My Gen 4 progress build (pictures overhaul)

[xpeed]

Hey all. Just thought I'd drop in. Some of you guys might know me from Toyotanation but for those that don't, here's a bit about me.

My first camry was a 2005 Gen 5.5 camry LE. Before than, I was driving my 2003 Infiniti FX35, but with the steady increase gas prices, I decided to get the camry. Well, I had it for 4 years, paid it all off and a month later, I ended up totaling the car. Ouch.







Still amazes me how I walked out of that with only a sprained hand and bumped head.

So, I got stuck driving the FX35 again and with the higher prices than before, it hurting me every week ($80+ per fill) and after driving it for a bit over 10 months, I got fed up and went car shopping again. At first, I had my sights on a EJ Civic Si Hatchback but they were hard to find in good condition, let alone not riced/choloed out, so I found a 1997 Camry 5spd in a newspaper ad for $3200. Well I went to check it out, liked how it rode, engine was great, mileage was okay, so I ended up getting it sometime in October 2010. Should of checked it at day because I couldn't see how bad it looked at night till the next morning. Man, it wasn't in great shape so I decided to turn it into a project car/daily driver.

So the problems that I found were:
Heavily oxidized headlights. Very ugly yellow basically.
Missing hubcaps (but I already knew that when I saw it)
Shocks were shot
No carpet mats
Crappy headunit
Cracked door bezels
Blotched up fix-it job on front and back bumpers
Missing door moulding on driver side
Needs new engine mounts
Needs new timing belt
Needs new water pump
Stained seats and carpets
Needs new sparkplugs

Now, pictures.

The next morning when I brought it home.





New tints and hubcaps. Also installed new alarm system with power lock for driver door only.





New OEM carpet mats



Injen SRI and TRD shift knob w/ custom black suede red stitched shift boot




LED bulbs in HVAC controls

before


after


Got the Tokicos and Teins installed. I know it'll sit lower once I get some decent rims on it. The ride is so much better. More responsive too.

Before


After






Restored pillars to piano black

Before/After comparison



Decided to paint the rest of the needles red since they grew on me.



Changed clusters to LEDs


New oil cap and radiator cap




Not shown:
New mudguards
New Denso Iridium sparkplugs
LED Interior dome
LED trunk light
LED reverse lights
LED high mount stop light

That's it for now. Currently I'm painting the TRD front lips so that won't be on till end of the month.

Future:
Work XD-9 17"s rims
OBX Header
Apexi WS2 Exhaust
UR Front Strut tower bar
UR Rear Sway bar
New bumpers
New door moulding
Fidanza Flywheel
Exedy Clutch

[ThurzNite]

That's a very clean interior at least! But how did u miss all the other stuff?! Did you buy it sight-unseen? This sounds like something from TopGear challenge when the producers tell the hosts to buy a car for a challenge and it gets shipped to them, and they don't get a chance to inspect it. Just for kicks, next time, at least bring along Toyota's Certified Pre-Owned checklist. Lemme know if you need it, I'll email you. I think I still have it.

Other things. I love seeing Camry's with manual tranny!!!!
You said you totalled the car. Not that someone else totalled your car. What's the story?
The side-pillars look stunning when 'piano black'. Never seen that before. How'd u do that?
Those headlights look fantastic. Did you just use the 3m headlight stuff?

Congrats and good luck!

Dr J

[ThurzNite]

Here's the CPO checklist. Always have one when picking up a used car. I've used them to help bargain pricing too. It's good to have some support when haggling price.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http ... ection.pdf
Dr J

[xpeed]

That's a very clean interior at least! But how did u miss all the other stuff?! Did you buy it sight-unseen? This sounds like something from TopGear challenge when the producers tell the hosts to buy a car for a challenge and it gets shipped to them, and they don't get a chance to inspect it. Just for kicks, next time, at least bring along Toyota's Certified Pre-Owned checklist. Lemme know if you need it, I'll email you. I think I still have it.

