Page Listing
Page 1: Performance
Page 2: Stereo
Page 3: Cosmetic Mods List
Page 4: Random
Page 5: Me
Page 6: Miscellaneous Pics
Page 7: Various Meets

Currently Installed Cosmetic and Other Random Mods
Interior

Gauges Before:

These are NR Auto Accessories white guage face replacements. I really like the visibility of white face guages and the stock guage lighting was fine for me so these were ideal. I just had to pull the needles, remove the stock black guage faces, and then put these white ones in thier place. I haven't decided if I would like reverse glow or indiglo guages but for now these are perfect.
Gauges After:

Gauges at Night:

When I first did the gauges, they looked something like this. As you can see, the warning lights are very difficult to see during the daytime. I used a white out kit that I purchased from eBay that made things look great but didn�t help out practically.

Now, to correct this problem, I purchased a set of indiglo gauges from a different dealer on eBay and with them came these warning panels and as you can see, these panels are completely clear which would make them too bright, especially at night.

To correct this other problem, I wanted to color the panels but I was unsure how until I came across this paint in Wal-Mart which was for painting sun catchers (those plastic things you suction cup to a window and color the light as it passes through). I figured it was worth a try because the paint only costs a couple dollars and I didn�t think that I would really be any worse off than I had been previously.
Red paint added
Blue paint added
Green paint added
Orange paint added (Now before I painted these, I decided to test the paints on a clear piece of plastic and afterwards I came to the conclusion that the yellow paint included in the kit would be too bright so I decided to go with the orange instead)
Allowing the paint to dry (with some electrically aided assistance; complete lack of patience)

A quick look and a comparison

I wanted to test them before I installed them, here is what I came up with
Factory warning panels
My version; not too bad I think

Installed and awaiting the final test

Here I did my best to capture what they looked like and you can compare them from above. I turned as many things on as I could in order to show how visible they were during the day; I think they are much better.


At night

If you remember from above, I decided to go with the orange paint instead of the yellow but my buddy who owns a 94 3000GT VR-4 wanted to go with the yellow instead. So after painting them up for him, I had to see how they looked; in retrospect, I think these came out much better than mine.

Here are my pedals; initially they were stock and now I have replaced them with a set of aluminum ones that say �TWIN TURBO� across the clutch and brake pedals

Yes, I know they are dirty when I took these pics; sorry about that.

Escort Passport 8500 which I purchased before the X50 came out. Now I want to replace it with the Escort Passport 8500 X50.

Here is my Escort Passport ZR-3 Laser Shifter which ties into my Escort Passport 8500.
Here, the front bumper was removed from my car (I did this when I replaced my clutch while I was waiting on the flywheel to be turned)

Here are the front laser shifters.

Here is a zoomed out shot to show how hidden I made the front laser shifters.
Here is a pic of the rear laser shifter.

This is a Donnelly rearview mirror that has a digital compass, external temperature display, map lights, and electronic auto dimming. I bought this to replace the loss of my map lights when I install my custom dome gauge pod from 3KGT Concepts for my Blitz SBC i-D equipment (can be viewed on page 1)
The Donnelly mirror installed and on; not really much to look at but is a huge convience for me.
Here you can see where I mounted the external temperature sensor

Seat Comfort Systems's Carbon Fiber seat heating elements. I am not sure how these qualify as a cosmetic mod but I know they are definantly not a performance mod of any sort. I just can't stand getting into my car in the winter with cold seats, I bought these to remedy the problem.
Here, you can see where I chose to mount the switches for the seat heating elements, all-in-all, I think they look almost stock in this location. However, I was very nervous about cutting holes in my dash; I guess they came out alright.
A close up of the switch.

Here is another of my simple mods to make things easier on myself. Anyhow, when I'm at shows (or just showing the car) I like to show off the doors but I don't like to kill the battery so I decided to put these switches inline with the door switch so that I could trick the car into thinking that the door was actually closed. These will also be a very nice convience when washing the interior of the car while leaving the doors open for vacuuming or whatnot.
Here is a close up, I had to put two switches in for each side because there are actually two wires (one for the door light, the other is for the interior lighting) to each door button and I couldn't find a dual swich. I just decided to keep it simple.
Here is an above view, these are very low profile (standard rocker switches really) but I can just reach down and switch them very easily and they won't get snagged on anything like a toggle switch or a push button.
Doors open, switches open.
Doors open, switches shut.

Exterior

Here are my new rims, Ford Racing�s 1995 Mustang Cobra R (17�x9�) with Kumho Ecsta Supra 712�s (245/45/ZR17 88W) which are �W� speed rated (good up to 168mph)

Here are a couple more pictures with the rims all cleaned up and polished

Front and Rear calipers painted with a little trim on the rotors. I was originally going to paint the center of the rotors black but someone convinced me to go with the red because they said it would look better and draw more attention to the brakes. I'm not sure how it will come out when completely instaled on the car but I decided to give it a chance and if I still don't like it after a while then I will go ahead and change it to black.
Here's a single shot of the front left installed.
Here they are with the wheels on and freshly washed (the car is still a little wet). After having the rotors and calipers back on the car and fully assembled, I think I am happy with the way they came out. The red draws some attention to the wheel area but it really makes the "R" on the Cobra R rims stand out and I think that I like that effect; it's subtle but noticably different.
Front left again:

Front Right:
Quick shot of the rear:

VLS door conversion from Import Precision:

Closeups:

Some installed pics

More installed pics but this time its a nice day.

