noob-like question??

[mattjk]

Ship your car to Driftmotion. They have a 4 day turn-around time for 1jz swaps

 

[SupraDerk]

^seriously?

 

[tissimo]

This is really one of those "if you have to ask you probably won't understand" items.. However I'll try to reply.

Here's a story that helps me get the point across:

I got pulled over (speeding of course) on my way back from Florida during the Thanksgiving holiday in Christine (1995 MKIV Hardtop). The cop got my licence, registration and insurance card. He walked back to his car. 5 mintues later he comes up to my window. Here's the conversation:

Cop: "Sir, do you know what year this vehicle is?"

Me: "1995"

Cop: "Yea, the registration and insurance card say that, but I'm having a hard time believing it. This car looks new."

Me: "I take good care of it, not bad for over 160,000 miles, eh?..."

The cop shakes his head in amazement, spends a few seconds checking VIN tags and then goes back to his car to finish writing the ticket.

(This is a true story. DreamerTheresa was in the car with me and heard the whole thing.)

I love my MKIV's. Once you drive one, you understand why people go nuts for them. It's an amazing machine. It's a supercar that you can actually own without being a millionaire. The one thing that I developed the MKIV's shortly after driving one for the first time was respect for the car.

I treat it well and accept nothing less than the best for it.

If you talk to MKIV owners, you'll find that true amongst most of them.

I always felt that way about my MKIII's after I bought the first one. I don't treat them like common cars.

When I see someone doing some half-assed paintjob on one, it makes me cringe. Yea, it can look "ok".

I've seen this stuff in person and it does not stand up to professional automotive paint. Not in clarity, not in shine, not in hardness. It's still a spraybomb paintjob, just done with more care and effort. It's fine for your beatup daily driver that you want to look better.

It's not fine for a Supra IMO. These are not "common" cars. You've taken a beatufully engineered high tech Japanese GT car, and slapped a gallon of Rustoleum on it. If you can't see the problem there, then I probably can't explain it to you.

I've known some of the "jerk" MKIV owners you guys are talking about. They are out there. Once when I was defending the MKIII to one of them (I was working on one of mine at the time), he came out with this comment:

"I know what's wrong with your MKIII. If it doesn't have some PVC pipe, parts from Home Depot, pieces of an Isuzu truck, or some spraypaint on the body, there's something wrong with it. Yours is just way too clean..."

I called him an asshat for that comment and told him to go find someone else to bother. But there's a grain of truth there. The MKIII owner has the reputation for not being to afford his car, and doing some goofy rigged up crap to keep it running. And a lot of people have transferred that onto the car itself.

You can look at the ROTM and ROTY cars and see how amazing a MKIII can be. Every single one of the MKIII's in that group I would be proud to own. And there are MKIII's around here that I wouldn't give you $500 for.

This $50 paint job crap is, by definition a "goofy rigged up" paintjob. It's not the way to treat a car that's a cut above. Treat the Civic like that, it's an econobox and deserves it.

.

 

[mattjk]

^seriously?

seriously.

tissimo, are you going to add to that quote? :1zhelp:

 

[tissimo]

tissimo, are you going to add to that quote? :1zhelp:

no need

 

[mattjk]

I agree with what SC said. There is no need to have a ghetto looking mkiii.

Take Johnathan1 for example. He is a student with no job, but is still able to do the right things to his car, and take care of it. It is very clean, and from what I understand it was a basketcase when he bought it, and now it looks great. I've seen it through various stages and is coming along very nicely, even the mechanicals.

I wish everyone was like him, and loved their mkiii. I hate to say it, but at the autobacs meets I set up, it is embarrassing to have a totally beat up and rigged mkiii show up... even more so when a mkiv owner shows up and leaves out of disgust. It makes the entire community look bad.

 

[Tanya]

mehhh I think that "ghetto looking" cars can make great sleepers.

I would love to take a rusted to shit, primered Mk1 or Mk2, thats totally built under the hood and suspensionwise, and take it to Vegas to whoop up on the pretty pretties

 

[trucker]

mehhh I think that "ghetto looking" cars can make great sleepers.

