Last night Ozzy, my ride or die, my best bud, and the goodest boy passed. It was pretty sudden and we still aren't sure the exact cause, perhaps it was complication from a surgery a few weeks ago, or maybe he was older than we thought. But Mrs. Snuze and I were there for his final moments and made sure he was comfortable and he crossed over peacefully. For a stray dog that nobody wanted, he brought a lot of love into our lives, and was well loved in return.

Oppo, hug your fur babies tight for me and treasure your time with them, they are never around long enough.

F$@K YOU, I'M NOT CRAZY, YOU'RE CRAZY!!!

Well, Ive been holding off on sharing this until I knew everything was in order, but I think that time has come, so here we go...

GM is buying the car back from me.

It went in for the final inspection in April, before I went to Bahrain, where a GM engineer allegedly went over the whole car and could find nothing wrong with it. I got it back and immediately noticed something new wrong with it - a developing exhaust leak because it was missing header bolts, which probably traces back to the original engine replacement. I also noticed another issue - only 2 bolts out of about 10 to 12 are holding the undertray on.

I called GM and explained these issues that their engineer didn't catch, further reinforcing my belief that the repair work was shoddy and I have no faith in this vehicle and believe I will continue ro uncover more problems. I had an attorney online and we were planning to go to arbitration, but GM decided to come through with an offer to take the car back. And the best part is, because of Virginias aggressive lemon laws, they will refund 100% less about $200 to adjust for mileage on the car.

So all the paperwork is in place, just waiting on GM to wire the money and give me instructions on which bridge to push this thing off where to turn it in.

I haven't given a replacement much thought yet. I've got a lot going on between this, work travel, and getting ready to change jobs. I figure Ill give it a few months to let the dust settle while I think about it.

A 2021 Chevrolet Camaro SS 1LE in Riverside Blue! That's right, I've joined our very own @Arch-Duke-Maxyenko in going full mullet with one of the baddest Camaros to ever hit the street!

I've wanted a Camaro since I was a kid. Posters of IROC-Zs adorned my walls. It's always been my attainable dream car, and today the dream was attained! It feels so good! Im giddy just thinking about it sitting in my driveway!

If you're not well versed in Camaros, the SS denotes that this car is propelled by the 5th Generation of the legendary Chevrolet Small Block V8 displacing 6.2L and making 455 HP and 455 ft-lbs.

The 1LE is the more interesting bit - the term is an RPO code (how GM internally denotes different options and packages) that originated with the 3rd Gen Camaro. Its a track pack that increases cooling and handling for sever duty use.

In this case it adds a multitude of features including larger radiator, larger oil cooler, trans cooler, and rear diff cooler, 1LE specific springs and sway bars with Magnaride shocks with performance tuning, an electronically controlled torque vectoring differential (eDiff), massive brakes with 6 piston Brembo monobloc calipers up front and 4 pistons out back, special light weight forged wheels, 20x10 up front and 20x11 out back, short throw shifter, Recaro performance bucket seats, and the black wrapped hood, spoiler, and mirrors.

This particular car came with a dealer installed GM Performance Parts front strut tower brace in black.

If you can't tell from my pictures, its a crappy day today so I will get more pictures later, along with a more detailed write up of features, specs, and driving impressions. Suffice to say, it's awesome!

What does that mean? Well, I spend a lot of time at work thinking about "capabilities". Meaning, we don't necessarily say we want to buy "widget A", instead we try to frame things as we want a widget capable of doing "task A" and then look at different solutions and explore the trade space.

What that means for me, personally, is a bit of a shift in thinking. Instead of buying a tool, I think about buying capabilities and all the things I can do with said capability. With that in mind, I had some work I needed done, I reached out to some providers and got some quotes I found unsatisfactory, so I made the call to buy a new capability.

Some of you mentioned in this thread that I spent $170 and a bunch of time to not spend $250. Well be here's the tale of how I spent $400 to not spend $400! With that in mind, lets talk about...

POWDER COATING!

