D33DsY
Test Drive
- Location
- Galax, Virginia
Soooo, I made my account quite sometime ago (I think in the summer of 2013) when I first acquired my Xterra but I soon entered Optometry School which consumed my life and all of my free time up until this point, so I have been unable to post anything up…until now that is!
Lets start from where I came from. This is my 2002 Black Ford Ranger, it was two wheel drive, a straight, had the 2.3L four banger in it that had no power and not wonderful gas mileage either but it wouldn't quit for anything. Probably a year after I bought it, I did my first mod to it…I rattle canned the faded front grille insert black and got the moding bug sooo I joined fordrangerforum.com, found the how-to threads and went a little crazy. Anyways here is a picture of the turd and the mods list of course.
Ranger Mods list:
Exterior:
First I baked the headlights/corners-later I bought one-piece ebay projector headlights.
06 tail light swap w/ led bulbs
06 mirror swap
First I painted the stock grille bar insert, then made a custom mesh insert instead, then someone hit it and cracked it, so I replaced the stock grille with a honey comb stock grille off another black ranger.
Recessed (behind the grille) 6inch (I think) 100watt lights
Led license plate bulbs
Rattle Canned the front/rear bumpers black
Rattle Canned stock wheels/emblems black
Rattle Canned stock exhaust exit pipe black
Removed the ugly stock pinstripe/mud-flaps
3rd Brake light black overlay
Interior:
Zip-tie throttle cable mod
Pioneer AVH-X1500DVD Headunit w/ a reverse camera
Pioneer 6x8s in the doors
Flush mounted Pioneer TS-T110 Tweeters
2 Rocksford Fosgate 8inch Punch Subwoofers, Sealed enclosure, powered by a Sony XM-ZR1852.
Leather shift knob
Led Swapped gauge cluster
Xterra: 2008 X Night Armor
I bought the Xterra in the summer of 2013 off of my neighbor who I knew had treated it wonderfully and had only put 45k on it.
This is the Xterra when I first bought it:
Soon after buying it I moved from Southwestern Virginia up to Philadelphia for Optometry School so there wasn't a lot of time to do anything to it but clean it. Once I had moved and settled in I began to do a few light mods. Starting with plasti-dipping the wheels, gas door and emblems (which I surprisingly documented) here are the after pictures:
A few weeks passed then I took a day to remove the grille to plasti-dip the whole piece and while I was at it I also decided to bake the headlights and remove that blasted stock pin stripe/antenna (I keep my music loaded on a usb stick) at the same time.
Over the past winter break (winter of 13') I decided that the rocksford fosgate system the xterra had in it just wasn't doing it for me. So it yanked it out, gently of course, to replace it with a Pioneer AVH-1500DVD head unit (with a reverse camera), infinity reference speakers in all the doors and 2 MTX Roadthunder 12's in a sealed box (Yes I do realize they aren't the greatest subwoofers on the market but, I just happened to have them laying around in the basement and I'm not really one to rattle my car to death either). I took my time doing the install over a couple of days, soldered all the connections, heat shrinked everything, fixed the interior rattles with foam and the extra time paid off, I think anyways haha. Also, for christmas I received a stock nissan retractable cargo cover…useful for hiding the subs in Philadelphia…unfortunately theft seems to be quite common up here.
After winter break school picked back up and my free time was completely gone again …so that meant no more mods.
Finally summer came and I kicked it off by "hard wiring" my Garmin gps and setting up a ghetto HUD.
To do this I simply ran a 12volt extension cable from the center console’s switched outlet underneath the length of the center console to under the drivers side dash where a 12 volt splitter was utilized to power both my gamin and my dedicated android phone on the drivers side dash. On the Android phone I'm running torque (with a cheap Bluetooth adapter from amazon) with it set to go straight into gauges and to keep HUD mode toggled upon entering the application. The set up worked pretty well on the window even without tint but to improve the intensity of the reflected image and to prevent as much ghosting as possible I purchased a tint square off amazon that was advertised towards use with HUDs. To prevent the phone from sliding around I cut a cheap static cling pad to fit the shape of the phone. Torque serves many other purposes besides just being a HUD though most I feel are more just for fun sorts of things but others such as the check engine light function could prove handy if I ever need it.
