Countdown to DGRR 2016
 

so in a series of poor choices i bought an fd here in the states. below is where i saw the car.

https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...turbo-1086156/

and for anyone interested in seeing my other fd

https://www.rx7club.com/build-thread...ility-1048550/

going off the pictures i got from the seller and everything listed in the ad i bought the car knowing it was going to be ugly but fully expected it to be in great running order seeing as that list is very nice. all the proper mods and maintenance i would do myself is already done for me. i looked at this car as being mechanically correct and visually inappropriate.

ive been back in america since early september and thats when i got to see the car in person for the first time. its been in the care of a friend who drove it from austin, texas to panama city, florida. first thing i did was look it over just to see the engine bay in greater detail of course. im not all that happy with the way the bay is set up and how everything is placed. the block itself is a mess. its wet pretty much all over and has gunk built up in many places and the battery was bad. wouldnt hold a charge longer than a day. the turbo also smokes A LOT on shut down sometimes. the first time it happened i thought it was a fire. one of the small annoyances of this car is the front left turn signal only works when it wants. i pulled the assy out and saw the socket was burnt pretty bad.

im not mad or anything about the overall quality of the car. its definitely a good starting point for me to do a lot with. i already have a vision for this car and am hoping to finish it in about a year. the only thing being back here in the states is my time is now mega limited and i dont have as much of it to throw at a project like this as i once did. the great thing about this car vs my other one is that the "parts acquisition" step of the build gets skipped since i brought all the parts i want to use with me from japan.

literally all i have to do it break the car apart, fix everything and put it back together.

but enough talking.... images images images

on my return to amerca i went to panama city to hang with my friend and get the car. after inspection, we installed the HWL lights ive had for a while and removed the hood pins. im pretty sure im going to put the stock lights back on since im going with a 99 bumper. seeing these lights on a 99 bumper kind of turns me off to them. the elegance of the 99 with the aggression of these lights dont mesh very well...... to me anyway
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leaving panama city, i drove the car to tampa then to orlando, back to tampa then to north carolina. this was my vacation before going back to work. on the drive from tampa to nc an escalade spit a piece of tire at me on I95 and i didnt have the chance to avoid it. pulled over into a rest stop and pulled the lip from under the car to see it was ground down which explained how the other side got the way it did. had to make a repair. the dent and the bumper not being attached to the fender wasnt because of the tire
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the engine bay..... when i look at it, i just see a bunch of things everywhere with no real sense of organization. it looks messy and i dont like it. not a fan of where the drier is mounted but realistically, where else is it going to go? im also not a fan of the way there is an ac line resting on the exhaust housing of the turbo. the ebay turbo blanket does act as a barrier but its still not ideal. definitely something to fix later. i am grateful that it does have ac though. i was told by him that it only work when youre moving but thats not entirely accurate. using the commander, you can see the ac dot flicker when the system is "on". if you cycle the switch enough times you can get it to stay solid.
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quite possibly the coolest thing about this car is the build date. its the same as my other fd. the odds of this blow my mind.
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the seller said in the ad that the radio doesnt work. well digging deeper into that since i didnt want to be without audio for the drive from fl to nc i found why it wasnt working. i pulled it out from the back of the radio like this. all the wires for the speakers were diked off. clean cut. entirely intentional. the thing that makes this so bad is the sub harness that actually part of the car is gone. fixing this is going be to a lot of work in that tiny space with a soldering iron.
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the interior i was expecting to be in pretty good shape since the pictures looked really good. overall its not bad but its also not that great. the panels were plastidipped he said and some of them came out fine but others not so much. the seats are stained pretty bad, the passenger seat belt is from i dont know what other car but it works, the windshield leaks is the upper left corner just over the steering wheel, the tint is torn and causes the window to bind on the moldings when it goes down and the glove box broke.

im guessing the glove box was already on its way out since you had to slam it to get it to shut. i closed it one day and it just didnt. looked at the latch on the inside and it was just bouncing around inside. i removed the key part and am able to get it to close by wiggling the arm that extends over. basically fishing the latch to catch the hook. so i dont open the glove box anymore.
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overall though, i am satisfied with my purchase. all the "issues" it has are minor and will be fixed pretty easily other than the radio. i plan on selling this car sometime early 2017/late 2016 but plans can change. im going to do my best not to get attached to it but it is an fd...... so...... you know....

on a positive note, the car does drive great. it feels amazing getting in the power and the steering is very responsive. even with all the little quirks i do enjoy driving it when i do.

