SIKZUKI

It started when I was just a young bloke and had seen a Suzuki Swift GTI racing on the TV, ever since then I have wanted one. In 1998 I found a 1994 standard block Swift GTI and I just had to have it, one week later I was driving around in my new Swift GTI. My first mods to the car came after about 6 months when I bought 15” alloy mags, I then lowered it and an exhaust followed.

I was always into a bit of music so down the track a stereo was next. I started off with a 12” sub and amp using the standard front speakers, it sounded great (back then). The next stage was when I started to colour code everything, windscreen wipers, dash surround and a couple of small things. Then I met Darryl from Audiocom in Kalgoorlie just after returning from a show in Perth (Perth Auto Salon 1999) with another mate ,Mitch ,who had returned with a Hyundai Excel with 2x 15” subs and 3x 10” subs getting 147db, it was this sound off that started it all.

Darryl and I got together and decided to create an SPL car. We ended up making 2 giant bass boxes and semi built in the car to house 2 x 15” subs, we then made custom doors which had a set of 6x9” reverse mounted on the door ready for the April 2000 Cabin Auto Salon. We took the car down to Perth and we turned a lot of heads, it was definitely worth the trip. When it came to the sound off we couldn’t get any higher than 142db , which was a bit disappointing but we knew there was something wrong. So back to Kal it was. Back in the design shed we pulled out the subs to check them and had realized that only one was running as the other had blown up.

While at the Cabin show I took a bit of time to look at the real show cars and what mods they were doing. After this weekend I was determined to turn my GTI into a show car. I then ordered a body kit from online-performance in Sydney when it arrived I put the car straight into A/Z Panel and paint. I then decided I wanted bigger wheels so I went down to bob Jane T-Marts and bought the only set of chrome wheels in the Goldfields at the time. They are AMG Bladerunners, they set the car right off! By this time the interior was looking pretty plain compared to the rest of the car.

I went down the road to Goldfields upholstery service where Graham and I discussed a few options. We decided on retrimming the seats in blue vinyl , When it was finished it looked totally awesome. My car was coming along nicely all it needed now was some tunes. My mate Darryl got thinking and came up with putting a 12inch sub in the boot using wood and fiberglass to make it look like a volcano, it worked a treat. By this time a year had gone past and the 2001 cabin auto salon was around the corner. We left for Perth on our 1400km round trip on the Friday as the show was on Saturday & Sunday , a few stone chips here and there and presto we were in Perth ready to show and shine.

When we pulled into the show everyone was looking and a few people from the show before commented on how well it was coming on. I was parked in the top half of the show next to a sick looking Suzuki Vitara 4wd, which was the eventual winner of the sexy Suzuki category. I then knew that if I wanted to win I had to do more modifications to my car, its all good though coz I got heaps of ideas from some eastern states cars and some local cars.

When we arrived back in Kalgoorlie it was change time, other than doing engine mods my car was to become a jukebox on wheels. We decided to put more subs in the rear of the swift, consisting of 2 x 10” pioneer subs as well as the12” pioneer sub, we then built 2 more little volcanos the same way as the first one. We then added an alpine monitor, a Sony playstation 1 & 2, 4 channel alpine amplifier and a kicker ZR360 amplifier. We then built custom doors with MDF we put flames on them and made fiberglass door handles & electric window holder.

The system was MAD. I then found out you could get window tint in various colours, I searched everywhere till I found it. It wasn’t cheap but it was effective the next thing to do was to get some graphics on my rig, So I went see mark at sign power where we custom made some flames which faded from pale white to a dark blue which matched the interior to a “T”. I then took the car down on another 1400km trip to Perth auto salon 2001 where my schmick little swift won 2001 MR GTI. The weekend was awesome everyone was stunned in the changes I had done.

Having the flame effect through the whole car my mate Darryl found a subwoofer in America called Audiobahn which had flames cut in the basket and it was full aluminium I had to have it! We then searched everywhere in Australia to find one we had no luck. We knew then we had to get it straight from America, how could we possibly get one, then a friend of ours McMatt said he has a mate (Brett) which flies planes for Qantas.

So we rang him up and asked if he could get one for us on his next trip over, Brett didn’t know exactly what it was we were chasing we just told him to pick up a sub. Brett then rang us from the USA to tell us that the 25kg sub was to heavy for him to put on the push bike he was riding to get it back to the hotel which was about 10km from the shop so he left it there and went back in a cab. Now the sub was coming over the ocean it was time to fully strip the swift one more time.

We ran all new wiring from top to bottom then we removed the back seats entirely to build a 9 cubic feet ported box which fires out from between the front seats. Then a fiberglass mould was made to hide the box and give the speakers optimum exposure for car shows. The sub was then inverted to show the aluminium flame basket. Then using 4inch alloy pipe and 6mm alloy plate we put the amps in a floating type effect. We then got the 3 kicker amplifier covers chrome plated. I then added a couple of push button switches for operating the fuel cap & boot release and another 3 switches, 1 turn on the speakers and the other turn the deck on for shows so we did not leave keys in the car.

Which I put all in the glove box with the sony playstation 2. We then made custom doors using fiberglass and a custom alloy door handle. We also made a aluminium floor and cut the bottom half off the dash out. We then fitted 2 x 5 inch clarion monitors into custom MDF sun visors covered in blue suede. I also put stainless steel bar work in my front bar, airbrushing and clear indicators made from fluro light covers.

The 600.4 is running at 2 ohm stereo running fronts off two channels and the rears of the other two. The 600.1s are strapped together producing a staggering 1500wrms from one channel running at 4 ohm. The amps will run at 2ohm so they are under no stress for show circuit , given these figures and that the box is tuned to 31 hz its amazing that it still produces DBs of 145 plus , Imagine if we tuned the box to the car and rewired the sub , just goes to show how good the Audiobahn sub is, mid one fifties would definitely be possible.
The deck was chosen for its high voltage RCAs and the auxillary input , also it has blue display!!!!! PS2 has been rewired internally to run 12v and permanently mounted. Sunvisors were handmade from MDF and cords run inside A-pillars.
Wires for the sub are concealed inside a stainless pipe at the front of the sub, try find wires bet you cant.
Future plans include aluminium dash board , wide body kit and bigger wheels.