Feezy's Build Thread - 2008 Grand Prix White Club Racer
09-09-2014, 05:08 PM
#1
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Thread Starter
Feezy's Build Thread - 2008 Grand Prix White Club Racer
I've been wanting another S2000 for quite a while now. When I originally purchased my AP1 it was with the intentions of having a S2000 to drive and have fun with. Once I purchased the car and got it home I started to realize how pristine the car was. Sure, I detail it and make it look fancy, but I can only do so much. My car stands out like it does because the previous owner loved it like I do, and kept it in tip top shape. As I modify my AP1 more and more it becomes harder and harder for me to put miles on it. I love that car, and as I've mentioned before I'm emotionally invested in that damn thing. Part of my problem is the car is basically the same thing as my first S2000. I had an 00' NFR back in 2002. I sold that car back in 2004 and I regretted it every single day since. It's the strangest thing having a car that you used to have when you were a kid. You had all these big dreams with no money to make it happen. I now have a good job, and the car that I regretted selling for years. I had been building that car in my head for years. I knew everything I wanted to do to it, and now I spend countless hours tracking down parts for it, trying to find things that I have always wanted but could never get my hands on. The more obscure parts I accumulate for the car the less it gets used.
I've been growing tired of having an S2000 and every time I want to participate in a group drive I have to ride along with someone else. I wanted an S2000 so that I could drive it, that was the goal originally, and although I'm ecstatic that my car is the culmination of years of planning and brainstorming, but I needed some else. I really wanted another S2000 that I could mildly modify and just drive all the time. My original plan was to pick up an Apex Blue Pearl CR. That's easily one of my favorite colors on the S2000. I'm a huge fan of the bright obnoxious colors that really show off when they are properly detailed. I had been waiting for an Apex Blue Pearl to come up, but I hadn't seen anything for quite a while.
A friend called me one day about a local GPW CR that someone had forwarded to him on Craigslist. He had sold his S2000 about 6 months back and was itching to get back into one. We figured that we could both make the drive down to Tuscon and one of us would most likely end up buying the car is it was clean. he had called and let a voice mail earlier that day (the car was posted late the night before) but hadn't yet heard anything back. With Tuscon being onl two hours away we decided to hop in the car and attempt to make contact on the way down. At the very worst we lost the afternoon.
On the way down I gave the phone number a call and got into contact with the owners wife. I told her that we were on our way to look at the vehicle and if we were happy with it were prepared to purchase it that night. She said she would tell her husband when he got home in the next 15 minutes and that he would give us a call back. Sure enough about 15 minutes later he gave me a call. I talked to him at length about the car, it's history, condition, mechanical state, ect. He did let us know that he was not flexible on his asking price, and that if we were going to come down tonight we would be paying what he was asking. I let him know that I would talk it over with my friend and that I would give him a call back. He and I talked at length about what we were each willing to spend on the car, and while the asking price was a decent deal it was more than either of us wanted to spend on a whim.
I called the owner back and spoke with him. I let him know that his price was just a little bit higher than either of us was looking to spend right now. He and I talked for another 15 - 20 minutes, and at some point he had asked what I was actually willing to spend. I told him the number I had in mind, and to my surprise he responded with "oh that's really all I want for the car anyway". However at this point the car had been reposted in both our regional forums and the CR subsection of the forums. He had received numerous calls and voice mails about the car already and couldn't let it go for anything less than his asking price. I understood, but he told me if he still had it in a week then I could have for my offer.
I got off the phone and discussed the situation with my friend. I quickly check the forums and saw the threads about the car all all of the people calling. It looked like there were quite a few people just calling for information to post up on the forums, and while their intentions were good it unnecessarily drove up interest on the car, and prevented one of us from purchasing the car. I ended up calling the owner back and discussing the situation with him further. He again mentioned the large volume of interested that the car was generating, and he just keep saying "It's just and S2000, it's not this big of a deal".
