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Paul Olivers Build Thread, 04 Vector

31K views 179 replies 41 participants last post by  derekwilkinson 
#1 ·
Hello, after seeing Alexdrops and Xtopherr's build threads i figured i would start my own. I bought my car back in january so not alot has happened yet but i do plan to slowly make intersting changes, alot of them wont be typical off the shelf things.

Spec as standard:
Sat nav, 6 cd changer, 7 speaker system, leather interior, that kinda thing.

photos from when i got it:






Seems to be a well cared for car, with near perfect bodywork.

First thing i did was order new bulbs throughout. Bought an Hid kit, warning cancellors, chrome indicator bulbs throughout, blue led foglights, led sidelights and led interior bulbs.


I installed a sub, boston ba35s, sony 6x9s and infinity 6.5s. I also sound deadened my front doors.


I wanted Leds in my speaker grilles and door handles like on my old audi, so i installed those too:





I then decided i didnt like my blue fogs, so ditched them in favour of some yellow ones, i also fitted nice new numberplate surrounds:



I then fitted new filters all round and ditched the nasty pirellis in favour of some lovely vredestein sessantas.

Couple of days ago i fitted reverse sensors as my parents wanted some and offered to get me a set! So i now have hidden ones that work with an electromagnetic strip, they are really good! No ugly reverse sensors sticking out...no photos as well...theres nothing to take a photo of!

Plans:
*Fit an aero spoiler, or make my own as id quite like something slightly different
*Build a duplex system, i have 2 nice milltek tips ready for it as well as the boxes, just got to build a y splitter next and cut out my lower valance.
*M5 lip spoiler to go at the top of the rear window
*Lowering springs, think i will go with eibach.
*3 point subframe brace, home made.
*Strut brace, again home made.
*Leds in the rear door handles, and in some cubby holes
*Leds in the ceiling dome
*Blacked out headlights
*Colour code bump strips and door handles
*Respray the black wing mirror plates
*Spray the wheels a darker colour
*Get the RX8 2010 maps for my sat nav
*Vinyl wrap my roof either black or gunmetal
*Carbon wrap some interior parts, and perhaps my grille surrounds upfront too
*Tint indicators and rear lights

So yes, lots of little things, not after changing it performance wise much as its the crappy 2.2 tid engine and its not ever going to be anything good!
 
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#124 ·
Cheers Alex! I am hoping to do the door handles at some point yes, just cant decide whether its worth the efort of removing them (apparently an awful job) and doing them properly or doing them in situ and risking them not looking too good. I have been messaging breakers for all 4 handles+keys but they all seem to sell really quickly!
 
#126 ·
I am very happy with the exhaust, its been a long time since i planned it and got the parts ready, so finally sorting it was a really good feeling. Unfortunately if i get the aero rear valance that im eyeing up, i shall have to hack apart my exhaust and rebuild it to suit the aero spacing (assuming that mine is completely different) but that shouldnt take too long i should think and will be worth it! Just need to find the skirts then...
 
#127 ·
Car is looking great Paul! its been a while since i have been on here, general funds have prevented me from doing much to my car. Cost me £540 for an ECU replacement and a few other jobs last month :cry:

how did you go about re-conditioning your wheel nut bolts? was it just a standards sand them down and repaint? i am toying with the idea of buying replacement ones and painting them the same colour as the body. i really like the contrast the rims and the body have and think it would look good to paint the nuts that colour.

Mike
 
#128 ·
Hey man, thanks :) Unlucky on the ecu, what was up with it?

I used a wire wheel on my angle grinder to clean the bolts down, then sprayed them. Unfortunately after however many months use its been, they have started to peel and rust again, so i think some rust killer such as jenolite will have to be used next time!
 
#129 ·
It was knackered, to be blunt! engine light came on when i was driving back from Milton Keynes one day, car was in limp mode, pulling off was painful to say the least. have you ever been in a car that was being pushed? it was like that! took it to my indy, he hooked it up to tech 2, diagnosed it as an ecu problem but cleared the code just to see if it went away, it did, but a few days later it came back on, went back to get it cleared again as it was my birthday and i had places to be. Went to start her up to come home, and nothing, wouldnt start. so i had to pay for a taxi to get home :( £540 later and its running better than ever haha

If thats the case, i think i will go with some ABS plastic covers, sand them down, prime then repaint, then cover them in lacquer. will be interesting to see how they turn out.
 
#130 ·
Current little thing ive been trying to figure out:



Just need to source some wire to finish off getting it to work properly :)

With money being too tight to buy anything cool for my car til i finish uni (as well as not having the facilities to fit anything) , i decided i needed a project that would keep me occupied with a cool result at the end! I am full on bored with the look of stock fogs, and the light beam is a little harsh on other road users, especially with my 3k hids! So i thought it would be fun to make some projector ones

Donor units are from a mk2 ford mondeo, for £10!











Glass came off perfectly after a 4min bake in the oven, it would seem if i cut the circular part of the housing off, it should fit inside a saab fog light.

Some broken saab fogs will be in my hands tomorrow, so i can get yanking them apart to see what can be done about merging the 2 together!

Poorly photoshopped example of how they could look:



I also intend on wiring in some yellow leds inside so that the projector lense glows yellow (like my hids) during the day/when the fogs arent on so they act as DRL style things
 
#131 ·
Fogs arrived today, shame that one of them wasnt as described, has a nasty graze on the front that i doubt will be sortable, so i will just have to steal the front from one of my current ones once the bulk of the work is finished.







