VIP - its so hot right now, UCF21 build

[TMA-1]

Decided to debadge my grill using chrome door trim



I also cut out the circle where the emblem use to sit for a cleaner look. Heres a pic of the backside where I reapplied the adhesive backing over the hole, doubt it'll do anything except make me feel better about it haha. I may also get some plastic rod from the hobby store and reinforce that center section, as it is now you can push in the chrome a good bit with your finger esp that middle one



Now I can't decide if I wanna keep it chrome or black out the horizontal slats

[e34///M]

That grill looks nice debadged ! If you had'nt show'd how you did it no way i could tell

[244Brick]

WOW that grill tho!

[TMA-1]

That grill looks nice debadged ! If you had'nt show'd how you did it no way i could tell

Thanks! Actually you can't tell from the pics but when you look down into the grill from above you can see the hole from cutting out the emblem. If I ever reinforce it I'll probably cover it up at the same time

WOW that grill tho!

I know right? The chrome is actually growing on me. I maaaay go back and use 3/8" or 1/4" trim instead of the 1/2" I used just to make it less chunky but I'm in no hurry

[aeok18109]

Car looks good man. Hope to see it next year at Sowo.

[Stancyeze]

This thing is sweet, just needs to be a little bit lower.

[TMA-1]

Car looks good man. Hope to see it next year at Sowo.

Thanks Ernesto, hope you made it up to PA in one piece and all is well with ya!

This thing is sweet, just needs to be a little bit lower.

Yeaaaa, I still need to get the front fitment where I want it I'm waiting to purchase some NRCA's. I think right now its at a good compromise between drivability and low, I'm tucking in the rear and barely in the front. I'm happy with the way it is, sure I could get it lower and I might do that next round of tires I buy but I'm more of a meaty tire guy than having crazy stretch anyway

[TMA-1]

No real updates besides changing out all the interior lights to LED. Also this happened, popped my first bead





Didn't really know what caused it until I got a new tire on there, turns out my right rear is losing about 15lbs of air a week. Not sure if its the valve stem or the wheel needs to be rebuilt, always something right? For now I just check it every couple days and top it off.

I also ordered a new set of T-demand RCAs from Central Pine, should be here next week from Japan. Hoping to get -6.5 up front to match the rear

[TMA-1]

Sorry for the lack of updates, ended up getting a new job so I've been busy with that BUT I've done a bunch to the car aswell in the meantime

Biggest thing I did was order some T-Demand NRCAs. This install ended taking way longer than I anticipated, my tie rods were shot so I went ahead and replaced those. Also to get the tie rod off you have to take the caliper off and I've had a set of rotors and pads sitting since I bought the car a year ago soooo I replaced all that aswell.

Taking Timmy's lead I also ordered some new lower balljoints and with the T-demands you need to grind out a portion of the balljoint to clear the hardware.

Below is the rig I setup to get this accomplished, before I started I scribed out where the material needed to be taken out and put tape around it to keep track whilst gettin my grind on



Progress pic, you can see I went from both directions. When I got most of the material out of the way I used the grinder in a sweeping fashion to clean it up and make it smooth





After this pic I grabbed a can of the rubber undercoat I had leftover from cutting my towers and sprayed it on there to protect the metal.

Install of the NRCAs was a little tricky, the Beck/Arnley balljoints I bought were a super tight fit with the T-Demands. So much so that to get them on there I had to grind some of the material away from the portion sticking out of the balljoing that aligns it with the knuckle. I also had to be careful screwing them in since it was so tight, if I didn't do it exactly evenly it would bind. The stock LBJs fit fine with no issue so I'm not sure why the tolerance on the aftermarket ones was so off.







Raised the car up to approimately where it was prior to install since the NRCAs lowered the car 30mm and had the tire sitting on the fender because of the increased track width.



Ordered some 215/40s and got them installed the next weekend, this allowed me to clear the fenders and lower it some more in the front. I also got the windows tinted, went 70% on the front windshield and put a second layer on the existing legal tint since it was still in good condition. Its probably sitting around ~10% which is what I was hoping to get, needless to say its pretty dark.

