Sweet Crocs!!! lol

 

New dash looks wicked man.

Nice avatar too

 

Thanks!

And yes, Volt Green Crocs are the best footwear to work in the garage with (and possibly to wear everywhere else)

 

what shifter is that anyway...... Big Dong, Ti edition ?

 

^Yes sir! Big Dong, Bulbous Head, Burnt Ti edition. I assume this is what people graduate to after the sparkly ***** shift *****.

Anyway, talks of sexual accoutrements aside, UPDATE! Sort of. I only drove the car maybe a few times since putting together the AiM Dash.

More bugs require fixing which means another cycle of work...





More soon... in the meantime, have you checked out Grand Mighty ?

 

 

awesome build

 

I need those wheels in my life! Sooooo clean

 

Hi Eric, your build is one of the reason why I've decided on LS3 swap. Beautiful clean work. Did you get the engine and tranny new or used? Did you replace all the suspension bushing and other pieces?

 

That's awesome, be ready for the transformation once your swap is done. The chassis and steering feel that we've all come to love about these cars will still be there, but the way it acquires speed will be radically different... Small liter turbo to big liter N/A are like opposite sides of the spectrum, pick your poison

I bought the engine and tranny together as a low mileage pullout and did a compression and leak down check myself before purchasing as extra security. This is a great route to take if you can source a clean pullout. The good thing about LS3s is they are all from newer cars, so your chances of finding a well-sorted one is more likely. I would buy a new crate motor if you're going the E-ROD direction, but otherwise I think most people go with pullouts.

I replaced a couple bushings like the steering rack and differential, but not the suspension arms. My car has 25000 miles on it, so luckily everything is in great shape and not high on the priority list yet

 

thank you. I rather save ton of money and go with used motor and plus it comes with all the other accessories so don't need to spend additional $$$$.

what's next Eric?

 

Moar seat pics!!!

 

I installed the new covers on the seats about half way and then stopped. Decided I didn't trust myself enough to do the best possible install on them and felt it was worthwhile to let a professional give the covers full justice.

So... I actually dropped the seats off to a local upholster yesterday to get properly fitted. Will post more once I have them back

 

nice will be interesting to see what you went with.

 

Quick update, excuse the brevity because I'm sure this stuff is not the most interesting to read about and I'm trying to fast forward to the goods... but as always, if you DO want to read more about the details, head over to Grand Mighty




Removed front bumper because the color was slightly off shade:



Removed roll bar because rust appeared underneath clear coat



Cleaning up wiring, tucking relays, and rewiring fuel pump.

 

The old man in me grew out of the Red seat covers I originally had. I decided they were too loud and chose to go with Black.

I contacted Austin from ESH Upholstering and he happened to be in the process of replicating RZ/Spirit-R Recaro covers, so I jumped aboard He is starting a Group Buy on these same covers, which you can check out at the group buy section.

I went with Black Alcantara material to match the rest of my interior and added in Top Stitching and an authentic reproduction of the Recaro embroidery. Austin did a fantastic job with the covers and I am very pleased with their quality, all while they were made remotely and shipped to my door step in a box

Removing the old covers was easy...



Installing the new ones take more finesse which I chickened out from and had a local upholstery shop do the deed for me.

Once they were ready, I rushed over after work one evening to pick them up. The shop owner was nice enough to stay late so that I could make it there in time. We’ve been having a spurt of almost Summer-like weather here in California, and even though the forecast mentioned rain for that day, it stayed dry until that evening… Almost immediately after I loaded the seats up in the back of the Tacoma, the clouds opened up and the rain started pouring. I haphazardly covered the seats with trash bags, which soon flew off, and hauled *** towards home.

Luckily the upholstery shop was only a couple miles from the house, but every single traffic light felt like an eternity. My stress levels swelled as the rain grew stronger and my freshly upholstered seat covers soaked more and more with each drop. Since the house is on top of a hill and I had no intentions of driving slow, this caused one of the seats to slide back in the truck bed and into the tail gate. There wasn’t much damage, just a small scratch in the backside, but it did make the situation worse.

As soon as I got home, I started patting down the seats with bath towels. I then brought out and loaded up the random orbiter and gave the backsides of the seats a quick polish and to remove the small scratch. Next, I used a hair dryer on the seats before setting up a rotating floor fan. I set the fan on a 3.5 hour timer, jumped in the truck, and then went to the gym.

It’s a good thing the seat covers were made in Alcantara because the material is super resilient. I checked up on the seats a few days later and they looked like nothing ever happened. I ran over them with a lint roller for good measure.



The trickiest part of the install is pulling the material through the harness holes evenly and centered, and then gluing them down at the back. I spent some time with goo-gone to remove left over glue residue that the local upholstery shop missed.



Closer look of the top-stitching at the seams:





Cushions back in place:



Austin included an excellent add-on, a matching pair of Alcantara bolster covers that blend right in!



Driver seat in...





I was explicit on having the Recaro logo embroidered as accurately as possible. Austin worked with an embroidery shop over an iterative process to achieve this outcome.

 

That looks amazing brother. Love it

 

Austin is DA MAN

Seats look great, although personally I'd have stuck with red

 

I like the Red Recaros's but the black are nice too. Only problem with black is it shows all the cat hair... Meow

 

I've been hearing a lot of mixed feelings on the Red vs Black. It was a tough choice to make because the red did look good... but in the long run, I think the black will be more timeless and make the car look less "JDM"

The next thing I want to do is actually redo the brake calipers, preferably in Silver or maybe Brembo's motorsport gold...

The far bigger task is getting my bumper repainted and color matched properly, and then trying to find someone local and capable of making me a new roll bar.

 

You made the right choice! Black is the new black.

 

Black is very nice for sure. I was thinking as far as adding some contrast. Lots and lots of blacK and it's going to start to look like the Bat Mobile. I think the silver calipers will look nice. The whole JDM thing isn't bad in moderation. JDM doesn't have to = "Rice"

Your swap ranks up with one of my all time favorites.

 

Thank you sir. I know you had an LS3 RX7 previously and now you're back to Rotary with your CYM. Having owned and driven both, what are your comments between a V8 FD and a 13B FD? Minus the transmission feel because I know the T56 can reduce the experience

 

I think you did the right thing by going black. Red in my opinion is a color that grabs your attention right away.

But alas I'm into the simple and clean look.

 

that thing need to be out of the garage lol, looking good as always