Reflector housing is the same size as the mondeo fog housing, so if i hack apart the back i can retain the original angle adjustment



The projector will sit happily in there it seems! Next stage is to mark off the beam pattern of the current reflectors, and use that for future reference when fitting the projectors to keep them alighned and hack a hole into the back of the outer casing to make room for the back of the projectors to protrude, this may mean finding a new way of securing the fogs to the bumper, or just using 1 bolt to retain the unit
 
#133 ·
Well they arent even fixed together yet! Tomorrow i hope to figure out the beam pattern and then proceed with hacking apart and fixing the projectors into the housings.I will update this thread as i go so others can use it as a guide if they wish
 
#134 ·
Some progress tonight as i got bored and found a hacksaw in my wardrobe:



Looking neat in the housing



Ghetto power source!



Nice clean cut off line

Gotta do a few more tweaks, then i can get bonding the projector into place and crack on with making them look good :)
 
#135 ·
So i got bored of uni work this morning and cracked on with cutting out the other housing and getting the projectors bonded into the old reflectors



cut off lines adjusted whilst the glue set



All glued in :D





NOM NOM NOM!





Backs of the housings had to be heavily cut apart to get the projectors in correctly after bonding, i will have to find a way of sealing the back whilst allowing the projector to move up and down when alighning the lights to prevent glare

Now i just need to get some chrome sheet plastic to surround the projector lense and cover the internals, should make it look a bit tidier inside, although its doubtful anybody will ever be able to see much anyway with them being so low down and dark

Do i carbon wrap the inside? or leave it black?
 
#136 ·




Been sorting the lenses as they were pretty stone chipped+1 was scratched to hell!



Just a bit more polishing (need to find a polishing wheel round here or wait til i return home) and the lenses will look like new again. Still need to find something to hide the guts of the projector, didn't come up trumps today unfortunately. Need to find somewhere that sells black silicone so i can reseal the lenses on, hoping my local poundland will prevent me from spending loads. I noticed that the weight of the projectors will caused them to move a bit whilst driving, so i will put some foam in the gaps to keep them stable but still allow adjustment
 
#137 ·
looks real good, i wanted to do this myself using universal fog projector fog lights...glad to see someone else taking a crack at it....
 
#138 ·
Just get some from the junkyard, universals are far too expensive and poor quality in my experience (i made projectors for my audi as well), these hella units can be found on many cars and are cheap
 
#141 ·
Looks good man. Question, how are you installing these back in there? You're going to have to cut a big hole in the bumper for the back of the projector to fit through right? I'm thinking of doing this because one of my fogs isn't working for some reason and the other had yellow capsules but melted today and ruined it.
 
#142 ·
Yeah i think will will, although the hole will only need to be about 50mm diameter, so a hole saw would do the job nicely and its not like itll prevent me fitting normal fogs again if i wish. Wiring wise, im whacking in hids, so ill reuse the connector i had to break off the back and then the spades on the ends will hook up to the hids.
 
#143 ·
Projectors have been tidied up with nice new black plastic covering the guts (i made some chrome ones but they looked way too tarty!) and the front lenses have been siliconed back on. All thats left to do now is polish those lenses up nicely (they look worse than they are in the photos!) and wait another 4 weeks before i return home to fit them :( unless i can borrow some tools off anybody locally and do it at uni! Although that means i cant fit my 3k hids as they are sitting at home so i may as well wait and do it all properly.













 
#144 ·
Are they just halogens right now? Will the stock harness attach to those fogs? They look like they are similar.

I grabbed a set of crappy projectors from the store today for H3's to see if I could make a setup. For some reason when I connect my 12v power they don't light up. Either they both don't work or I'm missing something...

How'd you make the trim pieces?
 
#145 ·
yeah just bog standard halogens in there right now, i think the stock harness will fit, but with hids that doesnt matter. Try rigging your power souce directly to the bulbs rather than the wiring to see if its the bulbs that are shot. The trims were made with a holesaw and a band saw to trim the plastic to shape, then bonded on.
 
#147 ·
Not yet man, i return home in just over a weeks time for 1 night, so fingers crossed i can fit them then! It would be nice to actually do something on the car for once! Otherwise it will be the following week after when i am home for the summer

Jobs for summer:
*Fit projector fogs
*Get a Hirsch Remap
*Refurbish wheels
*Sort exhaust cut outs
*Respray rear valance, spoiler and front splitter
*Spray door handles body colour
*Finish ignition switch led (its disconnected right now)
*Leds in arm rest compartment
*Smoked chrome headlights
*Service+clean EGR and inlet manifold
*Spray wheel bolts black again
*Fit ARB bushes
*Honeycomb Grill
*Build strut brace
*Build chasis brace
*Detail Paintwork
 
#148 ·
Returned home today and got round to fitting my new fogs :D





Excuse the weird white balance (my headlights are proper blue, not green!) and the dirty car, i rinsed it..then decided i really could not be bothered to wash it tonight haha

Bulbs are brand new 3000k, so they havent turned their proper yellow quite yet, i am tempted to lamin-x the fogs yellow anyway just because i kind of liked it when i had them yellow a while ago. I need to setup the fogs so they are level, they are pretty much right already though
 
#150 ·
Thanks man :) i am happy how they have turned out, i like how stealthy they look when turned off!

 
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