Other things. I love seeing Camry's with manual tranny!!!!
You said you totalled the car. Not that someone else totalled your car. What's the story?
The side-pillars look stunning when 'piano black'. Never seen that before. How'd u do that?
Those headlights look fantastic. Did you just use the 3m headlight stuff?

Congrats and good luck!

Dr J

Thanks! Yeah, believe me, the interior didn't look anything as clean as they do when I first brought it home.

I went to go look at it from the buyer in downtown LA at 6pm. Well, back in October, 6pm was already pretty dark at night and I couldn't see all the stuff inside the car since the interior light blew out and the seller didn't have adequate light outside his business lot. This was through a private seller so it was pretty hard to bargain the guy plus $3200 wasn't too bad for the mileage it had around the area so I just agreed on the price.

The piano black pillars are just those 3M plastic sheets you find on ebay. They're pretty good quality actually for a ebay item. But for the C pillars, I ended up taking out the old part and just put in the new.
I did use that 3M lens restore kit. Works pretty well. Just patience and muscle does the job.


As for my accident. It was back in December 2009. It just rained an hour before and the road was still slick. I was about to enter a blind bend on the road when a raised truck came out and blinded me with his lights. I kind of drove onto the uneven shoulder of the road to give him enough space and next thing I know, my rear wheels started losing traction once I get out of the bend and started fish tailing. Another car was coming my way so I had less than 2 seconds to react, either try to correct the car and risk a head-on collision or just take the hit myself and aim for the dirt embankment on the shoulder of the road. Next thing I know, I swerve towards embankment going sideways, hit a patch of dirt, the car starts flipping, and at the same time yelling, "Oh S**T" and the car stops flipping, ending up on its side. So here I was, dangling sideways, still gripping the wheel, engine still going and started seeing smoke coming out out the car. So I quickly put the car in Park and turn off the engine and took another minute to recollect what just happened.

Next thing I know, cars started pulling to the side of road and people yelling at me if I was okay. I had to climb out of the passenger door and had a hard time since the door was jammed halfway and needed some of the people's help to hold the door open so that I could get out. So, once I got out, I took a look at my car lying sideways. A stream of emotions came out. First was anger because I just finished paying off the car, second, insurance. Third....all that went away and I thanked God for saving me. Everything else after that, I cared less about the car and just glad I was still alive without serious injuries.

Later on I found out that while my car was flipping, the car managed to stay on the shoulder of the road and prevented me from hitting other drivers. So I would consider myself extremely lucky that I didn't get anyone else involved.

[mig0s]

Damn sorry to hear about your gen5. Nice project going on for the gen 4! What did you do to restore the pillars?

[yaddadaimsayin]

dang you cleaned that sucker up! welcome to solaraguy

[ThurzNite]

oh man, glad your ok! these cars are incredible. cand wait to see the next mods!

[parkc96]

Is this new one a 4 cyl or 6? and if its a 4 cyl. then WHERE DID YOU FIND THE INTAKE! i want one! haha

[xpeed]

^ Which new one? My current one is a 4 cylinder 5SFE, and my old camry was a 4 cylinder 2AZ-FE. You can find both find an Injen intake on eBay for $220 new. If you're lucky, like me, you can find a used or even new ones for $140. I got mine for $90 and the guy hardly used it so it's practically new.

[parkc96]

the 97... i have a 2000 LE four cylinder and im lookin for an intake.

[xpeed]

You can find them easily on eBay. They range between $140-$220 depending on the seller.

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?rt=nc&Model ... 86.c0.m282

[parkc96]

sweet thanks man, ive been looking and ive never been able to find anything but the weapon R intake's, i trust injen a lot more... thats the next mod!

[parkc96]

whats the silver thing around the intake on the wrecked one?

[xpeed]

That's the heat shield. I'm going to get one for my current one later on.

[parkc96]

where did you get that at? just injen.com or what?