That's right, I'm doing my own powder coating now. For $250 I got a dual voltage gun (important) from Eastwood, along with a "starter kit" that included a stand, high temp tape, silicone plugs (don't google that... or do. I don't kink shame), and 1/2 lb of plain black powder. So I used that as my starting point, and decided I needed a test article before I did my first real job.

I had this crappy old vice that's like half a step below Harbor Freight quality. It worked fine as a vise, but the finish was garbage. So I stripped it down and coated it with that "free" black powder.

Before

After

What I learned is that, like a good paint job, a good powder coating job is 90% prep work. Lots of time spent taking the old finish off, busting rust, cleaning, taping and masking. But it's hard to argue with results.

The main article I wanted to powder coat was a set of Brembo brake calipers off a Volvo S60R that I am going to swap onto my 240. I bought a set on eBay that turned out to be junk. Seriously, I'm pretty sure the car they came off of caught on fire. So I used them as a core to get some rebuilt units that are... adequate. I'm not 100% happy about the quality of them, but they are way better than what I had, but didn't come coated.

I looked around online, and most people have said they got calipers done for ~$50 each. I called several local places and the best quote I got was $400 for all 4, with me doing all the disassembly and reassembly. I knew Hobo Freight had powder coating guns for $100, and down the rabbit hole I went. From what I've seen it's not bad, but the Eastwood gun is better for not too much more money, and with the Christmas deal with the starter kit, it was a no brainer.

Beyond that, I needed a place to spray powder, so I dropped ~$50 on some PVC pipe and plastic sheets and built a little spray booth in my garage. This was the first phase, I am going to trim some things and make it slightly smaller (easier to manage) and them tape up all the plastic sheets into one sheet. But it was great for a first article.

Then I needed an over. You don't want to bake powder coating in an over you're going to cook food in, so I went on FB Marketplace and got a double oven for $100!

The thought here was I can cut the divider between the 2 and have 1 big oven. In reality, it's probably not much more effort to build a new over that, with the same footprint, gives me even more space. But I can at least make sure of the heaters and controller from this oven. I didn't even use the lower oven this time around, so it's still food safe and there's no reason I couldn't make a roast, or delicious chocolate chip cookies in it while I'm powder coating!

Anyways, fat boy desires aside, I did my calipers and I'm rather satisfied with the results. Here are the fronts completed.

Excuse the dings on the right one, as I said I wasn't 100% happy with the remans and I probably should have sent it back, but it's also 100% better than what I had to work it. Speaking of, here's a comparison of color.

The left is the OEM color, and it's lighter, more of a blue-gray, while the Eastwood color I used is more of a brown-gray. I still like it, but now I need to add R logos. I'll just use vinyls, there's a shop in PA that makes them, so I just need to decide on a color.

So now I have the capability to powdercoat anything I want (that fits in my oven). It's a bit of work, lots of prep required, but the end results are hard to argue with.
So what does Oppo think? How did it turn out? What color R graphics should I go for on the Rally Gray?

ETA: I said dual voltage is important and didn't really mention why. The Hobo Freight setup is single voltage @ 12 kV. The Eastwood set can do 10 kV or 25 kV. The higher the voltage, the stronger the attractant force between the powder and test article. So you'd think you want the highest voltage you can get, all the time. But, there's a catch (isn't there always?) High voltages can create eddy currents in tight areas which actually repels the powder. It seems a bit counter-intuitive, but the best way I found to coat was to hose the parts off at higher voltage to lay down max powder on the main surfaces, then switch to the lower voltage and focus on the tighter areas to get better coverage.

... and in my heart.

The Camaro went back to the dealership today to be re-released into the wild. If anyone on here ends up looking at a blue 1SS 1LE, let me know the VIN so you can make sure you don't buy my old headache.

Well Oppo, I done it, I sold the Snuze. It's been a long time coming, almost 3 years in fact, since Camaro 1.0. Those of you from the really old, pre-Kinja Jalopnik days may remeber me as Slobalt, when I drove a basic-b!tch Chevy Cobalt (seriously, it had manual door locks and no cruise control). When it got totaled, I bought my Cruze and decided I needed a new name, so I became the Snuze.

