Detail today, 56k beware.

[paranoidjack]

Inside is beautiful too, but I think most of us have perfect interiors in the y33, being newer.



This last image is to compare to above, the wheels pre-detail.

[Jesda]

As always, looks awesome. Where did you take the pictures?

[elwesso]

Looks nice, but you could use a little more tire, or a little less fender gap

[paranoidjack]

Looks nice, but you could use a little more tire, or a little less fender gap

love your consistency Wes, same you said last time. Pics were just at a friend's driveway. Could get some nice pictures where I live (Cape Cod, MA), maybe I'll get some now that summer is here.

I'd love to lower it; really, I would. BUT I refuse to compromise ride quality for looks since I drive 50k/year for work. I REALLY wish I could ride in someone's tein'd q around here and see what I thought.

[ddrumman]

Looks nice, but you could use a little more tire, or a little less fender gap

I agree but I'd say and instead of "or".

[louiegz]

Nice rims, Jack. Me likey.

[maxnix]

Very pretty, and even the black wheel centers look OK with the white body and raccoon headlight surrounds and black grille.

I am with you on on real world dynamic function vs. static fantasy looks. Haven't heard any F1 drivers say that too much fender gap is affecting their times.

[szh]

BUT I refuse to compromise ride quality for looks

Excellent!!!

Z

[Falkdesigns]

Looks great man! Personally, I would NEVER trade the way my Q rides with Tein & KYB SR's back for the mushy stock ride. If you go for a ride in an M5, you'll get a good idea of how the Q rides with the Tein/KYB combo.

[paranoidjack]

Looks great man! Personally, I would NEVER trade the way my Q rides with Tein & KYB SR's back for the mushy stock ride. If you go for a ride in an M5, you'll get a good idea of how the Q rides with the Tein/KYB combo.

THANKS man for that analogy. A guy I know has one, I will get a ride with him this week and see what I think.

[bullittandy]

Looks great!!Here's a detailing trick I use. Next time you have the wheels off clean the calipers and disc hubs and spray them with engine or brake caliper paint. I used engine paint because I had it on my shelf. You don't have to take off the calipers or discs just spray enough to cover the parts that are seen through the wheel. I used acetone to clean the paint from the disc but didn't do it perfectly (first time brakes are used It'll clean the remaining paint off. This takes 10-15 minutes per wheel and gets fantastic results.

[gniknave]

With the tire size you're running (a bit small for the wheels on that car), I'd bet you could go with a bigger tire + Tein's and not sacrifice any ride quality... In fact you'd probably improve it tremendously.

[paranoidjack]

Thx for the brake cleaning trick.

So what? A set of teins ($?), KYB's ($?), and what size tire would y'all say?

[elwesso]

I bet 245-40-19 would fit nicely..... 26.7 OD 255-40 might even be reasonable, depending on how wide your rims are.

[Jeff Williams]

Jack, the car looks great! Don't listen to Wes, he just wants everybody to do what he has done.

The ride quality of a lowered Q is really not bad. The tires make all the difference. I bet you hear/feel road grooves and bridge edges a lot more with those low profile tires.

Lowering the car will just make it more stable at highway speeds, unless you go to the weeds like OTG.

Falks car looks great lowered.

I gree with the detailing tip from Andy, but I would take it a step further. Take off the weel. Remove the calipers, like you were doing a brake job. Buy a caliper paint kit fron Advance Auto (less than $10) It has cleaner and a brush-on paint. Get a REAL paintbursh. Then paint the calipers gloss black. While you are at Advance Auto, buy a spray can of dark grey metallic paint. I think it is called cast iron or something. It has a little sparkle to it. Paint the caliper brackets and rotor hub that color for contrast. It will make the wheels pop! Then clean and polish the inside of the wheels, to give depth to the whole set-up. You will spend 4 hours doing this, but it will look like a show car when you are done. If you really want to, you can get some gunk and clean up the inner fender wells, struts, and springs while you are in there.

