I've got one little nick on one spoke on one wheel, and I've another tiny gouge on the inner lip of another wheel. Otherwise, yes, looking as good as they day they arrived, and driven maybe 10,000 miles.

Rears are dialed in exactly as I want them, because of the rear camber & toe kit. Fronts are a little off from one another. Not horrible, but I'd like to address it with new parts at some point.

VOSSEN CVT in Metallic Gloss Silver, 19” Staggered
Fronts: 19x8.5" +32, Michelin PSS 245/40ZR19, with 3mm spacers, -1.7* and -1.1* camber
Rears: 19x10.0" +42, Michelin PSS 275/35ZR19, -2.2* and -2.3* camber

 

You should take a shot of the tread on those rears, would be nice to see how well they look even at your heavier camber back there.

 

Fronts have an original tread depth of 10/32", and they are currently between 6/32" and 7/32".

Rears also have an original tread depth of 10/32", and they are currently between 5/32" and 6/32"

That 1/32" variation is from middle to edge, where the middle is 1/32" less.

I'm feeling like the rears can go another season, and the fronts maybe two more. Like most any performance tires, it's a realistic expectation to only get 15K out of them, give or take a few thousand. With the original Bridgestone RE050A, I got 15K out of the fronts, and 11K out of the rears.

 

I don't think I've told you how much I LOVE your engine bay. You must take a lot of pride in that.

 

Well, thanks! It's a pretty simple theme... titanium & SS hardware here and there, basic colors without clashing, and a DIY paint job on the engine cover that's actually held up quite well over the last 3 years. Still 100%, IMO.

This is my favorite engine bay pic, so I have it on the first post:



...and this is my favorite engine bay pic from my last car, a 2003 Nissan Maxima SE 6MT:

 

Did you just paint the silver area? Or was the black part redone as well?

I'm thinking of a metallic red for my engine cover. The R2C intakes are beautiful, mainly because of the black nickel which would flow quite well with my wheels. I'd benefit much more with a long tube CAI, but for looks, R2C wins hands down. Is there at least a slight improvement over the stock air boxes?

 

Just paint. You know what works wonders on the black plastic? Tire gel. Honest. NOD: Try it some time.

Agreed. Improvement? No, not really. Just sound and looks. Although I suspect it would contribute when the car gets tuned, but by that time I expect to switch it up for the Takeda long-tube.

 

Roch - Did you use the gel on your radiator hoses or are they the silicone kind?

Looks great. First I've seen of your Max. Looks nice too. I say 'looks' since you apparently see it from time to time.

Sean

 

What brand of paint did you use?

 

Valspar. Just rattle-can paint from LOWES.

Clean the surface, take your time to mask the black plastic and the logo (or remove the logo), prime and paint.

Afterwards, if you go over the creases with a fine-tip painter's brush (like for toy models), you can create a perfect line. It takes some patience. Or maybe it takes skills, but for lack of skills I used patience.

 

Awesome, will definitely be doing this sometime this week. It looked like you had sanded before you painted. Guess I was wrong. Thanks again.

 

Hahaha! Nice quote.
I have no patience so my only hope is getting the skills. Leads to a few failures before I get it.

 

I was polishing my GT-Spec FSTB this afternoon (don't judge me LOL). When I bought the bar three or four years ago, the first thing I did with it was buy some titanium hardware to replace the bolts at the end. And I had the brackets acid-dipped and powdercoated in metallic black. But with the bar itself, I decided to strip the milky-white clear-coat off the aluminum with various amounts of elbow grease, 0000 steel wool, and metal polish. That also removed the laser-etched logo in the middle, but that was fine by me... I didn't want it over my engine cover. Just too many things competing for attention there.

Besides, I was content with the way they designed the welded end-pieces, with their GTSPEC logo embossed into the aluminum.

But today I was looking at it and thought, "Wouldn't that look better if the letters were in a field of black?"

And I was right. IMO, it looks awesome like that.

 

I also spent some time polishing the screen-print and laser-etching off the center of the VMS radiator cap cover. Many years ago, a friend had cut me some vinyl, and I had this circle of metal-like mesh print that I never used. So I'm trying that out for a while.

 

Both very, very nice, but I'm most partial to the field of black for the GT-SPEC.

And I still need to polish off the coating on mine. It gets milkier over time.

Sean