a long road of learning

[xnickkkkx]

what's up guys,

i decided i'd make a build thread since i've only made one post and have been lurking around the forums since i joined and even before.

my car is a 1999 toyota camry le. it's a v6 1mz-fe with a five speed manual. now i know that there's going to be a shitload of you guys that are gonna be dicks and talk about how i need to do this and that.. but i'm gonna do this my way and i'm always down for some constructive criticism. not trying to come off as an ass, but i already know there's gonna be some **** coming in.

i bought this car back in march of 2012. i needed a replacement for my '88 civic that i blew two motors in. i came across this car by luck, and it wasn't the top of the list of what i wanted.

a month later, i wrecked the car. here are some pictures after my dad and i got it back on the road:






that's how she sat for about a year.

now, we're able to get on to the fun stuff.

in august i started up a full time job, and as a reward i bought myself a set of k-sport coilovers.



these next two pictures are the test fit of the front of the car after we dropped her the max drop of 3"




with those terrible stock rims i settled on a 1.5" drop..

i had this urge to do something with the stock rims, so i painted them pink



i bought a set of drag dr-34 to help get rid of the "stock" look of my car. they're 17x7.5. i know that they're not wide, but they'll hold me over until i get my money up.

here's how she sits now:






right now it's got a lot of the "rake" look to it. i'm planning on dropping the front down another inch. i'm hoping to roll the rear fenders and then maybe pull them so i can drop the car back down to the max drop. the rear driver side tire is rubbing pretty good on the shitty roads around here.

thanks for checking this out. i'll have more updates coming.

[rice4life]

Get a new toyota badge for the front(or a badgeless grille), remove the shocker sticker and polish your headlights.

After those simple changes, get some wheels that fit better and drop her down.


The car itself looks pretty good, with a few minor changes it will look amazing. Welcome to stance|works, glad to see some older camrys here.

[xnickkkkx]

Get a new toyota badge for the front(or a badgeless grille), remove the shocker sticker and polish your headlights.

After those simple changes, get some wheels that fit better and drop her down.


The car itself looks pretty good, with a few minor changes it will look amazing. Welcome to stance|works, glad to see some older camrys here.

i'm gonna be heading down to the scrapyard to pick uo a new emblem soon. i pulled that shocker sticker off a long time ago, cause i really didn't like it.

last weekend i put my new set of oem headlights in. i'll have some new pictures up tonight!

[HKSpeed]

I never knew V6 Camrys were available with manual transmissions. Must be a rare combo.

[xnickkkkx]

I never knew V6 Camrys were available with manual transmissions. Must be a rare combo.

yeah, over at toyotanation they said they're really rare. i like that it's rare

[rice4life]

Are you going to do any body mods to the car?

[Loch Ness Dongster]

This is going to be interesting. I know the V-6 automatics with +850lb in trunk are fairly quick, so this one should be no less powerful.

[xnickkkkx]

Are you going to do any body mods to the car?

if i can come across something that seems worth it. i'm wanting to pull the fenders so i can cram so bigger rims under there. if not, when the money comes around i might look into getting some small flares and weld them in before i get the rest of the body work and paint done to the car.

This is going to be interesting. I know the V-6 automatics with +850lb in trunk are fairly quick, so this one should be no less powerful.

yeah, my uncle had a v6 auto the same year as mine, and he swears that it had a lot of torque. my car's pretty quick for being bone stock and having subs and extra shit in my trunk. i've noticed that i can pull on quite a few newer cars off the line, but once i'm about half way through fourth gear i lose most of my power. i've thought about a trd supercharger, but i've only found used setups for $1200. and to add to that, i really don't need to get any tickets when i can spend that money on slamming her!

[xnickkkkx]

it's been awhile since i posted, but i've been lurking around. i've done a few things to the car in the past month, nothing too major. i'm gonna drop that front end some more once i get a day off. we're working 6 and 7 day production right now, so i'm just gonna start collecting some parts.

excuse the shitty night pictures with my phone, and the fact that the car is dirty!

first thing is new headlights. i needed to get rid of the 15 year old headlights and picked up a new set of oem. the fitment of my bumper is a little off. i need a new bumper.



next is the new headunit. i got rid of my old one, and picked up a touchscreen!



up next is this little trd emblem i picked up.



the biggest purchase i made was this trd 19mm rear sway bar. it was pretty rusted, so i painted it with some black plasti dip to help stop any further rust. the dude i bought it from also threw in some polyurethane bushings





no pics of it installed or next to the oem rsb. the stock sway bar is 16mm. HUGE difference when taking corners.

and the last update i have is the oem solara strut brace i picked up.



i know i have the pink engine cover. it was bronze before, and i was really sick of looking at it every time i opened my hood. so i just found some plasti dip i had laying around and painted it.

oh, and does anyone have any experience with bags over coilovers? i wanna bag my car, but i really like my coilovers and i can't justify ditching them in favor of bags. if i hear good things about them, then i'll put in an order for them next week!

[jerrychoochoo]

Keep on with the build bro. We all gotta start somewhere.

[xnickkkkx]

Keep on with the build bro. We all gotta start somewhere.

thanks! i'm gonna keep on building this car until i get a datsun 240. then the camry will be my dd while i build up the datsun.

your corolla is dope!

[rice4life]

Worry about getting bags later. Get fitted first, and see how you like it. Getting stuck on a speedbump and scraping up driveways is way more fun than it looks.

It's also a good way to get wimminz numbers

[xnickkkkx]

Worry about getting bags later. Get fitted first, and see how you like it. Getting stuck on a speedbump and scraping up driveways is way more fun than it looks.

It's also a good way to get wimminz numbers

haha, i get stuck in my driveway all the time. we have some stupid cut out on the side where i have to park, and the passenger side wheel won't touch the ground. i can't get enough traction from the driver side to pull my fat ass and the car up

my fiance absolutely hates riding with me. i've got the coils completely maxed out, so big bumps will either throw us through the roof or cause us to get some air. haha

[rice4life]

haha, i get stuck in my driveway all the time. we have some stupid cut out on the side where i have to park, and the passenger side wheel won't touch the ground. i can't get enough traction from the driver side to pull my fat ass and the car up

my fiance absolutely hates riding with me. i've got the coils completely maxed out, so big bumps will either throw us through the roof or cause us to get some air. haha

Seriously? Damn, that sucks. You must have a seriously steep driveway. The front of the car doesn't look that low in pics either. Probably some weird ass toyota sorcery.

Open diff's suck when you get stuck, that's when you have to decide to up a driveway, or smack the shit out of the car and take it at a less steep angle at speed.

[xnickkkkx]

Seriously? Damn, that sucks. You must have a seriously steep driveway. The front of the car doesn't look that low in pics either. Probably some weird ass toyota sorcery.

Open diff's suck when you get stuck, that's when you have to decide to up a driveway, or smack the shit out of the car and take it at a less steep angle at speed.

i know dude. i'll take some pictures of the driveway i deal with tomorrow before i head to work! when i picked up my new transmission after my last one died, i thought it had an lsd in it. put it in and tried to test it out and found out there's no lsd

as of right now, the front has about 3/4 of an inch of a gap from the fender to the tire. i plan on getting rid of that. the biggest problem with this generation of camry is the fact that the frame is farther down than the body. if you look at the car, the body stops at the bottom of the doors, but then the frame hangs down another inch or so. so no matter how low it really is, i'll never look as low as all the other stanced cars