I would love to take a rusted to shit, primered Mk1 or Mk2, thats totally built under the hood and suspensionwise, and take it to Vegas to whoop up on the pretty pretties

you to? i was giving serious consideration to taking the mock-up car in 07

i might end up really doing that if i don't drag my ass from in front of this computer and get to work....but roads are iced over, i really don't want to go out and get more propane for the shop heater...same reason your boxed-up parts aren't in the mail yet....of course if i sent now, might just get hung-up and delayed for the holoday rush anyway...



hey there's an idea, start working on arrangememts now, come this year, and your car can brag about how it's wearing mine's parts...

 

[Tanya]

hey there's an idea, start working on arrangememts now, come this year, and your car can brag about how it's wearing mine's parts...

I dont think I'll ever make it to Vegas unless I win the lottery or gas prices come down to $1 a gallon :icon_conf

being broke FTL.

 

[mattjk]

to me, a sleeper is a clean stock looking car, not something you find in compton.

THIS is a sleeper. My 1988 Subaru GL Wagon, perfect condition outside with roof racks and stock 14" steelies with hubcaps, and then a jdm 2.2L closed deck wrx engine with rwd and the diff welded shut.

the supra is already a performance car, having it primered doesn't make it a sleeper, it makes it a piece of shit. ;0

 

[trucker]

awww..come on, you have better part of a year to save

1000 bucks 10 or so months, 100 bucks month, 25 a week?

i did it this year on like a hundred and a half carton of cigarettes...

 

[trucker]

mattjk, there is a certain amount of satisfaction in tearing up someone with a car...any car that dosen't look like it should.doing it with a car that is beat to shit is more pleasurable than doing it with a ride that is nice, but a "lower trim level"

a dude isn't going to be as pissed at getting beat by your subie(and i like it a lot btw)as he is my crusty, rusty, beat to hell parts car...in my opinion anyway

tanya, was that green nova that was posted here or cs? perfect example

 

[OneJoeZee]

But then you're subjecting yourself to driving a piece of shit. why would you want to do that?

sleeper =! beat up piece of shit with power.

 

[trucker]

beauy is in the eye of the beholder i guess, i drive pos cars as dd's anyway...when it comes to basic transportation needs, i don't see the need to spend a shitload of cash...that money looks better going into mutual funds so i can have really, really nice shit later in life. but thats just me

 

[Big Wang Bandit]

I drive my new 1jz every day. I dont subject it to as much redline and WOT as Joe case im not comfortable just yet. But none the less, fuck it, you own it, you drive it.

 

[Tanya]

Nova was posted on CS.


Peoples opinions on sleepers varies, to me, it can be both a clean stock looking car, or a shitpile. I would have no problem having both, and I could give a shit less what people thought of me in my 500hp rustbucket, LOL.


As shitty as *I* think my car looks, amazingly I've had a lot of compliments and very little insults (but I think people have managed to keep their insults to themselves, which is fine with me)

 

[RHDMK3]

Didn't mean to offend, but it's really true. Alot of A70 owners are insecure about their car and get butt hurt when A80 guys say anything remotely negative about it.

Honestly, alot of people should be insecure cuz they bought their car for 500 dollars and it has BHG, rodknock, and rust.:rofl:

If your car is clean, you got nothing to worry about. Honestly most of the A80 guys WILL respect your Supra if it's nice(look at Mattjk's thread on SF. it's the cleanest A70 I've ever seen). Of course there's bad apples in the bunch but there's just as many in our camp.

I make fun of NA A70s, Na A80s, and pre89s all the time. My intentions aren't malicious, though.

Oh no, I wasn't offended at all No worries. I would have something nicer it's just I am moving back to the States in July and I dont see the financial sense in shelling out 6-10K USD for an MKIV when I got my MKIII for 1K especially considering that I am either going to sell the MKIII or send it to the junkyard when I leave Japan.

 

[OneJoeZee]

If you found a JZA80 here for 6-10k you would be smart to pick it up and flip it for double!

 

[RHDMK3]

My friend Jason paid only 7K USD for his 94 TT. Complete with a Bomex kit, HKS Exhaust, Apexi intake, Trust BOV, TRD coilovers, 18" Work rims with new tires. MKIV's are fairly cheap here.

 

[Supracentral]

My friend Jason paid only 7K USD for his 94 TT. Complete with a Bomex kit, HKS Exhaust, Apexi intake, Trust BOV, TRD coilovers, 18" Work rims with new tires. MKIV's are fairly cheap here.

Yea, in Japan...

But you can't get them over here for that kind of money...