On the passenger seat belt, many '93s had a different buckle for the passenger side. More "square" and bobo looking. That's stock, doubt it's been changed out. I'm sure you can get a good used one to swap out.

For the stereo, that just looks like the harness that plugs into the back of the stereo, the stock plug should be down in there somewhere. If so, I'd get a new aftermarket harness that plugs into the stock plug (they're like $10) and go to work, you should be able to do that comfortably out of the car.

Now that you're in the states and in NC you REALLY need to come to Deal's Gap this coming up April. I'd love to meet you and see how your car is coming along!

Dale

I dig it! With how your blue FD came out I'm really excited to see what you do with this!

thanks dale. that actually means a lot coming from you. i would love to meet you as well. youre basically a celebrity lol. i would love to go to DGRR next year but i dont think i will be able to make it because of my job and how i am about to leave it for something better. 2017 is on though.... i'll definitely be there for that.

i didnt know about the bobo buckle that was an option for the car. thats exactly what it is then. definitely going to swap that out when i get the chance.

the thing with the radio harness is that its not hooked into the factory plugs. its actually wired directly to the car. the factory plugs are removed.

thanks man... this car wont be as elaborate as the blue one. im looking to have this car "done" within a year.

so... as most adults know, you can plan all you want but life has its idea of how it wants shit to go down. with that said, this "year long build" has now become a 3-4 month build. more details on the situation later but this weekend i will begin teardown...... stay tuned

actually all 93's have that buckle that looks like it came from a Buick.

j9fd3s
Quote:
Originally Posted by cr-rex View Post
i didnt know about the bobo buckle that was an option for the car. thats exactly what it is then.

actually all 93's have that buckle that looks like it came from a Buick.

Ah ha! My friend pointed out my low mile clean R1 had a "junkyard" buckle on one side.

Now I know, but now I am curious on why!

Looks like a great starting point for sure. Slap some paint on it and it will look great.

Side Note: If you ever want to sell that shift knob let me know. I had one like that in my Civic back in the day and have not found another like it that I like.

It will definitely be coming out. I have the same one in my integra. Its a greddy knob in case you didn't know. Theres supposed to be a shift gate sticker on the top in red but..... you know -_____-

I love that shift knob. Had one for years.

it is just about the only thing we don't know about the FD...

so yesterday was a lot of fun. dropped everything and am now waiting on the engine crane to get here. interior is stripped out the exterior in mostly stripped. it was a 12 hour day but it was great being able to work in my own space and not have to worry about closing time or paying fees. although we didnt have a lift, the level of difficulty was maybe +1. ive been spoiled all this time.

recorded a walkaround before we got to work


this is the before...
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this was the workspace we had. it was a little cramped but enough to get the job done.
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engine ready to be pulled
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better look at the turbo
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interior all stripped out
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intercooler and radiator
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the old ebay brand 30$ turbo blanket chewed to hell...
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does anyone know what these stickers are about? each campaign number is different. im guessing theyre recalls
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under the car was actually pretty clean from the transmission back. the underbody is nice... really nice. theres a few scrapes from the car being too low it looks like but otherwise super clean. the engine is caked and dripping in oil. it looked like this before i started draining it of oil and coolant. definitely looking forward to cleaning all of this. on the bright side, the motor already has 2 steel mounts.
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removing the tail lights revealed a nice surprise
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so the interior is stripped out, exhaust, ppf and transmission removed. the next step is to pull the engine out and begin tearing it down. since it was rebuilt ~40k miles ago, i dont see a point in opening it so im going to strip it down to a keg and paint it. i have a bunch of gaskets and stuff on order so its going to have an external overhaul. the injectors are going to be sent off to be clean and flow tested.

