Mediocre at Cresst - now with nsfw autophilia

[Urrik 0]

Actually it was Muammar Gaddafi's pistol I was thinking of that had the engraving

[Gordo 0]

Would only change too things, 

Go full gold on wheels, and gold tinted mirrors.

Nice attention to little shit.

[ChriSOL 0]

i came

[N.O. Drifter 0]

Very cool

[Jason 0]

not gonna lie, i follow #mx83 on ig and saw this weeks ago. didn't know it was yours. As soon as I saw yours I saw someone else post their buddy's scroll work on a harley and started following him too.

 

This absolutely fucking rules and I wanna do something like that BAD.

 

Did you find an easy way to R&R the rear handles? They were SUCH a bitch last time around. 

[bigtoepfer 0]

Love it.  Never commented but meant to.  The handles are so bad ass.  And the gold trim is awesome.

[jzxseven 0]

Woooowww.  Killer car guy. Stealing that door handle idea for sure. 

[LUMBERZACK 0]

Thanks dudes! There's so many ideas in my head of things like this I want to do, but I just got to get over the money hurdle. Haha. I've got time though, so this stuff will continue.

On 9/22/2020 at 3:38 PM, Jason said:

Did you find an easy way to R&R the rear handles? They were SUCH a bitch last time around. 

Honestly, they're always quite a bitch, but my best advice is removing the bolt and screws that hold the lock actuator and get it out of the way and use a 1/4" ratchet with a 6" extension and a swivel head for the socket is the best bet at getting to the bolt for the handle. The little plastic retainer clips for the rods are always a pain too. lol. small but strong fingers is the recipe.

 

On 10/6/2020 at 12:48 PM, jzxseven said:

Woooowww.  Killer car guy. Stealing that door handle idea for sure. 

Thanks dude! If you're in Cali, let me know what they are charging for this work, because in AZ, it's $$$$

[LUMBERZACK 0]

Not much to update this time around, but I'm bored and have some free time to post here. 

Windshield glass doesn't last long in Arizona before it becomes littered with rock chips and has more crack than a Circle K parking lot. So I had my buddy install a freshy for me. Windshield coverage and next day install is a huge benefit over owning and driving a JDM import. 

 

I began noticing that my rear wheels had a bit of play in them when I grabbed onto them. I immediately thought it was the wheel bearings or ball joints, but given that I replaced those 1.5 year ago. I checked other culprits and found that my Xcessive poly joints had a fair amount of play in them. Mind you I have over 4 years and 40k miles, with a couple dozen drift events on these. I think they served me well. So I ordered new joints.

 

One thing I noticed in the picture below, was the old ones (top) have zerk fittings, whereas the new ones (bottom) do not. They're clearly from a different manufacturer, but hopefully these last as long.

 

It's finally time to show my rear bumper some love since it is on its last leg. My buddy who is doing the repair is taking the opportunity to address many of the fitment issues the bumper has had its whole life. Hopefully it will fit much cleaner than previous. We're hoping to raise it up some as well to minimize how much it drags and gets caught on shit.

 

 

I had a local guy come work his magic on my alignment. He is mobile and comes to your house to do your alignment, granted you have a garage he can work it. He brings a digital camber gauge and toe plates and spends as much time as he needs to to set it up perfectly. I think he was at my house for the better part of 6 hours painstakingly making sure everything was perfect. My final specs are:

Front: -5.7 Camber, 1/8 Toe out

Rear: -0.5 Camber, 1/8 Toe in

The car drives fantastic. The steering wheel is level and it drives as straight as an arrow. Well worth the money. I don't have a picture of him doing the alignment, but here's a picture of my post-alignment fitment.

 

Also, I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss out on the limited run gold work emotion center caps, so I bought a second set for my drift spares. Now my wheels will always match. I also got new valve stems because the seal on all of mine are starting to dry rot. 

 

That's it for now. My bumper is not finished yet. I have a few other things I'm working on as well, but I don't have any pictures, so we'll wait until the next post.

 

[battleaxe 0]

toe out in the front on a daily, u a wild man.

looks fabulous as always.  i appreciate the rear bumper repair and fitment, very nice.

as much as i love all the same wheels, and how they will all fit perfect and run one tire size, i cant get over variety.  you chose a very nice set of wheels for daily and spares man.

[bigtoepfer 0]

The windshield problem is why I hated my time living in Colorado.  Although I guess you could just limit your driving to May-July and MAYBE not have that issue.  Here in Louisiana you can drive a car for 30 years and not get a windshield crack.  Or get super unlucky and get three in two years, I've had that experience too.

