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iRoadster
12-29-2011, 02:58 AM
The details of my Roadster life is quite inconsequential, and so is this build.
I wouldn't really call it a build anyways.
I do not have this car in my possession to get on trendy blogs or magazine covers.
I am not here to push the boundaries of what can be done to a car.
I am not a track god.
This is just my car.
I have a habit of running away with my words a bit, so bare with me if this becomes an expansively worded posts.

What had started as a way to just get back on the road after not having a car for four years has slowly become an addiction of which I hope there is no cure.
Previously in life I had been driving and for the most part, enjoying a decent 1986 VW Mk2 GTi which I got my senior year of high school. Many of my classmates had VW's as well.
It was the late 90's and everyone was bumping A Tribe Called Quest out of their Jettas like it was going out of style. Which was ironic because it was going out of style.
But I'll leave the downfall from the epicness of the 90's for another time.
This was the first car of my own after driving my brothers standard '86 Mk2 Golf and prior to that an 1981 (might have been '82, I can't recall) Toyota Tercel hatchback of which I first learned how to drive.
The GTi was something else to me though. It was teenage freedom in a red metal box with wheels under it.
I drove it to hell and back, and it drug me around during some of the craziest and most bittersweet times of my life.
As I had a car that had magazines solely devoted to them I started wanting to do things to it.
Part went on, parts came off. Some things were great, others were hideous examples of what not to do.
At one time I had a huge bandpass box with two 10" subs for cruising, which slowly turned into the car being completely stripped save for the driver's seat for back road bombing runs.
Some people I've known or read of go through a dozen cars a year. I would probably still have the thing if I hadn't moved to a place where I didn't need a car so I only had it for a short five years.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1010104-1.jpg

I still see it every year or so on the road so it's still nice to know it's still around. Seems to still be owned by the same person that it got sold to.
Around 2005 I moved down to Portland, OR and needed money and no real need for a car so I parted with it.
Skip ahead a few years and I've moved back home to Olympia. It's now 2007 and I'm in need of a new car.
Having the GTi opened up a world of Grassroots Motorsports, old format Top Gear, car shows, internet trends and a cacophony of other petrolheaded influences.
What it came down to for me was to have another best bang for the buck car. But what would that be?
As much as I liked the GTi I also had destroyed the thing and been exposed to all of the flaws those cars came with. From being impressed and starstruck in the beginning I had become rather jaded by VW over the years.
From their reliability to their followers to FWD cars in general. VW was out of the question for my next car.
I had wanted an Corolla GTS even before I first was introduced to Initial D back around 2001, but being that it was now 2007 that was out of the question.
All GTS had subsequently been bought up, wrecked, or were so overpriced due to the hype of the show that they had become unicorn cars.
I was still pretty unfamiliar with Nissan and didn't even think to consider them at the time so I passed up 240's and the like. EG Civic Si? No, that'll get stolen.
I didn't really have anywhere left to look but Mazda. M'eh, save the best for last I guess.
The Miata had always blown me away every since my Gran Turismo 2 days. They were more than affordable. They're a helluva lot more reliable than any Volkswagen. It's rear wheel drive, small and nerdy.
Of all the things I figured the internet should teach people, it should be that Miata are one of the best bang for the buck cars ever made. And unsurprisingly I was not alone.
Actually getting behind the wheel of one though ended up being one of my biggest and most regrettable auto related mistakes I've ever made.
In my haste to get a Miata I ended up with an unrepairable lemon of a car. Which was a real shame because it used to be a nice Laguna Blue NA with a flawless tan leather interior.
The catch was that it was wrecked, and the god dammed con artist I got it from lied about it's condition. Making it way over budget for myself to get it fixed.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1030552.jpg
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1030654.jpg
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1030537.jpg

