Tuesday, May 25, 2010

LED bumper lights installed!

John (mugenkid) is a guy on NSX Prime who came up with a very cool idea. Use the oem turn signal lights mounted on the bumper to house new leds. Intsantly it updates the front end of the nsx, giving it a very modern, Audi-esque appearance.

Install took just a few minutes and was an instant plug-n-play install. It looks phenomenal!

Saturday, May 8, 2010

New interior parts went in today/night

If there's one thing I have learned about this car is that nothing ever goes as planned.

Over the winter I decided to do something about a few things that nagged at me about my interior. First, although it has a fancy CF centre console with a double din cutout, I always thought the ashtray made it look too busy. As well, my door cards always looked terrible. They really showed their age with scratched up door handles, scuffed leather, and leather inserts that were cracked and poorly dyed by the previous owner (though I suspect he used a sharpie marker). The tweeter on the door looked bad as well and I never liked the sound from my oem Bose speakers in the doors and between the seats. So, I ordered a new centre console minus the ashtray for a cleaner look, and with it came a new pair of panels for the switchgear. I also bought a set of aftermarket speaker mounting panels from SOS. I also had a set of carbon panels made that replaced the dated looking folded leather triangles in the doors. The interesting thing is that sometime after these CF parts arrived from Europe I saw an ad posted on NSXPrime about a set of mint door handles. Seeing as I needed some new ones I bought them. What surprised me when they arrived was the amazing condition...they literally looked brand new. So much so, I PM'd the owner and asked if he wanted to sell me his door cards, which he did. Again, when they arrived they looked so good I decided to not install the CF triangle replacements (for now).

Everything was taken to Manny at Pearl Autocare in Stittsville and he went to work on it. Todd estimated everything looked oem so maybe 3-4 hrs tops. Guess again...the car was dropped off at 10am, and I got home with it at 10 PM!

There were delays all day because he was short of staff, but it was supposed to be ready by 6pm at the latest. When I got there at 6pm, he put everything together and waved goodbye, only to discover to both out shock that both door windows did not roll up!

After several hours of playing around with them it dawned on him that the CF switchgear panels were so poor fitting that hey did not allow the window switches to engage properly. More messing with it and 4 hrs after I had shown up to bring the car home, the problem was resolved and I was on my way home.

Pro: my car's interior is completely refreshed and the SOUND is now unbelievable. =) He installed a set of Alpine 6.5" component speakers (will find out later what model they are) as well as a mini amp in the glove box. Nothing too fancy...I'm not an audiophile, but I want better than oem sound. He delivered big time.

Con: I missed watching Ironman 2 with my neighbour, whom had pre-purchased tickets for the 9:30 show tonight. I'll have to see him tomorrow and pay him back for the tickets. Ugh.