My new car!

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Sat May 12, 2012 9:14

So the new ACC black carpet is 90% in. To be honest, at first, looking at the carpet, I was less than impressed. It looked completely generic, like a square, with no molding to it at all. But once Matt and I started to position it in place, it started fitting much better and the molds started to show.

It tooK a lot of trimming, fitting, and cutting to get it to fit right and it finally does. Overalls I'm very pleased. The passenger side was a bitch thanks to the odd shaped trans tunnel and hump for the cat. There is a slight wrinkle on the passenger floor but it's not bad. Plus, I plan on getting floor mats so it will be covered soon enough.

Just need to cut holes for the bolts for the seats and such, install the center console and then wait for some custom bits to arrive.

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Mon May 14, 2012 9:14

Little teaser:

VRx8 · Postby **VRx8** » Mon May 14, 2012 9:14

Looks real good! Been working out in the FD?

Operator · Postby **Operator** » Mon May 14, 2012 9:14

You've been pumping iron?!? (Those look like weights on the passenger side).

Operator · Postby **Operator** » Mon May 14, 2012 9:14

VRx8 wrote:Looks real good! Been working out in the FD?

Beat me to it!

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Mon May 14, 2012 9:14

Haha I like to lift weights while I drive, I find it saves time.

No the weights were to keep the carpet down. It had some wrinkles there so it was smoothing it out. The weights also helped keep the carpet in place during installation.

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Wed May 16, 2012 9:14

Finally got all the parts in to complete my interior overhaul. As I eluded to earlier, I did a lot of work, finally completing the interior to a (nearly) full black interior, save for the tan leather seats, which will get reupholstered soon.

As a quick refresher, here is what the interior looked like when I got the car, save the steering wheel setup:

And now:

In the end, everything done was:

-Custom ACC molded black cut pile carpet, OEM tan carpet removed
-JDM rear seats are gone, but the bins didn't go back in. Instead, I (with lots of help from Matt!) carpeted the bins area
-All interior plastics painted with Duplicolor Bumper Paint, headliner dyed black
-All interior LED lighting with SMD panels
-Ralco short throw shifter
-Modified center console cover with covered overheat/security lights and center line, repainted
-Deleted dead pedal, frees up a TON of foot room
-And the best part I'm the happiest with; custom genuine Alacantera shifter boot, e-brake boot, and center tunnel wrap with quadruple purple stitching

Overall, I couldn't be happier with the interior. I just now need to save some coin to get the front seats reupholstered in Connely black leather with purple stitching and custom seat heaters. The tan belts will also need to replaced with black belts.

The only part I'm not as thrilled with is the paint on the plastics doesn't seem to be holding up well, especially on the quarter panels where the seat belt contacts them. They do chip easy, as opposed to my door panels which are nearly indestructible. I may end up purchasing real-deal black quarters and divider panel. I want to get carbon fiber kick panels and side sills down the road anyway so I don't need genuine black pieces.

I sold the JDM rear seats to Matt who had been pestering me (in a good way haha) to sell them to him, so I passed along my great deal to him and he took them. I did this because I figured I could get 90% of the functionality of the rear seats without having them or worrying about damage to them, by just simply carpeting the rear area.

Well, after doing it, that turns out to be somewhat true. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy with the result, but they aren't as functional as the rear seats for storage. To get the carpet to look the best, the area needs to be as flat as possible, so the carpet slopes. There is still storage, however. Best part? I can recline the front seats nearly flat no, something I for sure couldn't do with the bins, or the JDM rear seats.

iani1.1 · Postby **iani1.1** » Wed May 16, 2012 9:14

wow really nice

speedjunkie · Postby **speedjunkie** » Wed May 16, 2012 9:14

I didn't realize you already did the tranny tunnel, I thought you were going to do that later. Man it looks good. Now I want to do it even more lol.

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Thu May 17, 2012 9:14

Thanks guys, I'm real happy with it too. I did notice the camera flash makes the Alacantera look like a much different color tone than the carpet. In normal light, it matches better and isn't as dramatic.

I also got some wrinkles on the passenger side of the trans tunnel wrap, it real difficult to get it pulled tight and glued down all around.

