James
Chairman
Oh go on then, I'll start one!
First load is a copy/paste from NPOC but I'll update it here seperately from now on
I bought the car in September for the knock-down price of £700, it had a full service history and 132,000 miles on the clock.
The current owner had already done a bit of the legwork with regards to modifications having fitted 16" Sport+ wheels from the '144, a Powerflow cat-back stainless steel exhaust system and a universal cone filter (yuck!).
I told myself I wouldn't spend too much on it as I've finally got myself an SR20 powered car and that would be enough! Unfortunately a bonus from work got me started with the modifications and it has been a slippery slope from there!
Here's how it looked when I acquired the car:
Now, i'd already dabbled in importing things from Japan (albeit via eBay) with the Almera, where i'd bought a JDM rear number plate holder. Having discovered intermediaries who would buy things from Yahoo Auctions Japan, I decided to have a little test myself, so before buying anything extravagent, I went out and found a "Primera U.K." badge given to the hatchback P11 GTs that were exported to Sunderland to Japan. £40 well spent considering the experience it gave me with using Japanese based websites, and I'm yet to see another car here with the badge
Hot off the back of this, and realising it wasn't as hard as I thought to get things from the land of the rising sun, I went back onto Yahoo Auctions Japan and snapped up JDM crystal headlights for about £50. After import tax and delivery charges it ended up totalling about £110, but I was pleased I'd done the work myself! Couple this with 1W ultra bright LED sidelights from UltraLEDs and you end up with this:
But I didn't stop there with the overseas purchases, as on here there was a lot of buzz about these Consult-based diagnostics tools with a built in display and Consult pass-through. I'd always wanted a consult cable anyway, and for only a little more you got it in a nifty little box with an LCD display. So enters the ECUtalk Consult Display:
Then it was time for my first Primera meet, the Surrey Rolling Road dyno day. I was interested to see how many horses had escaped in the 134,000 miles since it rolled out of Sunderland, luckily not many had and I achieved a pleasing 144.2bhp (dyno graph image to follow):
While browsing DVLA's personalised registrations website one night, and feeling a little flush, I splashed out on the plate P11 FTW, for the win!!
I then "borrowed" my flatmates spare sub, as he doesn't use it any more, and put it alongside my own JBL 12" sub to have some double sub action, the bass is awesome!
December rolled around, and as usual with the cold, I was running out of motivation to modify the car because it's just too cold outside, although I still managed to get a couple of bits done in the warmer days of the month. The first being the new style NPOC.co.uk stickers fitted at the Ace Cafe meet, which in itself was an awesome meet and the most Primeras i've seen squeezed into a car park in my life!
A few days later, I picked up some full leathers from a GTSE, and got them fitted (probably at the worst time of year possible for leather - soooo cold!)
After a few hours of swearing at the inaccessible bolts, I finally got the new cat and manifold fitted.
A couple more mods now, I forgot to update one from Japfest where I bought a D1-Spec 1.3kg/cm3 rad cap!
And what happens when you get a pair of 501 LED sidelights as a free gift for buying a set of wipers but already have better ones on the front already? LED rear number plate lights! It actually does make the back look a bit nicer!!
-------------------
Update just added
Well I spent some more time working on the car today! Changed the oil, Mobil-1 0/40 was on offer at Halfords, £38 for 5 litres, only £5 more than Halfords own 5/40 so that was a no-brainer.
Then spent the rest of the day uprating the front speakers. The components (Infinity 6510cs) were done with a stealthy approach, both the woofer and tweeter fitted behind the stock grilles and the crossover boxes are hidden behind the dash, don't want chavvies walking past and thinking "I'll have a piece of that"!
Already had my 4 channel amp working overtime powering the subs in the boot, so dug out my other amp that I'd left at my parents, bought a power distribution block and set to work installing the new amp under the passenger seat. More stealth there keeping thieving fingers at bay!
I'll let the pics do the talking!
Old vs new
New ones now fitted to both doors:
Picture of the amp all wired in (bar the fuse in the distribution block and the ground by the seat mounting point):
And a view with the seat fitted, looks cosy under there!
Now all I have to do to be toally happy for the moment is new front brake pads, new top mounts (squeak squeak).
Fix this():
And get these babies fitted!