Here is another tip: make a nice photocopy of the INFINITI badge and lettering. Scale it to fit the calipers, then go to the nearest BIG flea market. There are usually somebody there with a vinyl cutter. You can get silver Infiniti lettering for the calipers, that would look cool. You can also get a sticker with the logo to cover the center caps of the wheels, so they look OEM.

Keep up the good work!

[paranoidjack]

Jack, the car looks great! Don't listen to Wes, he just wants everybody to do what he has done.

The ride quality of a lowered Q is really not bad. The tires make all the difference. I bet you hear/feel road grooves and bridge edges a lot more with those low profile tires.

Lowering the car will just make it more stable at highway speeds, unless you go to the weeds like OTG.

Falks car looks great lowered.

I gree with the detailing tip from Andy, but I would take it a step further. Take off the weel. Remove the calipers, like you were doing a brake job. Buy a caliper paint kit fron Advance Auto (less than $10) It has cleaner and a brush-on paint. Get a REAL paintbursh. Then paint the calipers gloss black. While you are at Advance Auto, buy a spray can of dark grey metallic paint. I think it is called cast iron or something. It has a little sparkle to it. Paint the caliper brackets and rotor hub that color for contrast. It will make the wheels pop! Then clean and polish the inside of the wheels, to give depth to the whole set-up. You will spend 4 hours doing this, but it will look like a show car when you are done. If you really want to, you can get some gunk and clean up the inner fender wells, struts, and springs while you are in there.

Here is another tip: make a nice photocopy of the INFINITI badge and lettering. Scale it to fit the calipers, then go to the nearest BIG flea market. There are usually somebody there with a vinyl cutter. You can get silver Infiniti lettering for the calipers, that would look cool. You can also get a sticker with the logo to cover the center caps of the wheels, so they look OEM.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks Jeff! Man Nico is really such a great wealth of knowledge/people...my previous prelude forum (albeit very comprehensive), is full of 17 year olds that couldn't change a caliper if they had too. I sincerely appreciate all of the info you guys are putting out and I will paint my calipers the next time I have the wheels off.

[BadQ45t]

As for prices, you can jump on the set of springs Falk has left, I think he has one pair, they are under 300. The KYBs are tougher to get, OneTonGarage got them for me, but they were like 700 bones. You will have to pony up about 500 for stock replacements anyways.

I did it to my 97 and it does ride low, I have to remember to go slow over some speed bumps but going around a freeway clover leaf is like night and day. The car just hugs the road, feels like the front end just hunkers down in a big way.

Once you get past 60k everything is pretty much done and you should at least get new shocks/struts. You could try to get the KYB SR Specials and not lower and get alot from just that upgrade.

Nice Q BTW, I usually think of east coast cars at least in the north east as getting ugly really quick!

[paranoidjack]

As for prices, you can jump on the set of springs Falk has left, I think he has one pair, they are under 300. The KYBs are tougher to get, OneTonGarage got them for me, but they were like 700 bones. You will have to pony up about 500 for stock replacements anyways.

I did it to my 97 and it does ride low, I have to remember to go slow over some speed bumps but going around a freeway clover leaf is like night and day. The car just hugs the road, feels like the front end just hunkers down in a big way.

Once you get past 60k everything is pretty much done and you should at least get new shocks/struts. You could try to get the KYB SR Specials and not lower and get alot from just that upgrade.

Nice Q BTW, I usually think of east coast cars at least in the north east as getting ugly really quick!

Well, I called Joe yesterday to find out about shocks. DAMN. I have the sport/regular mode (anniversary/T edition), which makes each OEM $387 bucks. The regular ones are only $187, but I would lose my sport mode. I really don't know what to do.

I'm thinking all of this "sloppy" q handling that you all speak of is in reference to a regular Q, in non sport mode. Sport mode really does make a large difference in road feel. I've driven multiple lowered vehicles before and understand the benefits.

I'm not sure if I could put regular OEMS in, what would happen with my sport mode? would it mess with my ECU at all or anything?