He and I talked some more, and at some point he mentioned the posts that people were making on a few of the threads on S2KI. Somebody in the CR for sale section has posted something to the effect of they had talked to his wife, and several parts on the car had been reconditioned. The seller had noticed that, and while I was on the phone with him brought it up. He insisted that nothing on the car had been reconditioned or refurbished and didn't know why someone would say that. I tried to explain to him that his car was more sought after than he realized and that he wouldn't have it until next week. It was going to be gone in a few days. He said that he appreciated me following up with him, and he would keep me in the loop if he changed his mind. I thanked him for his time, and we turned back around and headed home.
My friend and I discussed things again as we headed back towards his place. It was a little disappointing being so close to another S2000 and not coming away with it. It really didn't matter if it went to either him or I, we just wanted to make sure that it was going to someone who would take care of it. To my surprise about 15 minutes later the owner called me up and said he just received a call from another individual who wanted the car but was out of state. He mentioned that the guy wanted to hop on a plane and come get the car that night. He sounded a little bit frustrated and told me that he just wanted the car gone with no hurdles. He then told me that if I came down tonight I could have the car for my offer. Unfortunately it was 10 minutes past closing time at the bank, so we agreed to meet the next day after he got out of work. My friend and I discussed the situation, and we came to the the conclusion that he would end up with the car for now. He didn't have an S2000 at this time and really wanted to get back into one, and he had also found the car. I was able to negotiate down to a deal that we both thought was very good so I would buy the car and let him have it for now, and when he was done with it I would take it off of his hands.
We drove down there the next day to check the car out. When we arrived we both instantly knew that we were buying the car. He had the car in his driveway for us, and you could just tell that the car was loved. It had a clear bra since day one, it had huge fluffy wool seat covers since day one, he had custom cut these rubber floor mats to protect the OEM floor mats. The car had all of it's VIN numbers, no paint work, the extra CR tonneau cover side pieces, the Helms mechanical and electrical manuals, original window sticker, spare keys, written documentation of all the maintenance done on the car, literally everything you could want. I ended up purchasing the car because that is the agreement we came to with the owner and we didn't want to risk complicating anything.
My buddy had the car for a few months and during that time he installed new brake pads and rotors. He also was nailed by a golf ball which shattered the windshield, and somehow didn't hit any other part of the car. He installed a brand new OEM windshield with all new gaskets and fittings.
He had the car for a few months, and during that time I had really been itching for an Apex Blue Pearl CR. I have adrS2k and S2k4lifeAZ local to me, and every time I see their cars it just reinforced that I wanted an Apex Blue CR. I wanted one so badly that when it came time to sell the GPW CR for my buddy I let it pass to a different friend with the expectation that I would find an ABP CR in the near future. Unfortunately the new owner was only was able to hold onto the car for a month or so and then needed to part with it. He and I discussed it at length and I decided to take the car off of his hands. The only down side to all of this is that I am both the 2nd and 5th owner on the vehicle. It's not the best situation, but it is what it is. I sincerely doubt I'll ever be parting with the car, but for documentation and for the sake of being completely open I wanted to go in depth on the vehicles history. I purchased it from the original owner and I know the complete and entire history of the car.
It took me a while to decide to purchase the Grand Prix White CR instead of continuing to hunt for an Apex Blue Pearl CR. I finally decided to pick up the car locally. It had more miles than what I wanted, and it needed some love, but I knew of all the imperfections on the car. I knew the entire history of the car and purchased it from the original owner. I had a feel for the type of person he was, and I thought that I would be one of the best possible owners for the car. I love projects, and I love bringing things back to life. I talked with the current owner and we came to a deal and I purchased the car.
This is the car as I picked it up:
2008 Grand Prix White Club Racer
Miles: 93,311
by https://www.flickr.com/people/56210999@N05/, on Flickr
by https://www.flickr.com/people/56210999@N05/, on Flickr
As you can see it's a bone stock CR. The emblems on the sides and the trunk were removed be the original owner. I have a bag full of all new emblems for the car including the front and rear H emblems. I'll be painting those a black to match the the rest of the CR emblems before I install everything. The car also came with an uninstalled FlashPro. Once I get some other things addressed I'll go ahead and get that tuned by the guy who tuned my AP1.
I have been super busy with the car since I acquired it, so expect three of four updates pretty quickly.
