4k GT86 Gets a Rocket Bunny Kit & LS3 V8 Swap!
Discussion
So this week with the rocket bunny install for the most part "finished" I've been wanting to go back over the car from front to back to refine, re-work and perfect the fit and finish of the kit along with having to go about some other tasks such as re-water proofing the front arches, making clearance for the front wheels and rust proofing the work for that clearance.
I was able to get a tiny bit more negative camber from the front by swapping the camber bolts to the bottom strut mounting hole, this will just ensure that the front suspension can compress properly without pushing against or damaging the rocket bunny arches.
Unfortunately i didn't get to achieve the proper fitment I was after on the front arches which is to have the kit fit fairly flush against the body without having to resort to using the supplied rubber trim as I prefer the look without as I need tot put a bit more time in to it however for now its good to have the arches back on the car with the correct hardware protected from any rust and with the wheels fitting properly.
For the wheel clearance I had to make some relief cuts in a spot welded lip holding the cap at the end of the sill in place, not wanting to go wild and cut it all away I decided to just hammer it back, seal it up where needed and give it a thick healthy dosage of underseal, hopefully it won't be rusting any time soon!
Likewise one problem with cutting the OEM arches is not being able to re-fit the original arch liners however the most important area is the large window leading in to the engine bay, i was able to cut and reuse this section of the arch liners to stop any water, leaves, mud, etc from flinging in to the engine bay and will continue to make additional arch liner sections to add to this however i'll have to keep the wheel travel in mind when thinking about this.
Check out the video below!
I was able to get a tiny bit more negative camber from the front by swapping the camber bolts to the bottom strut mounting hole, this will just ensure that the front suspension can compress properly without pushing against or damaging the rocket bunny arches.
Unfortunately i didn't get to achieve the proper fitment I was after on the front arches which is to have the kit fit fairly flush against the body without having to resort to using the supplied rubber trim as I prefer the look without as I need tot put a bit more time in to it however for now its good to have the arches back on the car with the correct hardware protected from any rust and with the wheels fitting properly.
For the wheel clearance I had to make some relief cuts in a spot welded lip holding the cap at the end of the sill in place, not wanting to go wild and cut it all away I decided to just hammer it back, seal it up where needed and give it a thick healthy dosage of underseal, hopefully it won't be rusting any time soon!
Likewise one problem with cutting the OEM arches is not being able to re-fit the original arch liners however the most important area is the large window leading in to the engine bay, i was able to cut and reuse this section of the arch liners to stop any water, leaves, mud, etc from flinging in to the engine bay and will continue to make additional arch liner sections to add to this however i'll have to keep the wheel travel in mind when thinking about this.
Check out the video below!
TheJimi said:
Looking forward to seeing the end result!
I have a question though, what are you doing about all the exposed metal on the arches where you've cut sections out?
That's gonna be catnip for corrosion.
The rear is being welded back up to close up the inner and outer arch layers and i'll be applying primer/paint and underseal much like I have on the front. Can't imagine what more I can do once the surfaces are all primed and sealed?I have a question though, what are you doing about all the exposed metal on the arches where you've cut sections out?
That's gonna be catnip for corrosion.
So the end of last week I started tidying up the rear end but more importantly preparing the car to drive over a friend's workshop to get welded up. With that in mind I had to briefly tidy up the rear arches, temporarily re-fit the rear diffuser (for the light) as well as fit new number plates and work on making some card templates to make our job of cutting sheet metal to weld in that much easier!
The whole thing can be seen in the latest youtube video here:
So starting off with something totally different - the rear wing!
I initially had the thought of cutting some steel plates, having a nut welded on to the back of them and then bonding them to the inside of the wing but that would just mean more work for us on the weekend while I had a chunk of what must be 8mm thick Aluminium lieing around. I decided to make some small plates, drill and tap them and use that as the brackets to hold the wing down on the car, eventhough its Ali the glass fibre of the wing will likely crack and break before the threads pull out of the soft Ali and i don't really see either happening any time soon so I ofcourse started off by making some cardboard templates.
They were able to slide easily inside the wing with a decent enough area over the inside lip of the wing to hold the weight of it with nothing but the cardboard, and in the position you see the dots on the full length section of the wing line up perfectly with the OEM wing holes in the boot, result!
