The Evolution of Amelia

[suckerv]

Steeda chin splitter installed this morning! I couldn't for the life of me get the j-clips to work in the wheel well, so I just bolted direct to the valance and hoped that it holds.

UPDATE: Fixed the damn j-clips and thanks to [MENTION=10893]David@Steeda[/MENTION], got it to work. Crisis averted.

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[David@Steeda]

Steeda chin splitter installed this morning! I couldn't for the life of me get the j-clips to work in the wheel well, so I just bolted direct to the valance and hoped that it holds.

The splitter looks amazing! Please email me these if you can, and enjoy the CAI

 

[suckerv]

The splitter looks amazing! Please email me these if you can, and enjoy the CAI

Done!

 

[suckerv]

Short clip of how the CAI sounds. Combined with the Steeda exhaust, I'm one happy camper!

[ame]

 

[Project Whitemare]

Looks and sounds awesome!

 

[suckerv]

Had a rare moment to myself today, so i decided to dip the engine and coil covers blue. If I like it, then I'll paint them. Still not sure how I feel about it, but I'm kinda digging it:

 

[suckerv]

Well, Amelia had her first battle wound, and by "battle wound," I really mean "my own stupidity."

We were at the Pep Boys car show in San Jose this Sunday and I had somehow miraculously backed into a super super SUPER tight spot. Left early so the two cars next to me were still there...one them being a huge Tahoe.

Long story short, as I was pulling forward towards a railing, my friend who was directing me said "That's good, that's good!" I assumed he meant "That's good, keep coming foward," when he apparently meant "That's good for now, STOP." So naturally, my dumb ass kept lurching forward until I hit the rail and ripped my passenger side fender off of the two clips holding it on.

The paint damage was minimal and once I got home, I was able to pop the two pins back in, but the fender is still loose all the way down to the lights. I suspect there are more pins that are lost, but I couldn't see anymore holes that needed them. I used some 3M tape to hold the corner on, and as long as no one is poking at that spot, you wouldn't ever know something was wrong, but the damage is done and that piece is still loose. I'm pretty pissed off, but at the same time, thankful that it wasn't any worse.

Here what it looks like "fixed."

 

[NvrFinished]

Ouch..... :( Man I feel your pain.

 

[suckerv]

Ouch..... :( Man I feel your pain.

Yeah man, it sucks. It's one of those things where in the overall scheme of things, the damage is small enough to where I'm not willing to take it in and pay a large sum of money to get it fixed. I'll have to watch some bumper removal videos to see if I missed anything.

UPDATE: I checked out a bunch of bumper removal videos on YouTube and have determined that everything that's supposed to be there, is there. No missing clips, bolts, etc. I think that piece of the bumper/fender is just deformed from the impact. Not much I can do about it at this point. The 3M tape seems to be preventing that corner from popping up, so I guess that's good for the time being until I can figure something out.

 

[suckerv]

Just installed the Full Tilt Boogie Racing shifter reinforcement bracket today and so far I'm pretty impressed. Getting the four bolts in the shifter box was a BITCH with just a jack and jack stands, but it's doable. I came from Steeda's shifter base bushing bracket and for the record, I had no issues with Steeda's. Loved it. The only issue being that I broke one of the threaded studs that holds the Steeda bracket in place, so I was running on borrowed time before that bracket eventually came loose. I could have drilled the broken stud out and used a 6mm long bolt instead, but at the end of the day that was just more work than I wanted to do.

Enter FTBR's bracket. I bought it from another member here who didn't like the added NVH. The install wasn't very difficult, just time consuming, especially with my giant gorilla hands trying to negotiate the four 10mm bolts in the shifter box. Once everything was installed, I took her out from a quick spin.

There is a bit of added NVH and the shifter itself seems to vibrate a bit more, but overall this bracket firms up the entire assembly quite nicely. A couple of hard and quick shifts between 3-4-5 had no issues like before with the stock bracket.

Even though they mount to different locations, I would say the FTBR bracket is as good as Steeda's. Keeps the gates nicely aligned and gets rid of a ton of the mush that shifting originally had. And for me personally, it fixes the issue I had with the broken bracket bolt.

I'll be getting a MGW soon, but this is a decent compromise in the meantime. Solid quality, fairly simple install, and does what it says it does. A bit of NVH increase, but not enough to bother me (I kinda like a bumpy, more "violent" experience when driving this car). As far as what's better, this or a Blowfish, I really couldn't tell you. I've never used the Blowfish bracket, though they seem to mount in the same(ish) location, and I've heard nothing but good things about them.

 

[suckerv]

Took her out today to hit some windy roads and test out the FTBR bracket. Love the feel of it, though it seems my entire shifter assembly is misaligned slightly to the left. Not really sure how that happened, but there were no issues shifting, so I'll take a look the next time I'm under the car.

 

[David@Steeda]

Sweet pics! Let's get those jacking rails ordered up!

 

[suckerv]

Nothing new recently since I'm saving up for a new shifter, so here are some recent pics instead:

 

[NvrFinished]

Looking nice! I'm ordering up my 2016 GTPP in DIB as well. I thought I had settled on the narrow over the top stripes in silver with the red pinstripe but man.... I keep looking at your matte black stripes and want that too. :headbonk:

 

[suckerv]

Looking nice! I'm ordering up my 2016 GTPP in DIB as well. I thought I had settled on the narrow over the top stripes in silver with the red pinstripe but man.... I keep looking at your matte black stripes and want that too. :headbonk:

Nice! Congrats on ordering your car. For what it's worth, I think the silver with red would look SWEET

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