Got an alignment this morning and they were able to get it to -6 up front!! I was so happy with that since my rears are at -6.5, I finally have some decent camber and my car doesn't look like its takin a piss goin down the road anymore







Finishing up my sub install over the weekend (nothin fancy). Eventually I'll get someone to take some half decent pics of my car and I also still have my roof spoiler I need to get painted.....

[TMA-1]

Got tired of my tires rubbing on my fenders so I decided to ramp up my spring rates. As I've said before I have 14/10 now, decided to buy a set of 1000# (~18k) front springs and move my fronts to the rear for a final rate of 18/14k. Also the rear spring would be going from 220mm to 200mm so I was hoping that would reduce the amount I had to lower the rear perch below zero preload to get the ride height I wanted.

Originally I was gonna order some Eibach ERS springs but after some research decided to go with a pair of Hypercoils. They're a pretty respected brand and if its good enough for Indy cars I'm pretty sure the Lexus could handle it (http://www.hypercoils.com/).

Here is a pic of the difference between the stock BC (left) and Hypercoil (right) spring, as you can see they wind their springs with less coils much like the Swifts. Thats one of the reasons I went with them over the Eibachs, also they were $30 cheaper



The height diff between 200mm and 8" is minuscule as shown by this pic so if you ever need to replace BC/Megan/whatever you can do it without having to get their subpar springs or shelling out big bucks for super JDM Swift springs (ID will be 2.5").



Taking apart the coilover wasn't difficult either since they maybe only had a couple thousand miles on them. Now if I were to just do the spring swap I would've been done in no time but heck since they're out might aswell completely take them apart and clean them.



I will say though that even with so few miles I still had issues, the rears on mine were especially dirty which made it hard to take off the lower shock mount b/c of all the crud that had accumulated.



About a month ago I ran 4 AWG power wire to the trunk to hook up my sub and amp. Upon taking my wheel off this greeted me, so that was the slight burning smell every so often



So off to HF I went to get their hydraulic crimper which I'd have to say was the best $40 (with a 20% off coupon of course) I ever spent. Made the job MUCH EASIER and did a fantastic job of crimping the 4 AWG butt connectors I bought.





I also redid my battery fuse, I didn't like the way the one I had just used a set screw to hold the wire on so I bought a bigger one that utilized ring terminals to make it a more solid connection.

For the past 7 months I've been driving without a back seat since I didn't want to put them back in until I installed my system and dampening extenders, well the sub is in so that just left the adjusters!

I sorta guesstimated the height I needed them to be since I couldn't remember how far up the headrests went. Needless to say I can barely remember what happened yesterday let alone 7 months ago. It was pretty easy to cut them, had to use a cut off wheel since the actual cable is steel and the plastic wrapping around it is metal aswell. Just remember that the inner cable needs to be longer than the plastic sheathing.



Not the best pic but you can see how far it sticks out. I installed the seats yesterday and have to say that length was pretty spot on, just about the same height as the headrests if they're down all the way :thumbup:

[TMA-1]

Annnd finally some shots of it in its current state:

[aeok18109]

car looks good. i been mia for awhile

[meme405]

Serial nine has parts which might be able to solve a lot of your rubbing issues.

Unreal car though, those rims are perfect on it, and the work done on the grille looks awesome.

[TMA-1]

car looks good. i been mia for awhile

Thanks car is a bit different then when you first saw it! Hope all is going well witcha man.

Serial nine has parts which might be able to solve a lot of your rubbing issues.

Unreal car though, those rims are perfect on it, and the work done on the grille looks awesome.

Thanks I really appreciate it, on my top 5 list of rims I wanted to get for the car the Locksmice's were the #1

Yea they have adjustable UCAs which I wanted to get but they took their sweet time getting them out so I went ahead and got NRCAs. Not really interested in spending that much and it only rubs on bumps now with the stiffer springs I can live with that.

[timon_bmw]

Its very good project,i like it!)))