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How are the BC Coils holding up after so long. I heard for static they arent the best!
I blew one shock years ago and replaced it. Worked pretty fine since then. Haven't driven it in about 2 years now though.
Upgraded now, so BC's are out!
Not much progress recently. But my 326Power coilovers arrived! Valved F36K/R32K.
Also got a Fabulous grill, as well as matching Garson Mono steering wheels - one for me, one for my gf's GS300. Both will be reupholstered to interior colours accordingly.
Currently working on re-doing my headlights, fog lights, and turn signals.
I still have quite a few things on the list to finish on the car, just waiting until it's warm enough to do anything.
Hopefully around spring I can finish up bodywork in the front to start working on the rear setup!
Not much progress recently. But my 326Power coilovers arrived! Valved F36K/R32K.
Also got a Fabulous grill, as well as matching Garson Mono steering wheels - one for me, one for my gf's GS300. Both will be reupholstered to interior colours accordingly.
Currently working on re-doing my headlights, fog lights, and turn signals.
I still have quite a few things on the list to finish on the car, just waiting until it's warm enough to do anything.
Hopefully around spring I can finish up bodywork in the front to start working on the rear setup!
Sheesh those steering wheels look great, hope to find one myself one day
[QUOTE=Auxive;9753613]So I've owned my car for about a year and a half now (since May 2015), and thought it was time to put together a build thread of what I've done so far. Most of the stuff you'll see below is modifications, not maintenance. Most maintenance stuff like timing belt, water pump, ect, were excluded from this.
So, let's begin.
May 2015, I buy my car. California car, 2 owner, 96k miles, and BLACK. Couldn't have asked for anything better. Got it for a steal because the bumper had a slight crack in it and the family that owned it didn't want it anymore.
About 2 weeks of owning it later, I decided to buy my first set of wheels before my BC racing coilovers came in. Enkei Raijin 19x8.5 +35 all around (weak specs, I know). At this point, I was against rolling/pulling fenders, so these wheels were perfect in my opinion.
A couple days later, the BC Racing coils come in and it's time to install them.
Now it was time to take care of that cracked bumper. Only reason I didn't do this sooner was because no junk yard within 250 miles had one. After constantly searching every day, I managed to find one on craigslist. Of course it had to be repainted, but that was taken care of.
A short while after, I sold my Enkeis and thought I'll do what every noob LS400 owner does, get Style 95s. But that didn't last long. I test fitted them, and sold them 2 days later. They were never on the car.
Instead of being like everyone else, I decided to do what I've never seen before. Buy E60 M5 wheels and put them on and LS400. Yes, still BMW wheels, but at least it was something new. Couldn't find a pic when I first bought them, but here's a picture I took before I sold them (yes they were sold later on).
And here is a picture of the car with them on. Fitment looks terrible until I decided to lower it more, then it was perfect.
Next thing was clear corners. I did the method of using some pliers to break apart the orange part inside the lens, and it made the car look a million times better.
I was planning on lowering my car more, so it was definitely time to tuck the harness. I cut out tabs in the metal so I can raise the harness up above, and drilled some holes to secure it with zipties. Painted the areas that were cut just to make sure they wouldn't rust.
Around this time, I decided to lower my car more. I had to roll my fenders in the rear, and I rolled them in the front too. Rear fitment was perfect, sat fender to lip without any rub. Front fitment was a little wide, ended up baconing my fenders even with a good amount of stretch on the tires. Sadly, couldn't find a picture of the front and how badly it rubbed and bacon'd my fenders.
Random picture in the middle of all of this, but I managed to find one of the only other modded LS400's in the state. Figured out he also went to school with me.
Soon after, I started getting into retrofits. This is one of the 3 retrofitted sets of headlights I had on my car. Sold them shortly after because I needed to pay for my next semester at college and fell a little short.
Then, I flared the front fenders about 1 inch farther out than stock, and it gave me just enough clearance to not rub anymore. Of course what came along with this was more bacon. So I did some work and smoothed it all out, priming it for paint. Since it was winter (and yes this was my daily), I didn't manage to paint it until later. I reprimed the entire fender later on and painted it.
Until spring came along, I was just playing around with how I wanted my car to look. So I made some eyelids for the stock headlights, plastidipped the grille, ect. This look didn't stay for long. And yes, sadly I thought it was a good idea at the time to put on a little rubber lip. But hey, it managed to save my brand new painted bumper from being scratched up multiple times.
Spring of 2016 came along and it's been about 8 or so months of me owning it. Time for some new headlights and Depo corner lights. Housing of the lights were also painted black to match the car, and corner lights were given a very slight smoke tint.
Then I came across a good deal of some front upper control arms by Serial Nine. I didn't want to buy some for the rear since the fitment was perfect. (You can also see in the picture another 2 pairs of headlights I'm working on, one for me, one for a customer). I didn't want to max these arms out, so I only went for around 9 degrees I believe. I don't remember the exact specs since it was almost a year ago.
Now that it was finally warm, it was time for me to paint the fenders. I set up a little paint booth in my spare house's garage and got to work.
A couple of pictures of the car during that week that the fenders got painted.
Then I started building a new set of headlights. As you can see, I was very indecisive of the direction I wanted to take my car. It was around this time that I decided to also sell the Serial Nine front upper control arms. I didn't see the need to have them since it was just making my tyres wear faster. After all, this was still my daily driver.
This is a great build! Apologies if this has been answered, but what is the name for these (custom?) headlights? Great look. Appreciate your info and thanks in advance!
12-17-20, 02:16 PM
