Adam's Red vRS - Car wrote off! Now with pics

[Southy]

Well seen as I have been about on the site for a little while now I thought I would post up my car/project thread.

I used to own an 1980 Modified Austin Mini, I sold this 2 months ago as I was after something more comfortable, larger interior and most importantly more economical.

I ended buying an 06 plate vRS in Red with leather interior, cruise control and CD multi-changer with only 34k on the clock and full service history including a recent cambelt change.

And this was the main reason I wanted one over my Mini, 3 times better on fuel than it...

Not long after buying it I realised it was getting ready for new disc's all round,so earlier this week I set about fitting new ones along with new pads. I've decided for the time being just to stick with STD Mintex items till I have a bit more spare cash to fund uprated items.

At the same time I decided to fit myself a Leon font splitter also.

Will update this thread as I carry out more job's and mods on the car, comments are most welcome.

Edited 3 November, 2012 by Southy

[octimark]

Nice find. Good spec with low mileage. I bet your very ahppy.

Cracking little cars. IMO the most important mod is Jabbas Rear ARB. It will transform the car. Also consider a remap it makes a massive difference to driveability and believe it or not my Shark map gave better mpg

[ianpvrs]

you should have kept the mini as well lol wish i never sold mine everytime i see one on the road...owell lol nice motor and liking the leather

[Southy]

Thanks very much lad's, I didnt wanna get rid of the Mini but I couldn't afford to buy one without selling it. I'm gonna be starting a track mini project next year sometime so I won't be away from them for long lol.

I'm most likely going to remap it and fit a RARB at some point, I need to get the alloys re-done first as they are flaking and I wanna lower it too

[Johnny50]

Looks good

Mini looked fantastic !

[Static]

I love mini's had 2 myself, easy to modify.

Your vrs looks great, like the leather.

[Southy]

Well a small update really, the car is getting an oil and filter change next week.I've just fitted some new Bosch Super Plus wiper blades as the other ones were knackered.

For my birthday the other month I decided to treat myself to a machine polisher, I went for a Meg's G220 v2.

I was very disappointed with the paintwork on some area's of the vRS so set about the other evening trying to sort them out but was quickly defeated due to them being a bit too extreme just to buff out.

After sking around a little bit about the above marks on another site and speaking to the bodyshop fella at my work this afternoon, he said he had never seen anything like that happen before, but he seems to think it's overspray from somewhere as it was only on one side of the car, it was suggested that wet flatting it with 2000's and a block would be the only real way to get rid of the marks in the paintwork.

So this evening I set about wet flatting the bonnet

The car was then given a 3 stage polish.

Proper painter's compound applied with Meg's cutting pad (well whats left of it)

P1 applied with Meg's Polishing pad

Show car glaze applied with Meg's Finishing Pad

And here is the finished result

My aim is over the next few week's is to wet flat the entire car in small sections at a time over the evening's/weekends and buff them back upto showroom shine then I will be happy with how the paintwork looks

[devonutopia]

Nice work. Be careful how much flatting you do as its a very extreme way of getting rid of topcoat. I did it on my mate's MX5 when I borrowed it for a while 18 months ago. It sure does work well with dodgy/cloudy lacquer

[Southy]

Aye I will be taking it nice and easy, there was just no chance of cutting all of those mark's out of the paintwork by using a buffer alone due to how bad that they are. I shall see how the rest of the paintwork come's up first with a cutting pad as the bonnet was the worst affected area.

[vRSsunroof]

Good job on that bonnet mate i love the spare mini engine lying round.

Oh how i miss mine :(

[vRS Joe]

Nice leather, it looks like an aftermarket re-trim to me with the seat base and back being split by stitching.

[Wardy]

Looks a good example there. Shame about the paint, especially after only that amount of mileage!

Seems like it's coming up well though. Like you say, care and consideration, plus patience required when taking that approach

[chrisw880]

Looking good

[Southy]

Right thought I had best update this seen as I hadn't in a while. Not done a massive amount to the car as other things have come before it recently.

The original number plate is back on the car now. I've changed the number plate light bulbs over to LED bulbs.

Before

After

I bought a second hand Alpine headunit off a member off here, I never really fitted it properlly due to waiting for my Ipod cable to turn up and also due to the plastic bit at the back of the cage stopping me from pushing it fully back. I eventually sorted this out and got it fitting correctly.