I had a few hours before work one day so I swapped the dome, map and license plate lights with a cheap amazon kit, THEY ARE BRIGHT. During this time I also took off the rear mud flaps.
The most current mod that has been done is the mesh grille inserts. I found the material I used to make the grille at the great Home Depot in the building materials section, I’m not exactly sure what its really used for….my best guess is concrete work but I do know it was 9ish dollars for a huge sheet and that sure as hell is good as cutting up your hands. When I started the project I was unaware the grille came apart into two large pieces…for some reason I had it in my mind that the honey comb grille sections were just going to pop right out with a few clips and done. Upon discovering that it wasn’t going to work that way I dug out the dremel, cut out the honeycomb bits, cleaned up the edges and the I drilled holes around the cut out sections as zip tie anchors to give the mesh a place to attach. Cutting the mesh was easy enough. I just made a rough cut out of the giant piece with a pair of tin snippers, and cleaned the piece up after I mocked it. Once I anchored it down with a million zip ties, it received ridiculously heavy coats of a black industrial enamel from a rattle can that I had left over a ranger project. When it dried the back plastic portion was popped back on under the front piece and the slapped back on the Xterra.. I don’t turned out half bad.
Please excuse the dirtiness…just snapped these today before a storm…I really need to wash it.
Small Mods:
Adjustable blind spot mirrors
The first aid kit has been filled with useful things such as jumper cables, a tire pressure gauge, spare bags etc.
Near future mods:
Cleaning up the engine bay some:
Perhaps painting or vinyl wrapping some plastic pieces
Maybe a cold air intake (I know.. I know…Mostly for the aesthetic appeal)
Removing the rear Nissan badge and replacing it with a galactic empire emblem sticker (badge already removed, sticker is in the mail)
Adding a few other stickers such as an Xterranation sticker for extra horsepower!
Maybe removing the door plastic trim, and painting some of the plastic exterior pieces black with rattle cans.
Any Suggestions?!?!?!
DISTANT, DISTANT goals:
Supercharged, WOOOO!
I thought these wheels looked nice..perhaps something similar.
Nismo Exhaust
Maybe a wire tuck with the fuse box relocated into the glove box.
More to come!!!!!!
Lets start from where I came from. This is my 2002 Black Ford Ranger, it was two wheel drive, a straight, had the 2.3L four banger in it that had no power and not wonderful gas mileage either but it wouldn't quit for anything. Probably a year after I bought it, I did my first mod to it…I rattle canned the faded front grille insert black and got the moding bug sooo I joined fordrangerforum.com, found the how-to threads and went a little crazy. Anyways here is a picture of the turd and the mods list of course.
Ranger Mods list:
Exterior:
First I baked the headlights/corners-later I bought one-piece ebay projector headlights.
06 tail light swap w/ led bulbs
06 mirror swap
First I painted the stock grille bar insert, then made a custom mesh insert instead, then someone hit it and cracked it, so I replaced the stock grille with a honey comb stock grille off another black ranger.
Recessed (behind the grille) 6inch (I think) 100watt lights
Led license plate bulbs
Rattle Canned the front/rear bumpers black
Rattle Canned stock wheels/emblems black
Rattle Canned stock exhaust exit pipe black
Removed the ugly stock pinstripe/mud-flaps
3rd Brake light black overlay
Interior:
Zip-tie throttle cable mod
Pioneer AVH-X1500DVD Headunit w/ a reverse camera
Pioneer 6x8s in the doors
Flush mounted Pioneer TS-T110 Tweeters
2 Rocksford Fosgate 8inch Punch Subwoofers, Sealed enclosure, powered by a Sony XM-ZR1852.
Leather shift knob
Led Swapped gauge cluster
Xterra: 2008 X Night Armor
I bought the Xterra in the summer of 2013 off of my neighbor who I knew had treated it wonderfully and had only put 45k on it.
This is the Xterra when I first bought it:
Soon after buying it I moved from Southwestern Virginia up to Philadelphia for Optometry School so there wasn't a lot of time to do anything to it but clean it. Once I had moved and settled in I began to do a few light mods. Starting with plasti-dipping the wheels, gas door and emblems (which I surprisingly documented) here are the after pictures:
A few weeks passed then I took a day to remove the grille to plasti-dip the whole piece and while I was at it I also decided to bake the headlights and remove that blasted stock pin stripe/antenna (I keep my music loaded on a usb stick) at the same time.
