club.liberty.asn.au

Member: Antony
Car: 2008 Heritage Luxury
ODO when bought: 55,000km - May 2013
Engine/Trans: 2.5i, 4sp Auto

Began hunting for manual, as last car was auto. Also wanted a 4cyl, as I'd had a 3.8lt VT Commodore for 7 years and fuel ain't getting cheaper. I searched for months.. Manual 4's were hard to find around Brisbane, in the condition, age, and price I was chasing. Ended up finding this one for a good price, with great k's, so I had to accept another auto. Not too fussed now. Just wish it had a 5th gear..

All these are pretty much cosmetic. All my money is going towards flying & living at the moment. When I win Powerball, lookout! Haha

Interior:
- DAMD D-Shape Steering Wheel.
- LED footwell strips.
- LED Map, Dome, Vanity Mirror, Courtesy lights & additional puddle lighting.
- LED strip lighting in boot.
- Carbon fibre wrap over silver trim - Around stereo, across glovebox, shift ring.
- Shortened shifter, aluminium shift knob. (Shortened for aesthetics only!)
- GS1000 Crash Cam - Hardwired to ignition, thanks to a great writeup here
- Seatbelt chime disabled - unplugged under drivers seat.


Exterior:
- Handmade eyelids - My DIY Fibreglass Eyelids
- Custom coloured badges - Cruisn's DIY
- Numberplate lift - No more cuts on the back of my hand when washing the front bar...
- LED fog lights, numberplate lights.
- Repaired guttered rim from previous owner - Still more to go. Waiting for a time when I have the tyres off.
- Repaired a few small stone chips + trolley damage to rear RHS door, all ignored by previous owner!
- Tinted tail lights.
- Carbon wrapped chrome fin on front grille.


Audio:
- Kenwood XW800F Shallow Mount Subwoofer, installed in small DIY, 0.5cu/ft box. Parcel shelf not solid enough... Vibrations were driving me insane!
- McIntosh Amp Hack - viewtopic.php?f=12&t=19926 - Highly recommended with sub upgrade.
- Dynamat inner & outer front door skins. Weather plastic no longer needed.
- Dynamat parcel shelf, top & bottom in an attempt to reduce vibrations from sub. Didn't work... Sub relocated. Problem fixed.
- AUX cable - $50, from Japan. Bought from Chris at Audio Express - routed and hidden to phone cradle on windscreen.

Other Things:
- TapTurn
- HID's
- Added a piezo buzzer to sound when doors are locked DIY here


Wishlist:
- 18/19" Wheels. Keen for white on white. I like the AMG Turbine (Haven't looked into specs but just love the look), or STi enkei's... Something along those lines.
- UEL headers & exhaust upgrade.
- Lowered.
- Brakes.
- Raptor Supercharger kit. Haha!

Day 1









Eyelids



Carbon fibre trim, shift knob & footwell lighting




Boot LED's & My DIY sub box



Carbon wrapped grille, coloured badge & number plate lift



Wheel repair

Nice work Tony, off to a flying start!!!!

Looks like your a bit of a DIY er..... you will find plenty of those people on here.

looking good mate,

that rim repair job turned out great, good work!

Boostaddict wrote:Nice work Tony, off to a flying start!!!!

Looks like your a bit of a DIY er..... you will find plenty of those people on here.

Thanks mate! Enjoy doing what I can myself. At this stage everything I've done, I've never done before and I'm 100% happy with how it all turned out! Plus each project means I can buy more tools haha

chanham wrote:looking good mate,

that rim repair job turned out great, good work!

Cheers! Yeah turned out way better than I thought... Had a heart attack mid-way when sanding back the filler, realising that the rim paint was coming off. I sprayed (Dupli-color wheel paint) without masking to blend it back in, which then left a textured finish. Another heart-attack. 1200grit sandpaper and then clear coat, and it came up pretty well!

Fuel cap + ziptie = Win


Nicer shot of the interior.

Looking good Tony

Looks great! Where abouts in North Brissy are you? I'll keep an eye out

Cheers guys!

I'm in Kallangur at the moment. Moved over the highway from North Lakes at the start of the year, save a bit of cash, didn't realise it was a bit rough! Living out the back, nice houses & quiet so pretty happy all in all. My work takes me all over the city, and up to the sunny coast sometimes so I'm constantly out and about. Have to get stickers from Ric soon, that'll help!

Where are you mate?

Kallangur isn't at all rough! We've got worse places to be here haha.
I'm from Narangba so I'll keep an eye out!

Too much LED? Had an idea, and with a few meters of LED lighting left over I knocked up some decent puddle/courtesy lighting for the front doors. Paid $9.99 for 5mt, can't go wrong! Will be keen to see how it looks at night. Should be quite useful.

* Edit - 27th Nov 2013 - It seems I wasn't the first to have this idea! Earlier today I found some old posts, by Leo and Jim who had already done this... circa 2009... Here I was thinking I had a sweet and original idea!! lol. All the image links are broken in those old posts though... I'd be keen to see how their installs looked

How-To:
Took about 20 mins to make them, and being a soldering novice was half the battle.

2x strips soldered to the courtesy LED's I had in already. Double check the polarity of the LED and the strip before soldering - one of my LED's was labelled incorrectly.



Solder points..



Underside of the door trim - Added Tarzan's double sided tape (amazing stuff) to the connector, and about 5 or so spots down the strip, as the sticky on the strip can come loose. I'd hate to rip them up when closing the door because it'd sagged! Everything clears the sill.






Hard to make tidy... But all is hidden so only you and I know about it... lol



Used the lens to hold the exposed cm or two of wiring taught. Nothing is visible unless you look under the door.






Finished! iPhone shots in the garage... Will update with outdoor/night shots later on...

Puddle lighting doing its job!

Just ordered my DAMD D-shaped steering wheel

Here's the first shot of the wheel. I always promise better quality photo's but this time it needs it!

Firstly - Don't hate on the carbon wrap. In my mind I thought it would look better than it does. I am not sold on it... But I don't want the silver either, as most of the other silver trim is wrapped, and I reckon it looks the goods- Nice and subtle, blends into the black interior. I'll leave it on until I think of an alternative.



So here's the shot I was really worried about! Flash really brings out the ugly. Looks horrible. It's not actually this bad.



Anyway - Love the wheel. Smaller, thicker, 10x more comfortable. Amazing

Any ideas for the inserts? I am keen to get the full SWC module from Subaru anyway, with both sides mostly buttons the silver might not be too bad.

So the Mrs noticed I was looking at BBB's fire extinguisher bracket thread a while back, and bought me a 1.5Kg extinguisher - amongst other goodies - for Christmas. Trouble is I can't see any way of it fitting under either front seat, as it's quite big. Tried on passenger side and there is no way I'll be able to have it mounted while still allowing seat adjustment.

Any other locations? I'd like to have it mounted in the boot - while not ideal, its the second best place in my opinion. But the trim is too flimsy to support, and from a quick poke around, too far away if I wanted to mount into the metal.

If anyone has any ideas or experience with the same issue, let me know!


Not the same brand - but the same physical size as mine.