Announcement

**meme405** · 10-09-2014, 12:27 AM

COMPLETE RECAP YEAR 1 OF OWNERSHIP

I bought Brianna on Oct. 4, 2012. She is a 2008 Premium Package FX35, Sapphire Blue on Black Interior. Pictures from the day I bought her:

The mod bug bit me instantly, in the first 2 months I completed the following:

-LED DTRL's
-LED Reverse lights
-Weather Tech Digital Fit Floor Liners (Front, Back and Trunk)
-Deleted my rear windshield wiper
-De-badged the FX35 Logo
-Tinted my rear reflectors and 3rd brake light
-6000K Headlight Bulbs
-6000K HID Fog Lights
-Custom Interior LED kit made specifically for the 1st Gen FX (this also included my license plate lights)
-Wrapped all the interior trim with CF Vinyl

Pictures of the above:

Around Christmas I decided to swap out my stock exhaust for something a little more free flowing and a little less subtle. I purchased the Invidia Gemini Exhaust with Single Layer Titanium tips. The exhaust is a true dual system, and it is one of the only exhausts that is designed specifically for the 1st generation FX35's and 45's (many people just modify G35 and 350z exhausts to fit the FX properly). The exhaust itself sounds great to my ears, some drone at that 2000 RPM level, but nothing serious, and the noise at WOT is nothing short of phenomenal.

Not too long after the exhaust came an intake which really opened up a lot of room in the engine bay, and it sure made a noticeable difference to the sounds coming from the engine bay:

Stock:

After:

New KYB Shocks and Struts, as well as a set of H&R Springs were installed in the spring, and once the car settled and I did the final alignment they lowered the car a total of 1.5" all the way around. The difference is very subtle and most will not be able to pick up on it unless they see the car next to another stock FX or it is pointed out to them.

Around this same time I picked up a set of Sport Taillights, and a set of custom built headlights. The headlights have FX-R Clear lenses, the housing is painted black, and the reflector and turn signal bowl are tinted. I also swapped the location of my turn signal and DTRL. The look of the headlights really transformed the front of the car, and the FX-R lenses really sharpened up my HID's cut-off line and added that blue tinge to the cut-off.

Installing my headlights^^

Finished Product:

Comparison of stock headlights and New ones:

Lighting (both taken with all lights on):

Picked up a set of gunmetal GTR rims from a Nagtroc member. After a search for tires and sourcing I got them mounted:

This pictures is from June 2013.

Specs:

-20x10.5 Rear, Wrapped in 295/45/R20 Hankook Ventus ST RH06
-20x9.5 Front, Wrapped in 265/50/R20 Hankook Ventus ST RH06
-BlackWorks Racing Lug Nuts (Gold)
-H&R 25mm spacers Keep the front wheels flush

Few other minor items were added along the way, such as the OEM Cross Bars, which during the Summer accommodate my Yakima Highroller Bike racks, and during the winter support my Yakima Fatcat 6's. The other item was a Panavise Cell mount which is custom made for the FX.

Wrapping up Year 1:

**meme405** · 10-09-2014, 12:29 AM

COMPLETE RECAP YEAR 2 OF OWNERSHIP

My modding from year 1 continued directly into year 2. I wanted to start working more heavily in the engine bay, my first purchase was a Kinetix V+ Plenum, as well as a lot of Blackworks Racing Fender washers (in gold).

^^Stock Plenum versus the new Kinetix V+ (I had already transferred over my throttle body in this picture, I made sure to clean all the carbon deposits out of my throttle body. That made a world of difference in cold starts and smooth idling).

^^All done, much happier with how it looks. Also the performance gain was noticeable, and that was without even a tune.

I also Plastidipped my front grille black (Was a temporary measure, I will have it professionally painted black soon):

(Excuse the dead bugs, this was after an 1100km road trip. Proof that I do use this car to its full potential. It is a real daily driver.)

I also picked up a dash camera for Brianna:

Hardwired and installed it all the very same day:

Here is another Exhaust Clip for anyone interested in my setup:

2008 FX35 - Invidia Exhaust - YouTube

WINTER 2013/2014

Got those sickkkkk winter wheels on...

I don't normally rock stickers but I had to in this case. You may also notice the vanity plate I picked up (to this day I am still iffy on it).

