Ultra Mega 18 month long overdue update!!...pg 7

[BonneMe]

DO NOT tell her if you want to talk to her... frankly do not name a car :-P

[zuper8]

yep good advice lol. if you guys are together for a while it would be a funny story to tell her someday. your car looks great! love the subtle things you did with it!

[nos4blood70]

Yeah I don't know how she'll take that. XD

In any case, your car looks amazing. I just polished mine out the other day too.

[th3fr4nchi5e]

I agree, dont tell her! Although, she could get jealous and try harder to compete with the other Gina...

I cant get myself to name my cars. My DD is a Pontiac Vibe so I call them "The Vibe" and "The Riv". I love my cars but they dont stress me out enough to be girls jk

But I really love the recovery you've brought to her. I love before and after pictures of cars that really just need some TLC. Great job

[BonnieBoy08]

LOL! I like the competition angle but will def hold off on breaking the news for some time. She's in radio and I'm listening to her as I type this which makes it even funnier. I've always had a thing for naming cars, ever since seeing Gone in 60 Seconds as a kid. All in all I think its a fitting name and it won't be going anywhere haha. Appreciate the compliments guys, feels soooo good to have a car I can care about again! Still a ways to go, but then again I'm never satisfied. I've always loved the little touches to set things off over something all big and goddy.

[00Beast]

The XM thing is easy. The hardest part is contorting your body into the trunk...

[BonneMe]

Up for a mini meet this weekend boys?

[BonnieBoy08]

I'll be up in St. Cloud for the weekend. If you guys are doing something near there I'd be able to attend maybe.

Anyways, I entered my car on Intense's Car of the Month facebook competition. Take a sec and show the lone Bonneville some love this month lol. Its def. tough competition this month and there's a girl posed up against her G8 in daisy duke shorts and a cut off top, not exactly fair if you ask me. Here's the link...

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater

[BonnieBoy08]

Well, I gave the interior a full detail this weekend. Got around to using the Lexol on the leather and wow...just WOW! What a difference. The color deepened and they are very soft and happy now, most of the little blemishes were minimized and I will never use anything else again. Also took the carpeting out by the back window (not sure what you'd call it) and cleaned it up. It was driving my insane because of all the dust and dead bugs you can never reach with the vacuum back there. That and the bottom 2 inches of glass you can't reach. It was a bit of a PITA but well worth it in the end. My speaker covers had some rust type blemishes in them that were bothering me too. After not cleaning up in hot soap and water I hit them with a shot of black paint...good as new! All carpet in the car was vacuumed and shampooed, it looks amazing. Last night I was driving and took my flip flops off just to take in the plushness of it lol, it was just like a house in there. Also cleaned the windows and dusted everything top to bottom. Took a few pics of the process. Forgot to do an after so I just snapped one here at the office quick.


The back seat: it was dry but has seen a little moisture at some point in its life, cleaned up with a wire brush and some penetrating oil

Back window with carpeting removed

Nasty carpet and speaker covers before shampoo and paint

All put together! Wish I had a better pic, its a night and day difference

Also thought I'd share my detailing arsenal haha

[BonneMe]

I've been using the Wizards wash for a year or so now, it's good stuff I think, reasonably priced.

[crash93ssei]

That car is really coming along well!

[BonnieBoy08]

Haven't been on much the past few days but I'm dropping a few bucks in the 'ole girl on my way home tonight...stay tuned

[nubuilder]

It's Monday morning......where's our update!?!? :D

[BonnieBoy08]

Alright, won't leave you guys hanging any longer. Pic is just with the phone, maybe I'll try and get a better one with my camera on a later date.


Windows are tinted if you haven't figured it out yet :p 35%

[BonnieBoy08]

I had haro run the autocheck on my car today. Kind of cool to see her roots. Car originated in NJ and was driven off the dealer lot as a lease. After that it was sold at the dealer and tranfered to MD somewhere if I remember right (left the papers on my desk at work). About 8 months after the new owner took over it was totaled and sat in an auction lot for 2 years. (yes, it appears to be 2 years!) It was finally bought in Maryland and shipped the Big Lake, MN to another auction lot where the guy I bought it from purchased and fixed. It only had 21k on it at this time. A lot of you probably don't know this but yes, my car has a salvage title. I knew this when I bought it and got a lot of car for the money. When the previous owner took it in he fixed her up right and had all documentation and pictures before damage was fixed. A whole new rear clip was put on the car. (basically everything from back seat to rear was brand new in '08. Then he drove the hell out of it for 60k miles and sold it to me. Now you know the history of Gina and her rough start in life haha. Car is in good hands now and I'm hoping she lives for MANY more miles to come!

