Holiday Twin Update! (Patreon)

Happy New Year to all you absolute legends that have supported me throughout the year!I'm enjoy a nice little forced break while I wait for all the businesses to open back up so I can get back to ordering supplies, but figured I'd bring you along with what I've been doing for fun the past few days which includes some new additions to everyone's favorite little Suzuki.So the last round of Twin mods was all about power and brakes, I'll put a huge photo dump of all the photos I took during the last episode at the end of this post. This time we're focusing on the interior as now that we've got the outside sufficiently badass looking, we need to work some magic on the inside as well. But before that, a tiny bit of maintenance. Honestly I don't know if I posted this already, it was AGES ago but the photos are still in my folder.When I bought the car the blower motor was busted and coming into Summer at the time, I had to get that thing swapped out ASAP for my AC to work. At the same time I swapped over the cabin air filter.

I also had a spare bit of electrical tape and wanted to know what the headlights would look like with that classic racecar taped headlight look.

Absolutely sick is the answer. But not sure about the legality since police in most places seem to be particularly strict about obstructing headlights. I took it off, but wanted you guys to at least see the mock up.Now on to the new mods that I've been working on for the past couple days. Lets start with the mood board.

So what I'm going for is actually a look that I've wanted for years. You can see a couple of these interiors are from S13's and that's because these are scraped straight from my "s13 inspiration" folder that I've had since I first picked up my Silvia about 15 years ago now.

The key feeling that I'm trying to capture is that early 00's drift scene look, that whole Y2K era with the bright colours and just super over stimulating look is exactly what I've been feeling this car needs. Avril Lavigne, Emo, Checkered Vans kicks, Domo-kun, that whole vibe.So I put together "The Formula" which is basically me breaking down exactly what it is about these cars that hits, and then taking that formula and applying it to my car to get the exact same mathematical calculation of cool factor.

From the formula, we know that we need the following:

-Bright colours-Aftermarket steering wheel-Checkered floor mats-"Broadway" rear view mirror-Anodized drift handbrake button-JDM crystal gear shifter-Stickers-Accent AC cupholders-Extra gauges-Bucket seatBONUS POINTS:-Quick release hub adapter-Mascot or something hanging from the roof-Something unique

So, if we go back to when we first got it, we'll see that we've actually already started ticking off this list.

This is the interior on day 1 after picking it up:

One of the very first things I did was swap out the steering wheel for an Aliexpress Momo which has honestly held up better than I expected.

We also added my little ghost keychain to hang from the visors. Shortly after that we added the pedal covers that I repurposed from the MR-S

So even before we've really started we can cross off a couple things-Aftermarket steering wheel-Mascot or something hanging from the roof

And now we get to the fun stuff. I found a seller on Amazon making custom floor mats, and so a while back I ordered a pair of purple checkerboard pattern ones. While I was waiting for that I also ordered the Broadway mirror, the drift button, and a crystal gear shifter.The theme for this build is purple, my favorite colour and one that's very hard to find a good use case for.

The mirror arrived first. These mirrors are wider than the originals and convex so they give you much better visibility out and around the car, perfect for racing as you can see cars in your blind spots much easier.

Followed soon after by the drift button. For anyone unfamiliar, a drift button is a button for your handbrake that allows you to remove the spring and ratcheting mechanism from inside of it so it doesn't lock itself in the up position, meaning you can use it to adjust angle while drifting.

You can see the blue button installed here. Of course it was harder than it needed to be as my research told me I needed to get a spin type instead of the older cap type, and while trying to unscrew my original button I ended up snapping the metal rod in half and had to make my own one using a battery tie down rod, my gas stove, a pair of vise grips and a hammer.

Unfortunately the rod was thicker than the original so I had to drill out the threads in the new button and so had to make my own DIY tap to add newer m6 threads to the inside. But after that I got it all working.And so I installed it back in the car along with the floor mats that had arrived.

In this picture you can also see I'd made a start on the shift knob. Using an automatic push knob adapter made by my mate Stan from YouTube Stagea 3D scanning fame, as part of his other business Naughty Knobs. The gear shifter could not have been more perfect. I was able to find a 15cm JDM crystal shifter with purple flowers and glitter. I had to drill out the base and bond it to the adapter with some resin, but once that was done I could get it fitted to the car.The original shift knob had a button on the side that you had to press in order to change gears, obviously the new one doesn't have that and so the adapter actually has the whole shifter sitting on a spring and it presses down in order to change gears. Works absolutely mint.