So with that done I cut them out of the Aluminium, drilled and Tapped but... my only tube of tiger seal was a tube of grey jelly instead, so it'll have to wait until I can get the new lot in the post.
So moving on from there to a brief update on the diffuser, so following the recent hackery of the rocket bunny unit i was able to roughly glue in and then lay some glass fibre over the "V" light section in to the rocket bunny diffuser, i'm quite pleased with how it's turned out so far as it is in the exact position and angle i envisioned and now just needs to be assaulted with a vulgar amount of filler and sanding.
I also fit the light back in to it and fit it on to the car, just so when i drive it I would have all the required reverse/fog lights, etc.
And finally moving on from there once more I started making the templates for the sheet metal to be cut and welded in on the rear arches. Quite a simple process really which I had a few small tricks for which I show in the video but I was able to make 5 small templates for each side which gives us some fairly simply and easy to handle cuts of metal. I'll be going more in to the welding/sealing process in my next video and update but here you can see the pretty simply little templates I made. After doing this process on both sides I... made some clingfilm seal to close up the arches.. just so i could drive the car without any junk and rubbish flying in to the inner arches... hey if it works it's not a dumb idea right?
The whole thing can be seen in the latest youtube video here:
So starting off with something totally different - the rear wing!
I initially had the thought of cutting some steel plates, having a nut welded on to the back of them and then bonding them to the inside of the wing but that would just mean more work for us on the weekend while I had a chunk of what must be 8mm thick Aluminium lieing around. I decided to make some small plates, drill and tap them and use that as the brackets to hold the wing down on the car, eventhough its Ali the glass fibre of the wing will likely crack and break before the threads pull out of the soft Ali and i don't really see either happening any time soon so I ofcourse started off by making some cardboard templates.
They were able to slide easily inside the wing with a decent enough area over the inside lip of the wing to hold the weight of it with nothing but the cardboard, and in the position you see the dots on the full length section of the wing line up perfectly with the OEM wing holes in the boot, result!
So with that done I cut them out of the Aluminium, drilled and Tapped but... my only tube of tiger seal was a tube of grey jelly instead, so it'll have to wait until I can get the new lot in the post.
So moving on from there to a brief update on the diffuser, so following the recent hackery of the rocket bunny unit i was able to roughly glue in and then lay some glass fibre over the "V" light section in to the rocket bunny diffuser, i'm quite pleased with how it's turned out so far as it is in the exact position and angle i envisioned and now just needs to be assaulted with a vulgar amount of filler and sanding.
I also fit the light back in to it and fit it on to the car, just so when i drive it I would have all the required reverse/fog lights, etc.
And finally moving on from there once more I started making the templates for the sheet metal to be cut and welded in on the rear arches. Quite a simple process really which I had a few small tricks for which I show in the video but I was able to make 5 small templates for each side which gives us some fairly simply and easy to handle cuts of metal. I'll be going more in to the welding/sealing process in my next video and update but here you can see the pretty simply little templates I made. After doing this process on both sides I... made some clingfilm seal to close up the arches.. just so i could drive the car without any junk and rubbish flying in to the inner arches... hey if it works it's not a dumb idea right?
Having just read the whole thread, I can honestly say that for me personally, this is the best thing on PistonHeads right now.
I love how you almost lead me to believe this was a routine fix up and drive It daily post on the cheap, and then I started seeing monster wide wheels., reading about Rocket Bunny parts, etc, this is insane, I’m a Jap car man at heart so this is my dream you’re building lol
I love how you almost lead me to believe this was a routine fix up and drive It daily post on the cheap, and then I started seeing monster wide wheels., reading about Rocket Bunny parts, etc, this is insane, I’m a Jap car man at heart so this is my dream you’re building lol
Cliff J said:
Having just read the whole thread, I can honestly say that for me personally, this is the best thing on PistonHeads right now.