Over the past winter break (winter of 13') I decided that the rocksford fosgate system the xterra had in it just wasn't doing it for me. So it yanked it out, gently of course, to replace it with a Pioneer AVH-1500DVD head unit (with a reverse camera), infinity reference speakers in all the doors and 2 MTX Roadthunder 12's in a sealed box (Yes I do realize they aren't the greatest subwoofers on the market but, I just happened to have them laying around in the basement and I'm not really one to rattle my car to death either). I took my time doing the install over a couple of days, soldered all the connections, heat shrinked everything, fixed the interior rattles with foam and the extra time paid off, I think anyways haha. Also, for christmas I received a stock nissan retractable cargo cover…useful for hiding the subs in Philadelphia…unfortunately theft seems to be quite common up here.
After winter break school picked back up and my free time was completely gone again …so that meant no more mods.
Finally summer came and I kicked it off by "hard wiring" my Garmin gps and setting up a ghetto HUD.
To do this I simply ran a 12volt extension cable from the center console’s switched outlet underneath the length of the center console to under the drivers side dash where a 12 volt splitter was utilized to power both my gamin and my dedicated android phone on the drivers side dash. On the Android phone I'm running torque (with a cheap Bluetooth adapter from amazon) with it set to go straight into gauges and to keep HUD mode toggled upon entering the application. The set up worked pretty well on the window even without tint but to improve the intensity of the reflected image and to prevent as much ghosting as possible I purchased a tint square off amazon that was advertised towards use with HUDs. To prevent the phone from sliding around I cut a cheap static cling pad to fit the shape of the phone. Torque serves many other purposes besides just being a HUD though most I feel are more just for fun sorts of things but others such as the check engine light function could prove handy if I ever need it.
I had a few hours before work one day so I swapped the dome, map and license plate lights with a cheap amazon kit, THEY ARE BRIGHT. During this time I also took off the rear mud flaps.
The most current mod that has been done is the mesh grille inserts. I found the material I used to make the grille at the great Home Depot in the building materials section, I’m not exactly sure what its really used for….my best guess is concrete work but I do know it was 9ish dollars for a huge sheet and that sure as hell is good as cutting up your hands. When I started the project I was unaware the grille came apart into two large pieces…for some reason I had it in my mind that the honey comb grille sections were just going to pop right out with a few clips and done. Upon discovering that it wasn’t going to work that way I dug out the dremel, cut out the honeycomb bits, cleaned up the edges and the I drilled holes around the cut out sections as zip tie anchors to give the mesh a place to attach. Cutting the mesh was easy enough. I just made a rough cut out of the giant piece with a pair of tin snippers, and cleaned the piece up after I mocked it. Once I anchored it down with a million zip ties, it received ridiculously heavy coats of a black industrial enamel from a rattle can that I had left over a ranger project. When it dried the back plastic portion was popped back on under the front piece and the slapped back on the Xterra.. I don’t turned out half bad.
Please excuse the dirtiness…just snapped these today before a storm…I really need to wash it.
Small Mods:
Adjustable blind spot mirrors
The first aid kit has been filled with useful things such as jumper cables, a tire pressure gauge, spare bags etc.
Near future mods:
Cleaning up the engine bay some:
Perhaps painting or vinyl wrapping some plastic pieces
Maybe a cold air intake (I know.. I know…Mostly for the aesthetic appeal)
Removing the rear Nissan badge and replacing it with a galactic empire emblem sticker (badge already removed, sticker is in the mail)
Adding a few other stickers such as an Xterranation sticker for extra horsepower!
Maybe removing the door plastic trim, and painting some of the plastic exterior pieces black with rattle cans.
Any Suggestions?!?!?!
DISTANT, DISTANT goals:
Supercharged, WOOOO!
I thought these wheels looked nice..perhaps something similar.
Nismo Exhaust
Maybe a wire tuck with the fuse box relocated into the glove box.
More to come!!!!!!