Two other things you'll see here are the absolutely sick looking LED lighting that I installed under the dash, and the leather gear boot cover that I found and was able to get it to completely hide the original automatic shifter surround, making this look almost exactly like a manual.

My neighbors have just been hearing me laugh nonstop for the past 3 days while I put all of this together, genuinely the most just uncontainable joy a car has ever brought me, and it's by far the stupidest, most pointless stuff I've ever done. If you needed a sign to go do that dumb mod you were thinking about, just do it, honestly we could all do with a little more whimsy in our lives.So that crosses a few more things off the list, getting pretty close now but a couple days ago the big one arrived, now this is what all your Patreon support goes towards. This one wasn't as cheap as some floor mats and a $10 LED strip, this one is actually for the MR-C but since I wont be driving that for a few years I figured I'd buy it early and fit it in the Twin until then.

I bought myself my first bucket seat. And not to brag but it is the best looking bucket seat of all time. A genuine Bride Zeta II.

It's obviously second hand and has seen some use, but that sort of thing doesn't bother me. It's an old seat that's been long since discontinued and so them having a little bit of wear is just the authentic look and to be expected.

I've nerded out hard over seats for this car (the MR-C) and really wanted something that fit the time period and had really nice proportions. Just the lines, the shapes, the proportions, the simplicity, everything about this seat is design perfection. The one thing that isn't perfect is that they clearly weren't designed for 185cm tall, big-shoulder-having-ass white boys. In it's current configuration, it's not exactly a comfortable fit, but I've tested out some extra padding and by making the back cushions a bit thicker it's actually pretty damn comfy. I couldn't resist also recreating the iconic Yahoo auctions photos of when you see someone just chucking these seats in their spare tatami room for the listing photos, just the aura these photos give off haha. So stupid, so awesome.

Honestly to me this seat is like a piece of art. I've wanted one for ages and I'm glad to finally have one. The best part is it's such a perfect seat for all of the cars I like, my MR-C, the Twin, my Silvia. It will fit in anything.To play it safe I did wait until this seat had arrived so I could test fit it and make sure it wasn't too wide or tall (it's not, so we're all good there) and then get measurements before buying the seat rail and side adapters to fit it, so those are still on their way or being manufactured in the case of the rails. So that's where this update will have to end.But if we go back to our checklist we'll see how we're doing:-Bright colours-Aftermarket steering wheel-Checkered floor mats-"Broadway" rear view mirror-Anodized drift handbrake button-JDM crystal gear shifter-Stickers-Accent AC cupholders-Extra gauges-Bucket seatBONUS POINTS:-Quick release hub adapter-Mascot or something hanging from the roof-Something unique (LED light strips)So you can see we're a good way through finishing the interior. I've crossed off the cupholders because I was able to find some sick purple ones last night and I'm getting those shipped out at the moment. Then after that we've got the gauges, which I was actually supposed to be getting in a container with all my other car parts from NZ but honestly we have absolutely no idea how that's even going, we actually asked them to just cancel the shipment so I could have a garage sale back home and just give up and buy all new stuff over here but they haven't even responded to the email. I'll probably just buy myself a nice big obnoxious tachometer and find a way to get that to work.Then stickers should be easy enough but I wasn't sure if I wanted to slap them on the slightly blue interior pieces, or maybe paint all the trim black and then add the stickers.I've got the mascot and the something unique, I don't really need the quick release so that means we're super close. As soon as these seat rails arrive it should be done. Just a quick before and after because I just love looking at this thing:

I love this stupid little car. But that's all I've got for you, so as promiced here's that photo dump from the mods we installed earlier:

Genuinely this car might be too photogenic, how does it look so damn cool in every photo.

Lastly an impromptu photoshoot I did after seeing the beautiful Autumn colours coming through in my back yard. Shoutout to the ba-chan that lived here before me for making such a sick garden. I'm sure she's looking down and smiling at my little garden ornament.