Car things for Oppo

[Bylan - Hoarder of LS400's]

Time to settle into the new Oppo home. I christen it with car projects!
First up is my 98 LS; I put some BC Racing coilovers under it a few weeks ago with the help of a friend.

Went pretty smoothly. Only had 1 seized bolt in the right rear shock eyelet. I've got the ride height set nice and safe, about 2" lower than stock. The ride is fantastic, not jarring and it feels very controlled. Spirited driving is reasonably fun now, for a big luxury sedan, and wheels and tires will help a lot too.
I also put down Killmat sound deadening on the rear parcel shelf and under the rear seat, since I had the seat out anyway, just to quiet things down a little more.

I have attempted Vinyl wrapping my 18" LS430 wheels, which at first glance went great but I really need to get each wheel face perfectly smooth and free of defects, as well as do a few practice tries. Vinyl is expensive and rather unforgiving. I will likely end up getting these powder coated. That'll be a spring project and Blizzak snow tires will go on the current Chrome 16s for the upcoming snow season in the Chicagoland area.

I'd attach a pic of the wrapped wheel but I get an error "Unsupported file type" when I try. Both pics are regular .jpg's?
I also tackled a radiator replacement on my brothers 2004 Volvo S60R over the course of yesterday and today.

Took a good 9 hours, but there were some parts runs and cold weather involved. Broke the oil fill dipstick and one of the 2 transmission cooler feed line Retainer clips. Hose clamps are better than retainer clips, Volvo is dumb for that. Also its an engineering feat that Volvo fit the intercooler, condenser, and radiator all in a big sandwich in front of this engine. Nightmare for accessibility.

I've been on a quarantine from work for about 10 days because I came in contact with someone confirmed Covid Positive. I got tested myself 3 days after being in contact with them, tested Negative and have felt fine. I've quarantined to my house and have been sanitizing all over the house just in case. I believe I had Covid back in March, a sickness went around my work that lasted over a month. So 2 weeks of paid time off has meant car projects and some foolish internet spending.

Huge thanks to everyone who has made/is making The Hyphen a new home! Hope everyone is staying safe and getting on to the next project!

Bonus pics of cool old Taiwanese? Plane parked at a nearby small airfield:

[Nauraushaun]

Nice that front end shot is nice.
The banter about kinja and whatnot is good, but the car content is what hyphen needs

[jminer]

@bylan-hoarder-of-ls400-s Nice work on the projects, and also love that last plane!

[Bylan - Hoarder of LS400's]

@jminer Thanks! I have a few more projects underway, didn't want this to be too lengthy. The plane was awesome, still had tons of controls and gauges inside it.
Thanks for building up this site! And to the others who helped, it's working well so far!

[Shop-Teacher]

This is good Oppo!

[sony1492]

@bylan-hoarder-of-ls400-s Be careful with the coilovers, it can be easy to get stuck in really stupid places if one of your rear wheels lifts off the ground.

May or may not have gotten stuck once in the driveway to a Carl's Jr.

[Urambo Tauro]

Dang, It's usually Chrysler products that I see broken dipstick handles on...

[derp]

The LS looks good at that height.

[Bylan - Hoarder of LS400's]

@shop-teacher thanks!

[Bylan - Hoarder of LS400's]

@sony1492 The significantly stiffer ride has exacerbated the need for a limited slip diff. If that was an easy mod I'd be doing it right now lol hopefully snow tires and not being super low will work out okay

[Bylan - Hoarder of LS400's]

@urambo-tauro the handle only broke because I leaned against it trying to pry the radiator out. It was very brittle though

[Bylan - Hoarder of LS400's]

@derpwagon I like a nice even wheel gap, not much into tire or rim tucking. Also i need it to be drive able, but it'll probably get lowered a little bit more down the road

[sony1492]

@bylan-hoarder-of-ls400-s said in Car things for Oppo:

@sony1492 The significantly stiffer ride has exacerbated the need for a limited slip diff. If that was an easy mod I'd be doing it right now lol hopefully snow tires and not being super low will work out okay

Should be okay if you've got a bunch of droop