I had a few of those stickers in my door jamb too. I assume they are for recalls. I took all of mine off.

i messed around in the garage today and swapped out some stuff on my cluster from a jdm one. one interesting observation.... the red line for the water temp gauge is white.
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jdm on the right and usdm on the left. of course the oil pressure units are different too. i will be deleting my oil pressure sensor so it makes no difference to me.
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also got a few more pictures of the interior. the two gauges that were installed was a boost and fuel pressure gauge. both are being removed and being replaced with a wideband and an oil temp. you can also see the radio harness and how it was hacked. the damage isnt as bad as i thought it would be so the repair should be pretty easy. i still need to find another set of oem plugs to install.
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this is all the old audio stuff i pulled out
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also noticed im missing a plug
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Them stickers on the door jamb mean the ecu was re flashed.it could also mean it had a recall or tsb done.I worked at a dealership and anytime we had to flash a ecu, we had to put one of them stickers on, it's basically just to tell the next person working on it what was done to it

Dgrr 2016
 

So i will be going to DGRR this year and the goal is to have this car done in time to drive out there. Now i have a deadline to work towards. it makes things a lot more exciting for me.

a lot happened last night. the shell is ready for paint and body and the engine is completely torn down. i just need to clean it. its really nasty. i also decided to upgrade the clutch to an os giken twin plate. not for any particular reason other than it makes a cool sound and its something that ive had for a while just sitting in a box. selling off the ACT on here now should help in funding the rest of this project.

engine bay stripped out and ABS unit removed. im using Alex's 2015 ABS delete kit. the garfinkle brace will also be for sale soon once it gets removed from the car. for whatever reason my tools wont fit in the hardware snug enough to remove it. im going to leave it to the body shop to get it out.
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when i pulled the cowl off, i was greeted with a mess of dirt, sticks, twigs and leaves. theres stock piles of it all over the car in various places. im hoping to find them all.
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the seats are out. i am going to use a set RZ seats i was planning on using in my blue fd but decided to get a set of GIAS seats for it instead.
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once i had the interior stripped down and the panels stacked high on the passenger side, i moved on to the engine. getting a better look at it out of the car, i was able to see what all needed attention. theres a fair amount of things that could fixing. whatever heat wrap was used has turned into parchment and turns to crumbs on contact. im guessing this is also ebay heat wrap to match the turbo blanket. im going to re-do it in DEI heat wrap. i also noticed i was missing the retainer thing that goes over the front bolt. im hoping i can find that pretty easy somewhere here...
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the top of the engine was actually tidy with the intake manifold off except for the leaking oil injectors. i am deleting the OMP and going to pre-mix. i am thinking about getting that adapter thing that you can set up to pump 2 stroke but im going for simplicity and that would be one more thing to clutter the bay. still on the fence about it since its a nice mod regardless
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turbo and lim removed showed how nasty everything was under it. along with some leaves that somehow managed to get inbetween the lim and block. there was quite a bit of red rtv used on the lim and manifold gaskets. i thought this was strange and unnecessary.
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onto the oil pan. the likely reason why there was so much leakage is the fact that when i removed the oil pan with ease, there was almost no gasket material on either side. you can see in the pictures how little was used. of course i will be fixing that. i have an oil pan brace and will be sealing it properly. i also got a set of the IRP motor mounts to replace the beat up stock ones.
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with the water pump housing removed, i looked inside expecting to see some sort of build up or something nasty but was greeted instead with this. what kind of mod is this? this isnt a factory thing is it?
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Glad to hear you're going to make Deal's Gap! Remember, it can seem like a lot at times, but just take a little time every day, like an hour after dinner or something, and do a little bit of work. Days off try and get more time logged of course, but you'll be surprised how quickly things start to happen if you do a little here and a little there.

Looking forward to seeing you in April! I've got the hood, fenders, and nose off my car right now doing some minor paint and body work and trying to get my gaps lined up good.

Dale

Thanks Dale, im pretty excited to meet the you and the other forum celebrities. Ive done this before with my blue fd but more in depth and with a much more serious deadline of moving to another country so get this done or else....

Im sailing in through this like I wasn't expecting. Not being on the time of the hobby shop and having to worry about closing time or worrying about getting something in the mail in a timely manner is great. I logged ~30 hours this weekend in the garage. Im probably going to clean the engine bay today with the pressure washer and get to work on these harnesses.

