Page 1: Stealthy Pics
Page 2: Current and Future Mods
Page 3: Mod Details
Page 4: Driver of this Beauty
Page 5: The Stealth and a Lotus
Page 6: My Totaled Lude
Page 7: Friend's Rides

First off, those of you who have gone into heavy modifications will laugh at this section. This page will be limited to what my inexperienced wannabe mechanic-ish abilities can accomplish. I am not going to school for auto mechanics or engineering. My car tinkering is a hobby, not my life. Feel free to correct me if you do have the qualifications that I lack.

Now then, let me say that there is simply no substitute for stealth316.com. That site has the most details about anything that you are interested in doing for your 3S car. I hope that the information on these pages will grow as I do more and more for my car. Hopefully, it shall help other 3S owners out as we all learn about our cars.

Rear Speaker Install

This install took more time and effort than my door speakers so I felt that I should have a photo record of the process. I managed to get to my speakers with the help of the information from stealth316.com only to find that my speakers were not the size I thought they were. I had expected the rear speakers to be 6x9's but found instead that they were 6.5's. This was a problem since I had bought Clarion SRR6935's (6x9 three ways) for the install.

However, there is nothing the dremel tool cannot fix. I traced an outline of the speaker on a sheet of paper and then cut that out. I then taped the outline to the pod and marked the outline onto it. I then fired up the dremel and cut away.

From there, it was smooth sailing and the completed project looked nicer than I had anticipated.

The 3S Audio Faq has lots of useful info for all your 3S audio needs.

Specialty Cold Air Effect

Another 3S owner showed interest in the rather grand sounding "cold air effect". This mod is intended to give the advantages of having a cold air intake without the possible danger of flooding your intake. The cold air mod is not backed by any dyno tests or anything like that so I can't say if it really has benefited my car. However, there had been a member on 3si that said he had as much as a 20 degree drop. I believe the ratio goes something like for every ten degrees decreased, one more hp is gained. So possibly 2 hp at most. However, it is a very cheap and easy to do mod that cannot possibly hurt performance. So why not? I figure that more air to the intake has to be better even if there aren't major temp differences.

Now that my little disclaimer is out of the way, I'll go on to what I did. I bought 1.25 inch width sump pump hose from Home Depot (an increased size would be better but I was worried about the space that I had available). The hose is that black one that has all those ridges and is used with wet dry vacs and things like that. I then ran the hose from just underneath the fuse box down to one of those holes on the front bumper (my bumper is different from most 3S's so that needs to be taken into account) that are to the left of the fog lights. The hose went alongside the radiator and then twisted to reach the opening. I secured it with zip ties and did last minute adjustments to the length. The top of the hose comes out near my intake filter. You will need to unscrew the black splash pads that connect to your front bumper in order to get the hose positioned properly in the front(or maybe your hands are smaller than mine). The guy on 3si actually ran tubing to his brakes and several other areas in order to keep their temps down.

The red arrows indicate the location of the hose.
Hose from the front of my bumper near the left fog light.

The hose exits very close to the intake filter and is connected to my fuse box.

The hose then runs from underneath the fuse box to the side of the radiator and alongside the coolant reservoir.

Hawk Brake Install

I ordered the Hawk Performance Ceramic Brake Pads after reading good reviews about them from TireRack.com. On a nice Saturday afternoon, I popped my car up and installed them. Here are the resulting pics from an easy install.

Stock

Two bolts hold the caliper onto the rotor. Pop them off and you are ready to replace the pads.

Bolts removed, pads installed.

Comparison between my new and old brake pads. The old ones were very worn compared to my Hawks.

After that, the bedding or burnishing process begins. Hawk recommends 6-10 moderate stops from 30-35 mph. You then go on to make 2-3 hard stops from 40-45 mph. Be ready for the stench because it gets stinky.

End Clutch Install

Note to self, end clutch installation is a pain in the butt. However, for those who are more mechanically inclined than the poor owner of this page, here is the site with all the info you need:

End Clutch Installation Guide

Here is what I would consider to be the highlight of that operation, I hate snap rings.

Leather Conversion

The ugly fuzzy interior of the Stealth clashes with the rest of its slick and fashionable design. I decided to fix that by changing those ugly fuzzy panels to black leather. This was fairly simple for me since my dad can supply me with leather for free and he is knowledgeable about how to go about the process.

These are just bleaa.

I peeled off the fuzziness and decided to mold the leather to the plastic itself. This can be difficult in some areas since there are contours. However, if the job is done slowly and carefully, your results should be good. You should get the basic outline from the stock carpet crap but cut it larger so you can be sure the contours are taken care of.

You should take note of the many flaps that are cut into the material from the previous pic. These allow you to mold the material around the curves of the plastic. Here is what the almost finished product
looked like.

The leather was then sprayed black by my master leather technician dad. The mesh was added as an afterthought since I had some lying around from back when I owned the Lude.

Good luck to everyone with their mods.

Page 1: Stealthy Pics
Page 2: Current and Future Mods
Page 3: Mod Details
Page 4: Driver of this Beauty
Page 5: The Stealth and a Lotus
Page 6: My Totaled Lude
Page 7: Friend's Rides