I love how you almost lead me to believe this was a routine fix up and drive It daily post on the cheap, and then I started seeing monster wide wheels., reading about Rocket Bunny parts, etc, this is insane, I’m a Jap car man at heart so this is my dream you’re building lol
haha i'm glad to hear you've enjoyed it! I did consider perhaps making a 2nd thread when it moved on to the widebody parts as the thread title doesn't particuarly reflect what's going on these days but in a way I use this pistonheads thread as my go-to log/blog for what's gone on with the car since I got it.I love how you almost lead me to believe this was a routine fix up and drive It daily post on the cheap, and then I started seeing monster wide wheels., reading about Rocket Bunny parts, etc, this is insane, I’m a Jap car man at heart so this is my dream you’re building lol
Samjeev said:
haha i'm glad to hear you've enjoyed it! I did consider perhaps making a 2nd thread when it moved on to the widebody parts as the thread title doesn't particuarly reflect what's going on these days but in a way I use this pistonheads thread as my go-to log/blog for what's gone on with the car since I got it.
If you 'report' your original post you can request a title change :-)shalmaneser said:
I'm a bit skeptical about the rocket bunny look - doesn't the huge offset of the wheels ruin the suspension geometry - but it looks like you're doing a good job of the conversion and I hope it goes well for you!
Not particularly the suspension geometry, your Camber, toe, caster, etc is never going to change due to wheel offset but it does cause your steering angle to take more of a swinging motion than a pivot. It's quite litterally the same as running spacers in that sense.Which for the most part just means your wheels taking up more of the wheel well as they move more when you turn. Lowing your car generally does alot more to change the geometry than lower offset wheels will ever do
(but then im no expert at all!)Hi, mate. Been with you from the start, but not commented for a while. Just wanted to say...keep going! Jap stuff ain’t my thing, but love how far you’ve come with this. You’re attitude to it and determination to do it is really creditable. Keep the updates coming, bud👍
Jonesy
Jonesy
So last weekend was a big one. The car was back on the ground, aligned, driven on the road and it had the rear arches welded closed. After that I fit the Liberty walk rear wing and with this the Body kit is essentially "finished" on the car. The Next steps will be bodywork and a wrap!
The full video can be checked out below and i'd also just like to thank anyone that's taken the time to watch my videos so far as well as subscribe as I hit the 100 subscriber mark this weekend which i'm quite chuffed about!
but let me go in to more details..
So i started off by fitting a new set of rear-trailing arms after getting a refund from Driftworks as I was a bit of an unlucky sod in their their units didn't fit so I went with some from SPL which are a fantastic bit of kit and very easy to fit however they allowed me to centre up the wheel in the rear arch and using the good old string method I was able to align the car as I was quite worried about my toe being out on the rear which I found out it was and was able to zero it out a bit more. This was just because i didn't want to totally shred my tyres to pieces when driving around.
Once this was done I was able to drive the car home for the first time, what a great feeling! I missed the sound, the low seating position and surprisingly it didn't feel incredibly wide on the road, it was easy to drive it with confidence and felt nimble and agile. The tyres were grippy and the front steering was a tiny bit heavier but that may just be down to being quite used to my daily driver. The new brakes feel great and the car stops on a dime, theres no darting either side and it feels just like OEM only.. better!
I pulled it in to the drive way and couldn't help getting a load of pictures from all angles to mark the occasion, it looked fantastic in thes un as well even if it was covered in dust all over.
The next morning it was up bright and early, something i've not done in a while to get over to my friend's workshop to get the rear arches welded up. My Friend has been running their own fabrication and custom furniture business for the last couple of years now originally picking up welding as a hobby to work on their own car and eventually growing it as a skill and passion in to their own side business.
I started off by cutting the 1.5mm sheet metal to shape using the templates I had made previously and this saved alot of time in any guess work with the shaping of the metal. Once that was done it was able to be fairly easily zapped in using with Mig welding. Choosing to go for Mig over Tig as I believe (in my very limited knowledge) that it's far easier to control the heat with mig and therefore there's less risk to the thin sheet metal of warping or burning through it.
So with my fabricator (haha) hat on again I got to work as their assistant for the day with cutting and prepping the panels with primer!
The results were fantastic! it came out really well and we were able to get both sides finished in a single day. After Zapping in the sheet metal we tidied up and ground back the welds before applying weld through primer, seam sealer and a healthy coat of brush-on Underseal, hopefully the work we've done won't be rusting any time soon!
