Well fellow forum goers, I've had a busy, albeit impulsive week this week; took care of a few visual upgrades/fixes that have been put off for far too long. Had I had the time before taking these pictures, I would have taken a quick hose to the car before snapping the shots, but unfortunately I was short on time and wanted to get the pics before the sun went down so I could post them up tonight, so as the title states: ignore the dirty (and the crappy cell phone quality while you're at it :P)

First, I finally sourced some cheap hyper white bulbs for my reverse lights. I avoided snapping a picture at night because the lights completely wash out the shot, so these too are in daylight, but the difference can be seen no less.

Before:


And after:


Next, I finally got my passenger side headlight sprayer cap replaced, just picked up the unpainted cap and some exact match aerosol cans from the dealer and painted it myself. Made the whole front end look worlds of difference better, and despite the unsightly holes where my front license plate AND BRACKET also came up missing somehow (still haven't fully decided how that happened :\ ), not having the gaping hole under the sprayer cover anymore made everything look much better, especially from a distance





And the highlight of the week, a deal that came up out of the blue that I just could not pass up, finally some new wheels I'm not sure of the brand, I couldn't find any markings on them reflecting the brand, all I have to go off of is that the center caps say "sport edition" (which, the center caps are silver on a powder coated black wheel and thus look ridiculous so the "sport edition" will soon be unseen when I paint the center caps flat black to blend with the rest of the wheel)

For the technical info, they're 17x7.5 with a 35mm offset, current tires are 225/45/R17 93H Nankang sports, which are very near the end of their life (part of how I got the deal I got for the set) and since my stock wheels will be my winter set and thus will be back on the car soon and these will be the summer set, the new tires will be a higher end Goodyear or the new Hankook Ventus' at 235/45/R17 91W, which will help fill the wheel gap just a little more (don't have the fundage for coils, otherwise I'd get some lol) and will assist the 35mm offset in flushing up with the fender a little better.

These first two are in my buddy's driveway, with less direct sunlight:




The rest are by a wall near his house with direct sunlight:










The rest of the wheels are in a pretty good shape, this is the only one severely curbed:


Unfortunately, I don't have the money to have them re powder coated so in the end, the coating will probably come off and I'll sand/bondo/reshape the lip and then spray them a nice matte black

In all, I'm pretty satisfied with my purchase, I was skeptical at first, especially not knowing the brand, but after having them on, they've really grown on me. And now, since I know you're all just dying to know, I picked up this set, with tires (not a huge plus considering they've got maybe one to two months of tread left, but tires no less) for a cool $420.00

 

cut springs!!!!

 

are you serious here? lmao

 

Not too shabby needs more low... Cut springs ftmfw!

 

tint your tail lights!along with black side markers ftw!

 

definitely needs to drop about an inch to pull it all together

 

I'm digging the reverse lights after the upgrade.

Buy some sport springs or some aftermarket springs. They aren't that expensive!

 

Why do that when cutting is free? He doesn't even need to take them off the car.... Could always heat them with torches until they compress!

 

^ That's the cheap way buddy.

If you want amazing result, you'll need to take them off and microwave each one for 1:00.

 

I've actually been planning to tint the tails for a while now, just been putting it off cuz I want to tint the amber turn signal area red first and then spray the black on. As for the side markers, I'm not big on that just because its a silver car, IMHO I think that would just look like I had a mole hanging off the side of my car. I think tinted side markers on a black or red or blue car looks fine, but white and silver just can't pull it off IMO.

Thanks, I was really pleased with the turn out of the lights as well, certainly lights up the area behind me a lot better now too haha

Don't you have an increased risk of popping a strut if you only upgrade the springs? I know springs are a boatload cheaper and I've thought about it before, but never made a decision to jump on some cuz I figured if it was going to blow my struts too, I might as well just save the money on the springs and the not-having-to-buy-new-struts and just get COs anyway... Am I wrong?

^Both of those sound like a terrible idea lol do people really do that?