But since I typically exist in the unlucky camp my stress is always high driving my X3 because I know finding a windshield will be a pain in the ass.  Still drive it every day though, and sometimes end up following closer to vehicles than I should HA.
 

Still love seeing the car.

[LUMBERZACK 0]

@battleaxe Maybe I haven't announced it officially, but the Cressida is no longer my daily. I now have a company truck that I drive. The Cressida just gets driven on the weekends to friend's houses and shit, just ready for a drift event. Yeah, I'd never run front toe on a daily, especially 1/8" lol. Thanks homie! We're definitely taking our time on the bumper so I'm hoping for great results! I like a lot of wheels and I kept my eyes open for Chrome Work XC8's, Model 5's, Advan T6,  AVS Model 6, GramLight 57Pros...well pretty much any early 00's wheel in chrome and the market right now for '90's-'00's japanese car parts is fucking ridiculous. Parts aren't littered over yaj like they once were and the parts that are listed are 3x the usual price. Same with the local marketplace even. It was actually pure fate that I got a second set of WMB XT7's for a great price.

 

@bigtoepfer Totally man. I'm glad I have a company truck now, because I've gone through 2 windshields in 7 months. The company has full-coverage and since it's a common-ass F-150, I just call the mobile guy and he replaces the window same day at my house. Super convenient. What's crazy to me is, I've imported multiple sets of glass headlights from Japan and the glass is pristine on them, even being 30 years old. After 3 months in Arizona, they'll be pitted and cracked. Such a disappointment, which is why I use Lamin-X film on my headlights and they look perfect. Thank you for the compliments!

[Urrik 0]

My X8 is also on its third windshield. I was surprised at how readily available they still were and how cheap they were even without any coverage. Fuckin $200 installed.

I inherited my X9 with a cracked windshield and still haven't bothered with it lol.  I know theres guys out there that can bring them over but I just need to break down and do it sometime next season.  The guy I bought the car from showed me the windshield he had shipped to him and UPS trashed it; no wonder seeing as it was just stuffed in a cardboard box with minimal padding. 

[lucas 0]

I love this car! Happened across your IG account and should have figured you were on here. 

The door handles are a great touch.

[LUMBERZACK 0]

@lucas Thank you so much dude! I really appreciate it. I'm hoping to add a few more little gold touches here and there to accent the handles, but there's definitely a fine line with gold where it can get tacky fast. Haha.

[LUMBERZACK 0]

Honestly waiting for this forum to die at this point so I can stop believing this information even helps anyone. I could go on a bitter rant, but instead, I'll post what I've been working on. Probably for the last time, who knows.

Since the majority of transformational modifications have already taken place, I've been focusing on style pieces and fixing smaller issues that I either cheaped out on, or didn't have done the way I really wanted due to financial and time constraints.

Before we go into what that means, I do want to flex my new Cressida. Super mint 1991 Pearl white gem. I have been wanting a spare Cressida for a while since I don't plan on getting rid of my Champagne one, so it would be wise to have a spare for parts while the price of these isn't seeming to be dropping. I bought it not running, due to it being in the middle of a valve cover gasket and spark plug wire project. Literally 2 hours of work later and this thing runs like a top for a 7M. It's all stock and literally everything is there. I'm thinking this car was serviced at the dealer it's whole life. 

[LUMBERZACK 0]

The gold handles stick out and a little more gold on the car would help balance that out, so I cut some stickers in gold to help tie it all in.

[LUMBERZACK 0]

Scored some Aerowolf visors for my Ganadors in gold

 

Also joined a group buy to get some convex Ganador mirror lenses in yellow by Prova

 

[LUMBERZACK 0]

I had an annual drift event coming up called Showdown in February of 2021. I wanted to address some cooling concerns and make the setup a little more reliable from the previous year's event. Since I blew a 90 degree coupler from my turbo, I went with a vibrant cast aluminum 90 with a Vibrant wiggin's style clamp.

 

 

Another issue I wanted to address was cavitation and cooling efficiency of the coolant, so we did a modified swirl pot setup that incorporates the header tank, swirl pot and filler neck all in one. I would've liked to do them all separately like a traditional race setup, but it seemed excessive at the moment.

 

 

I also took a note from the ol' drift tengoku magazine and wanted to add a steam vent (coolant bypass) from the back of the head to the header tank/swirl pot to help alleviate the hot spot at the back of the head. So we welded up a T with an AN.

 

Since I don't expect to service this too frequently, I opted to press clamp the hose to the adapter.

 

The swirl pot was a bit rough in its raw state so I polished it.

 

Not the most mirror polish, but good enough for an amateur.

 

Added my gold TRD radiator cap to it.

 

Polished more piping while I was at it.

 

I wanted to manually override my electric fans for when I was drifting, so I repurpose this 115V switch from an Avalon and tossed it in the defroster button slot.

