Winter Project from a newbie

[Patrick88Lxi200K]

Hey all,

Been viewing this site for over a year now and am finally going to do this posting thing.

I have a dark blue 88 LXi with 220k on her. First good car i've ever owned. Had her about 8yrs and 90K. Lived in nyc since 2000, so it hasn't been a daily driver in 5 yrs. Have done lots of replacing and repairing to where the overall condition is probably the best its ever been. All stock LXI until now. I needed a winter projcect, so I bought a rear disk swap and some H&R springs back in november from Mike Torres. Bought the rest of the parts(upper control arms, tockio blues all around, disk hardware, seals, etc) and got everything stripped down and painted since then. Just got the disks and rear H&R's installed last weekend and took some pics of before and after. Didn't know how to use the new camera yet on the before shot.

Before:http://www.photohost.org/gallery/data/518/187newrear1.jpg
http://www.photohost.org/gallery/data/518/187newrear2.jpg

Parts:http://www.photohost.org/gallery/data/518/187newrear9.jpg


After:http://www.photohost.org/gallery/data/518/187newrear12.jpg
http://www.photohost.org/gallery/data/518/187newrear14.jpg
http://www.photohost.org/gallery/data/518/187newrear16.jpg
http://www.photohost.org/gallery/data/518/187newrear15.jpg

[Ace]

looks good man nice work

[88accordalltheway]

beautiful swap, i plan to do the same when summer rolls around

[88accordhb]

that's beautiful, keep up the good work man.

[2drSE-i]

holy SHIT nice work

i wish i was as car literate as you :(

[bullard123]

That does look clean. Thats the hardest part of the car to keep a good appearance, but yours looks real good. Good job man.

[Vanilla Sky]

i wish i could find that setup...

looks good... a very worthwhile upgrade in my books

[Busted_Blue]

Good job. Definitely something I've should've done before I installed my SEi Rear Disc Brakes. Something I want to do later on is to remove the rear disc brake dust protector that you painted black. I don't like it and it distorts the look of the rear disc brakes because the disc is so much smaller.

Couple Questions:
What kind of rotors are they and how much you get them for?
Any more plans with the brakes in the front?

[Vanilla Sky]

well, he already has the larger 88/89 LXi brakes in the front...

[Busted_Blue]

well, he already has the larger 88/89 LXi brakes in the front...

welll i mean rotors or brake pads and lines.. :)

[carotman]

Now that you got those discs... don't you hate the rear drums? :D

The SE-I disc setup is one of the best upgrades you can do to this car!

Got those E-Brake cables installed?

[Patrick88Lxi200K]

Thanks for the props all. Have had the new front calipers (painted the same as the rears) waiting since last summer but was more excited to get the rear done. Busted, the disks are bremo, and were thrown in as part of the price when I got everything from Mike. I agree about the dust protector, but it looked way better after stripping and painting so decided to put them on. Cartoman, the cables were the first to go on. Took lots of pics b/c bits are free and thought I might add to the to-do on this.

http://www.photohost.org/gallery/data/518/187newrear3.jpg
http://www.photohost.org/gallery/data/518/187newrear20.jpg

I liked this mod b/c you can leave the drums on while getting everything ready and the car's not out of commission.

A couple of things I learned:
Get the exhaust and heatshields out off the way first.
A cup shaped course wire brush on an angle grinder works almost as good as mediablasting, and is much faster, especially if you have a wimpy compressor like I do. But get a good angle grinder b/c I burned mine up. That Dremel 400XPR is pretty sweet too for cleaning up bolts and brake lines.

[truetune]

nice, I wish I could do that mod.

[smufguy]

that looks really good, nice stuff. One of the clean looking paint jobs. hope that thing does not peel anytime soon. :D. u swapped out the knuckle and the disk right?

[DBMaster]

Now THAT'S attention to detail!

[johndej]

damn, you may be a newbie to the board but seem to know a good bit about 3gs

[Busted_Blue]

you do have another cable for the ebrake right? Definitely I think the hardest part of the swap was the ebrake cables since I had to work around the heat shield.



How do you compare drums vs rear calipers in stopping power?

[BlueBead]

Damn Patrick! that is one sweet job. If only all newbies were like you....
Clean setup; you're making my 88 look bad....
Get that how-to up soon.... I need it... lol
Welcome to the board!

[Hash_man_Se_i]

Damn man, looks good... If your brake/ suspension setup looks like that you should definately post up more pics of the car... I'm sure it looks good.

[smufguy]

its not that he is a newbie, he has been on the forum for over a year, just does not post much. i guess he reads a lot ;)

[NXRacer]

awesome!! :thumbup: