'98 Neon R/T kinda SQ build.

[Rawr-DQ]

Excellent!

[MikeyB]

Pics of car?

[PsychoTheRapist]

Holy nice work d00d! I'm coming over next weekend so you can teach me how to do some of that ish!

[JayinMI]

Since that pic, I took off the stripes and the rear wing. Other than that, it looks like most other Neons.

The only mods to the car so far are AEM cam gears, TTI Underdrive pulley and LFS Alternator overdrive pulley.

It will eventually get lowered a little, snowflake wheels, some tint and system upgrades. It's my daily so I like the 30-40 MPG I get.

Here's my first Neon:



Jay

[JayinMI]

Holy nice work d00d! I'm coming over next weekend so you can teach me how to do some of that ish!

Next projects are the rear deck/front doors and the amp rack.
Those will probably be a little wilder than the box

Unfortunately, I don't have any of the new speakers I want to use, so I'm building everything to fit what I plan to use.

Thanks for the compliments!

Jay

[JayinMI]

OK. Here's another update. Today I sanded. Alot. Reapplied some glaze. Sanded some more. Finally I wetsanded it with 600 grit before painting it.

Tomorrow I will wetsand and polish it.











Jay

[peas247]

looks nice

[JayinMI]

OK. More updates. Yesterday, while about half way through the 3rd coat of paint I realized I had the wrong color. The front to cans of "Flame Red CC" were dented, so I grabbed the last can in the row. Didn't notice it was "Bright Red." Oops.
As it turns out I got a couple of nicks in the front, so I wetsanded it out and repainted it the right color.

Before I repainted it, I stuck it in the car to get an idea of what it was gonna look like:



Then I started on my trim panel. First, I taped off the whole box.



Then I stuck the grille in the hole, and used a compass to draw out the outline on the tape.



I taped around the line and put tin foil down. The ridge from the extra layer of tape in the tin foil showed me where to put my fiberglass (I didn't have much left and didn't want to waste it.) Then I layed down some cloth first, then mat.





Then I pulled it off and trimmed it up around the opening.



cont...

[M-ushroom]

You must havea some cray wood skills

[JayinMI]

While it was off, I traced the line I drew in Sharpie hoping it would show through the glass so I could mark it. It didn't. So, I put the grille back in and traced the same outline directly onto the fiberglass.







Then I trimmed it up with my air saw and 90* die grinder with a green corp disc on it.



Layer of Bondo Glass (I'd prefer Duraglas, but I'm on a budget and the Bondoglass came in a smaller can)



2 layers of Dynatron De-lite. (Usually use Rage Gold, but this was cheap and saved me a trip...works OK)





Ta-da!



After a quick coat of paint, I put it on the box to get an idea of the final look. It's getting vinyl'd, BTW.



Since the grille is patterened after a wheel, I made the trim piece in black to represent the tire.

cont...

[JayinMI]

After all that, I went to the store and got more paint etc. Fixed a couple spots on the box and repainted it in the correct red. It's about a shade lighter.

Did some quickie body work to the grille. I didn't spend a ton of time on it because I'll probably redo it in Plexi or Aluminum later when I have the cash.



I went to Joann fabrics (Again ) and picked up half a yard of Rave faux leather. It's neat stuff. Not very stretchy normally, but if you pull the backing off it stretches like mad in every direction. Down side: $35/yd!!!





Front side wrapped:



I left the center intact for a reason.

Then I CA glued the back side to make sure it doesn't slip.



And I threw a couple coats of silver paint on the grille.



Finally, I wetsanded the box with 600 and then 1500...tomorrow all I have to do is wheel out the box and wax it and put everything in the car. Then I have to clean the garage, I made a helluva mess and since I live with my GF (and her brother and sister) I need to clean it up.

Then I can install my amp. I think I'm gonna make a tub to flush into the back seat for them...

After that: Door panels.

Jay

[Rawr-DQ]

Nice, that fabric is almost as expensive as carbon fiber!

Looks very nice, interesting trim ring, started looking like a tire, where did you get the idea to do all that!

Nice job all around, looks very nice.

[MikeyB]

Hells yeah man, very nice work. Your incredibly creative

[JayinMI]

I decided to make the trim ring a while ago because I was having trouble getting the lip of the box to look nice. Everytime I'd try to get the edge around the woofer smooth, the wood would come through. While I was still toying with the idea, I looked at the box in the car with the grille and thought it looked a little plain. The sub is black with red and silver. My car is red and silver with black tires, so I thought it needed some black too, this is what I came up with.

I'm going to finish breakfast, go polish the box and put the stuff in and see how it looks.

I'm kinda planning my door panels in my head, and I can't decide if I want to run 2 sets of components up front or not...

Jay

[MikeyB]

Are you spraying automotive paint? What type of gun? HVLP?