Picked up a set of sport pedals. Before:

After:

Roof Rack:

Seriously a great winter setup. That is 4 snowboards and a set of skis, inside I have 5 people, and all their gear for a 3 day trip up to Whistler.

In January I started amassing all the parts I would need for the work I wanted to get done before spring/summer. Eventually my apartment ended up looking like a damn Lordco:

Near the end of January after a long and hard deliberation I decided to just go ahead and vinyl wrap the entire car. I approached the boys over at Wrap-Workz and from day 1 I knew these were the guys I wanted to do my car. They are a truly professional outfit, and can handle every job, big or small, simple or complex. The guys came up with a theme and concept for the vehicle, and in light of my love of the original colour of the car we chose to go for Avery Matte Blue Metallic as the colour.

The surgery began shortly thereafter.

The entire car from end to end was pulled apart and wrapped.

I also took the opportunity to purchase and replace every single plastic retainer clip that I have broken or was broken at some point on the vehicle. This includes all the engine bay, moldings, etc. I also replaced a few molding pieces which were no longer fit for duty, and I also stripped and re-did all the double sided tape, to make sure all the parts fitted as perfectly as they did from the factory:

All chrome trim was wrapped gloss black as well.

SPRING 2014

As soon as I had the car back from Wrap-Workz I had a whole lot of parts to go on. The first two parts were the Weapon R Coolant Overflow Reservoir, and the GT-Spec Strut Tower Brace.

The car was then due for a few maintenance items, I ended up doing pretty well every item that is maintenance related items. The list includes:

-Front & Rear Differential Fluid Change
-Transfer Case Fluid Change
-Transmission Drain & Fill
-Oil Change

The car then went in with the boys at Monkey Nutz Racing.

The boys managed to install:

-Unorthodox Racing Underdriven Crank Pulley & Accessory Pulley's
-Gates Racing Belts
-Blue Mishimoto Coolant hoses
-Coolant Flush
-NGK Spark Plugs (#6 Plugs - AKA One Step Colder than stock)
-Polished Timing Cover

They also tucked the main harness loom, and did the Osiris UpRev Tune. They laughed at me when I installed the RareJDM harness cover after they had tucked the Harness.

How the engine bay looked:

Results of the tune:

I made 27 more AWHP and 27 more torques.

Video from Tuning Day on RG's "HeartBreaker" Dyno:

http://vid149.photobucket.com/albums/s52/meme405/VIDEO0017_zps9f170b17.mp4

SUMMER 2014

RHO Plate Bracket:

For anyone wondering RHO is a Vancouver based company, and the guy is totally professional and awesome. He managed to set me up good, even after Stillen really fucked me around with the plate bracket ordeal.

I also got my Rice on a bit:

^It's hilarious how much people love these. All the time and money dumped into this car, and the thing most commented on is a set of $50 puddle lights...

Changed my LED setup a bit here, Autolismo hooked up some 50W Samsung DTRL's and Turn Signals:

And some new Samsung 50W 921 reverse lights:

Old LED's on the right, new on the left:

OEM turn signal on the left, new LED on the right:

I also snagged a set of 3000k HID Fog Light Bulbs, so the current lighting setup:

DSC_0049-3 by meme_405, on Flickr

My Rack setup for biking this summer:

Something most people will never realize:

When I got the car wrapped I actually removed the front antenna and filled the hole where it was supposed to be.

I also did a key hole delete on the drivers door handle:

ADD PICTURE

Just in time for Importfest 2014 I removed my hood liner, and covered the single skin areas with TechFlex's Gold Heat Reflective Foil. It goes well with all the other gold little goodies in my bay:

Then this happened:

Then it quickly came time to close out my 2nd year, but not before I removed her dress shoes, and put on her winter boots on one last time:

And slapped on my custom made decal:

Mandatory Progress Shot:

**meme405** · 10-09-2014, 12:30 AM

COMPLETE RECAP YEAR 3 OF OWNERSHIP

After ending Year 2 back in winter mode. I proceeded to sell my GTR wheels. Which is a decision I still regret but it was something that had to be done, because the running diameter was too tall, and if I didn't get rid of them, I would not have gotten new wheels.

