My Versa Mods

[sswift]

Hi there!

I purchased a used white automatic 2007 Versa 1.8S hatchback with the power package back in March for $15K after I got into a bit of an accident with my old Ford Focus.

I've never been much into modifying cars. I'm more of a computer programmer/artist, than a gearhead. But since I started watching American Chopper I've become quite interested in vehicles as art. And looking at my poor Versa with it's generic white coloring, and bog standard steel wheels with gray hubcaps like every other car out there, I decided something needed to be done.

At first I took the cheap route and tried a number of different chrome hubcaps. But the ones which looked best had the biggest holes in them, and those made the steel wheels visible, which just looked cheap. Plus, the shinier hubcaps served only to make the rims look even smaller than the 15 inchest they already were.

So biting the bullet, I went out to look at rims. Which are apparently called wheels. Go figure.

Anyway, the nice guys at the local tire shop were happy to answer my questions, and were patient as I had them bring no less than six rims out to my car to see how they looked beside it. But their efforts were not in vain. Today they installed the rims and tires I picked out... A set of 17" HPD Cooldown rims, with low profile, 215 wide, Toyo Proxes 4 tires to match.

And here are a couple pics of the car, with the rims, and some chrome bits I stuck on here and there:





(Right click -> View Image for high res!)

Before I actually bought the tires I did a lot of research on the net, trying to figure out what you can legally do to your car in NH and what you can't. And I've come to the conclusion that there's a TON of stuff you can't do, and not a lot of stuff you can. Even though all the stores sell blue lights for example, the law seems to say that blue lights can't be used at all on the exterior of the car. And if I'm not mistaken, it probably is illegal to have them on the interior as well. Which is odd, cause a hybrid a test drove had blue dash lights. But I guess if it comes factory then it's okay, otherwise tough luck. :-(

That's how it works for tinted windows at least. Certain tints, okay. Otherwise, if it didn't come from the factory that way...

All these confusing laws have made it hard to decide exactly what to do. I want to keep the car street legal. And furthermore, I don't want to attract unwanted attention and get tickets for stuff which is legal but which the cops think is otherwise. For example, blue window tint I suspect would cause problems, though the law doesn't specifically forbid it.

So for now I'm limiting myself to stuff that's fairly safe. New black and chrome rims for example. And chrome accent peices that aren't too cheesy. Also licence plate frames that are simple in design, with a bit of a 3D effect to them, but once again, black and chrome. (This was added after the photos above were taken.) Also, I've been trying to find some chrome tailpipes that look good and will fit without having to carve up my rear bumper. I found a single pipe with a bend in it that would work, but the single round pipe just didn't look that great. I'll have to go out tomorrow and look for some better dual pipes. Oval, or rectangular perhaps.

White, black, and chrome. That's the color scheme I'm going with for now. I could still add some sort of color, used sparingly, but I haven't decided yet how or where I would add that. Of course, red would be a logical choice given the large red brake lights being pretty much the only color on the whole vehicle right now.

Speaking of which, I was considering lighting the underside of the car and the wheel wells with red LED lighting. But I quickly found that you can't drive with that sort of stuff lit, and red lights are verboten in many states. And blue lights, the other obvious choice are also forbidden. The only other color they sell locally is green, but I'm not to hot on green. I could always get a multicolor kit of course, but I don't know if that would be legal or not since it would technically have blue lights, and besides, red or blue would really be the colors I'd want if I had such lighting.

But there is another option that occured to me, one that seems to be legal, and wouldn't attract too much attention and might look slick, and that's white LED's. I found a couple sets of white led's which you can mount under the side panels, and they're designed to go on when the doors open, and stay on for 30 seconds after they close. This would allow me to have lights, but not in a color that would attract attention or likely be illegal somewhere, and I could use them all the time and not have to fidde with switches constantly. I was also thinking of mounting the same sort of white led's under the seats to provide more interesting in car illumination instead using the boring overhead lamp.

I've also been toying with the idea of some kind of racing stripe. I was thinking one big one down the middle with two small ones to the side, but I could only find one wide stripe locally and it wasn't wide enough, being only around half a wide as the black V behind the front logo. I could buy some stripes online, but even after mocking it up in photoshop, I'm just not sure how good it would look. Being frustrated on that front, I'm now thinking about how chrome trim around the edge of the hood might look. Hard to go wrong with more chrome!