I left it at their workshop overnight to let the underseal dry somewhat rather than get loads of roadgrime stuck in it and once again it drove beautifully, got plenty of looks and attention even in its Red/black ladybug form
And at the beginning of this week I finished up the saga by installing the rear liberty walk wing.
Much like the rest of the kit there's plenty of bodywork to be done but with the aliminium plates tiger sealed in to the ducktail and extensions I was able to bolt down the wing which should be plenty to keep it on the car! but i'll still give it some back up in the form of a sealer once it's all said and done.
The full video can be checked out below and i'd also just like to thank anyone that's taken the time to watch my videos so far as well as subscribe as I hit the 100 subscriber mark this weekend which i'm quite chuffed about!
but let me go in to more details..
So i started off by fitting a new set of rear-trailing arms after getting a refund from Driftworks as I was a bit of an unlucky sod in their their units didn't fit so I went with some from SPL which are a fantastic bit of kit and very easy to fit however they allowed me to centre up the wheel in the rear arch and using the good old string method I was able to align the car as I was quite worried about my toe being out on the rear which I found out it was and was able to zero it out a bit more. This was just because i didn't want to totally shred my tyres to pieces when driving around.
Once this was done I was able to drive the car home for the first time, what a great feeling! I missed the sound, the low seating position and surprisingly it didn't feel incredibly wide on the road, it was easy to drive it with confidence and felt nimble and agile. The tyres were grippy and the front steering was a tiny bit heavier but that may just be down to being quite used to my daily driver. The new brakes feel great and the car stops on a dime, theres no darting either side and it feels just like OEM only.. better!
I pulled it in to the drive way and couldn't help getting a load of pictures from all angles to mark the occasion, it looked fantastic in thes un as well even if it was covered in dust all over.
The next morning it was up bright and early, something i've not done in a while to get over to my friend's workshop to get the rear arches welded up. My Friend has been running their own fabrication and custom furniture business for the last couple of years now originally picking up welding as a hobby to work on their own car and eventually growing it as a skill and passion in to their own side business.
I started off by cutting the 1.5mm sheet metal to shape using the templates I had made previously and this saved alot of time in any guess work with the shaping of the metal. Once that was done it was able to be fairly easily zapped in using with Mig welding. Choosing to go for Mig over Tig as I believe (in my very limited knowledge) that it's far easier to control the heat with mig and therefore there's less risk to the thin sheet metal of warping or burning through it.
So with my fabricator (haha) hat on again I got to work as their assistant for the day with cutting and prepping the panels with primer!
The results were fantastic! it came out really well and we were able to get both sides finished in a single day. After Zapping in the sheet metal we tidied up and ground back the welds before applying weld through primer, seam sealer and a healthy coat of brush-on Underseal, hopefully the work we've done won't be rusting any time soon!
I left it at their workshop overnight to let the underseal dry somewhat rather than get loads of roadgrime stuck in it and once again it drove beautifully, got plenty of looks and attention even in its Red/black ladybug form
And at the beginning of this week I finished up the saga by installing the rear liberty walk wing.
Much like the rest of the kit there's plenty of bodywork to be done but with the aliminium plates tiger sealed in to the ducktail and extensions I was able to bolt down the wing which should be plenty to keep it on the car! but i'll still give it some back up in the form of a sealer once it's all said and done.
So with the Rocket Bunny kit now officially installed I'ved moved on to prepping the car for its wrap.
I've chosen to go with a wrap over paint for a few reasons, the first being cost of course, the next being that i'd like to change the colour of the car (still staying somewhat red) as the original red on the car is very flat and if the rocke tbunny panels were matched to it I feel the new curves of the body would be lost in the flatness of the OEM colour and finally if I were to do paint i'd like to go the whole 9 yards and spray the whole car inside & out including engine bay doors, etc.
So with all that in mind I've decided to go for a wrap which i've been in talks with a company down in Southampton called Monsterwraps which appear to do some very good work as well as get great reviews. Not wanting to skimp out on the fitting of the wrap ofcourse or do it myself i'd rather pay a sensible price to get a good job done. However as I mentioned i've been in talks with them to confirm how they would tackle the kit, the Wellnut holes and what prep work I can do to speed up the process as of course the car is far from factory fresh.
