Re: FD22's Orange Hatch
I think this is due for a nice, long, detailed update! Some of you saw the car at BubbaQ, so I might as well go into some detail about exactly what was changed on the car, for those that care enough about it (probably not many, but meh lol). The car is still not done; there's some minor finishing touches that need to be made that I just didn't have time to do before BubbaQ. I wrote this up a few days ago, but decided not to post it yet, and to just show up to the BubbaQ with the new look to see first-hand what peoples' initial reactions/thoughts were lol I love me a good surprise, and I'm sure others do too! Some of the reactions I got were priceless haha best part of my day by far. @trulankan and @m3rk were my favorite haha
Well, it had been a long Winter, and an even longer Spring. Long story short...mod bug hit hard again, and decided to just get it all out of my system. Apparently I love going broke. Thought up some plans over the winter and started implementing them slowly towards the end of Winter into Spring. Lot's and lot's of frustration and stress was invovled, trying to source different parts, get things installed, and all that jazz. Had a couple "defects" to the car that were driving my OCD wild, so I decided to take care of those things as well. I can safely say that I am definitely "done" with this car now, lol for real! Accomplished much more than I had initially invisioned I'd do. I'm pretty happy with it, and although I'm sure I'll get a ton of hate (can't avoid it, right?) I hope you guys enjoy the little journey I shall now take you onhaha wayyy too much time on my hands to write all this... (I apologize in advance for the oncoming explosion of words)
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Wheels:
Rims: XXR 522's - 18x9.5, +25 - powdercoated Candy Teal
Tires: 215/35/18 Venezia Crusade HP
Lugs: Black, short, close-ended Topline lug nuts
Over the winter I decided I was tired of my "plain old" black BBS reps, and decided I wanted something more aggressive and bold. The candy teal on orange was something I visioned in my head looking awesome, and was a bit of a reach, but I think it turned out pretty good. The aggressive size of the 522's I chose seemed potentially a bit more than I could handle after I really started looking into it, but I think it still came out pretty decent. The whole "stretch and poke" thing was definitely something I was nervous about, but so far it has turned out okay. Was never a fan of huge stretches and massive poke, but the way these fit on my car (after some modifications of course) I was definitely pleased with the outcome. Definitely loving the look of the aggressive setup, even though that means I can't do my usual spirited driving; a sacrifice that I'll have to get used to. Shout-out to Keith at Exclusive Wheel & Tire
for
bearing through the tire sourcing issues we had, and being able to mount this stretched setup as well.
Fender Modifications: Shout-out to @Hyperion here for taking care of this for me. Very knowledgeable and comfortable making these wheels fit on my car. The fronts were hammered down a bit from the inside and then pulled. The rears were rolled as much as possible (damn you rusty fenders!) and pulled as well. They don't look like any horrible amature job, and I was very pleased with the way it came out.
Suspension: Carrying out these plans of mine definitely required moar low! So, after swapping from Yellows/Prokits to BC coils, some further adjustments were made. I'm currently running the fronts all the way down with one collar removed, and the rears all the way down with everything still in. Max stiffness all around. (wish the BC's were stiffer...I still rub way too often/easy in the rear lol)
Body Parts:
Front Bumper - some of us are familiar with the bad design of the OEM lisence plate frame in the front, with the little u-shaped dent being able to indent itself on the front bumper much to easily. This, along with the holes from the plate frame itself, were not cool to see once I relocated the plate to the side. Thus, must be fixed! Picked up a used OEM front bumper that had the holes professionally filled, and swapped that onto the car. Shout-out to @JrCanuck for the front bumper. While I had the bumper off, I also decided to paint the fog light housings black. The silver ring didn't quite flow with anything else on the car in my opinion.
Rear Bumper - late for a dentist appointment + people behind me in a hurry + extremely cramped underground parking + backing into parking spot = dented rear bumper. Wasn't horrible, but definitely a significant size that was very noticeable. Once again, this drove me crazy everytime I saw my car. So I took the opportunity to upgrade to the Speed3 rear end I always wanted. Picked up a used OEM 07-09 style bumper (as opposed to the 04-06 style on my car) and picked up a Speed3 rear valence from the dealership. Fitment of this was definitely a huge pain in the ass, but in the end got it on all well and good.
Front Grille - Figured since I'm trying to be all aggressive and whatnot, that the front end could use a slight change as well. So I swapped the OEM front grille for an AE grille.
Weight Reduction/Ass Cleanup: Wanted a cleaner, more simple rear end. So decided to do the wiper delete, and emblem delete as well. No budget to have the hatch profressionally debaged, so right now the holes are just exposed, but hoping to find some plugs to use (recommendations anyone?) and if not, stickers shall be used. Worthy note is also that side mouldings have been removed, in order to play into the whole "cleaner look" thing and whatnot.
Full Car Dip: Now here's where I'll probably lose a few fanshaha yes, I had my entire car dipped, by a local professional shop.
Color Choice - Orange of course! - A custom mixture of orange pearls over a Koi Orange dip as the base color. Orange on orange on orange!
Reasoning Behind Dipping - Two reasons. First was that, although I always loved this stock orange color from Mazda, my car is old, and the paint defects were starting to show, with chips here and there, and just overall age from the previous owner not taking care of the exterior of the car as much as I do/did (which is fully undestandable of course haha). Second reason was that, from earlier you can see that I swapped a few body parts on, and obviously none of these were in my paint code due to it being pretty rare, specially in the used parts department/scrapyards/etc. Ideally would've had it painted, but let's face it, money is the issue here. So I said to myself, why not take this opportunity to get these body parts to match the car, and just redo the exterior of the whole car in the process. This way I can protect the paint for the future, shield any imperfections, and get a slightly brighter/more "pop"ing orange to the car that I always wanted. Turned out a little lighter than I expected, but this thing is super pearly and just has so many different shades of orange to it depending on the weather conditions. It's in no way a mint job, of course. First of all the little dent I had on my rear drivers side shows more now with a brighter color. And just my luck, the first drive home from picking up the car after it was "done curing" I got a significant stone chip on the drivers door that ripped some dip off. The next day, found a couple more chips as well. Dip was supposed to have fully cured by then, so even the shop is confused at how it could happen. But these are just minor things I'm going to have to live with. Still managed to get the "is that wrapped/painted" comments from randoms on the street, and members as well, so it's not too bad
Worthy note: shout-out to @schmat66 for putting up with my noob questions about wheel fitment and dip and other miscalleaneous things, specially when I was still in the planning stages. An inspiration for sure...though I (and most importantly my bank account) now officially hate him for making all this low/big wheels/dip thing looks so easy! haha
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TLDR version: over the past couple months, I've been working slowly and steadily to absolutely ruin my daily driver haha and it is now complete. Now to drive it to the ground! I'm very happy with how everything has come together, and I am once again in love with my car haha definitely feels good to finally be "done" per-say. And of course, dem haterzz are welcome to voice their concerns as well
Like I said, the car still isn't done, so here's a short list of things still left to do::
- put in rear reflectors
- contemplate whether it's a good idea to put the lip-on-lip back on in the front
- install Hella horns (had these for a few months now...)
- paint calipers
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Now for some pics! Right? Wrong
Since it was just very recently all put together, I don't have too many good cell-phone pics of it. Plus celly's probably won't do it justice. Hoping some of our fine photographers were able to snap a shot or two of it from the BubbaQ today
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Originally Posted by Hyperion
haha
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