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Lowe

Lowe's Team Grey

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10 hours ago, x14JSx said:

I also own a grey 86 and I wasn't sure if I'd like the smoke option with the rear lights and went with red/clear ones but after seeing your Valentis I may have to aquire some tint 

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I personally think the CR ones suit better than the tinted ones, a little bit of contrast works. 

Or these "special" editions would look good...... I've toyed with these for my Grey

Red Edition

valenti_taillights_red-1.jpg

FT86SF Edition:

redblackvalenti-1_1.jpg

Depo Modded OEM (Cheaper than Grazio)

htyf86tl-oeb-16.jpg

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6 hours ago, Lowe said:

No worries, glad it was entertaining enough to keep you going hehe. :)

To be honest I was happy with the reds and think on an otherwise standard car they're probably the better option. If you smoke the rears then the centre light NEEDS to be done as well and I really think a debadge is in order, else it looks unbalanced, with the badges being 'bright' silver. That was my one regret, should have done it all in one go, it looked so much better once I'd sorted it all out. 

Loving the TRD spoiler, I think I'm likely to lose my batwing and get a carbon TRD lookalike to go with the rest of the carbon stuff I've got.

That picture is the way it looks at the minute, I planned on doing the same debating as you and getting the black Toyota badges! I've got the Valenti reverse light sitting here too just needing to find time to do the rewiring to separate the V LED and the fog lights, but yes if I am going for the tint I'll be doing it all together, just finding the time unfortunatey! 

Spoiler has been one of my favourite purhases so far just love the look and too me seems a lot neater than the standard! 

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Another minor update, took the wheels to Lucas for us to work out why the 73.1mm spigots wouldn't fit. We tried a few different ones but none of them would go in which was a bit of a concern. Lucas's verniers wouldn't go inside the wheel so I headed home and found a local place that @Mark-in-Stoke had recommended a while back. I explained the situation and before I could finish he came back with a set of 73.1mm spigots and put one in right in front of me. I was surprised to say the least! I think that due to being sprayed a couple of times there was build up on the inside of the bore and that was stopping the metal Rays ones from fitting. I got some sandpaper and rubbed down the inside of the wheels and then the rest went straight in, no bother. 

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On 3/21/2018 at 4:44 PM, knightryder said:

Depo Modded OEM (Cheaper than Grazio)

htyf86tl-oeb-16.jpg

Hadn't checked in on this thread for a while - @Lowe, I can't believe you haven't got the wheels fitted yet!  They look lovely though, and us grey owners definitely know a nice metallic flake when we see one :D

Just thought I'd quickly comment on those Depo lights; they're done in a different way to the Grazios, which look like this:

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The red is a gel coat (or something similar); you can feel the raised edges.  IMO they look a lot nicer than the Depos, which still look a bit aftermarket.  If the Depo internals were red instead of black they would look much better.  My only - very minor - gripe with the Grazios is that they aren't full red over the tail/brake lights, which looks a bit less OEM from the side:

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Sorry for the hijack, and hope to see some more updates soon!

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So yesterday was the day I'd been looking forward to for the best part of a month - parts fitting day! @Mark-in-Stoke and I were booked in with Rich at Tuned UK to have suspension work done to both our cars. I won't spoil Mark's update, but in a nutshell we were taking his 'temporary' suspension and putting it on mine, and he was having his newly resprung Ohlins coilovers put back on. This all came about after the OcUK meet in April. Mark had popped over and took me out in his car, after being somewhat surprised at how good TunedUK's 40mm spring collaboration with Eibach was. I was very sceptical expecting the ride to be trashy, rock hard and sat on the bump stops. I couldn't have been more wrong; the ride was firm yes, but not uncomfortably so. Body roll is far better controlled and the stance looks fantastic. No issues with clearance and no smashing of bump stops. Given I don't do track work and have no intention to, coilovers would be nice but probably overkill for me. So Mark offered me these once his resprung Ohlins were ready. 

We got to TunedUK nice and early and whilst Rich set about Mark's car, Mark and I set about mine with a couple of body mods. I'd been away recently and managed to get a set of rear quarter louvres brought back from the USA. The company (Ikon Motorsports) were great and sent them to my hotel and the package was small enough to bring back in my hand luggage so no problems with them being damaged.