'twas a sad sight to see them go.

But it was definitely onto bigger and better things though, I spent about 6 months gathering all the required pieces for the air suspension. Components which are hard to come by considering the FX is a pretty niche market.

The end result seen above:

-Full Accuair E-Level & i-Level.
-Full JDM Air Runner Bags, struts, and shocks - A kit specifically designed for the FX.

Along with the above I snagged dual 444C ViAir Compressors, and 2 - 3 Gallon aluminum tanks. I approached a small (Hah) Vancouver based company on doing the install, some of you with Cressida's, or big body sedans might know them. SERIAL FUCKING NINE.

Absolutely awesome crew they have, and they did a phenomenal job putting this entire thing together.

Everything in the back fits neatly below the rear false floor where the spare tire used to live.

All polished hardlines, with black chrome AN fittings.

The end result was this:

Still on winter wheels, since its winterish where I live, and I am still waiting on my new wheels. The thing just looks comical like this.

It sits about the same height as a stock sedan would, both sedans in that picture are lowered. My goal was to create an Infiniti wagon, and I think I pretty much succeeded.

For test fitting purposes to get my widths and offsets I had to get some different wheels on there, so I bummed a buddies Advans:

These are only 20's and my wheels will be 22's.

You can see the lean in this picture since the left side has the shorter tires and wheels. My final setup will be in between these two.

For laughs:

I also picked up a new belly pan in anticipation of going even lower:

Unfortunately for me, the belly pan was for an earlier (pre-facelift) FX, and the fit was a little different. So I ended up selling it to a friend and I will be picking up something else instead.

Finally took some pictures of the trunk setup:

-Dual 444c's
-Dual 3 Gallon aluminium tanks
-All polished aluminium hardlines with black chrome AN fittings.

Because of the space taken up by the setup my factory bose sub was displaced. So I figured it was finally time to start working on audio:

Custom Built Wicked CAS enclosure, as well as:

A brand new JL HD750/1 Amp, JL10W6V3, LC2i, and JL Audio Bass Control knob.

I also finally picked up my tires, and I will reveal the wheels:

Wheels are HRE 648R's. Which are somewhat famous in the FX community. They were custom built by HRE for this vehicle, and I am super happy to have them. Tires are Yokohama Parada Spec-X's, in a slight stretch, and a really short profile...

And my home office, which is now a storage room while I wait for spring...

In the mean time I pulled apart my third brake light and properly re-tinted that with all the edges neatly wrapped and tucked:

I also went to clean out my engine bay with some degreaser, which ended up fucking up all the polished bits in my engine bay, despite the fact that it said okay for use on chrome. So now I have to re-polish all the pieces in my engine bay. I give up.

Got my new wheels and tires setup thanks to RS member 91Cord, and TSS:

Wheels are HRE 648R's 22x10 ET22. Tires are Yokohama Parada Spec X 265/30/R22.

On the car:

Bought a custom Grille:

and GTR Paddle shifters:

And custom Stainless steel radio knobs:

Went to NissanFest 2015, Won best SUV/Truck Class:

Installed my paddle shifters:

Car was broken into Saturday May 23, 2015. Luckily nothing much was stolen out of the vehicle. Damage to the vehicle was limited, but still very frustrating:

Unbelievably upsetting experience for me, as there is a lot of people's effort and time in this vehicle as well as my own money, and I **** to see that wrecked by some inconsiderate low life asshole. People who fuck with other people's things deserve to have very bad things happen to them.

Also got a rock chip around that time as well:

Eventually I got the car repaired, and my brakes came right in time:

Comparing Rear Rotors:

Rear on the car:

Front on the car:

Brakes are Kido 8 Pot front calipers, 6 pot rear. 15" 2 piece rotors all the way around. Brake lines were upgraded to stainless steel lines, and I used ATE SuperBlue Fluid.

Grille received a new gloss black paint job:

Now I am just waiting to get my new front bumper to mount it up.

In the mean time I also received some custom polished coil pack covers from baid polish, as well as some custom built and chromed Coolant pipes.

I also received my Custom Raw Aluminum Belly pan from TBW, as well as my NRG polished Hood struts.

Summer 2015

Been slacking with the updates a bit.