If you have a problem finding a grommet for behind the tail light let me know. I couldn't find it in the stock system so I bought a pair from a parted out car and I have 1 available.

PM me if you need it.

Regards,

Mike

Thank you lots. I need it. Pm inbound

Nice. looking fwd to updates and seeing this at dgrr

Replied :)

I'm going to assume this is where my tach came from hahahaha! You're moving fast man I could learn a thing or 5 from you!

Lolollolol yea man... it is.

so the fd is gone to the body shop. there was a lot of cleaning to do in the engine bay with all that oil and grease and stuff everywhere. i de-trimmed the whole car and pulled all the interior panels. the windshield is coming out to fix the leak it had around the top and to fix some super minor surface rust at the seam towards the bottom. i noticed it when i pulled the wiper cowl off. good thing too... given the opportunity to spread it could of ended up pretty nasty. i looked over the whole car after finding it to make sure there wasnt anymore hiding and fortunately that was the only spot.
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this is going to be the fun part of this project.... refinishing all these panels. every panel in the car actually. i will be using the same stuff i used in my integra. its been ~5 years since i re-did the panels in my integra and its still holding up fine. just as glossy and perfect as it was the day i did it and back then, i didnt properly prep the panels. i just cleaned them with a wipe and got to spraying. this time i have trisodium phosphate, detro "clean" and an adhesion promoter. these panels are going to come out looking day 1 clean. im debating on what color to do the main panels. the driver door trim, gauge face, ac panel and shifter console. i was thinking doing them in the spirit r dark gray but white and tan are also options. the paint also has a picture of an fd on it... i never noticed before.
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also making progress on the engine since its completely torn down now. after tapping the holes for the studs, i still have to finish cleaning it then masking it off for paint. also torn on this as well. i was thinking the same silver i did before but also saw some shades of gray i liked. also, the oil filler neck thing came out.... i can put it back in and have it be tight but i dont think it will be making all that great of a seal. is there something i can do about this? i was going to try some silicone or glue to try and seal it but im not sure how that will hold up.
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I'll be there with Jeanne courtesy of Dale.

checked on the fd and they pretty much got right to work. found out some history about the past body work... the car was white at one point in its life and has been repainted a few times from what theyre telling me. theres also this rust under the windshield. they will be pulling the glass to fix this. luckily its only surface stuff. the glass was coming out anyway since there is/was a leak in the seal above the steering wheel. its pretty much a win win.
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i also stripped down the engine and charge harness. i was actually thinking about not opening the engine harness. it was in very good shape. it was flexible and not crispy at all. im guessing it was redone at some point recently. the po told me that the "single turbo conversion" was done by just cutting all the old stuff off so i wanted to open it and de-pin the unused wires. since the omp is coming out, i also wanted to do something about that big ass plug. im going to wait until the motor is back in the car to wrap it since i want to route it a little different than it was. same for the charge harness. im also thinking about upgrading the wires in the charge harness to 0 awg since its apart and why not. the AIT was moved to the cold side of the intercooler by the po. im moving it back to stock location and upgrading to the triumph sensor. i opted not to get the jumper harness with it so it came with pins and boots and you have to pin the pins on your own.

i also got started on painting the panels. its going to take a while since the po plasti dipped them so thin that it doesnt want to come off. people are saying to use wd40 but its not doing anything. i left it on a panel overnight and it had no affect. the primer im using works kind of well on making it bubble but then i have to rub it off to remove it. even using a pressure washer isnt working. im trying to find a solution to get this stuff off chemically but am coming up short. theres actual plasti dip remover but its 8$ a can and i dont know how well its going to work. i would rather use a harsh chemical and burn it off. i hate that this stuff exists and that people use it incorrectly. its an aggravating product that i hope goes away.

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Good progress. Hopefully they do it right and pull the doors to paint the jambs right away. Much better quality while you already in there!

The doors are coming off. I made sure to tell them to do that. Hatch is coming off as well. Im making sure they do this right and dont cut any corners. For what im paying I would like to see things done properly.

DAMN! I'm happy to see you in the states , whats the ETA on the car ?

