"DeSmurfing" the Suzuka
10-24-2009, 10:04 PM
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"DeSmurfing" the Suzuka
NOTE: This thread should not be dedicated specifically to my car. If YOU have a "De-Smurfed" Suzuka, feel free to add pics! Show off that much better interior! 
I had a hard sell on this car. Its my third S2000, and I'm pretty picky about the things that I like. The things that I don't, generally buzz around in and about my head like a fly that wont go away and I can't kill.
My first one was a '00 Berlina Black car. Loved it. Except before I bought it I swore to myself I'd never buy another black car. It looks great after you wash, and wax it, but everything shows on it the second you take it out on the road. And in Wisconsin, roads aren't all that great due to weather. Eventually I couldn't stand nit picking over all the stone chips on the star field I had on the front bumper and hood. So I decided to trade into something more maintenance friendly- an '03 Silversone. Loved it. That was the car I would keep until I died. But I killed it before it's prime. My fault, wont go into details.
Now we come to the '03 Suzuka. Spectacular shape mechanically and aesthetically. Only 9,000 miles on one owner who drove it like an old guy. I really liked the exterior color, but the interior just never sat well with me. Too much blue. Some lighting conditions made it look good, while full sunlight made it radioactive and horrible to look at. As this car is a drop-top and meant to be driven in the sun, I wasn't sure I could live with that. I told myself I'd get used to it. I tried and tried and tried. If this car had a white top, I'd be driving a big SMURF! So on a whim early this year, I decided to "DeSmurf" the car's interior to something more custom and tolerable using mostly OEM and modified OEM parts. Many of these parts I bought from other awesome S2Ki members locally.
Outlined below are the various stages of my quest and the final outcome. Hope you like.
Mountain-man
The first set of pics are to show what I started with. Some pics are kinda lousy, but you'll get the idea.
Stage one involved replacing all the blue plastic components with black ones. This stage was actually conducted in two due to the availability of certain parts. I kept the upper door cards blue to match the sweeping nature of the dash. It was all temporary at this point, but I wanted to have it at least look like it belonged that way while doing the slow process.
Stage 0.5
Stage 1 nearing completion as I'm installing a black rear tray. Need to tear over half the interior out to get at it, and those two side shelves. where the sides of the top mechanism rest. Also installed a full black center box rather than a two-tone one.
Stage 2 of my project was to get the seats more tolerable. I like the idea of a two-tone seat, but I don't like seat covers. And I don't really care for all out racing seats. I liked my S2000 seats enough to modify what I had. I decided to have the inserts reupholstered in black perforated Alcantara material. It's a very nice material, and grips you well, so no more sliding around. And the black/blue two tone would be unique and look sharp. The blue OEM bolstering remained. I also decided to reupholster part of the blue door insert in blue Alcantara. The thin, cheap vinyl lower section was the area to get redone. But keeping the car looking clean, the door inserts would not get installed in this stage. Both items were done at a local upholstery place: Edlo Auto Trim. I also bought black door panels to use for the base and upper door cards, while keeping the original blue insert.
Stage 3 was a killer. At the time, I almost didn't do this, but instead was going to have the dash wrapped in genuine leather with blue accent stitching. I figured it was too expensive considering it looked too much like stock, so I was going to just swap it out with a black dash and be done with it. Then GoTuning came out with their black Alcantara dash. It looked good enough and custom enough for me to grab it. And considering the other Alcantara work I had in the car, an Alcantara dash would work nicely with what I had going. To keep things clean, I also had GoTuning reupholster the upper door cards in black Alcantara to match the sweeping nature of the dash. I wanted blue accent stitching along the character lines.
So after I had all my parts, I assembled my two-tone doors. Two other awesome S2ki members helped me do the install of the dash.
AND THE FINISHED PRODUCT!!!
I may try to get some better pics in some different lighting conditions tomorrow. I was kinda short on time after the dash was installed and the car running again.
I had a hard sell on this car. Its my third S2000, and I'm pretty picky about the things that I like. The things that I don't, generally buzz around in and about my head like a fly that wont go away and I can't kill.
