matts xsi euro project

[Matt]

picked this up on 4/5/2011

132k on the clocks
lowered 110mm on the rear 80mm on the front
has a smoothed front end (poorley smoothed)
16" ford alloys with spacers.
a bootfull of ice
and the best bit full part leather s16 seats! in amazing condition!!


right here goes with a couple of pictures










got it home, put my cd player in and nothing! so set to work looking couldnt find a problem.

posted a thread and within minutes i had fooby onm the phone after his meeting he came round and we speant 2 and a half hours stripping out the inside and pretty much rewiring the audio.









we failed to find the problem, so went on with no audio, spent the next couple of days studying wiring diagrams and tracked it down to a dodgy earth and a couple of blown fuses so thats sorted D


**UPDATE 11/05/2011**

started to smooth my rear bumper









Filler primer on





**UPDATE 12/5/2011**

new wheels turned up, lenso bsx 16" should be on the car very soon, just need to source some 195/40/16 tyres and a set on 20mm hubcentrics and bolts D



**UPDATE 18/5/2011**

picked up bilstein b4s front and rear shocks today off DTS look in quite good nick!
will be giving this ago soon.



and krisB will be also giving my car the once over next week. D


**UPDATE 19/5/11**

Started swapping a few bits over from my old car, firstly I want my angels haha











Think they look real nice with my smooth bonnet! Loving the look, but cannot decide wether to get the clear indicators or take the dark ones of my girlfriends car


Also bumper is in it's second stage of primer as of today! Going to give it one more coat a good sand and then paint!!



** UPDATE 25/5/11 **

Right bumper is done to a standard where I am happy with it. Few iffy areas but im not to fusses as I'll come back to sort when I do the front.



Quite pleased and can't wait to do the front!!


** UPDATE 26/5/11 **

Took a trip up to see KrisB today to look at my dodgy suspension went really good, had it raised 30/40mm and its sitting at around 70/80mm on KONI adjustables on the rear and bilstein b4s and 60mm springs on the front. Here's the pics of kris and daz hard at work!





Torsion bars out





Wheel back on! Check out my overspray from painting the bumper haha!



Daz working on the front











Was then all pieced back together and I drove home. Look 100 times better! And is better at handling. Front feels firmer. Just the the p bushes doing and the vibration should stop. And I NO LONGER SCRUB ON SPEEDBUMPS!!!! there is a massive drop at the top of my road and I scrub all the time! But not anymore!! Happy about this. So a real good day.


Then I get home and I have a delivery of an amplifier sent to me by sweeden!
When fooby u gets back will wire this beauty in.
will get pics of the amp an pics of how she sits now tomorrow as I am lazy and cba to move right now lol.

** UPDATE 27/5/11 **

New ride height, it's only like 30mm higher but I love it. Perfect stance IMO



Konis on the rear





And found this is how my exhaust is held on on one side



Also I had a deliver of spacers today. I got on 1 spacer and 4 bolts!! It was meant to be 4 bloody spacers and 16 bolts!!! Angry message their way. Will take a pic when I have all 4

** UPDATE 4/6/11 **

Had and bloody good clean, inside and out. And

I GOT MY LENSOS ON!!!!

Today's progress.













**UPDATE 10/07/11**

Right I rewired the sub etc as it was all pikied.
Drilled a hole in the the car through to the bay using my £10 argos drill! D
Then ran my new wiring (supplied by dum dum )
Wired it up to my distrution block and then to both amps.
Earthed it. Then ran two new RCA cables and a remote wire

Ended up with this lot



Which I pulled out that the previous pikey.... I mean owner had done.
It was originally powered by a earth cable?!? And split using an amp undead of a distribution block ?!?

Right this is the wiring I put in



Which was a mess. And as the wiring wouldnt stay put I gaffer taped it to some pipes. Which I believe is probably part of the matrix haha

Current state of the boot



It's not always that untidy haha.
I'm running a 800w mutant sub with a crap amp. But it's doing the job. And I'm happy with it.
I have some sound stream componant speakers up front, thanks to the gate keeper. Which will eventually be run on my second amp, which is a maystar 250w which was sent by sweeden. I haven't bought any of my equipment new lol but sounds awesome.

