rpsmith79

Also, this is what i was saying about being careful about the shape of the part as dipping can get very distorted on complex curved surfaces

How much does it cost to skin a centre console then Liam?

Why because it's a sports M do you think people have to be made on money, wrapping and dipping are cheaper alternatives to real carbon skinning Why fit a GT kit to 140, why paint your callipers blue, why do we modify cars........................ because we want to be different At least with wrap you can take it off and put it back to stock if required, with the other 2 options (dipping and skinning) you can't

Hahaha, you really don't understand what carbon fibre looks like do you, there seems to be a massive misconception that carbon fibre is shiny The only thing that makes a carbon fibre bonnet shine is the resin on top of the actual carbon fibre, the carbon fibre that was a texture and depth to it The dipped stuff can just look like shiny black and white squares stuck onto the surface, it also has ZERO depth to it, so can look just as fake as carbon fibre wrap with no resin/lacquer Sorry, rant over

I'd have a look at dipping close up as it's not to everyone's taste, depending on the contours of the part the pattern can get very distorted and cheap looking It's basically the same look you get when you buy carbon fibre look parts, no. plate holders, gauge pods etc At least with wrap you have the 3D effect which changes in the light, so looks much more realistic

I stopped about a year ago now, profit margins plummeted and too many other outfits offering to do similar jobs for half the price using crap quality eBay vinyl

Try Hyper-Wrap in the corp section

Does the 120 refer to the wattage, if so they would be illegal anyway as headlight bulbs need to be 55/60W Have you got a link to these bulbs?

They won't bring up any warning lights on a Gen 4 or 5 as they didn't have the technology to have blown light indicators More modern cars would probably need to have resistors fitted to stop any warning lights though

Set of 4 space saver FTMFW

Indeed, 10-15 years ago 17" wheels were virtually unheard of on production cars, so any aftermarket 17" alloys would cost a fortune when fitting tyres as they simply weren't made in any decent quantities, now a days it is a pretty common size, so 17" tyres have really dropped in price the last 6-7 years or so

That has always been the JDM look, and was being done well before the Euro look took off, but the Euro look just took it up to an extra level Oh, and i do still own my Gen 5 BTW And yes, i do have a Domo hanging from the bumper of my Ford, but it done very much with my tongue firmly in my cheek

To all of those saying you have a UK car so it can't be JDM, it can still be styled in the JDM style and thus be part of the JDM scene It's like the Euro look, you can apply the Euro look to any car, whether it's European or not, or the ricer look can be applied to any make of car, so can the JDM look

This is the thing though, you don't need to inspect them, it's purely down to the style of the styling If its got a lairy body kit and BGW, then it's Ricer If its got Ripspeed wheels and tat from Halfords stuck all over it, its Chav If its stripped and painted matt black, its a track slag If its got smooth clean looks, looks factory fresh, and a nice reasonable stance, then that's JDM in my book No need to get your phone out and Google the VIN number to find out what market it was made for, its a "scene", not a rule book

Cheers I went to quite a lot of effort to make my car look as JDM as possible, and only a Celica anorak would have been able to tell the difference, i'd wager that anyone not heavily into Celicas would not have been able to tell it was originally a UK car Yep, 100% correct, a UK Celica is not technically JDM, but it can be styled in a JDM way to evoke the JDM Culture by fitting parts only available on JDM cars But like Brendan says, that doesn't make the car JDM, but i see it is as being part of the JDM scene

I first came across the JDM scene when i was into Civics, and it mainly consisted of fitting JDM only parts to UK cars (or just buying a proper JDM import) So that is how i have always seen the JDM scene, as simple as that

All Celicas were manufactured in Japan, so technically they are all imports, however they were made for their respective domestic markets (either UK, Euro, US etc) But the way i see the tuning scene, if you fit JDM parts to a UK car then it becomes styled in a JDM way, the same way in Japan they have a style they call USDM where they fit the US domestic market parts to JDM cars But fitting those stickers to anything other than Jap is plain wrong and the owners obviously have no idea what it means

I will somewhat disagree with you there Ray, i know you have had all the Hexis training etc, but i have wrapped many stone chipped bonnets in carbon wrap with no problems at all, gloss wrap will certainly show through, but i'd say carbon wrap will cover stone chips without a problem, and never had issues with stone chips causing bubbles either

Well i would disagree with Ray, i have covered many bonnets, (stone chips and all) with no problems, my original bonnet was terrible and still going strong on Mill5ys car 3 years later, no bubbles what so ever, and never has had any bubbles The carbon wrap is very thick and covers small imperfections near on perfectly, the weave pattern also helps to mask the imperfections, gloss wrap is another story though and won't cover imperfections due to how thin the wrap is and the gloss/reflective finish Your front trims are the old style Hexis, but the weave pattern is identical on the newer Hexis carbon wrap, just the finish is a bit shiner now And no, not possible to do the centre vent in one piece, or at least i never figured out how to

It would look cool as hell wrapped, especially with your rear spoiler and everything else, BUT, and this is a big BUT, don't attempt it yourself, it took me 3 attempts to get my bonnet right, and that was with 3 people helping out each time (and cost a fortune in wrap) The ATA GT4 bonnet is a right pain in the ass, and if you get any wrinkles in it then it will just look worse than a few stone chips, and to pay someone to wrap it would cost as much as a respray

I don't have a battery conditioner, but just search on ebay I wouldn't like the idea of not having it insured though

I suppose only you can decide if it's worth the saving to SORN it, all you would be saving is a few months Tax as i presume you would still want to have it insured in case of theft/damage while in storage As said, keep it road legal, but just stick it on axle stands and get a battery conditioner, would only take 10 mins to stick the battery back on and take it off the stands

Well worth spending £30 on some axle stands rather than £200-300 on new tyres next year

But how would you see the stuck on puddle lights unless you got on your hands and knees and looked underneath the door

I think i'd rather stick some strip lighting to the bottom of my door than use a hole saw to cut a whacking big hole in it