Wow man! Looking good so far. Hopefuly we'll both make it to DGRR!

Vince

thanks man. i wish i was back in japan. america is cool and all but its like that family member you would rather love from a distance :lol:

i checked in with the shop today just to see the progress and the body work portion of if will be done this week. i wont be able to check back in with them until friday. they were saying the whole car will be primered at the least by then. so the car should be done by next week i would imagine.the guy working on it is putting a lot of time into it since he told me the only time hes seen an fd was in fast and the furious. hes really excited to be painting it. definitely a good thing to know. i feel hes more likely to do a good/better job with it

thanks man would be cool. not sure what your driving path is but it would be nice to cruise over there with some people. i plan on going out a day or two in advance to do some of the activities there....

so a pretty nice update....

for the past couple weeks since i have been atempting to resotre the interior to be better and nicer than stock. in doing this, i have run into ONE problem and it has made this simple task incredibly expensive and time consuming. the panels were all plasti dipped by the po. for starters, i hated plasti dip from the instant i knew it existed. i hate it, what it stands for and the fact that people think its better than paint. the plasti dip that was used on these panles was used improperly and has become almost impossible to remove. i have searched the internet high and low looking for harsh chemical solutions on how to remove it and all of them failed. all of them. the one thing that did kind of work was using the adhesion promotor i needed for the dye to stick to the panels. the process has become so frustrating its difficult to talk about. just to cut to the chase, the plasti dip kept ruining the process of painting. it would absorb the promotor and turn to goop. then i would have to remove it, clean it then re-apply, just for it to happen again........ and again...... and again. i tried just drowning the panel in the promotor in hope that it would eat through it all so i wouldnt have to constantly repeat the process but that didnt work. in some cases, it wasnt until i actually applied the paint that the dip decided to react. it was hell. i absolutley hate plasti dip and everything about it. stop using it if you dont know what youre doing. i'll be documenting the process from start to finish with the one panel i have left thats getting a color change.

i can go on and on about how much torture it was to get the dip off but lets move on.......

ive dyed a lot of the panels so far and only have a few left with the rear bins being the last thing im going to do. its difficult to capture the finish in pictures but they are super gloss like they were just wiped with armor all. im doing the "cockpit panels" in charcoal. something similar to the spirit r color. i was going to leave it flat but the finish wasnt what i thougt it was going to be. it wouldnt have held up for very long. the gloss isnt bad though. its super smooth and i like it. in the process of trying to get the dip off the gauge hood, i cracked it and was forced to get it wrapped. luckily, the shop around here had a grain of vinyl thats super similar to stock. you can still see the crack a little through it but its not very noticeable. i also decided to use the RZ seats i was saving for my blue fd. i wanted a set of Gias seats but then decided those would be better suited for the blue one. as far as other cool stuff goes, i wrapped the cold side piping in DEI gold foil. actual DEI gold foil. not that knock off gold tape.
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visiting the car in the body shop and progress is swift. there has been more rust uncovered. they were telling me they found it in more spots around the windsheild outside of the little spots on the bottom. luckily it was all surface and easily fixed. they went over the whole car looking for more that may be hidden and didnt find any. most of the car is primed and body repairs done. next week the car is supposed to be seeing some color. my bumper gets delivered tomorrow so i will be able to see that as well. i went with the "spec r" bumper that shine has. the glass is out for repair and re-seal. im just happy this is getting done right and im going to have a proper car.
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That last pic literally made me make a sad face, lol. Glad you're taking care of her :-)

so a pretty long update.... as it looks, i dont think i will be making it to DGRR. the body shop has had and will have the car longer than originally planned. they told me 2-3 weeks when i dropped it off and planned for that but when i checked on it last monday its a stage where theres still a lot of work left on it. i dont see me getting it back for another couple weeks unless they put someone exclusively on it. its unfortunate since i am doing all this to be ready for DGRR. i will be checking in again tomorrow to see if they made any progress since last monday.

but aside from that. much progress has been made on everything. ive been spending A LOT of time on these panels and getting them just right. i have deemed it impossible given their plasti-dipped past. i had to settle on "pretty good" after the insane amount of times i had to re-do them. i wanted them to be glossy which is the finish i have but it really highlights the imperfections and the gloss didnt dry well on top of the paint i used. i tried wet sanding but it really only made it worse. i think im going to redo them but leave them flat. i somehow lost the bottom part where the arm rest/ash tray goes. if anyone has then i am in want of one. the passenger door panel came out amazing. its basically perma-gloss. like that "just wiped it with armor all" finish. i will be working on the driver panel this week.
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since the arm rest was broken and sealed with 18 screws for some reason i went ahead and made an effort to fix it. a piano hinge was the most logical solution. i tried it a couple different ways before a friend of mine suggested to do it this way. this works so well its insane that this wasnt the original design. of course the fix needs to be polished a little but the function is there. i also removed the swing arm thats normally there to keep it from opening too far. the way its fixed allows it function like normal, fit like normal but open further to allow better access for people using them in LHD cars.
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i got crazy with the DEI tape and started wrapping everything. some things for function and some things just for looks. i wrapped the fuel rail because i could. not for any gains, just because i could. im doing the pulsastion damper delete as well. i removed the injectors and sent them off to injector rx for a clean and flow test. not so surprisingly there wasnt much to improve on.
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i also received my rocket bunny diffuser from japan. i was undecided what route i wanted to go with the rear. after seeing this diffuser on a few non rocket bunny FDs, i like the look of it a lot.
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i decided to get the map pocket lid wrapped in the same vinyl as the gauge hood since i tried to paint it and i was getting same bs as before fighting with the plasti dip. it looks really nice and it opens and closes as it should. i like the way it came out.
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the biggest thing about this that was worried about was getting all the gaskets i needed for reassembly. here in america the prices for gaskets are substantially higher than in japan..... by A LOT. 2-4x the price. definitley not ready to pay that premium. luckily a friend of mine in okinawa hooked it up and sent me over all the gaskets i needed. a little over 10,000Y for everything. im very grateful.
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next, the motor has got some love as well. went through hell to get the old flywheel nut off as expected. a friend and i had to strap the motor to the gorilla box in the picture and with ~4ft of leverage on the breaker bar, we were able to break it. the box is extremely heavy with all thats in it so it didnt shift with all the force of trying to break the nut. i went ahead and re-torqued the studs since thats a thing to do in this situation. a couple of them were a little loose but not much at all. since i am going with an os giken twin plate, i had to install an AT counterweight and went ahead and put the flywheel assembly on. all torqued to spec of course.
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after that, the motor was masked off for paint. the plan was to do a color other than hyper silver but i couldnt find another color in a high temp paint that didnt look ridiculous. so it came down to being simple. simple and safe. i used 3 coats of high temp primer and 3 coats of the silver. the prep for this was very thorough. i used a pressure washer to clean it along with a few other chemicals and scrubbed until nothing came off. VERY confident this isnt going to flake. i dont have pictures of if painted yet. i just didnt have my camera with me at the time.
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a lot of cleaning and painting has been done on various engine parts. i plan on painting or wrapping every part that attaches to the engine. im pretty close to finishing and only have a few things left. the uim and lim have been painted and laced with gold. the usdm uim was a lot harder to wrap than the jdm one since it has that thing on it. i think its part of the EGR. same for the lim. it took a lot of time to do them
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i have a lot more going on with a few things that i will detail in the next update when it is done. so far progress has been steady and whenever i get the car back from the body shop, i will be getting it back together faster than i ever thought possible. having a work space that doesnt close or charge by the hour is so great. this week or weekend i will be putting the motor back on the stand and will begin putting it back together starting with the oil pan. this time it will not leak and will be installed correctly.

one more thing i forgot about. the update from the body shop from a few weeks ago. a few of the panels are painted and when i got there to check in they were in the process of painting. it was the same day i went to drop off the bumper. a few things about this bumper though, its nice. really nice. the oil cooler ducts on it are insane. i opted for the carbon canards instead of the frp. with the color its getting painted, all the little carbon accents i have will really go well. moving the bumper from the front office of where i live to the garage was cool. it was almost a perfect fit.
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Good luck dude! All the work you're putting in looks top notch. I too want to make it to DGRR. My car is running and all that but I won't make the trip with drag radials and I'm a bit too poor at the moment to replace them with the Toyo R888 tires that I want lol

So it will be next year for me!