I had already started searching and acquiring parts for it, some of which would eventually be transferred to my current car.
The blue car sat and sat with no hope of being rescued be myself, and it would eventually be sold off to someone making a Locost racer. Who knows what happened to it after that.
Enough reminiscing already, let's get to the Miata that works already! It was December and Miatas were all over the market internet or otherwise.
Not wanting to give up on Mazda I found a Chaste White 1995 NA with a hardtop belonging to a retired Boeing employee.
He was getting on in age and it was getting hard for him to use a low slung sports car.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1030799.jpg

So I now had this in place of the wrecked Laguna. Bog standard save for a silly style bar. Naturally that came off on the first day of owning the car.
The car bug which I had carried no symptoms of for numerous years came reeling back with the ferocity of a genital herpes outbreak.
The car would never be the same.

iRoadster
12-29-2011, 11:43 PM
The car had about 91,000 miles on it when I first took ownership of it, was up to date on maintenance, and unexpectedly came with a Torsen LSD. Bonus points x2!
Wasting no time with the parts I already had, along with some parts from the blue car all saw their way to the new car including the tan leather seats, some Brainstorm handbrake and shifter boots, some chrome vent rings and the tan door cards.
I had also found an R-Limited steering wheel with the hub on eBay (back when you could still find decent stuff on eBay) for a pittance.
The tan door cars were kind of rotted on the backs and I thought it was a bit too much tan in the car so they didn't stay very long.
Swapped the Borla cat back and a Jackson Racing front sway bar from the blue car as well. There was a JR rear sway also, but it was seriously bent and couldn't be used.
One thing I do regret not taking off of the blue car was the Cobalt oil cooler and filter relocate. I don't know why I didn't take it.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1030864.jpg

Found the old car one day.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1030869.jpg

Got bored one day and painted the wheels flat black along with the exhaust tip that damned ugly dealer mounted trunk rack.
And soon after broke down and made some HD lips. I thought hey looked okay at the time as the car was still mostly stock and they were cheap as chips.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1040025.jpg

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1040028.jpg

Ebay strikes again with a Dcuatro headlight scoop and some Eunos badges. One for the nose, and the one for the finish panel.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1040173.jpg

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1040174.jpg

I also got a Fidanza short shift kit and a new pivot bushing (not pictured) around the same time

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1040057-1.jpg.

After all that I took a few months off of doing anything other than keeping the car cleaned up and maintained while I saved up for my next bits.
Drove it around for the summer. Repeatedly got myself lost on purpose or just drove until I would come to a dead end.
I couldn't get enough of this car and regretted not getting one earlier.

etikoner
12-30-2011, 12:42 AM
Awesome story so far! Keep going

iRoadster
01-05-2012, 11:05 PM
The next item to check off the list was a good one to my head. A Hard Dog Hard Core single diagonal roll bar.
I had lousy tools and had never put in a roll bar before so the install was nowhere near the cleanest. But whatever, it's going in there. And then it did.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1040524.jpg

M'eh, that carpet will cover those ghastly holes anyways.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1040525.jpg

Not long after that I picked up some Rennenmetal tow hooks and one of their gas pedals. I figured the tow hooks would be better than the baby teeth if I were to get stuck in the snow or something.
The "big boy" pedal was great for everything. I'm not the biggest person in the world and while heel n' toe shifting with the stock pedals wasn't a chore by any means, the bigger gas pedal made it effortless.
I also found what was now a dwindling supply of cool stuff to be found on eBay in the form of some Eunos badges. I left the Roadster badge off of the rear finish panel to clean it up a little more.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1040557-1.jpg

One other item I found when I got the Eunos badges was a Sola II shift knob. I always told myself that I wouldn't go the shiny bits route, but that quietly got swept under the rug after I found this.
It worked well with the short shifter, so well in fact that I tucked the shift boot under to show it off.
The Sola knob replaced an OEM Protege (mid 90's if I remember correctly) knob, which was very nicely weighted but I never really cared for the shape or the grip of the thing.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1040622-1.jpg

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1040608.jpg

The interior had enough done to it for the time being and there were more pressing matters at hand. Winter was coming.
While it might sound odd to some. Or not at all to others, but up until this point I had never driven a rear wheel drive car throughout a winter.
I would need to be prepared.