I've been growing tired of having an S2000 and every time I want to participate in a group drive I have to ride along with someone else. I wanted an S2000 so that I could drive it, that was the goal originally, and although I'm ecstatic that my car is the culmination of years of planning and brainstorming, but I needed some else. I really wanted another S2000 that I could mildly modify and just drive all the time. My original plan was to pick up an Apex Blue Pearl CR. That's easily one of my favorite colors on the S2000. I'm a huge fan of the bright obnoxious colors that really show off when they are properly detailed. I had been waiting for an Apex Blue Pearl to come up, but I hadn't seen anything for quite a while.
A friend called me one day about a local GPW CR that someone had forwarded to him on Craigslist. He had sold his S2000 about 6 months back and was itching to get back into one. We figured that we could both make the drive down to Tuscon and one of us would most likely end up buying the car is it was clean. he had called and let a voice mail earlier that day (the car was posted late the night before) but hadn't yet heard anything back. With Tuscon being onl two hours away we decided to hop in the car and attempt to make contact on the way down. At the very worst we lost the afternoon.
On the way down I gave the phone number a call and got into contact with the owners wife. I told her that we were on our way to look at the vehicle and if we were happy with it were prepared to purchase it that night. She said she would tell her husband when he got home in the next 15 minutes and that he would give us a call back. Sure enough about 15 minutes later he gave me a call. I talked to him at length about the car, it's history, condition, mechanical state, ect. He did let us know that he was not flexible on his asking price, and that if we were going to come down tonight we would be paying what he was asking. I let him know that I would talk it over with my friend and that I would give him a call back. He and I talked at length about what we were each willing to spend on the car, and while the asking price was a decent deal it was more than either of us wanted to spend on a whim.
I called the owner back and spoke with him. I let him know that his price was just a little bit higher than either of us was looking to spend right now. He and I talked for another 15 - 20 minutes, and at some point he had asked what I was actually willing to spend. I told him the number I had in mind, and to my surprise he responded with "oh that's really all I want for the car anyway". However at this point the car had been reposted in both our regional forums and the CR subsection of the forums. He had received numerous calls and voice mails about the car already and couldn't let it go for anything less than his asking price. I understood, but he told me if he still had it in a week then I could have for my offer.
I got off the phone and discussed the situation with my friend. I quickly check the forums and saw the threads about the car all all of the people calling. It looked like there were quite a few people just calling for information to post up on the forums, and while their intentions were good it unnecessarily drove up interest on the car, and prevented one of us from purchasing the car. I ended up calling the owner back and discussing the situation with him further. He again mentioned the large volume of interested that the car was generating, and he just keep saying "It's just and S2000, it's not this big of a deal".
He and I talked some more, and at some point he mentioned the posts that people were making on a few of the threads on S2KI. Somebody in the CR for sale section has posted something to the effect of they had talked to his wife, and several parts on the car had been reconditioned. The seller had noticed that, and while I was on the phone with him brought it up. He insisted that nothing on the car had been reconditioned or refurbished and didn't know why someone would say that. I tried to explain to him that his car was more sought after than he realized and that he wouldn't have it until next week. It was going to be gone in a few days. He said that he appreciated me following up with him, and he would keep me in the loop if he changed his mind. I thanked him for his time, and we turned back around and headed home.
My friend and I discussed things again as we headed back towards his place. It was a little disappointing being so close to another S2000 and not coming away with it. It really didn't matter if it went to either him or I, we just wanted to make sure that it was going to someone who would take care of it. To my surprise about 15 minutes later the owner called me up and said he just received a call from another individual who wanted the car but was out of state. He mentioned that the guy wanted to hop on a plane and come get the car that night. He sounded a little bit frustrated and told me that he just wanted the car gone with no hurdles. He then told me that if I came down tonight I could have the car for my offer. Unfortunately it was 10 minutes past closing time at the bank, so we agreed to meet the next day after he got out of work. My friend and I discussed the situation, and we came to the the conclusion that he would end up with the car for now. He didn't have an S2000 at this time and really wanted to get back into one, and he had also found the car. I was able to negotiate down to a deal that we both thought was very good so I would buy the car and let him have it for now, and when he was done with it I would take it off of his hands.