 

I don't have a final photo, but I recessed it better than this.

 

Decided to stop being a peasant and run a proper fuel filter.

 

 

Rivnuts to mount heat sink mount.

 

[LUMBERZACK 0]

Replaced the crusty arm rest.

 

 

Got all my tires mounted to my spares.

 

 

My friend knocked the rear bumper repair out of the park.

 

 

Unfortunately hit a small pothole and ripped it off the day I got the bumper back.

 

 

I did fix it though.

 

Beauty shot before event

 

[LUMBERZACK 0]

First day of the two day event, I went out to do a sight lap then a warm up lap. On my warm up lap Forrest Wang seemed to come out of nowhere like a wolf on the hunt. I was NOT prepared for this, but at least got a sweet photo. We did get to tandem quite a few times during the two day event.

 

 

I got an alignment before the event to dial rear camber to -0.5 degrees and put a little toe-in in the rear and toe -out in the front. The tire wear pattern was fantastic. Don't mind the chunks from my ebrake grabs. I was a little rusty and my tires paid for it.

 

 

Rear bumper fell off a lot. small collection of spent zipties.

 

 

During the event my speedo stopped working. So I bought a new mk3 cable

 

 

Decided I would service the diff after 40k miles.

 

 

Been hunting for a gold Tom's horn button for ages. Finally scooped one, but finish was a little rough. Decided to get the gold plating redone.

 

 

I wanted a cool oil cap, but the gold TRD cap is $500 if it pops up, and honestly PHR, DM, Greddy, oil caps are so bland and ugly. So I sent a design to someone who could CNC one for me. I got it gold plated.

 

 

I felt my car has always been super quite. Great for when I was daily driving the car, but I hate that I can't hardly hear my engine while drifting. Decided to whip up a titanium straight pipe. It clamps to the same V-band as the muffled section so I can swap between the two based on whether I want it louder or quieter.

 

 

I wanted floor mats that actually fit the Cressida. I love the early 00's style of checkered mats. Decided to have G-Corporation make a set of custom mats based on a modified set of jzx81 floor mats. My friend in Japan helped me facilitate this and make paper templates.

 

 

The turned out fantastic and fit great.

 

 

I also scored a gx81 tachometer with a 9k rev limit and modified it to fit and work with mx83 cluster and tach signal wire.

 

 

[LUMBERZACK 0]

I've been wanting to make a cool strut tower bar. I started gathering parts for it which started with acquiring this Vertex engine damper.

 

 

I've always loved the look of the Ganador titanium strut tower bars, but the only ones that pop up are for BH5 Subaru Legacy which have a not so attractive offset to clear the TMIC. So I found this straight bar unit and jumped on it.

 

 

Obviously it does not fit, but it's pretty dang close. So I am partnering up with someone to craft some custom end plates out of titanium to adapt the bar to the Cressida. Here's my idea for an adapter bracket

 

 

Unfortunately for this project, I contacted him in October of 2021 and have not heard any updates in over a month, so not sure if or when this will be complete.

[LUMBERZACK 0]

Some of you will recognize this JZX81. I purchased this gem of a JZX81 from Brian. He did a fantastic job replacing many of the issues and tidying up odds and end with this car. I couldn't feel more comfortable purchasing and driving this car. It's more than I could ever expect out of a 30 year old car.

 

 

Messing around at the shop, we decided to place bets and dyno test the power.

 

 

It made a healthy 294whp / 284wtq

 

[LUMBERZACK 0]

Currently a lot of changes are happening in my life. My first born son is due in a month. I am planning to attend this year's showdown event in two weeks. Due to the shortage on tires. I am struggling to find 225/40r18's in a sticky compound. I found some 235/40r18 Kenda KR20A's that I will try for the event. I didn't think I could fit 235's which is why I never tried, and technically they fit, but they don't allow much travel, so I have some hammering to do.

 

 

 

Aside from all that, I have a lot of plans for the Cressida I am currently working on, such as new wing, rollcage, strut bar with engine damper, modified air conditioning system, amongst of many other ideas I have flowing, but time is becoming a constraint. 

Not sure if I will ever post here again before this group ceases to exist. I'll miss it here. It will be sad to see so much good info lost, but I think it would be healthy for new Cressida builders to learn to build these things differently. Everything done seems so repetitive and just a trace of what's already been done. Creativity seems to be lost. Maybe I'm just jaded towards the current car scene and trends, but most Cressidas are just a missed attempt at regurgitating a build that's already been done. Feel free to disagree. Thanks for reading nerd

[N.O. Drifter 0]

Very cool.

 

Does this mean I have to grow up when the site goes away?