I bought the Cruze brand new in late 2011 as a 2012 MY, and put 174k miles on it in that time. We had a few adventures - we drove from College Park, MD to Detroit, MI on one tank of gas, with 3 passengers & a trunk full of luggage. We chased my buddies NC3 Miata and Mustang 5.0 through the mountain passes of western VA and the Blue Ridge parkway. I pushed it so hard it threw an overheat code and pulled power and I had to sit on the side of the road with the hood up for 30 mins till it cooled down. But damn if we didn't hang (thank you 2x WTCC winning chassis).

We also saw our share of issues - 2x rear bumper replacements, a windshield, a front bumper & headlight after I hit a deer, and whatever I ran over near my old apartment that damaged my exhaust. It also had a new turbo and radiator under warranty, and 4x valve covers because GM decided thats where the PCV should live.

But you know what? I don't mind. It was annoying but the car never caused me any serious grief, never left me stranded. It was a faithful companion for 12 years, through thick and thin. It saw me graduate college, get a job, get married, get a real house with a garage where I could properly work on it, and travel all over the eastern seaboard.

So give your car a hug for me tonight, and pour one out for a true Oppo OG. Long live the Cruze.

That I smacked a deer with the Cruze!
Before:

After:

Drift stitches FTW!

Okay, so the full story is today I went to 2 different LKQ Pick-A-Part yards to look at 3 different black Cruzes. Two of them were RS cars like mine, one was not. The difference is RS cars have fog lights, but it wouldn't be too hard to swap those over, the cutouts are there on base cars and just have flat black vents installed.

First yard had both RS Cruzes, and both were missing bumpers. The second yard had the base car, and in the original pic I saw of it, the front end looked good, but I went to the junkyard and found this:

No better than what I had. I also needed a headlight, and that one was also roached, fortunately there was a red Cruze that gave up its headlight. Its bumper was great, and I had to take it off to get the headlight out, and really contemplated for a second snagging it and throwing it on my car.

My plan is to keep on the lookout for black Cruzes and try to snag a good bumper the next time one shows up. Until then, its drift Cruze time.

Now time for whiskey. I've earned it.

First & foremost, I've had the car for over 6 months and 6,000 miles. I know I owe you all a review. I'll get to it. Eventually. In the meantime, I've done a few small quality of life upgrades - all-weather floor mats, skip-shift eliminator, rock guards, Mishimoto catch-can. I did install a GM Performance Parts strut tower brace, but I had that from Camaro 1.0, so I'm not counting it. Also, according to GM, the chassis is so stiff it's basically doing nothing other than looking good. But it does look good.

But now I've done my first real performance upgrade. The motivation for this upgrade was the fact that I didn't like the off-idle drivability. It wasn't a deal breaker by any means, but annoying enough I wanted to do something about it. I found it very hard to get consistent launches from a stop, it either felt like the car was going to stall, or I had to rev it up way more than I'd thought necessary, and frankly it felt rather inconsistent. I did a little research and this seems to be a common gripe amongst owners, but the community seems to have pinned the issue down to the throttle body.

See, GM, the cost cutting weenies that they are, used a truck throttlebody on the LT1 engine. The problem is that this throttle body has a step in it. Why? I have no idea. But it looks like this:

This picture doesn't make it clear, but in profile, it kind of looks like this:

It's frankly a terrible design and I have no idea in what universe someone thought this was a good idea. My guess is it's the same person who designed the "lifetime" PCV in the Cruze. The "step" around the circumference causes flow disturbances and creates turbulence that will bounce off the throttle blade and mess with flow going into the intake. This could lead to things like un-even mixture between cylinders or possibly hunting as the ECM modulates the DBW throttle trying to find an optimum place for it. Fortunately for GM, the trucks and vans this went on only come with automatic transmissions, where the torque converter soaks up the initial tip in, and there is more flexibility to tune out all of the bad behavior. Sorry Camaro owners, I guess.

Still, I wasn't going to let the bean counters at GM stop me in my quest for off-idle nirvana. I looked into ported throttle bodies, but they were expensive, like $250 for the cheapest one. So then I did what any good redneck with some spare cash and an air compressor would do... I went to eBay! For a mere $60 I picked up a used throttle body, and another $50 netted me a 3/8 die grinder.

