Spent a little time today moving the HID ballasts under the nose panel. I like the HIDs, I do not like the eyesore in the engine bay. Yesterday some parts I'd been waiting on arrived and today they went under the nose panel. Nothing special or unique or original but might give others some ideas if you're wondering what to do with yours. Being that they're AC type there's an inline inverter that makes it hard route any wiring if you want to move them (the ballasts) away from the headlamps. I ordered some extension leads from ebay that took ages to arrive... Prepped the ballasts for their new home; the inverters are taped to the ballast with a safety cable tie for good measure. I added a strip of adhesive foam just to make sure I wasn't going to introduce any rattles. This panel under the nose is suitable for rive nuts. The cavity behind is a little shallow so the rivet nut will bottom out before the flange sits flush with the sheet metal, but having done this before I know it'll be secure. Ballasts installed. And the intake back on. Another advantage with installing a pod filter is that it frees up HEAPS of room under here. Much better. And it still needs a thorough clean after our offroading at Zedfest... I'm amazed at all the nooks and crannies that dust has gotten into lol
The car came with a a set of BC racing V1 VS coilovers installed that were a bit low and a bit stiff for what I have in mind for this car. Yes I know the low part is easy to fix but I also wanted to improve the ride quality. The original plan was to refurb some stock shockers that another member had given me (thanks Logan), but curiousity got the better of me and I decided to order in some Voston Comfort coilovers from MCA. Finally got around to fitting these yesterday. The basic premise with the Voston line is that the components are made offshore to MCA specs, then the coilovers are assembled and tested at MCA in Brisbane. This puts the price point below $2k, and while cheap MCA still aren't "cheap" the spring rates and valve rates are actually tuned to suit the car and I think these are going to be a real game changer in the $1500-$2k price range. RGS Performance is a retail dealer for MCA so if you're curious feel free to shoot me a PM. Anyway didn't get many (any) pics of the install process, but it's no different to any other coilover install. After a 300km round trip for the cruise today I'm very happy with how they ride. The pic below gives a bit of an idea of how they sit out of the box and plenty of room to go up or down. Big thank you to @ryzan for fixing me up with a set of shock tower trims - the ones that came on the car had been cut for remote damepener adjusters.
A little while back I ordered some repro Series 2 throttle return spring covers. Finally got around to boltint them on over the weekend. These are not OE pieces but a reproduction made from stainless steel and finished with black powdercoat. Also fit up a USB charger in place of the cigarette lighter. I'd seen somebody do similar in a facebook post and decided that it looked more practical than having an adapter in the socket. Fits up easy enough with a patch harness made up using spade connectors into the OE lighter socket connector (red wire is positive if you're doing this at home). The threaded body of the adapter just fits into the cutout for the lighter socket, but the top is just a little too wide to sit flush in the bevelled recess. You could definitely do a better install if you were happy to cut and fill the finisher trim (I'm not! Well not for this car) so this will do the job for now and can be reverted back to stock without any hassles. Available from Amazon if anybody is looking for something similar. It had just come off charge when this pic was taken hence yes the battery is holding a surface charge slightly above your usual 12.6v. Now to pay the rego and maybe take it out of the driveway lol