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As I've seen from Facebook these are very much a marmite thing, plenty of hate for them (including 'oh noes, how will you see out the back of the car?). I can't actually see through my rear quarters due to the passenger headrest, so it makes no odds to me. They attach easily with 3M tape and the fitment is absolutely spot on. We also fitted the carbon winglets to the front wings properly and with the weather being so hot yesterday we got a really good solid fit. 

Before long Mark's car was sorted so it was time for mine to get on the ramps. I was nervous to say the least, I wasn't 100% sure if everything (especially the CE28's) would fit. But everything came good bar my drop links being stuck and needing to be cut off. Luckily Rich had a set of Whiteline adjustables in stock so we chucked those on and then he got to work with the alignment. The springs drop the car 40mm, but the 18's with 225/40/18 tyres raise the height by about 5mm. Even so, this was putting a fair bit of negative camber to say the least. The back was virtually spot on even and ended up sitting at -2. For the fronts on Rich's advice for my type of driving we put the camber bolts in the other way around and neutralised the camber a little. I've never known someone so precise and OCD about alignment, everything was done with a real sense of care to get the best possible result. This was the end result, pleased is an understatement! Note the car hasn't been cleaned and is in strong sunlight so yes, tyres and louvres aren't as black as they'll normally look.

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Under more normal light:

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On the drive back home even with the car full of stock wheels I was able to get a sense of the improvements over stock. We took a scenic route down lots of twisty A roads to avoid traffic which was great fun. Turn in is nice and quick, body roll is loads better and I feel a lot more confident. I'm looking forward to trying it out more over the weekend. :)

 

 

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57 minutes ago, Paul said:

How much were the louvres in USD? I think they look mint and I'm off to Vegas in June...

$82.99.

alex@ikonmotorsports.com is your best bet. Email him rather than the generic address and explain that you've spoken to me. He'll organise shipping to your hotel. 

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1 hour ago, Lowe said:

$82.99.

alex@ikonmotorsports.com is your best bet. Email him rather than the generic address and explain that you've spoken to me. He'll organise shipping to your hotel. 

Cheers!

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Thanks guys. Not noticed a huge difference in wheel weight - whilst the alloys are a fair bit lighter (7ish kg) the tyre itself is heavier due to them being 18's. Car needs a decent wash now, it's covered in fingerprints and sand from the rain we had the other day. 

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10 minutes ago, Mark-in-Stoke said:

Got to agree mate those springs are a no brainer if you're not going on track. Like I said yesterday if it wasn't for you, they would be my spare/future set up for when my current ones give up.

I owe you one mate, you did me a solid and I know it. Thanks once again for all your help yesterday 👍🏻

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Thanks guys. I'm still in awe myself at the minute, I kind of have to pinch myself when I look at it. It's like a whole new car to me. There's a few little things that I want to do cosmetically though. There's a TRD style carbon ducktail coming in the next month or so, and I really want to black out/smoke the rest of the indicators and perhaps go with amber fogs. Not sure how feasible that is though. Once that's done no more cosmetics - it'll be TD's NA package. :)

Browny, wow a fence sitter!:D They seem to really divide most people - it's a real love/hate thing. 

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Not sure it's possible to cure it completely - particularly in the rain :)  Even with my current setup which has killed oversteer on the skid pad, it still lets go on the road in the wet - fairly violently too....

Your car is looking fantastic - nice work! :)

PS - I am marginally envious of the wheels - I have been looking for some of those for 9 months without success :(  Where did you get them from?

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Thanks :)

The wheels were luck - I’d been looking for a very, very long time. In the end I came across someone selling a car with them on. The intention was to buy the car, but he sold me the wheels separately. I had to spend some money on refurbing, spigots and nuts but it was worth it :)

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So this arrived yesterday. :)

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The box was absolutely wrecked so I half expected to find it in about 3 pieces, but luckily it's OK. There's a couple of tiny imperfections if you get a magnifying glass out, but nothing I'm overly worried about. Hopefully fitting it at the weekend. :)

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