As for your panels...I am seriously debating whether or not I should dye them. I really want to convert my interior to black but I'm scared it won't be a permanent job and I'll regret it in six month's time.

How are you feeling about your dye job for the time being?

Nick

the thing about the dupli color stuff im using is that its only as good as the prep work. it took ~hour to prep the door panel properly. these panels are going to out last my time owning this car. i used this stuff on my integra 5 years ago and its still holding on my panels and not flaking. just as shiny as the day i did them and the prep work i did on them consisted of wiping them with a couple of those lysol wipes. with these, im using TSP (trisodium phosphate) and an industrial wax and grease remover to clean them along with hot water. these panels are clean enough to eat off of allowing the dye and adhesion promoter to stick like its no ones business.

if the panels in my integra have held strong for the past 5 years with super poor prep work then these should last longer than the moon and stars. keep in mind, i didnt use an adhesion promoter with the integra. i just sprayed the dye on it after wiping it with a lysol wipe. this stuff is permanent with proper prep. if youre on the fence, i say do it. the key is in the prep work

That's awesome dude. You're making me want to do it. Can you list the products by name? If you're having phenomenal results then I'd like to replicate it exactly.

I've cleaned up my drivers panel already with a magic eraser but I'd much prefer a black panel over the tan.

Nick

sure man...

for cleaning:
-TSP (trisodium phosphate) - i ordered 10lbs from a seller on ebay. its a chemical that no one company sells or brands
i used the terry towels from auto zone like a rag to scrub the panels.

-DETRO wax and grease remover (Part# DET1040)
i used the circle cotton pads they sell at autozone to scrub the panels with the detro. they come in 2 packs.

for painting:
see post #37 for the products. dont worry about the clear coat.

process:
pour the tsp into a bucket and fill with hot water. stir it around to dissolve. im not sure what the actual ratio is for tsp-water so i just poured it until i felt like it was enough. you want the water to be super cloudy. use the rag and wipe the hell out of the panels. wipe until your arm hurts. you want to clean the panel to be cleaner than it was when it was made. think of how many years have passed with protectants and other things being rubbed into them. youre goal is to get that out. after you feel you have scrubbed enough then rinse with water. hot or cold, doesnt matter.

next step is to use the detro. you will need the circle pads for this. the detro is like toothpaste in a jar. scoop some out with your finger and use your hand to rub it into the wet panel. it spreads like butter. you dont need to cover the whole panel in it. next, use the wet circle pad to clean the panel again. this is the step that you will see how much crap is still on the panel. the detro will sud and do things that soap does. when youre done cleaning, rinse with hot or cold water.

at this point, you can either repeat the above process with tsp then detro or proceed to paint.

i removed all the parts from panels before i painted them and masked off the plastic part at the top where the window is. you will want to make sure the panel is completely dry and room temperature. it shouldnt be cool/cold to the touch. i let mine dry for a day and sit in my bathroom to acclimate. first step is to spray with the adhesion promoter. you basically want to mist it on. its not paint so you dont want to use it in "coats". spray it on the panel like you would windex on a mirror. do this 2 or 3 times with ~10 min inbetween.

now use the dye. it runs VERY easily so light coats are the key. its VERY difficult to fix a run so its best to just not be in that situation. you will need to do quite a few coats since it absorbs into the vinly. the first 2 or 3 coats will look like you did nothing at all. just keep going and it will being to shine. give about 15 min inbetween.

the end result will look like you just wiped armor all on the panel. that initial wet shine it gives will be the new look when you are done. im having a really hard time capturing the finish with my camera so thats the best explanation of the finish i can give.

Awesome dude! Thank you for the details. I'm going to tackle this in the coming months for sure. I'm tired of tan and I'm ready to go black!

Nick

I have used SEMs brand paint in their "Landau Black" color in the past for painting interior plastics. After drying, the color/finish/appearance is close to factory. The most important step is the prep work and cleaning, as years of ArmorAll and other protectants have built up into the plastics.