Oh, and I treated him to a nice wash and wax!
First load is a copy/paste from NPOC but I'll update it here seperately from now on
I bought the car in September for the knock-down price of £700, it had a full service history and 132,000 miles on the clock.
The current owner had already done a bit of the legwork with regards to modifications having fitted 16" Sport+ wheels from the '144, a Powerflow cat-back stainless steel exhaust system and a universal cone filter (yuck!).
I told myself I wouldn't spend too much on it as I've finally got myself an SR20 powered car and that would be enough! Unfortunately a bonus from work got me started with the modifications and it has been a slippery slope from there!
Here's how it looked when I acquired the car:
Now, i'd already dabbled in importing things from Japan (albeit via eBay) with the Almera, where i'd bought a JDM rear number plate holder. Having discovered intermediaries who would buy things from Yahoo Auctions Japan, I decided to have a little test myself, so before buying anything extravagent, I went out and found a "Primera U.K." badge given to the hatchback P11 GTs that were exported to Sunderland to Japan. £40 well spent considering the experience it gave me with using Japanese based websites, and I'm yet to see another car here with the badge
Hot off the back of this, and realising it wasn't as hard as I thought to get things from the land of the rising sun, I went back onto Yahoo Auctions Japan and snapped up JDM crystal headlights for about £50. After import tax and delivery charges it ended up totalling about £110, but I was pleased I'd done the work myself! Couple this with 1W ultra bright LED sidelights from UltraLEDs and you end up with this:
But I didn't stop there with the overseas purchases, as on here there was a lot of buzz about these Consult-based diagnostics tools with a built in display and Consult pass-through. I'd always wanted a consult cable anyway, and for only a little more you got it in a nifty little box with an LCD display. So enters the ECUtalk Consult Display:
Then it was time for my first Primera meet, the Surrey Rolling Road dyno day. I was interested to see how many horses had escaped in the 134,000 miles since it rolled out of Sunderland, luckily not many had and I achieved a pleasing 144.2bhp (dyno graph image to follow):
While browsing DVLA's personalised registrations website one night, and feeling a little flush, I splashed out on the plate P11 FTW, for the win!!
I then "borrowed" my flatmates spare sub, as he doesn't use it any more, and put it alongside my own JBL 12" sub to have some double sub action, the bass is awesome!
December rolled around, and as usual with the cold, I was running out of motivation to modify the car because it's just too cold outside, although I still managed to get a couple of bits done in the warmer days of the month. The first being the new style NPOC.co.uk stickers fitted at the Ace Cafe meet, which in itself was an awesome meet and the most Primeras i've seen squeezed into a car park in my life!
A few days later, I picked up some full leathers from a GTSE, and got them fitted (probably at the worst time of year possible for leather - soooo cold!)
After a few hours of swearing at the inaccessible bolts, I finally got the new cat and manifold fitted.
A couple more mods now, I forgot to update one from Japfest where I bought a D1-Spec 1.3kg/cm3 rad cap!
And what happens when you get a pair of 501 LED sidelights as a free gift for buying a set of wipers but already have better ones on the front already? LED rear number plate lights! It actually does make the back look a bit nicer!!
-------------------
Update just added
Well I spent some more time working on the car today! Changed the oil, Mobil-1 0/40 was on offer at Halfords, £38 for 5 litres, only £5 more than Halfords own 5/40 so that was a no-brainer.
Then spent the rest of the day uprating the front speakers. The components (Infinity 6510cs) were done with a stealthy approach, both the woofer and tweeter fitted behind the stock grilles and the crossover boxes are hidden behind the dash, don't want chavvies walking past and thinking "I'll have a piece of that"!
Already had my 4 channel amp working overtime powering the subs in the boot, so dug out my other amp that I'd left at my parents, bought a power distribution block and set to work installing the new amp under the passenger seat. More stealth there keeping thieving fingers at bay!
I'll let the pics do the talking!
Old vs new
New ones now fitted to both doors:
Picture of the amp all wired in (bar the fuse in the distribution block and the ground by the seat mounting point):
And a view with the seat fitted, looks cosy under there!
Now all I have to do to be toally happy for the moment is new front brake pads, new top mounts (squeak squeak).
Fix this
():
And get these babies fitted!
Oh, and I treated him to a nice wash and wax!