I also sprayed the little strip under the tailgate again. Some of you might no I'm not happy with the colour match. I originally spatter it with halfords grey primer and halfords moonstone. An it was to dark. After talkin to Dervpower a while back he suggested using White primer to lighten it abit.
So gave that a try this morning and....



I got the same :/ its slifhtly lighter. And a better finish. But can still see differences. thing is it looks to match the rear panels, just not the tailgate. So I'm thinking the tailgate is a different colour, but the the tailgate also matches the rear panels?? So I have no idea what to do. Quite tempted to get a body shop to do it now. As it's a PITA to colour match!!

*UPDATE 30/11/11**

Been ages since I've updated. But finally got roun to it. Been fixing all the little niggles and bits ive broke lol

So since I updated its had
Both wishbones changed
Adjustable coilovers
Brake switch
New droplinks
Steelies.

First up the coilovers



The old shock and spring set up



Something has to go wrong





Turn out an incorrect combination of balljoint/wishbone



Got the steelies out.

Mahooooisive tyres



Sorting the brake switch



Also fitted my gti manifold and pipercross cone







Managed to get covered In petrol lol. But now sounds bloody awesome.

Also while at curts last weekend stumbled across some. BMW hubcaps and I painted them lol





And this is what I'm going for next year

[Connor]

Errrm is it just me, or have you copied everything more than once?

[Matt]

dammit

[Matt]

fixed

[Poodle]

Do love your trims, shouldn't work but...

[Matt]

shouldnt work?? haha i love them
thats why imgoing for purple lensos next year!

[Curt]

That's cuz they iz awesomes. Love this car

[Matt]

glad someone does, im really starting to look at it and go, somethings not right

[Curt]

Nut loose behind the wheel?

[Matt]

hahaha no.not sure. im now thinking a smooth moonstone bonnet. i think the matt black is too much

[Curt]

I think with a Manstone bonnet it would look even more win tbh.

[Matt]

well we have even more to paint next year then haha

im tempted to try and smooth my spare bonnet properly instead of the faili currently have

[Curt]

Get 'er welded up! Then just a slim of filler, jobs a goodun. Sure we can manage, as long as you have more patience than the hub caps

[Matt]

hahah electric sander ftw

[Noakii]

keep up the good work dude !

[Matt]

CHEERS

[Matt]

****ing lol

this will be epic, just on the rears









I WANT!!! or i may go for a 175 so not so extreme

[Dan!]

Hmmmm, go for a 50 profile imo, but either 165/50 or 175/50 will look sweet 8-)

[Matt]

its finding the tyres also need to push the wheels out more. but already running 20mm spacers. need the rear wider

[4WayDiablo]

I want your bsx's

[Matt]

buy me some new wheels and you can have them

[4WayDiablo]

want some td pro race 1's lol not liking my wheels anymore

[Matt]

really?ireally like them i want to either get some borbets or save enough to band my 406 steels

[padge]

Me and my mate loved seeing this at fcs

[Matt]

Cheers padge, hopefully by next year mine should look pretty good, fully smoothed front and rear bumpers, possibly moonstone smoothed bonnet, grill and hockysticks resprayed, and wheels done. Hopefully doing this February/march just got to wait for it to warm up abit

[Matt]

Started stripping the strut brace of paint today, wheels and brace are going the same colour. Should hopefully have the brace painted Wednesday. Bloody cold to paint though. Going to get myself a halogen heater

Also looking at 25/30mm spacers to push the rears out

[Matt]

Finished the brace



That's a sneak of my new colour scheme

[mark_airey]

I like it! Wheels will look awesome in that colour! Good choice :mrgreen:

And I agree, its too cold to paint anything ATM, I have my replacement front bumper in primer ready to paint!

[Matt]

The Brace was painted in my room, a small non ventilated room, ended up with a few headaches haha. Wheels are being sanded, couple of hours each night. But doing one at a time. Of I havent got a set of 4 in my room haha

[mark_airey]

You want to try a full 600ml cup of 2k lacquer through a spray gun in a ventilated room (well it was ventilated until the lacquer collecting on the fan blades stuck it to the housing and ruined it! ROFL) it makes the whole room foggy, hurrah for having a half mask respirator and decent filters!