Well, I want to stay for an extra week after the academic portion of my trip is finished so you should come meet up with me! I have a place to stay in Yokohama and everything. EVERYONE IS INVITED, LET'S GO.

Let's go to JAPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN.

I think I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so.

I absolutely cannot wait to go back. It's like another planet. The people have to much honor and kindness I almost don't know how to react.

It's so beautiful there too.. I can just go on and on. I definitely need to pull some strings to have more time to do more exploring next time out. I'm fairly busy on work related travel.

Update on the i30:

I made a real primitive IAC adapter plate today for about $20-25 total.

Hooked it up and the car started without the use of the throttle for the first time in 4 years.

It's smoother and doesn't have to be babied on decel. Before the rpms would get pretty low if you didn't hold it in gear long enough.

I'm almost embarrassed to post these pics because I spent zero extra time/effort/money. But, that was the plan.

If you're not really sure what's going on: Air goes into that larger tube from after the MAF but before the TB plate (so it's still measured), then through the valve, to the smaller fitting, and then to the upper intake. It bypasses the TB plate to let more air in for starting, cold starts, high electrical loads, A/C on, etc. The engine doesn't have one since it had drive by wire (electric motor moves throttle plate) and I converted it to cable to use the stock wiring harness/pcm. The valve you see originally bolted to the original 3.0 upper intake manifold and therefore has no place on a 3.5.

I decided to invest a little time and money into the i30 to get it looking a bit more decent.

Firt I found a NIB set of Cefiro headlights on the org for $75 shipped to replace my cracked set.

Waiting for the right color bumper and fender to show up seems like it's going to take much longer than I expected since I can hardly find the same color i30 anywhere. So, I decided to grab some different color parts and hand them over to my painter buddy for him to try and match. I'm hoping to spend less than $350 and I know the value of the car will go up by that amount maybe even double.

At the yard today and got a fender, inner fender, washer bottle/pump, and bumper with support and 3 out of 4 fogs for $135.

The bumper/fender are on ok shape, especially compared to all the other i30s Pennsburg/Hazelton Harry's had to offer today. The bumper needed a skim coat in a few areas and the fender had a small dent. The bottom corners on these bumpers always seem to get mangled. The drivers side on this one had a dent and being plastic, it's a PITA. So, I c-clamped it back closer to the correct shape and lightly took a torch to it so it would stay that way. lol.. (I need a heat gun) Then threw some kitty hair on top.

That's as far as I could get tonight without breaking out the air tools and pissing the neighbors off.

I sill have to knock down the paint in some areas but I wanted to get the bondo and kitty hair on there so it'll be cured by tomorrow. (cold slows it down)

Tomorrow morning I'll take care of that, block the skim coat, and finish the overall prep.

If I'm lucky I can hard the parts over to my painter buddy tomorrow.

p.s. 3 thermals, 2 hoodies, long johns, a neck warmer, winter hat, and gloves ftmfw. Barely got cold.

' date='Dec 24 2010, 09:55 PM' post='44635']

You lucky bastard. I want to go to Japan so bad.

Hell, I wouldn't mind living there for awhile.

Come to Canada. Car-wise, it's very similar to Japan.

I <3 our import laws.

I found a NIB set of Cefiro headlights on the org for $75 shipped to replace my cracked set.

Wait, say what?

Nice find!

I did some more work on the bumper and fender today but after I wasn't in the sun anymore the filler was taking like 3+ hours to cure. I tried a space heater and a hair drier but it wan't doing sht so I called it quits for today.

If all goes well I'll have the bumper and fender ready to go by the weekend. Thursday and Friday are looking dry so that will help.

Hopefully Ii will be looking closer to this sometime soon:

I got the bumper and fender finished up and over to my painter buddy today. They should be ready next weekend.

Also going to get some nicer condition 4th gen max tan leather heated seats next saturday morning.

The current ones are pretty beat:

mmmm delcious only thing i hate about leather right there

Today was a good day for the i30. I woke up at 4:30 this morning with roughly 2 hrs of sleep, rolled up past Albany, picked up and installed the newer leather seats. I still have to wire up the heated portion of the seats and install that specific center console. After I got home I picked up the painted bumper and fender and put those on with the new headlights. There are some alignment tweaks to make still, I didn't install the fogs, and it's missing the pin stripe.

Here's a quick pic. I'll try and grab some more tomorrow before I head out a few weeks.

I didn't get a chance to clean off the rest of the car and the interior but here are some more pics.

I didn't get the fog brackets under the bumper.. That will happen outside in the dark/cold I guess.

And the paint match is definitely not 100% but decent none the less.

Wow looks good!

The paint match doesn't look too bad from here. Considering that the car wasn't there, I'd say that's pretty impressive.