I was lucky enough to be selected as Top100 at Stancewars, which was a big deal to me. The event was everything it is every year, well planned, ridiculously well excecuted, and an overall excellent time all round. Myself and the Guys from NIClub drove down Friday afternoon with kids and family in tow, checked into our hotels and partied it up all weekend. More bro's joined us in time for the event on Saturday, and both saturday and sunday were awesome. Can't say thanks enough to everyone in NIClub.

^Courtesy of Akinari

I registered for HIN here in Vancouver, so I made a goal to finish some of the outstanding things on my car. The biggest of which being the rear false floor.

Got a piece of plywood, and finally after a lot of fucking fettling with it, I got something which looked good.

Wrapped it in Carpet:

Now the carpet matches a lot better in person, on camera it looks really different. Either way, this is all kinda temporary. The floor will be redone with plexiglass and stuff later on.

If anyone is wondering wrapping even a floor isn't easy:

Thanks to both my Mom and Dad on this one, they both helped with the project, which was actually really hilarious. :lawl:

A shot taken by BJCPhotography of my rear setup:

:toot:

HIN overall was a great show, I parked with Shoei and the Gang at Revscene, which is always good fun. Unfortunately do to some politics and bullshit, we were positioned in a crap location, and I believe for that reason my car did not get a fair shake for awards. The award instead went to some surrey jack avalanche which in my opinion didn't hold a candle to my car.

In the end, it doesn't really matter, this car wasn't built to win some $20 plastic trophy. I'm not gonna hurt over it, just gonna keep working away building something I want. I'm not gonna toss 12 TV's in my car, and ruin the fucking thing just to win shows. That's not what it's about for me.

With that said here is a picture of my car from HIN with Maryan (@maryanlilylee) who was nice enough to pose for a minute with my car:

Got into contact late in the summer with a casting guy for local TV shows and movies, my car ended up being used on Season 1 Episode 4 of the Fox TV show Lucifer. The car was on set for a total of 3 days, my car was one of three being utilized by the "baddies" in that episode; some sort of Latin street gang.

Quick shot they probably wouldn't want me posting from set (meh fuck it):

Overall it was pretty cool to be involved with something like this, and getting to see what goes on is quite fun. The food on set was also well worth it... :fullofwin:

If anyone is interested you can check out Season 1 Episode 4 of Lucifer as that is the one my car is involved in. I just watched the pilot episode myself, and the show actually looks pretty cool. It is on Fox though, so it will probably get cancelled.... :lawl:

During Filming my headlights had a bit of an incident with some tinting film:

This was resolved promptly and the company paid for the damages and all was resolved smoothly with no issues on their end.

So I ended up getting some new headlights built, again with blacked out insides, Turnsignal swaps, clear lens mod, tinted reflectors, etc.

While waiting for my headlights to arrive I finally wired in my paddle shifters:

Which now look like this:

This mod really fucked with me, I ended up needing like three different clock springs and BS to make this work. Fuck. Oh well they work now and are sweet.

While doing that I also installed my JL Bass control knob:

And also wired in the dimmer switch for the e-level touchpad, so when I turn on my headlights the touchpad automatically dims to night mode (so the bright lights don't annoy you). Looks and feels totally OEM now.

Finally received the pieces I required to re-do my entire front end:

^Bumper with my newly painted custom badgeless grille mocked up. Bumper is an ultra rare Rookie non-widebody bumper, based on the G35 KurumaZ bumper.

Got that thing wrapped after an agonizing wait, and mounted everything up, including my new headlights:

I'm pretty stoked on the look, except I really need either new wheels, or otherwise need to do something with the wheels. The front Fitment is no-bueno, and the rear I want something more aggressive. We shall see.

For now that pretty much wraps up Year 3 of owning this car. No winter mode this year, as I have other vehicles and I intend on just parking the thing. No need to beat it up driving it around in shit weather, that's why I have a work truck.

Mandatory Progress Shot:

ADD PICTURE

**meme405** · 10-09-2014, 12:30 AM

UP TO DATE NEWS ON YEAR 4 OF OWNERSHIP

Slow start to the modding this year. Been super busy with work (I'd like to say with life, but really I just work, so it's not really a life). I also bought a house, which anyone who lives in Vancouver will tell you is a major drain on any sort of funds. This is especially problematic since my next 3 areas of major work, Engine, Body and Interior, are all extremely expensive.