I finally ordered myself some coilovers for the car, I was never happy with the way the car handled and rolled in standard form and I really thought it let it down. Since fitting these (fitted yesterday) the car feels a lot more planted and flat through the corners and doesn't nose dive and point to the sky when braking and accelerating.

I went for the KW IONX Varient 1 coilovers in the end.

And here is how the car was sitting after they was fitted (forgive the dirtyness of the car it is now clean )

I'm just waiting to borrow a spare set of wheels from someone and I will be painting my std wheels hopefully by the end of next month

Comments most welcome

[Brianpilman]

How did you get the radio all the way in I'm having the same issue with mine (same hu)

[mike07vrs]

Good call on the KW's, recently fitted mine and they are superb. Its worth tweaking them after a couple of weeks once they bed in, found that mine dropped quite significantly after 3 weeks worth of driving.

[TimVRS12]

Looking sweet mate!

Love the leather. Makes me want all black over my two tone cream/black!!

[TorqueXIsXCheap]

very nice car mate, I like the drop too :yes:

[Southy]

How did you get the radio all the way in I'm having the same issue with mine (same hu)

You need to pull the headunit out, and behind the headunit there is a plastic bar which runs up centrally behind it all, you need to cut the plastic out so it's level with the storage tray so it allows more room for the wiring to sit further back

[Southy]

Good call on the KW's, recently fitted mine and they are superb. Its worth tweaking them after a couple of weeks once they bed in, found that mine dropped quite significantly after 3 weeks worth of driving.

I really do rate them already, such a comfy ride still and not bouncing all over the place like on some. I was going to do as you say, give it a week or two and then ajust all of it again so it's sitting right.

Thanks very much everyone else for the comments (how do you do a multi-quote? when I press the button it only does a quote to that reply?

[Southy]

Thought I would update this seen as I haven't for a while, not done a great deal with the car but done a few job's on it.

Just before xmas in Nov I took the offer which Awesome Gti had on there Tdi Re-map's for £150. I had the car on the rolling road at my work before it went. It made 152 bhp and 239 lbf-ft.

After the remap it made 182 bhp and 277 lbf-ft.

After the remap I decided to give the car a well deserved wash a once over with Poor Boy's Black Hole and then finished up with DoDo Juice Orange Crush. At the same time I decided to fit some LED side lights

Last weekend I decided I was fed up with routing around inside the car in the dimly lit interior so have uprated the lights to LED's

STD v's LED

I also have replaced my 'uprated' headlight bulbs with some other uprated one's which are brighter and I'm more pleased with the overall look of them.

Previous uprated bulb

New uprated bulb

A few months ago I fitted a set of JBL speakers in the front door's I was impressed with the improvement but after the sound system I had in my Mini I was missing bass so I decided on monday night to order myself a Vibe BlackAir b12 Bandpass sub. This arrived yesterday afternoon and I fitted it last night, no pic's of us fitting it but all the back seats were out aswell as part of the dash stripped and carpet pulled up lol.

Sub has made a massive difference to the music and makes it feels loads better and I'm happy once again to have some bass in my life : )

I'm thinking about opening up the Sub box and placing some Blue LED's inside the box to light up the sub once it is turned on.

Blue light underneath the Heater control unit is the bass controller and matches well with the HU lights....May have to change my dash to match :p

And that all for now people, I'm looking to change the exhaust and wheels over the next few months so I will be sure to keep you all updated, comments and criticism are welcome.

[kiddy1]

Looks nice pal, don't go crazy with the LED's though... They become overly tacky VERY quickly.

[TimVRS12]

Lovely updates mate! Cat is lookin sweet.

Never been a massive fan of the look of Vibe stuff, looks a little tacky. I'm sure it sounds nice though

[mike07vrs]

Looking good mate, got a link to those headlight bulbs?

[Southy]

Looks nice pal, don't go crazy with the LED's though... They become overly tacky VERY quickly.

Thanks very much, I don't intend on doing anymore now, just needed to brighten up the interior of the car as it's very dark.

Lovely updates mate! Cat is lookin sweet.

Never been a massive fan of the look of Vibe stuff, looks a little tacky. I'm sure it sounds nice though

Thank you, cant wait to do a few more upgrades soon.

I like the Vibe gear, had it in my classic Mini and couldn't fault it as it's good quality for the money.

Looking good mate, got a link to those headlight bulbs?

Cheers, I haven't sorry, I did however buy them from my local A1 Motor Store's but I can't seem to find them on there online site so if there is one local to yourself, worth a look in.