Website · Postby **Shadowden** » Thu May 17, 2012 9:14

Have you considered having your plastics wrapped in a black vinyl upholstery? Other option is to check with an upholstery to get the glue and wrap them yourself.

I can't see pictures at work, but I am definately interested in hearing about your carpet install and dying of the headliner. I would like to do both (and plan to have my pillar plastics wrapped in black vinyl). I have my carpet at home already, just putting off tearing it all apart.

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Thu May 17, 2012 9:14

Shadowden wrote:Have you considered having your plastics wrapped in a black vinyl upholstery? Other option is to check with an upholstery to get the glue and wrap them yourself.

I can't see pictures at work, but I am definately interested in hearing about your carpet install and dying of the headliner. I would like to do both (and plan to have my pillar plastics wrapped in black vinyl). I have my carpet at home already, just putting off tearing it all apart.

Well my initial idea was to get my door panels wrapped in leather, but now that I've incoprerated Alacantera into the interior, I would like to wrap them in that material instead. There are two problems, of course. First is genuine Alacantera is stupid expensive, I don't even want to mention how much just my shift boot, ebrake boot, and center tunnel wrap was for fear of my wife finding out haha. Second is I've heard the FD door panel is notoriously difficult to wrap thanks to its odd contours and size, although I've seen wrapped FD door panels before, so I know it can be done.

Ideally, I'd love to have all interior plastics wrapped in Alacantera, except for the side sills and kick panels, which will be replaced with carbon fiber pieces, and the main dash pieces which could remain black plastic.

The carpet install wasn't something I would classify as difficult, but it was time consuming. I suspect a major chunk of time could be saved by purchasing a better molded carpet, I.e. OEM carpet would be best. The aftermarket carpet I got wast cut to fit either, it was just a large square with some vague molding in it. Marking and cutting all the bolt holes and trimming it to fit was the other major pain. If you got an OEM carpet the install would be a literal breeze.

Dying the headliner was pretty easy. In the FD, it removes with just gentle pressure pulling down, carefully, and one bolt in the front. I was surprised how easy it was to remove. I then cleaned it with a soapy water mixture in a spray bottle and followed up with some denatured alcohol to remove any remaining grease.

I dyed it with Duplicolor Fabric and Vinyl dye spray paints, it sounds ghetto but it's real deal dye, just in an aerosol delivery system. The stuff works great but if you're going from a light color to a dark color (such as tan to black) you will need more than anticipated to get proper coverage. If you prep correctly and let it cure overnight it has a pretty strong finish.

Ryan95 · Postby **Ryan95** » Fri May 18, 2012 9:14

Man, I gotta come hang out with you guys more often. My work is amateur shit compared to the stuff you guys are doing.

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Sat May 19, 2012 9:14

Did some shake down testing on FD yesterday, working on some fine tuning of the PFC and also testing out the new Mocal thermostat. The thermostat worked flawlessly, no leaks, a much better setup over the Derale piece I had previously.

I also took the engine to 7000rpm for the first time, performed great, and I did it to make sure my catch can wasn't filling up with oil. Happy to report that phenomenon has seemed to have stopped, no more full catch can and oily messes! I think I finally have this engine sorted to where it keeps all its fluids inside of it haha.

I did purge some coolant on shut down, no big deal, I just need an overflow catch tank. I ordered one from Summit yesterday so it will be here next week.

Also tested out my newly acquired Go Pro camera and suction cup mount on the outside of the FD. It worked okay, but it mostly recorded a shit ton of wind noise and very little to hardly any engine noise, so I was a little disappointed. I think I need to mount it in a different location to pick up engine noise.

I just need to get the downpipe fixed and I think she'll be ready for track duty, with a little more fine tuning.

Learjet45 · Postby **Learjet45** » Sat May 19, 2012 9:14

Careful there, Dave. Don't forget Murphy's law and all that crap. Don't jinx yourself!
Your interior is looking really good! Hopefully she stays running strong! I would say hopefully you can finish everything up soon, but my time spent hear has shown me that FD owners are never done

My new car!

Interior Redux

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