What's a die grinder you ask? Well, you know the air drill the dentist uses, the one that goes WHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!?
It's the industrial version of that. So with die grinder, a few different single cut burrs, and my throttle body in hand, I went to work.... and this happened:

Turns out the casting is a little thin in places, and in my quest for laminar flow I got a little too aggressive. Fortunately, throttlebodies are only $60 on eBay, so I ordered up another one.

I learned from my mistakes the second time around and paid more attention to my cutting. I also used some Prussian Blue dye to look for high and low spots, so I could focus my grinding where needed instead of just hogging things out. Once I got it close, and as thin as I dared, I went back and filled all the low spots with JB Weld. Once it was dry I went back, this time with a small 80 grid flap wheel chucked up in the die grinder. The flapper took the JB weld down much faster than the aluminum, allowing me to blend the contours while minimizing the risk of chewing through the metal. I then went back and hand sanded with 150, 200, 320, and finally 400 grit.

Since I knew I was going to have to pull the intake out to get to the throttlebody, I figured I might as well chuck that too and add the GMPP Cold Air System.

The best part is, none of these upgrades alter the actual throttlebody diameter, so peak airflow into the engine is the same, meaning it shouldn't throw a CEL. Can't wait to take it out for a spin tomorrow and see how it works. I'll keep you all informed!

I won my kei truck on 7/13. On 7/26 it was transported to the marshalling yard to get loaded on a RoRo for its journey to America. I am still waiting for that to happen (exporter says it could take up to 2 months). But they did send me some additional pics of it, so I thought I'd share. Enjoy!

I already got a tune up kit (timing belt, water pump, etc.) and plan on doing that and fluids as soon as I get it. The right rear tail light lens is cracked, so I got a new set of lenses and gaskets, too.
It also needs battery box cover - debating between an OEM black plastic one or one of the cool waterjet cut aluminum ones with an Acty logo or rising sun or something on it.
Bonus points to anyone who can translate the key fob.

Back in this topic, 9 of you (33% of voters) said my Acty would ship on the Hoegh St. Petersburg.

You all were correct! I got an email last week (9/21) that a spot was reserved and a digital copy of my Bill of Landing (BOL) on Tuesday which confirms my truck will be loaded.

The ship left Nagoya, my trucks embarkation port, a few hours ago. Tomorrow, she stops in Kawasaki before making full steam towards the Panama Canal. Looking at the map above, as a former sailor, I don't envy the guys trying to navigate all that commercial traffic. At least on the submarine we could usually go under ships.

Now comes the roller coaster of tasking and stress. Its a long voyage across the ocean, about 19-20 days from Japan to the Panama Canal. Theres been a lot of concern about delays at the canal, but I have been told those delays primarily affect the Panamax ships, the RoRos are much smaller and not impacted, so the schedule should hold. But at various points I have to do customs paperwork and such to make sure everything is in order for my trucks arrival and it doesn't get seized and crushed, or sent back to Japan.

The other problem I have is the truck is schedules to offload in Baltimore on 11/10, and Mrs. Snuze and I leave for a 2 week vacation on 11/16, so I have a very narrow window to pick this thing up. Oh and on top of that I have several program reviews at work that week (one if the pinnacle events of the job that we spend all year preparing for).

A few "import veterans" have assured me that if I stay on top of everything I can sail through customs and have my truck a day or two after it unloads and easily thread my scheduling needle. Alternatively, I can work with my carrier up front for port storage until my return. That's good incentive to get the paperwork done, so I've already filed my ISF(10+2), which is the first of about 6,728 documents that will be required in this process. The ISF has to be filed within 48 hours of the ship leaving the embarkation port where your cargo was loaded. Its filed with CBP, basically a heads up that you are going to receive something and they should expect more paperwork. I'm not sure what happens if you don't file in the alloted time... maybe they push your cargo off into the middle of the ocean!?!