We drove down there the next day to check the car out. When we arrived we both instantly knew that we were buying the car. He had the car in his driveway for us, and you could just tell that the car was loved. It had a clear bra since day one, it had huge fluffy wool seat covers since day one, he had custom cut these rubber floor mats to protect the OEM floor mats. The car had all of it's VIN numbers, no paint work, the extra CR tonneau cover side pieces, the Helms mechanical and electrical manuals, original window sticker, spare keys, written documentation of all the maintenance done on the car, literally everything you could want. I ended up purchasing the car because that is the agreement we came to with the owner and we didn't want to risk complicating anything.
My buddy had the car for a few months and during that time he installed new brake pads and rotors. He also was nailed by a golf ball which shattered the windshield, and somehow didn't hit any other part of the car. He installed a brand new OEM windshield with all new gaskets and fittings.
He had the car for a few months, and during that time I had really been itching for an Apex Blue Pearl CR. I have adrS2k and S2k4lifeAZ local to me, and every time I see their cars it just reinforced that I wanted an Apex Blue CR. I wanted one so badly that when it came time to sell the GPW CR for my buddy I let it pass to a different friend with the expectation that I would find an ABP CR in the near future. Unfortunately the new owner was only was able to hold onto the car for a month or so and then needed to part with it. He and I discussed it at length and I decided to take the car off of his hands. The only down side to all of this is that I am both the 2nd and 5th owner on the vehicle. It's not the best situation, but it is what it is. I sincerely doubt I'll ever be parting with the car, but for documentation and for the sake of being completely open I wanted to go in depth on the vehicles history. I purchased it from the original owner and I know the complete and entire history of the car.
It took me a while to decide to purchase the Grand Prix White CR instead of continuing to hunt for an Apex Blue Pearl CR. I finally decided to pick up the car locally. It had more miles than what I wanted, and it needed some love, but I knew of all the imperfections on the car. I knew the entire history of the car and purchased it from the original owner. I had a feel for the type of person he was, and I thought that I would be one of the best possible owners for the car. I love projects, and I love bringing things back to life. I talked with the current owner and we came to a deal and I purchased the car.
This is the car as I picked it up:
2008 Grand Prix White Club Racer
Miles: 93,311
As you can see it's a bone stock CR. The emblems on the sides and the trunk were removed be the original owner. I have a bag full of all new emblems for the car including the front and rear H emblems. I'll be painting those a black to match the the rest of the CR emblems before I install everything. The car also came with an uninstalled FlashPro. Once I get some other things addressed I'll go ahead and get that tuned by the guy who tuned my AP1.
I have been super busy with the car since I acquired it, so expect three of four updates pretty quickly.
09-09-2014, 05:40 PM
#2
Moderator
Thread Starter
I went to work on the car straight away by ordering all sorts of odds and ends for it. I started with a new battery tie down as the current one was showing it's age.
New Battery Tie Down by Teh_Feezy, on Flickr
Afterwards I started working on correcting the windshield molding. It was a pain in the ass, and I'm still not completely happy with it but it's a huge improvement. If you ever need to correct a flaw in your windshield molding the way I did it is as follows. You just simply knock down the second layer of the gasket with a toothpick or a credit card and make sure it's in the proper position. Then you hit it with a heat gun. It will lay down right away and look a thousand times better. I have learned that is not enough though, depending on how long your molding has been out of shape it needs to be 're-trained' back into it's original shape. Generally on a weekend I'll do out and hit the molding with a heat gun every hours or so for a few minutes. The more I do it the less the molding pops back up after a drive. A few more days of that and it's going to be perfect again.
Corrected Windshield Molding by Teh_Feezy, on Flickr
The next issues I wanted to tackle were the dents on the car. Like any used car that was owned by 'normal' people there were a few dents here and there that needed to be dealt with. I called my PDR guy and had him come over to my house on a Friday afternoon. I told him it was pretty cut and dry and it shouldn't take to long. I went through the car and started marking off all of the dents that I could find with blue painters tape. He laughed when he saw how many dents that I had marked until he started going through the car. He found another 10-15 dents on top of the 10+ dents that I had already found. He and I spent four and a half hours going through the car and taking car of every dent we could find. If you ever have to pull dents out of your hard top let me tell you it sucks. You need to completely dissemble the top and remove the headliner so that you can access the underside of the roof. This involves removing the seals on the sides as well as the front latches. Those things are a nightmare. The best way I could figure out how to do it is to take a spare tire and lay it on the ground. I took a soft blanket and laid it in and over the tire. We then removed the hard top form the cat and flipped it onto it's roof on the tire. This let me work on the underside of the top and apply leverage. The tire was firm enough to hold everything yet it let me move and reposition the top to whatever angle I needed to work on it. I snapped a few shots of us in action.
