the TT.
Since the red is nearly a perfect match for CRP I have had a sketchy plan in mind for my interior that will be very different, and I have put a few pieces in place to see how it feels.
The idea is to possibly put my red dash from the NA in along with the other installed red pieces you see, sort of having the CRP color cascading into the car. I have been getting the feel for how this would look and just may give it a shot some time this summer.
Here's how the interior looks at this time.
So at this time the goals for the rest of 2013 are to decide what to do with the interior and do it, replace the front tires and add camber adjustment (FUCA's) until I do something about the suspension, and maybe buy some new wheels.
Future exterior plans for the TT will be a TwinZ 2 rear bumper and possibly side skirts, and after that to paint in the rest of the car same as I did the front.
Power mods will be minimal and geared towards about 400HP/450TQ- dual selin intake, upgraded ECU, Sport 500 BB turbos whenever the stockers finally go, and perhaps Stillen intercoolers.
Should I do all of that, a brake upgrade will also have to be in the works as the GTR brakes will probably not be enough any longer, and I will also upgrade the exhaust a little when the stock setup finally rots out which so far is still down the road awhile- MAYBE a SZ catback, but probably just a 2.5" aluminized straight-through catted/resonated Flowmaster setup like I have on the NA for half the price, and a lifetime warrantee.
Dream plans are to add a high quality coilover suspension with both compression AND rebound damping and the new active EDFC, and perhaps a traction control system.
I'll try to keep this updated as I go, thanks for looking!
