Here’s a couple of lame pics from today:

I’m all about this interior:

The truth according to 8380 Labs:

Future plans? Well, I’m just going to enjoy cruising round in it. When it settles I’ll probably drop it a bit more, but beyond that I’ve no real plans.  There is a kinda perverse side to me that would love to see it tucking Bentleys but….

Ok, so some of you guessed it. In fact, Guy even posted a picture of the exact car! Well, before I throw up some pics of the whole car I thought I would get the boring build stuff out the way.

The car was minter than mint when I bought it.  It had even won a trophy, so I can’t take any glory for just how nice it is.  Mountains of cash had been spent on things like a new Vinyl roof, fresh paint, suspension..the list was pretty endless.  What it didn’t have, was stance.

First off was wheels: BMW Mini banded steels in 15×8 and 15×9 with 185/45 and 195 45 tyres.  The wheels needed painting so I gave them a coat of gloss black:

I gave the car a full service: All fluids, set the tappets, new thermostat and temp sender:

Then it was onto what really counts; suspension!

New ARB drop mounts:

Shortened the springs:

Rear converted to MX5 adjustable platforms:

So, the car was on the deck.  And that’s pretty much where it settled!  After a short drive it was sat on the bump stops at the front, even though they had been cut in half.  This called for some pretty drastic action as it was pretty much un-drivable.

I swapped out the front dampers as they were bottomed.  I used Mini rear dampers as they used the same mounts and were about 2.5″ shorter:

To solve the bump stop issue and get some travel back I had to modify the subframe:

I removed the rubber bump stops and cut the bump stop towers:

I then cut the end I removed down to it fit inside the cut-off tower end and welded it back together. This effectively raised the stop 50m. Here it is back together:

The car is now dropped around 120mm and has loads of plush travel; no crashing, no bone shaking, just a smooth ride like you would expect from a big saloon car. Oh yeah, the car?

Well here’s a pic of how it arrived:

It’s a 1980 MK1 Vauxhall Cavalier! Stay tuned for “after” pics!

This Friday I headed up to Halewood to attend a photography course with Tim Wallace (Ambient Life).  Tim is an award winning photographer who specialises in automotive with clients such as Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin.   I’m a massive fan of his images and style, and especially the fact he does all of his work “in camera” with little or no post processing.

The day was made up of a brief lecture and a chance to ask questions,  then we were out shooting on scene for the rest of the day.  As we were at Land Rover we were able to use the off road circuit to set up some shots.

Tim took us through how to effectively light a car,  setting up the lights as he talked through it:

Once the lights were set, we were able to do some shooting and actively encouraged to move the lights about to get a feel for it ourselves.  Here’s a one of my pics:

Having no previous experience with lighting, I was blown away by the amazing effect it had on the scene we were shooting!

Following on from that, we moved into another couple of areas shooting a Freelander on a ramp and a Disco driving the course, allowing us to get some action shots:

It was an amazing day and I learned absolutely loads!  Now I just need to invest in a better camera body and a decent lighting set up; Dear Santa….

Things have been pretty quiet over here lately, and by quiet, I mean totally dead.  There is a good reason behind this though:

Yep, I’ve done it again. I’m literally worse than Britney Spears.  Once again my driveway has 33% too many cars.  But what is it?

Well you will have to wait and see, but here’s a teaser of the wheels and fitment:

More soon…..

Spotted this over on Rob’s Roadster drift blog.

That guy is livin’ the life!

Forget English, Yuta Akaishi does his talking in stance!

Yuta posted up on here a couple of days back with a link to his blog and I just wanted to share that link with you guys.  Check out Oh, you speak English? まじで？ to follow the build of his S30 Z.

Yuta is probably the most famous person on the internet right now for building this car, and rightly so; It’s ridiculously awesome.  I thought I may have spoken too soon when I said the T3D Brasilia was my car of ‘09; this blows it out of the water for me!

And I’m not the only one that thinks so.  Antonio Alvendia over at Motormavens has just shot the car and has a great article posted up about it.  Another brilliant blog to spend a lazy weekend reading!

This isn’t Yuta’s first killer build either; Some of you might remember his pink S13 and the Heart breakers blog. I loved that car!

Props dude and keep the pics coming!

Last Friday was wheels day at work.  Basically, they cone off half the car park and everyone brings in their toys for a bit of show and tell.  There was also an opportunity to have a few laps of the emissions circuit.  Luckily, someone dropped out so I got a place and made some emissions!

Spectator photo: Got track fitment?

Here’s a better pic of the exhaust fitted. I drove it a decent distance for the first time this week since fitting it; it was so loud it made me feel sick. At least now I know it’s loud enough.

Proof you don’t need dish to be flush. This is probably my favourite S2K yet; slammed and aggressive, but keeps true to it’s track roots with those Enkeis.

Just threw a quick vid together. Yes, it’s pretty poor and I’m clearly not Josh Herron, but you get the idea! Ha Ha…