My first one was a '00 Berlina Black car. Loved it. Except before I bought it I swore to myself I'd never buy another black car. It looks great after you wash, and wax it, but everything shows on it the second you take it out on the road. And in Wisconsin, roads aren't all that great due to weather. Eventually I couldn't stand nit picking over all the stone chips on the star field I had on the front bumper and hood. So I decided to trade into something more maintenance friendly- an '03 Silversone. Loved it. That was the car I would keep until I died. But I killed it before it's prime. My fault, wont go into details.
Now we come to the '03 Suzuka. Spectacular shape mechanically and aesthetically. Only 9,000 miles on one owner who drove it like an old guy. I really liked the exterior color, but the interior just never sat well with me. Too much blue. Some lighting conditions made it look good, while full sunlight made it radioactive and horrible to look at. As this car is a drop-top and meant to be driven in the sun, I wasn't sure I could live with that. I told myself I'd get used to it. I tried and tried and tried. If this car had a white top, I'd be driving a big SMURF! So on a whim early this year, I decided to "DeSmurf" the car's interior to something more custom and tolerable using mostly OEM and modified OEM parts. Many of these parts I bought from other awesome S2Ki members locally.
Outlined below are the various stages of my quest and the final outcome. Hope you like.
Mountain-man
The first set of pics are to show what I started with. Some pics are kinda lousy, but you'll get the idea.
Stage one involved replacing all the blue plastic components with black ones. This stage was actually conducted in two due to the availability of certain parts. I kept the upper door cards blue to match the sweeping nature of the dash. It was all temporary at this point, but I wanted to have it at least look like it belonged that way while doing the slow process.
Stage 0.5
Stage 1 nearing completion as I'm installing a black rear tray. Need to tear over half the interior out to get at it, and those two side shelves. where the sides of the top mechanism rest. Also installed a full black center box rather than a two-tone one.
Stage 2 of my project was to get the seats more tolerable. I like the idea of a two-tone seat, but I don't like seat covers. And I don't really care for all out racing seats. I liked my S2000 seats enough to modify what I had. I decided to have the inserts reupholstered in black perforated Alcantara material. It's a very nice material, and grips you well, so no more sliding around. And the black/blue two tone would be unique and look sharp. The blue OEM bolstering remained. I also decided to reupholster part of the blue door insert in blue Alcantara. The thin, cheap vinyl lower section was the area to get redone. But keeping the car looking clean, the door inserts would not get installed in this stage. Both items were done at a local upholstery place: Edlo Auto Trim. I also bought black door panels to use for the base and upper door cards, while keeping the original blue insert.
Stage 3 was a killer. At the time, I almost didn't do this, but instead was going to have the dash wrapped in genuine leather with blue accent stitching. I figured it was too expensive considering it looked too much like stock, so I was going to just swap it out with a black dash and be done with it. Then GoTuning came out with their black Alcantara dash. It looked good enough and custom enough for me to grab it. And considering the other Alcantara work I had in the car, an Alcantara dash would work nicely with what I had going. To keep things clean, I also had GoTuning reupholster the upper door cards in black Alcantara to match the sweeping nature of the dash. I wanted blue accent stitching along the character lines.
So after I had all my parts, I assembled my two-tone doors. Two other awesome S2ki members helped me do the install of the dash.
AND THE FINISHED PRODUCT!!!
I may try to get some better pics in some different lighting conditions tomorrow. I was kinda short on time after the dash was installed and the car running again.
10-24-2009, 10:07 PM
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i like the seats alot, everything else is kinda overkill, besides maybe the door panels. but i dont like the material for the doors or the dash. Otherwise pretty cool.
10-24-2009, 10:30 PM
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Originally Posted by jdm_dc_fan,Oct 25 2009, 12:23 AM
thats gonna be a bitGh to maintain. but its fancy 
As for the rest of it, a lint brush and vacuum suffice.
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10-24-2009, 11:02 PM
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Clean work. Not feeling it personally but I can and will appreciate good workmanship. From the photos looks like a lot of time and effort went into this.