WASABI
01-07-2012, 01:53 PM
Good story. What are the months/year/years of all your work?

-Jim

concealer404
01-07-2012, 01:56 PM
I dig the black and tan interior! :)

iRoadster
01-07-2012, 04:16 PM
Good story. What are the months/year/years of all your work?

-Jim

You mean like when I started doing all of this?
I've owned this car for four years now. Started doing stuff to it pretty much the first day I got it.

WASABI
01-07-2012, 04:58 PM
You mean like when I started doing all of this?
I've owned this car for four years now. Started doing stuff to it pretty much the first day I got it.

Since this is a fairly new forum.... Some of these build threads (some are years in the making) are being copied over from other forums, and you don't get a sense of time. I was interested in knowing dates of some of the pictures, like what you did on your VW. Not a big deal, it just helps me gauge how slowly I am doing MY build. BTW, love your Nardi wheel.

-Jim

iRoadster
01-07-2012, 09:34 PM
Ahh, I see.
I briefly go over it at the beginning, but that's one thing I wanting to edit (even though I can't at the moment). I've been trying to write this build out chronologically to help with the timeframe.
And as far as I've gotten with this build I'm still in the first year of owning it, so at the moment I'm still talking about what was going on in 2008.

As for more background on the GTi, I had it from 2000-2005. It ended up kind of turing into a 16 valve clone since it was just an 8 valve.
I had a Techtonics Tuning short shift kit, TT cat back exhaust and downpipe with a Borla muffler, front and rear strut tower braces, H&R spring and Bilstein race shocks, front and rear sway bars, some BBS RA's that I sandblasted and then polished and painted. Found the 16v front lip at a junkyard. Polished the door handles, flipped the rear wiper, added the Fuba antenna and a bitchin' stereo with two 10" subs.
The front had the quad round headlights with Hella e-codes. The engine ended up being left mostly stock, but had a swiss cheese stock air box with a K&N filter and a 16v clutch (which I'm pretty sure I got from Techtonics as well).
I swapped out the interior for one from a 16 valve as well. I know I'm forgetting some stuff, but it's been seven years since I had that car.
The car had like 160k miles on it when I got it (around 240k when I sold it) and I blew everything up in that car (engine, tranny, and clutch all within a year and a half) driving it as most young people do, but I still got it fixed.
I should have just kept the thing, I'd probably still be driving it if it didn't house some really bittersweet memories.
I still, for some reason, have a Techtonics camshaft for that car that I never got around to installing.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/BigRedGTi-1.jpg

I wish I had more digital pictures of the damn thing. /\ This is literally a digital picture taken of a printed film picture.

etikoner
01-08-2012, 08:56 PM
Damn that thing looks pretty sweet.

Also- I love your roadsters interior. <3 Wheel choice is nice, and the shift boot + shiftknob combo is pretty sweet..

etikoner
09-09-2012, 06:38 PM
BUMP.

tsingson
09-09-2012, 06:55 PM
I really like that Nardi wheel!

Grip Driver
09-09-2012, 08:31 PM
Nice build so far, your GTI reminds me very much of my own years ago

http://i878.photobucket.com/albums/ab347/GripDriver/89%20GTI/2-452-15006-l-AiCi6EMh8zTWtAo5lnX04Q.jpg

atank
09-09-2012, 08:52 PM
Your white Roadster looks great!

Willywongka
09-10-2012, 04:33 AM
I like your story so far iRoadster, it kind of reminds me of the road I took with my current car. It is also the car that I have spent the most money on and put the most time into than any other car. I am also glad that my first car was somewhat of a lemon like yours was, I learned a lot from that car that I am glad I didn't have to learn on my current one.

I hope you continue your thread!

iRoadster
12-10-2012, 04:23 PM
I'll finish this someday…I swear!

etikoner
12-10-2012, 10:44 PM
You suck.

this car sucks