stereo install

i finally got my replacement stereo unit installed today... snoop, the audio guy at the shop helped with the install. he made the install look easy. he disassembled the dash with ease. i would say it took him about an hour or so to put everything. at first we might've thought that we had the wrong wiring harness for the head unit. so i had to go to kragen. so i phoned snoop and informed him that that the harness in kragen was the same as the one i purchased from s2k jeff. he gave it a shot again and told me i wouldn't need to purchase one and told me to just buy him and the guys some food from burger king.

so when i got back from burger king they were listening to my stereo. pretty cool. so i checked everything out and everything looked okay. however, when i was fiddling with some stuff around and i noticed that my dome lights weren't working. after some quick diagnostics we found out that one of the fuses blew. snoop found a replacement and sure enough it worked.

i drove my car home with my ipod hooked up. which i might add was pretty cool. now i don't have to listen to shitty radio any more. after watchin' heros i found out another issue. i tried to play a cd but when i pressed the open button the head unit wouldn't move. for some reason it seemed stuck in one position. i also had some issues trying to detach the head unit. so i txted snoop my issues and told me that he forgot to unscrew something. hopefully tomorrow everything will be perfect.

other than that everything is fine! now im tempted to buy some nice speakers and a sub!! noooooooo

road trip to OC, North Hollywood, stanton: part 2

onward to north hollywood to see the 2jzgte motor. prior to our trip to OC i had called several places to inquire about a 2jzgte jdm supra motor. first i called JR Auto Parts. I called them the day before and they told me to call up the next day since all there sales reps were gone for the day. so i called the following day and inquired. they informed me that they sold the motor already. so back to the drawing board.... i did a google search and looked for jdm engines california. i found a few places but most of there 2jzgte motors were coming from Aristos...

for those who don't really know what aristos are... they are a japanese equivalent to our own GS300. in japan they had a model that had the 2jzgte in them. however they varied in a couple ways... water pump was hydralic, oil pans were front facing towards the pulleys, and other things. anyways, i got lucky and found a place. i asked him to send me pictures of the motor. when i received the pics it looked like a supra motor! i was really excited and called the guy. i told him i would be driving there to check out the motor myself.

back to the trip...

we were leaving santa ana to go see the motor at north hollywood and it was david's turn to drive. i did the driving to the first location. but we were really hungry but we were running short of time since the place closes at 5. so we decided to forego lunch and go straight to hollywood. it was going to take us a good hour and half... but i had a feeling we were going to hit traffic. sure enough we did. on our way up there i had to call up Yuki and notified him that we were going to be a little late. he said he was going stay probably till 5:30.

so with the extra time we able to make it by 5:30. the location looked a bit isolated and ghetto looking. we parked the rental and went to the store. we walked into the office. nobody was manning the front office. but i noticed there was another room full of motors. so i looked in there and found somebody working on the 2jzgte motor. i asked him if he was yuki and sure enough that was him. i introduced myself and my friends. we walked over and looked at the motor. david was inspecting it making sure it was indeed a supra motor. and it was. i snapped a few pictures and asked a few questions. he told me the motor has been sitting there for quite a while. however, it was a complete motor. it might needs some work... change out the alternator, water pump, and the maintainence. i was able to talk to him about the price and everything. in the end we were able to work something out. hopefully in 2 to 4 weeks ill have a 2jzgte motor.

afterwards we went to the nearest fast food restaurant to get our grub on. you couldn't believe how excited i was. i feel like i'm getting really close to being twin turbo.













next stop stanton for autobacs...

road trip to OC, North Hollywood, stanton: part 1

today was the road trip i was planning the beginning of the week.

as a recap from my previous post about my cd changer. i've been looking on ebay for a suitable short term replacement. i already had an alpine head unit in mine after seeing them in person at best buy. they looked really clean. justin my bro has an alpine head unit and it works great. my main focus was the ipod compatability. theyre the pioneers of that technology. i was planning on purchasing an Alpine CDA9883 deck. i've looked through ebay and found a place in Santa Ana that had the one i was looking for at the right price. so i called up the place to see if they would allow local pick ups and told it me it wouldn't be a problem.

back to the road trip...

david, jon (MR2 guy), and i decided to go up there yesterday. we rented a ford focus from enterprise. when we arrived, we drove around the building a couple times to find the store. when we walked in the store reminded me of a small computer store. we looked around for a little bit and waited for somebody to assist me. i talked to the guy and asked if he had the Alpine headunit and mentioned that i saw it on ebay. he told me that he sold the last head unit today.

i was disappointed. i drove there from san diego to purchase it and now i couldn't get it. if i didn't get anything it would be a waste of a trip and gas. so i talked to him about other alternatives. there a couple of older alpine head units that were available. he asked me if i were stuck with alpine. i told him not really. i just wanted something with user friendly ipod compatability. he responded that the panasonics were the way to go if i wanted to go with the ipod. good thing i brought my ipod and asked if he were able to test it out on the test unit. after he showed me a comparison between the alpine and the panasonic. i realized that the panasonic provided the best ipod usability. it was a tad bit more than the alpine i wanted but i guess it will be worth it in the end.

so i ended up purchasing the Panasonic CQ-C7205U with ipod cable and toyota pocket.

next stop north hollywood...

s2000 projectors with HIDS

i finally installed my HIDs in my newly retrofitted headlights.... they look soooo good. im very impressed. they look way better than my plug-n-play philips kit. the lights light up the road really well. i must say this is one of the best upgrades ive done in a long time. i had my buddy david check to see if my lights do the cool flicker. when we went to the freeway i was a few car lengths behind him... and when we parked in the denny's parking lot he told me it does flicker.... i was so excited hahah. anyways, ill post some pics as soon as i get them.

broken cd changer!!

i think my CD changer finally died on me... it doesn't load any of CD any more. it just cycles through all the CDs. now i have to listen to crappy radio until i find something. ill probably just find something affordable at the moment then upgrade later on next year with a double din. right now i can't buy anything super expensive since i'm focusing on my swap again.