I am using a service called Eezy Import to do this. They only charge $10 and everything is handled electronically. You fill out some info like your contact info, the sellers info, what kind of cargo, where it was loaded, and shipper info, most of which is on the BOL. What I like is you can upload the BOL and they will give it a quick once over - in my case they caught a problem with my BOL type (I put House when it should have been Master).

Now I'm working chipping away on other entry forms through their website, but I am waiting on my paperwork package which should be getting air mailed to me in the next few days. This includes the final BOL, original export certificate, officially translated copy of the export certificate, marine insurance certificate, etc.

So far the process has been a little stressful because its all new, but overall its not bad. There are tons of great resources online to help understand the process and fill out paperwork. I'll keep Oppo updated as more stuff happens.

@Taylor-Martin This is great news! Can't wait to see Fargo run in person!

@Rusty-Vandura said in New EV World Record: 0-100KPH in 0.956 seconds and 12.3m:

Rusty would do that: 0-60 in 95.6 seconds...

Reminds me of my first vehicle, an S10 truck. I always said it would "go 0-60... sometimes!"

@davesaddiction This is tough since I'm currently in a good place vehicularly. Ive been in a bit of a JDM phase, given the imminent Acty. An S2000 would make the list, or a Honda Beat! I also might try to import a Lada Niva from europe. But its gonna be something weird!

@davesaddiction I love it!

I've thought about doing them in a bright, wild color, and doing something crazy with the truck to match. That would be a good one to do.

Or, maybe I go a little crazier with a Jazz theme like this:

@nth256 said in Kei Truck Wheels Are Here!:

@Snuze Sounds like you should experiment with some plastidip first. That said, I like the turbofan idea! Get weird with it!

I've done Plastidip in the past. Its a great way to experiment with wheel colors before committing. I may do that as a stopgap until I build some turbofan covers. And you better believe they will have some crazy vinyl overlays!

@CarsOfFortLangley That is awesome! When I was a wee lad like KOFL, my dad would randomly stop by the local airport on our way into/out of town sometimes. Also, as a special treat, sometimes we'd go have breakfast at the little cafe at the airport. Between that and my grandfather talking about flying in the Army Air Corps (he was a B-29 flight instructor during WWII), I was hooked on planes growing up and dreamed of being a pilot... which somehow led me to a submarine. But that's basically an underwater airplane... sort of.

Point being, I think its great that you're taking KOFL out to do things like that. You never know what kind of stuff, now matter how small it seems, will leave a lasting mark.

@Roadkilled
I fail to see the problem with this.

Thanks @HoustonRunner for giving me these BMW Bottlecaps for the meager sum of Free-fiddy. No seriously, he gave me the wheels, I just paid for shipping.

This wasn't the direction I originally planned on going, but (nearly) free is free and they should be a perfect fit! They are the right bolt pattern (4x100) and even use the same M12x1.5mm 60 deg. lugs. I found a guy on the minitruck forums running some vintage Borbets that are same spec (14x6", +35 offset) and they fit perfect once he changed the front springs to 2.5" ID units. (I plan to do this as well. All Actys, including mine, seem to suffer from saggy front ends due to weak factory front springs. Stockers are 188 in/lbs, I'll go to 225 or 250s.)

The tires (195/60R14) are shot, but thats fine, they protected the wheels for shipping and they are a smidge too big anyways. They are about 23.3" tall and 8" wide, and without mods the limits are about 23" and 7.5". With the spring mod mentioned above I should be able to fit 185/60R14 tires (22.7" and 7.3").

So now the question is, what do I do with them? My first thought is strip them and powdercoat the centers gold or bronze or something, and polish the lips.

But then I found this YouTube video. I wanted some crazy JDM style wheels. Dare I? Am I mad enough? Should I make my own Turbo Fans?!?

I might just clean them up and paint them black, and then make some turbofan covers for them, powdercoat those white, and get some sweet vinyls made for them. Thoughts?

@Taylor-Martin Btw, do you need any tools? I have a gas axe (oxy-acetelyne torch), lightning scissors (plasma cutter), and metal glue gun (MIG welder), plus a bunch of random and specialty tools. Let me know and I'll bring what I can (subject to Camaro space limits).