[BonnieBoy08]

I tried out the claybar treatment today, I was curious and had to do it. It was a weird and interesting process but I guess I'm happy with the results and it did appear to take some contaminants off the surface. I'm more satisfied with what a hand polish does but will use what's left of my kit until it runs out. I used the Meguiar's one, it wasn't very expensive at all and came with a very nice microfiber towel. Changed the oil and polished my rims again. Ordered some PCB stickers in chrome last week and put those on today as well, they look awesome. OH, I also painted the calipers today, another project that's been on my list for awhile. Let me know what you guys think! Here's a few pics...
I also have the chrome pillars to put on yet and will post an update when I do so next weekend.



New stickers and rear caliper shot

Front caliper

[BonnieBoy08]

Been awhile since i did an update. Almost ran out of gas last week...18.72 gallons in the tank! These cars really get decent fuel mileage on the highway, I'd love to drive cross country someday to see if i could really pull 500 miles off one tank!


Oh and btw....Saturday morning can't come soon enough!!! :D

Thanks to the member on here that posted these exhaust tips from cummins performance, can't wait to get them on! And a downpipe has been on my list for a long time and is my first true performance mod on the car, I figured it was a good place to start! My buddy does exhaust work and we are going to tackle the project this weekend. I will be sure and post some pics after. I should have higher priorities on the car but just can't resist holding off on the mod bug anymore. Hopefully this will scratch the itch for awhile!

[PaulyGXP]

I've achieved the 500 mile mark in the GXP. If I remember right the DIC said 26.6mpg at fill up. This was all highway miles, on 55-65 mph roads. I could have gone a bit further, but that would have got a little to edgy. Therefore, there is no reason your SSEI couldn't make 500 miles on a tank. On an average tank I get just over 400 miles, usually between 21-23 mpg.

You've got a nice looking car! Very tasteful mods as well.

[BonnieBoy08]

Got my downpipe and exhaust tips installed this weekend! The bends on the stock one are pretty hideous. I’m pleased with the downpipe and the tips look great! The downpipe definitely opened things up and it sounds like a wind tunnel under the center console now. Power difference is noticeable I guess but nothing super drastic.

Few things I was wondering if anyone else has ran into:
-O2 emulator worked great and seems to tuck in perfectly inside the heatshield, is this where everybody puts theirs or is there a better location?
-Also, I was under the impression it went where the stock O2 went but it just plugs in the wire. Its stupid ZZP even gives the option of adding a bung on the pipe knowing full well you can’t use it, so I spent $8 on a hole only to weld it shut.
-The pipe is about 3” shorter than needed if you want to cut off the stock O2 bung, so I needed to add a piece. Luckily this was easily fixable with my buddy’s supply of pipe and a pipe expander, most people don’t have that stuff just laying around though so not an easy DIY project for the average home garage.
-At first the top of the pipe was crushing against the center heat shield but we fixed it by shimming up my hockey puck mount to tilt the engine back slightly. There’s only about 1/8” clearance but it should work. Anyone else ever run into this? Do I run any risk by tilting the engine too far one way or another?

Once that was done it was onto the tips…
They are pretty long and when my exhaust was redone after the collision I don’t think it matched factory perfectly, the pipe made an awkward tight bend after the mufflers to center the stock tips. We thought we would have to redo the exhaust from the “Y” back but were able to wrestle the mufflers out of the hangers and put a ratchet strap around both mufflers to bring them in, we did more fine tuning with a large bar clamp. Each muffler had to come to the center of the car 2-3 inches I bet! Once that was done we could use a pretty close to straight pipe to make the tips work. There’s a lot of “weight” back there and everything is kinda pulled every which way to make them straight and centered but we made up some new ½” rod hangers to weld on and hold everything in place. They are pretty *dang* close and you have to really look at them to notice they are not perfectly centered and not identical height.

We started at 9:30 and had it done by 2:00 so wasn’t bad considering the setbacks. Just in time to head into town and grab a burger. The muffler straightening took a couple beers but we got the job done! The exhaust has a nice little rumble note now too, a lot more flow coming thru them pipes!

Here are a couple pics. I will get some more this weekend after I do my “fall season” full detail of the car.

[00Beast]

O2 bung is to re-use the stock O2 sensor...

There weren't any issues installing the new DP on my 03 a couple years ago, it fit right in. I also had a high-flow cat installed, just to be somewhat legal, and the exhaust guy had it all welded in in less than an hour. Made it 3" right back to the stock resonator, and necked down right into it.