With that said, there was minor mods and slight changes that I wanted to make to previously done things, and the winter break, and downtime gave me a good opportunity to try and get some of these done.

First things first, the episode of Lucifer which my car was on aired February 22, 2016. Couple Screen caps:

Pretty cool, although my car was in the back mostly, and the shooting happened before I made a lot of changes to the front end of the car, so it looks completely different now. That's how it goes though, anyone who wants to check out the episode, it's called "Sweet Kicks".

First minor unfinished business was my Shift knob, I picked up this stainless steel knob, from a vendor online who is a piece of shit, so he will not gain any endorsement from me. The knob itself isn't bad though, and it fits the other stainless upgrades I have in the interior:

Don't know if I ever posted a closer picture of the CNC stainless knobs. I love these things:

Another minor item related to the interior, when I installed the paddles I lost the spot where my steering wheel adjuster went. So I had to move that a bit:

Next minor item was the Hella Sharptones, for those that don't know the sharptones are just like the supertones, except have a deeper sound, I thought it would be better on a car like mine. Unfortunately they only come in yellow, so:

I refinished them in blue with a quick spray paint, and gold hardware. Jesus the hardware from the factory on these is cheap garbage, took forever to take apart cause of stripping the heads.

While waiting to install those Sharptones I knocked another quick item off, had to add a bit of black vinyl to the front bumper edge in order to match the rest of the trim on the car. This is a temporary thing, but I couldn't live with it the way it was so this was a decent solution:

**meme405** · 10-09-2014, 12:48 AM

Reserved For Future

**meme405** · 10-11-2014, 05:55 PM

Everything is fully imported. Thread is formatted as best as I could. In an Ideal world Stanceworks would allow for "Spoilers" but they must not be allowed by the admins, no big deal.

**Spectra Phantom** · 10-11-2014, 08:39 PM

Holy crap dude. Nice work. Looking forward for the air ride.

**meme405** · 10-14-2014, 03:49 PM

Originally posted by Spectra Phantom View Post

Holy crap dude. Nice work. Looking forward for the air ride.

Thanks!

**meme405** · 12-29-2014, 04:53 PM

Post #4 updated. Ride has been on bags now for 2 months, and I am loving it. Lost some sport for sure from my old H&R sport springs, but its not bad. I gained so much in the comfort department that I really don't mind. The truth is the damn thing weighs 4500lbs. So there is no use in going for a sporty ride in it. I'm not going anywhere very quick, I might as well be comfortable.

**keitsby** · 12-30-2014, 03:50 AM

Do you know what wheels you choose next?

Looking forward.

**mikey G** · 12-30-2014, 04:26 AM

Looks great. Glad to see a build thread after I saw photos of your FX initially. Wondering what the wheel setup is going to be myself...Vossens?

**meme405** · 12-30-2014, 11:08 AM

Originally posted by keitsby View Post

Do you know what wheels you choose next?

Looking forward.

Thanks. See below.

Originally posted by mikey G View Post

Looks great. Glad to see a build thread after I saw photos of your FX initially. Wondering what the wheel setup is going to be myself...Vossens?

Thanks for the compliment. Sorry to say though, but unless Vossen gives me a free set of wheels, you won't be seeing their wheels on my car.

I looked at a lot of wheels; AG, Incurve, Brixton, AIM, HRE, DPE, iForged, VIP Modular, the list goes on.

I must have done a hundred rough PS's, and looked at countless wheels and pictures, and the end result was utter indecisiveness.

Nonetheless I have a set of HRE's in bound. They likely will not be in the car until end of February, but in the meantime I am going to be rolling my fenders, and hunting for a BBK. I also have a load of audio gear that will be installed.

So I still have a lot more left to do before spring.

**SnazzyQ** · 12-30-2014, 03:41 PM

About time you lowered it haha

In all seriousness this is awesome and looks AMAZING slammed. (always thought these would look good "stanced")

**MercTastic** · 12-30-2014, 04:20 PM

This is off....... the fuckn......... hook

Announcement

Meme405's 2008 FX35 - Brianna

Meme405's 2008 FX35 - Brianna

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