I took these pics at the request of someone who wrote me asking questions about clearance when getting in and out of the car so if you have the same questions then these might help. Also, I would like to add that the out-motion of the door is adjustable so if you are bigger than I am (which doesn't take much) you can adjust how much shoulder clearance you need.
These two are shown with the plane between the door and the car in the center to give an estimate of how far open the door is.
This is basically a close up of the picture above but in this picture you can see why the door has to open as far as it does to clear the A-pillar.
The same goes for this pic but this time I took it from a lower angle to try and focus more on where the plane runs along the car by including the turn signal housing in the pic.
In this picture, I am demonstrating that if the door is left in OEM mode that there is plenty of clearance for anyone to get in and out of the car. The door is not fully open in this pic but that is only to prevent hitting the wall; you can compare this one with the pics above to get an idea of how much further it opens.
Here, I am standing between the car and the door to give a scale to the distance between the car and the door when opened.

I decided to try and get another one from the rear because it seemed almost as if the door is in the way on the other two because I am so short.
Here is a close up of the switching mechanism that limits how far the door opens, therefore, selecting between VLS and OEM modes.
Here is a close up of the same switch in OEM mode; I am holding the door up from opening fully while lifted in VLS mode. Basically, you can lift the door at anytime but if you do not have the switch selected to the VLS limit then when the door opens fully while being up it will hit the fender, which of course is bad.

After some adjusting, I have made it so that the doors do not have to swing as far out before going up which gives them a much more vertical look; it's not straight up but it also isn't at a forty-five degree angle like it seemed to be before.

Engine

Here is my engine bay shortly after I first bought the car and obviously before I did any modifications (with the exception of the sparkplug cover, that was my first aftermarket modification).

Here are some pics after I installed the following cosmetic mods:
1) Polished upper intake plenum
2) Gloss black painted lower intake plenum (looking to do powder coat in the future)
3) Polished fuel rails
4) Polished rear valve cover
5) Gloss black painted front valve cover (also looking to do powder coat)

I like the look of the gloss black because I think that the engine bay will look too bleached with all polished or chrome parts under the hood, especially with a silver car.

Powdercoating done by Innovative Performance Solutions (IPS Motorsports) .

I am not sure if you can tell the diffrence between the painted valve cover I had on the car (pic above) or this one here with the powder coated one but I think it looks much better in person. I decided to keep the polished upper intake plenum on the car instead of putting my powder coated one on; with the chrome piping, the powder coated one just didn't look right in my opinion.

Here was the most recent engine bay pic sometime ago, it was taken 10 Dec 04.

I recently replaced my stock catback with a new one, what a tremendous difference between the two. This pic here is of the new one.
Here is a before shot of the old exhuast.

ek2Mfg Fuel Injector Wiring Harness Cover.

EK2 Manufacturing Fuel Injector Wiring Harness Connector Cover. This was a gift from EK2 himself from when I went out to the barbacue he hosted in Arlington, WA (pics can be seen on page 7).

Auto Meter electric fuel pressure guage. This will probably not be permenantly installed anywhere because I don't like to have guages all over the place. Basically, once I get the fuel system setup and operating at 30-35psi I will unplug the guage and leave the sending unit intact for future trouble shooting. At least that is the proposed idea.

Samco Sport Silicone coolant hoses.

Black anodized aluminum dash defrost vents from 3kgt Concepts. I bought these to replace my stock cracking defrost vents.

Upcoming Cosmetic Mods

Steel upper and lower (2 piece) radiator pipes. The upper is polished but the lower is unfinished so I'm going to have to clean it up a bit if I decide to put it on. Part of me still wants to go with a black silicone lower instead of the steel one. However, the polished upper is definantly going to be going on.

Fiberglass 575 hood from Deft Racing. The small "light" patch is actually a small silver carbon fiber patch that was weaved into the hood; the reason it's there is because I will be putting a Deft Racing logo into the hood and I will use that portion to produce thier logo when it is painted (this was done by special request and is not a normal feature they add). I know it doesn't sound like much now but in the end it will actually be an interesting feature. This hood features a functional scoop that directs air over to the right side of the car directly above the air filter, therefore, forcing colder air right into the air intake. Additionally, it has the option of directing air over the rear turbo to flush heat out of the back of the engine bay to sort of circulate cooler air through the engine compartment.
The name of the hood, "575," derives from the scoop which is actually a Ferrari 575 Maranello style scoop that was blended into the OEM hood pattern and took nearly a year of development. This hood is available in fiberglass as well as your choice of seven colors of carbon fiber for any 3000GT or Stealth model and is approximately 35lbs lighter than the stock hood. If you like the look of it, be sure to check out Deft Racing's website by clicking this LINK and searching through all the available colors and pictures of cars featuring this hood as well as several other designs that Deft Racing has to offer. All Deft Racing hoods are hand crafted here in the US from top quality materials, you just can't go wrong with a hood from Deft Racing; if you like what you see, just make sure you tell them I sent you and they'll take care of you.

Mr. Gasket flush mount locking hood pins for my Deft Racing 575 hood.

'99 3000GT Headlights. Part of the complete '99 front end conversion I am doing.

'99 3000GT turn signals (corner lamps). Part of the complete '99 front end conversion I am doing.
I HAVE THE '99 FRONT BUMPER, I JUST HAVE TO GET SOME PICS UP FOR ALL TO SEE.

Engine bay dress up kit from Ultimate Performance.

Defi Basis Heads Up Display (HUD). I bought this purely because I thought they were kind of neat. I have not figured out how this is going to be mounted but I've met a few people who have these and love them so I am looking forward to getting it installed. This is the basic unit, it will pretty much only display MPH (or Kmph), RPM, and peak MPH.

Polished Throttle Body Housing. I have learned that since this is an N/A throttle body housing that it is smaller than my TT throttle body. So, after all my waiting, it looks like this is not going to work even though I really wanted it to go onto the car.