Names Liam

[Alemenara]

Hi all, so i bought a 95 BA Astina in march, did a DIY repair on my horn today and ended up stumbling on this site trying to come up with ideas to fix it. So i decided to sign up :-)

So I'm completely useless mechanically and i'd like to learn more. My 323 is completely stock & mechanically it's awesome, but the body needs a little work & paint, interior is still good though. I have a few mods that i'd like to do over time (i'll list them below), but heres some photos of what its like right now. Excuse the dust, the car has been sitting in once place since march as i've had other financial commitments that i've had to put first... but thats changing now








The passenger side front door... paint peeling away


Above the drivers side rear door... big paint scratch


The roof of the car, need to fix that sometime soon..


So what i have in mind for the car...

1) Install a new stereo

2) A respray of the roof, bonnet and front doors, fix the blemishes in the body, paint the door handles body colour and a good cut & polish on the rest.

3) New wheels and rubber, don't know what kind of wheels i want yet though.

4) HID Headlights, possibly replacement tail lights.

5) New exaust, was thinking to put on a bigger downpipe and a cannon as i plan to turbo charge later on.

6) re-trim the interior, the seats in leather, possibly wrap the dash & doors in carbon fibre or find black replacement door pulls & just wrap the dash in carbon fibre, i dont much like the teal green.


What do you guys think?

[JDM323]

have you considered re-spraying the lot as you already have peeling clear on half the car it would be disappointing to paint half then have clear start to peel elsewhere afterwards.
full spray also means no problems matching faded existing paint.
with the hid's have you thought about replacing the existing projectors with dedicated hid projectors.
http://www.theretrofitsource.com/index.php?cPath=25 or http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/forum.php? will be worth checking out, i did mine and will never run plug+play hid's or halogens again.
ps welcome to astinagt.

[Mad Mat]

welcome to the club mate

got a nice looking ba there.. needs some tlc but thats what project cars are all about

BA's RULE

[Alemenara]

Originally Posted by shaley323

have you considered re-spraying the lot as you already have peeling clear on half the car it would be disappointing to paint half then have clear start to peel elsewhere afterwards.
full spray also means no problems matching faded existing paint.
ps welcome to astinagt.
with the hid's have you thought about replacing the existing projectors with dedicated hid projectors.
http://www.theretrofitsource.com/index.php?cPath=25 or http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/forum.php? will be worth checking out, i did mine and will never run plug+play hid's or halogens again.

I have considered respraying the entire car, but i have no idea how much that would cost.... I was thinking to have 2 panels and some touch ups to the doors done it would cost $500-$600 but $2000 or so for the entire car, but i really wouldn't know for sure without getting a quote. If i was to respray the entire car i'd go with the gunmetal grey colour as i like that better.

To be honest i really don't know that much about cars, i couldnt tell you how to even replace a light bulb in my headlights... I know a little but not alot. So i guess i'm here to learn, which type of HID/Projector would you recommend?

Was also thinking of maybe pulling the seats from a Mazda 3 or an RX-8 (if they'd fit) and having the rear seats re-upholstered to match, what do you think about that?

Also thanks matt, yeah i love the astina, i've wanted one for a few years but never seen a good one pop up that wasn't too expensive or had far too many problems to be worth buying/saving.

[marcs_sp20]

Welcome to AGT

[Rupewrecht]

Welcome to AGT!

[Alemenara]

^ Thanks guys

[z100]

Welcome!!

[Ben]

Welcome! Another Sunshine Coasty!

You can save $$$ if you do the prep work of the body yourself. Bog, sand etc. I'm having a crack at doing my 84 Prelude by myself. If im any good at it and it looks decent im more than happy to help you out

[maz sp20]

Welcome

[project.r.racing]

welcome.

thats a $2000 full respray right there. it'll still be $1200-$1500 just to do the problem panels.

[Alemenara]

Originally Posted by Ben

Welcome! Another Sunshine Coasty!

You can save $$$ if you do the prep work of the body yourself. Bog, sand etc. I'm having a crack at doing my 84 Prelude by myself. If im any good at it and it looks decent im more than happy to help you out

I might just have to take you up on that offer sometime, it'd be cool to meet someone new & i've always wanted to learn how to do that kinda stuff. What end of the coast are you on anyways?

Originally Posted by project.r.racing

welcome.

thats a $2000 full respray right there. it'll still be $1200-$1500 just to do the problem panels.

If thats the case i'd end up getting the whole car done, I'll probably go with the gunmetal grey in that case. I just need to work out how much its gonna cost me and find out who does good work in my area.

If i get the whole car done, i should probably get a new front bar since i don't like the one thats on it at the moment and have it painted at the same time.

[mikey_something]

If you're looking for quick light upgrades just throw down $50 on eBay and get plug and play HIDs.
Sure, retrofits are leaps and bounds better, but in my eyes, its too much horsing around.

I currently have some tail lights for sale if you wanted to take a look.


And as for carbon fibre dash wrapping, tylerstewart has recently done this and it looks mint
http://astinagt.com/forums/showpost....9&postcount=19

Those few things should keep you busy.
Welcome

[Alemenara]

Will have to look at those tail lights, I guess i'll check out some plug and play HIDs for now and maybe look at getting retrofits later down the track and maybe someone local might be able to help me out

I might have also found a local astina with the same body colour being sold for parts... unfortunately the front is totalled so the hood is no good but the rest of the body is immaculate and the doors have body colour handles and im thinking i might grab the doors from it if the price is reasonable, it might save me a stack of cash repainting it.

[project.r.racing]

Originally Posted by project.r.racing

welcome.

thats a $2000 full respray right there. it'll still be $1200-$1500 just to do the problem panels.

if you wanna change the colour, add another $1K.

if you want grey. you'd be better off seller the green astina for what you paid for it. and buying a grey astina for $3K.

[Ben]

Originally Posted by Alemenara

I might just have to take you up on that offer sometime, it'd be cool to meet someone new & i've always wanted to learn how to do that kinda stuff. What end of the coast are you on anyways?

I'm in between Yandina and coolum. I go up to the meets and greets in Brisbane every now and then, so if you wanna meet the guys in brisbane we can cruise down together etc. Where abouts are you?

[Alemenara]

Originally Posted by Ben

I'm in between Yandina and coolum. I go up to the meets and greets in Brisbane every now and then, so if you wanna meet the guys in brisbane we can cruise down together etc. Where abouts are you?

Up in caloundra