NICE ass beater. holy crap. im looking at beaters to pick up in the fall of this year...starting my shopping early lol

Thanks!

Fwiw I bought it for $1700 and I've only spend $500 on it so far.

I got the fogs in and wired up earlier this week and I had my buddy run the car through a car dealer car wash today while I was out running errands on the Bonnie.. So I figured I would snap some pics.

Before and afters:

Other than the pin stripe, the only major offenders are the drivers side doors:

I'm praying I come across those doors for cheap, and I can get the pin stripe for free so that will come eventually.

It looks much better! Once those doors are taken care of it'll be good to go.

Those wheels look great too.

Thanks!

So, I spent another $100 on the i30..

There were 4 major things wrong with the interior when I got it. The seats were trashed, the steering wheel is completely worn through the leather 2/3rds of the way around, there was a hole in the floor and carpet from a shitty muffler shop, and a small rip in the dash above the glove box.

I replaced the seats for relatively cheap already last month. While I was in NY this past weekend, I picked up a mint tan steering wheel and carpet for 100.

I'll probably do the steering wheel sometime soon but the carpet will have to come after the Bonnie is moving under it's own power.

I'm going to borrow a lift to weld a patch in the floor and I want to cut out and fix the rusted/cracked portion of the bottom rad support while I'm doing that.

So for $650 I'll have done the following:

JY OEM starter

Homemade IACV

BBS centercap

New Cefiro headlights

JY bumper/support

JY fender

Paint on the fender/bumper

All 4 fogs + replaced fried wiring

Mint tan leather heated seats + center console

Mint tan steering wheel

Tan carpet

Fix hole in rear floor

Fix rusted/cracked lower rad support

So far I've done pretty good with this:

Anything that I do to it will either increase the value of the car by that amount or could be sold for close to purchase price.

I bought it for $1700, put $650 in, and IMO I could definitely get $3k or more.

Thanks to some mtherfucking FOB that didn't know where he was going.. I now have a new front end mod. The front bumper is scuffed up, hood is dented up, drivers side of the grill pushed in and drivers headlight pushed in.

Story:

I95 S, 3 lanes, raining

Splits to 2 lanes and a cattle shoot for the next exit, my exit

There's a long marked off expanding V before the barriers begin to seperate the 2 lanes and 1 cattle shoot lane. Similar to an off ramp.

Nissan Quest in middle lane slows down and stops to the right in that V before the barriers, no turn signal. He comes to a complete stop

I'm in the right lane going into the cattle shoot.

Seeing this idiot, I slow down to about 20, I see him start to pull out with no signal, I slam on my brakes with my hand on the horn

He comes to a complete stop infront of me ON FUKING I95

I hit him

So, I end up getting charged with with a careless driving + 3 points, because I wan't prepared to stop on a dime on a 55mph zone.

I was inches away from throwing this guy into oncoming traffic.

Speaking to me in broken english telling me I was speeding, I was so fuking close.

Thank God he didn't try to get agressive with me and I kept decent composure. I would have 100% wrecked him.

Pics later and I wish this was an April fools joke.

How is it your fault if he stopped on a highway with no signal? Flippin retarded... I hate how no matter what if you hit someone it's your fault, even if that person is doing something mentally retarded.

Least you're safe and its only the beater

Yeah it blows..

So, the bumper was messed up enough to where I wouldn't just repaint it, the hood wouldn't open, the d/s headlight backing (not lense) was cracked, and the rad suppport next to the condenser was pushed in.

I spent about a half hour on it when I got home and it looks a little better.

I figured out how to get the hood open by holding the interior pull handle in the open position, pulled the rad support with a slide hammer, bent the hood back by hand, glued the crack in the headlight to keep water out and that's pretty much it.

After a little work:

So now I can drive it without worring about being pulled over at night etc.

I can't say I'll leave it like this but not much more is going to happen till the Bonnie is back on the road.

Wow, from the original shot I was like its not that bad then the others I was like wow that's a lot of damage.

ok so the hood is the only major damage done right? the way i look at it is your ok, the car still runs and you maybe be able to roll the damage out.

it is sad to see even on a beater!!! my GA has been hit twice once by a snowplow and of course they never do anything wrong!! and the second was not really even the person who hit me fault. someone ran out in front of him and he didnt really have anywhere to go. so he hit me, not very fast though.

He hit the passenger front panel and put a big dent in it. had a hard time opening the door. i think i may have a little frame damage because of it. but easy fix.

so like i said as long as your ok thats all that matters bro!!!

That royally sucks. I'd completely lose it if someone did that to me and I was then put at fault.

Wow, that's some BS.

Personally, I'd take the bastard to court. That's just messed up.