JDM 99 Spec - VIG 232

[Raja93]

6 hours ago, sumshiftyguy said:

The car came with genuine 18” BBS LMs in silver with a satin lip which I love but ever since seeing a modded red NSX at JapShow years ago, I’ve always lusted after a set of gold LMs. Seeing as how one of my rims was damaged on my trip to Switzerland (see this previous post), I was considering refurbing them all and having the faces painted gold. The only reason I hadn’t pulled the trigger on this plan was that I wasn’t entirely sure how gold would look on the car and as these were my only LMs, there’d be no going back. Plus I wasn’t sure if painting them a different colour would affect the resale value in case I changed my mind. But manifestation is a wonderful thing and one late night on Facebook and I was presented with a listing by someone near Cambridge selling 18” Gold LMs for a not so unreasonable price! These were a larger offset than mine but the seller introduced me to the method of reverse mounting the faces to achieve the desired offset. A bit (a lot!) of googling and researching later, I haggled him down on the price a little and we struck a deal.

The LMs are not meant to be reverse mounted as the faces have a slight curve to them so don’t sit perfectly flush with the mounting face of the barrel. However there appears to be countless examples online of folks who have gone ahead with it and experienced no adverse effects. Before I get berated….yes, I know I could get them machined flat, etc, etc but I was willing to take the chance. A couple of nights of breaking down the new gold LMs and rebuilding them back up later and they fit perfectly! I was even able to remove the spacer I had added to the back and return to the 5mm spacer on the front that the car came with and still clear my new 18z calipers.

Tyre choice was another matter. I’m not such a fan of the stretched look anymore and prefer the thicker sidewall aesthetic. Fortunately the gold LMs came fitted with 245/40s so I had the chance to see how they might look on the car and as you might expect, terrible! I was hoping for a tyre that could perform on track, be comfortable and give a thicker sidewall look and spent countless hours reading reviews of 10s of tires and seeking personal recommendations from friends. One tyre consistently came out on top which was the PS4S but unfortunately this tyre isn’t made in the spec I was looking for - 235/40 (up front). The next best option were the Conti Sport Contact 7s. I ended up going with the same width I had previously up front but wider at the rears. My previous tyres were PS3s.

Old: F235/40 + R255/35

New: F235/40 + R265/35

I’ve had a few drives with the new tyres and they seem grippy and noticeable less comfortable than the PS3s I had on before. I’ll be heading to Thruxton on September so look forward to testing them out properly then.

And now for some pics….

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They look absolutely stunning in gold!😍. Really really suits the paintwork, the red bbs badge and brakes look 👌🏾 and oh so period correct.
I’m a big fan of the thick sidewall look as well, stretched tyre days are long gone me thinks.

Impressed with the Carcoon company conduct on this, really glad they sorted you out. A great alternative to a garage if you have the driveway space. 

[sumshiftyguy]

Now that the car had somewhere safe to park, I figured it was about time to get it properly detailed and paint corrected. It certainly needed it with all of the carcoon damage! We have a couple of detailers as partners in my other car club so after some back and forth with them, I took my car over to Car Detailing and Protection based in Feltham. Nav is a lovely guy and really loved having some old JDM to work on to break up the 'monotony' of super and hyper cars!

The difference is astounding! I feel like the gold wheels suit the car much better now it's not covered in swirls!! However this will be the last paint correction I'm able to do as the paint is now too thin in a lot of places to take another correction. I may need to bring forward me wrap / paint plans. Nav was also able to pull out about 7 small dings - I was only aware of 3!

Something else that Nav was able to do for me was to validate the feedback I'd received from others about some damage to the car - confirming that a previous detailer has burned through the lacquer on my rear bumper and due to not taping anything off, has burned into my window trims. Neither error can be reversed or corrected and is a detailing 101 mistake to make. Unfortunately too much time has passed since I had that detail done for any recourse but my lesson learned is to never take a recommendation at face value, even if it comes from someone otherwise highly reputable.. I won't mention any names but I'm extremely p*ssed about it. The window trims alone will set me back a substantial amount to replace.

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Edited August 12 by sumshiftyguy

[sumshiftyguy]

Chalked up another trackday this past week with an open pit lane at Thruxton, the UK's fastest circuit. I have driven Thruxton before but not in my own car. After the success at the Nurburgring, I was excited for the day. Even more so as I had new tyres fitted and was eager to see how they would perform - Continental Sport Contact 7s. I was also a tad apprehensive as it would mark the first test of the gold LMs which I had personally rebuilt....it was hard work putting images of self-destructing wheels out of my mind!!

Thankfully the day remained dry throughout and was quite warm from mid morning. The Zed wasn't the fastest on track but I received an awful lot of comments from spectators about how good it looked out on the tarmac! The trackday photographer also seemed to be taken with it as the online photo album of the day showed (some of his photos below).

I'm happy to report that I'm still not hungry for more power or speed - the stock engine with boost jets feels wonderful. The car is ever nimble. Still has more body roll than I'd like on track but I'm not planning to do anything about that just yet. Thruxton is very easy on the brakes with only 2 braking zones so no concerns there with the judder I experienced at the Ring - which is good as I totally forgot about my plan to slip in some track pads for the next track day!

I definitely do need to decat the car though. It was far too refined!

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Edited Monday at 21:09 by sumshiftyguy