Dent Repair - 002 by Teh_Feezy, on Flickr
Here you can see some dents in the top of the fender. I'm going to assume due to their shape and position that they were put their by their previous owner during an oil change. Be careful when working over top of your fenders!
Dent Repair - 001 by Teh_Feezy, on Flickr
My dent guy is awesome. He spent four and a half hours working on the car. After that he helped me move a TV into the house that my girlfriend showed up with. Then after seeing what we were doing with my car she asked him to check hers out. He ended up knocking three or four dents out of her car, wet sanding two problem spots (cats sliding down the side of the car), and polishing everything out. After all of that he set up a makeshift table and ended up eating dinner with us out in the garage as I worked on removing the tint from the hardtops rear window. I'm going to put that night down as a success in my book.
New Battery Tie Down by Teh_Feezy, on FlickrAfterwards I started working on correcting the windshield molding. It was a pain in the ass, and I'm still not completely happy with it but it's a huge improvement. If you ever need to correct a flaw in your windshield molding the way I did it is as follows. You just simply knock down the second layer of the gasket with a toothpick or a credit card and make sure it's in the proper position. Then you hit it with a heat gun. It will lay down right away and look a thousand times better. I have learned that is not enough though, depending on how long your molding has been out of shape it needs to be 're-trained' back into it's original shape. Generally on a weekend I'll do out and hit the molding with a heat gun every hours or so for a few minutes. The more I do it the less the molding pops back up after a drive. A few more days of that and it's going to be perfect again.
Corrected Windshield Molding by Teh_Feezy, on FlickrThe next issues I wanted to tackle were the dents on the car. Like any used car that was owned by 'normal' people there were a few dents here and there that needed to be dealt with. I called my PDR guy and had him come over to my house on a Friday afternoon. I told him it was pretty cut and dry and it shouldn't take to long. I went through the car and started marking off all of the dents that I could find with blue painters tape. He laughed when he saw how many dents that I had marked until he started going through the car. He found another 10-15 dents on top of the 10+ dents that I had already found. He and I spent four and a half hours going through the car and taking car of every dent we could find. If you ever have to pull dents out of your hard top let me tell you it sucks. You need to completely dissemble the top and remove the headliner so that you can access the underside of the roof. This involves removing the seals on the sides as well as the front latches. Those things are a nightmare. The best way I could figure out how to do it is to take a spare tire and lay it on the ground. I took a soft blanket and laid it in and over the tire. We then removed the hard top form the cat and flipped it onto it's roof on the tire. This let me work on the underside of the top and apply leverage. The tire was firm enough to hold everything yet it let me move and reposition the top to whatever angle I needed to work on it. I snapped a few shots of us in action.
Dent Repair - 002 by Teh_Feezy, on FlickrHere you can see some dents in the top of the fender. I'm going to assume due to their shape and position that they were put their by their previous owner during an oil change. Be careful when working over top of your fenders!
Dent Repair - 001 by Teh_Feezy, on FlickrMy dent guy is awesome. He spent four and a half hours working on the car. After that he helped me move a TV into the house that my girlfriend showed up with. Then after seeing what we were doing with my car she asked him to check hers out. He ended up knocking three or four dents out of her car, wet sanding two problem spots (cats sliding down the side of the car), and polishing everything out. After all of that he set up a makeshift table and ended up eating dinner with us out in the garage as I worked on removing the tint from the hardtops rear window. I'm going to put that night down as a success in my book.
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09-09-2014, 09:58 PM
#9
S2000s, S2000s everywhere! As far as the eye can see! I love what you have said about "building the car for years in my head" I have been doing that since 2000, it is definitely amazing to be able to make it happen in reality.