Another thing I was considering was getting a spoiler. The stock spoiler is not available from Nissan yet, and I really like the look of the Stillen spoiler on versaspeed.com, so if I add one, that's the one I'll get. But I don't think I'd be happy with just sticking a white spoiler on the back. It would make the car's profile a bit more sporty, but... And then I got thinking... How much better would it be if the spoiler was a flat black like the trim on the car? That would certainly spice the back up a bit. And sure enough, after this thought occured to me, I saw someone with a yellow Mustang GT which had a flat black spoiler on the back with black trim and racing stripes, and it looked pretty sweet there... so why not here?

The last thing I've been trying to figure is what might be done with the front end, specifically the grille, to give the car a more agressive look. That's only just occurred to me today though, so I haven't been able to put much thought into it. But I'm sure I'll come up with something. :-)
Modified by sswift at 12:26 AM 5/26/2007

[cnsmike]

WOW, Nice ride. You sure do your research. There is so much information on here so look around.

Mike

[sswift]

Thanks! I've been reading a lot of the threads here, particularly the ones with pictures to see what others have done to their Versas.

Something else I could do just occurred to me.

I've noticed that the mirrors are large and flat. Not very areodynamic. That, combined with the fact that they're white, means the last time I drove home from the theatre past a swamp, just after having run the car though a car wash, the whole back of the driver side mirror was COVERED in bug splatters.

So I'm wondering if maybe white isn't a poor choice of color for the mirrors. A flat black would make the bug splattage less obvious. I can't be polishing this thing every day! :-)

The other option would be replacing the mirror with one that's more areodynamic, which might help to avoid the bugs splatting on it. But one thing about the mods I'm doing is that the car is like new... I don't feel too comfortable making major potentially irreversible changes to it yet.

But the idea of having black mirrors gave me another idea, and that would be to have flat black handles on the side and rear doors. That would break up the white sides a bit with some more interesting detail.

Hm... actually, come to think of it, the rear door "handle" isn't a handle at all, is it? It's just a bump with a button underneath. Kind of an odd way for the trunk to open. That does limit my option there then. But the side handles, they could still be black.

I wonder if they sell replacement handles in the color I need so I don't have to damage the originals by painting them...

[ms_stylin_versa]

Nice wheels

[sswift]

Here are some new pictures:





(Again, right click and view image for the full size versions.)

Here you can see all the little chrome bits I added yesterday after I took the above pics, and today. Unfortunately I had to put a bike rack on there cause I'm going out for a ride tomorrow, but you should get the general idea.

First, were the license plate frames, which are two tone. Front and back the same. I got some chrome screw covers to go with them. But to put the two screw covers on the bottom of the back plate, I had to use some pointy screws and screw them into the body there. And to do the front plate, I had to get a black mounting plate. I might see if I can remove the original mounting peice and just put the mounting plate there, but it didn't look like that would be possible when I was putting it on. The screws were just barely long enough to attach to the body after going through the decorative border and the mounting plate.

After putting those on last night, I drove around this morning looking for some more stuff I could put on the car, and I found a place with some more chrome flames. These ones I placed around the rear license plate. They filled in the big flat area there nicely. You might also notice the flames around the nissan logo. I forgot to mention those yesterday. Those ones are just magnetic. I'm not sure if I'll keep them on there or not.

I didn't have much luck finding any white lights to put under the seats, but the underbody ones are still there at Pepboys for me if I decide to install those. I wonder if Pepboys can do the install... I don't have any lifts for the car, or a drill or anything to help me attach them. Plus I don't have all the stuff for connecting them to a power source.

I got some new stuff to detail the tires too. I think it was called Mother's tire detailer. It doesn't give the tires a greasy look or make them too shiiny. They just look like a nice deep flat black.

And the last thing I added was two little chrome deer saver things in the lower front grille. I'm not sure if they actually perform as advertised, but I was hard up for chrome bits I could place in that area. :-)

I think what I need to do now is try to figure out if the law allows you to put a decal across the top of the windshield because I've seen a few decals which you can place on the exterior that might look good, and some of them have the tinting I wanted but which a guy at one place told me wouldn't stick over the dots that are there.

[KimberKenobi]

So biting the bullet, I went out to look at rims. Which are apparently called wheels. Go figure.

Very nice mods ;o) good luck cruisin the DOT laws

[sswift]

I think the next thing I'm gonna do is get some new front brake pads. I saw some ones with black and I think a bit of chrome on them at Pepboys. The ones that the car came with are just plain gray steel and look really ugly behind the nice wheels.