With that said the car is now booked in to have the wrap installed the week commencing the 15h of June giving me just over a couple of weeks to get it prepped and ready to go!
Check out the first video related to it below where I talk about the proceses as well as my choice in Colour.
As far as colour choice goes i've shared it with a few people but i've not been keeping it much of a secret or such. I wanted to stay close to red and have a nice deep gloss to it which lead me to find KPMF Black Red Iridescent
I think this will look amazing on the car and I can't wait to see it completed!
I've chosen to go with a wrap over paint for a few reasons, the first being cost of course, the next being that i'd like to change the colour of the car (still staying somewhat red) as the original red on the car is very flat and if the rocke tbunny panels were matched to it I feel the new curves of the body would be lost in the flatness of the OEM colour and finally if I were to do paint i'd like to go the whole 9 yards and spray the whole car inside & out including engine bay doors, etc.
So with all that in mind I've decided to go for a wrap which i've been in talks with a company down in Southampton called Monsterwraps which appear to do some very good work as well as get great reviews. Not wanting to skimp out on the fitting of the wrap ofcourse or do it myself i'd rather pay a sensible price to get a good job done. However as I mentioned i've been in talks with them to confirm how they would tackle the kit, the Wellnut holes and what prep work I can do to speed up the process as of course the car is far from factory fresh.
With that said the car is now booked in to have the wrap installed the week commencing the 15h of June giving me just over a couple of weeks to get it prepped and ready to go!
Check out the first video related to it below where I talk about the proceses as well as my choice in Colour.
As far as colour choice goes i've shared it with a few people but i've not been keeping it much of a secret or such. I wanted to stay close to red and have a nice deep gloss to it which lead me to find KPMF Black Red Iridescent
I think this will look amazing on the car and I can't wait to see it completed!
Over the recent weekend I was able to have a few friends over to the workshop and over the course of a single very sunny Sunday the whole Rocket bunny kit is now prepped for its wrap.
I'm quite lucky that a couple of my friends have wrapped parts of their cars before and one of them even works in the bodywork department at BMW (We gave him the whole front bumper to do!) so I knew they'd do a good job alongisde me!
We started off by keying up the panels with some 320 grit and getting rid of any motting/orange peel in the FRP as well as any extra blobs of material that were stuck to the surface, followed by a couple of healthy coats of grey high build primer. Once it was dry and ready to sand we applied any filler or knifing putty in areas that needed it, there were a couple of cracks and some scratches or air bubbles that had to be filled and finally all the panels were finished to a wet 800 grit finish which should be plenty for the wrap to adhere to nicely and no inperfections to speak of!
The video for it can be found here:
We all really liked how the front bumper turned out in its sanded back primer look ironically, it sort of looked like a comic book sketch or some kind of video game (If anyone's played Borderlands you'll know exactly what i mean!)
But in just under 2 weeks the car will be off to Monster Wraps in Southhampton to have the wrap applied and I can't wait! I've got some small jobs to get done before then and I need to continue work on the diffuser so that it's ready by the time the car is complete.
I'm quite lucky that a couple of my friends have wrapped parts of their cars before and one of them even works in the bodywork department at BMW (We gave him the whole front bumper to do!) so I knew they'd do a good job alongisde me!
We started off by keying up the panels with some 320 grit and getting rid of any motting/orange peel in the FRP as well as any extra blobs of material that were stuck to the surface, followed by a couple of healthy coats of grey high build primer. Once it was dry and ready to sand we applied any filler or knifing putty in areas that needed it, there were a couple of cracks and some scratches or air bubbles that had to be filled and finally all the panels were finished to a wet 800 grit finish which should be plenty for the wrap to adhere to nicely and no inperfections to speak of!
The video for it can be found here:
We all really liked how the front bumper turned out in its sanded back primer look ironically, it sort of looked like a comic book sketch or some kind of video game (If anyone's played Borderlands you'll know exactly what i mean!)
But in just under 2 weeks the car will be off to Monster Wraps in Southhampton to have the wrap applied and I can't wait! I've got some small jobs to get done before then and I need to continue work on the diffuser so that it's ready by the time the car is complete.
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