I briefly considered replacing the entire brake assembly with nice chrome disc brakes on all four wheels, but I like the wheel wells being dark, and this is a lot cheaper. Plus I don't know anything about replacing the drum brakes on the back with disc brakes, ie if that's legal, or possible, or if it will interfere with the parking brake, or what.

So just replacing the front pads is probably my best option right now.

As for the lighting, what I'm now considering is maybe getting some basic rectangular white running lights like they sell for trucks, and mounting those under the side panels and under the seats and wiring them up to the same circuit that makes the interior light go on when the doors are open. That'll ensure those lights are never on when the car is moving and white should be legal when not moving just about anywhere.

[KimberKenobi]

There won't be any problem with discs being legal in the back: they are. Some cars come that way. I'm just not sure if it is justifiable on the V. (I'm actually looking into that, but I'm getting my calipers done in red.)

[remiasz]

you can get conversion kits but whats the point when u may as well just paint the calipers and the brake drums

[Nismo V]

Nice bro... only I would lose the turbo emblem until it's actually done..

[sswift]

Heh... When my freind saw that he asked me if I had a turbo in there, and when I told him no, he said I was an ***. I told him it was either that or 4x4. :-)

[Rockhound]

I hear you about the white mirrors and their bug-catching propensity.

As for making them another color, I dunno, I think they are sharpest when they match the body color. Flat black mirrors would look like something you ripped off a heavy-duty truck or something like that, at least IMHO.

You could look into something like the 3M "invisible" plastic shield stuff to cover the backs of the mirrors so that the paint was protected and then subsequent bugs would be even easier to wipe off. Wouldn't really help with overall maintenance, but it would maintain the finish on the mirror.

[Wings]

Your friend is right,Ditch the Turbo badge! The rims are nice. Don't know what profile you got but hopefully nothing that will throw off your speedometer and mileage. The rear hatch emblem looks good too. Get some lowering springs to clean up the look.

As for the blue lights, a blue dome light or blue interior lights that shut off when the doors close are ok. Even blue neon in the car is ok when the car is not moving. Most DOT laws are that you can't have red, blue, or green lights from the front or side of the vehicles since they are for emergency vehicles. Green is for Hazardous Material response vehicles generally. Most states will allow amber/orange and white from all sides considering headlights and turn signal colors. If you want to do neons around your car, it is legal to have any color you want mounted and installed. Illegal to drive with them on sinec it's usually an impersonating an emergency vehicle law. That's why most of these lights say for offroad purposes only. You can own all of these products just can't drive with them turned on. Blue dash lights aren't bright enough in the hybrid you tested to break any laws. Keep all the aftermarket lighting turned off while you are driving, and you will not draw attention to you. The tint from the manufacturer is legal in all states. It's only the back and not that dark.Hope this helps you out with future plans.

[BBISHOPPCM]

Good to see another NH resident on the board! I rive mine regularly in Bedford, Manchester, Amherst, and Milford. Bought mine from Team Nissan. If you see a mag grey SL, it might be me. Mine doesn't have any unusual markings...

[sswift]

No, the wheels won't throw off the spedometer. I made sure that the radius wasn't gonna change. But there is a low presure light which now lights up at the bottom of the spedometer when the car is in motion. I'm not sure if it is possible to disable that or not.

I'm glad you like the rear hatch embelem. That's my favorite bit too. I might remove some of the other chrome stuff I stuck on there though. I thought the flames around the license plate were good, but now I think they're a bit much. Also the little dragon under the versa logo doesn't really add much.

I'm still trying to figure out if there's any way I can put racing or pin stripes on there that would look good.

Oh and not a week after I got my rims I already scratched a bit of the right rear one on the curb. Damnit! I wonder if I can buff that out.

Oh, and I also aked about new calipers at Pep Boys. They don't have any that fit the Vera apparently.

Someone here suggested I paint them? Woudln't the heat of braking cause all sorts of problems with that?

[remiasz]

no painting the calipers will not wear off the paint as long as you use the correct paint. I suggest getting a dupli color caliper paint kit, i have used it on my brothers car, an xa and works very well.

[damnedkero]

reaaallly loved those rims...how much did you payed for them?...im saving money for some ICW 17 kobe´s...

[sswift]

$1200, rims and tires.