Just recently bought myself a Silver 2003 Acura 3.2CL Type-S A/T (yes, I know... I wish it was M/T, too). So happy with it. I've had it for a couple weeks now and was gonna fix it up a little bit... I've always wanted to have a car to turn into a nice little every-day project car, but never really have gotten around to it, so I'm not completely sure on what I'm doing... These are my plans so far:

Completed mods:
- Paint front brake-calipers: red (2008.06.01)

Aesthetic plans:
- Paint rear brake-calipers: red
- Ground effects: VIS Racing Demon Body Kit
- Rear window tinting: 50%-75%
- Side window tinting: 50%-75%
- Interior lighting, floor: UV
- Exterior lighting, behind grill: white
- Lower: 1.5"-2"
- Black-out chrome trim around windows
- Wheels: size 18 x 7.5, no specific decided yet

Performance plans:
- Intake: AEM Cold Air with AC Autotechnic Air Breather
- Exhaust: Bosal Dual 3" DTM Twin Canister
- Supercharger: Comptech Eaton M62 G4
- Sway Bars & Suspension: Eibach Pro System PLUS with Neuspeed Strut Bar
- Brakes: Brembo GT 4-piston
- Tires: low profile, no specific decided yet

Planned stages of mods:
(STAGE: STEP 1, STEP 2, STEP 3)
1: Suspension, Window tinting, Intake, Breather
2: Paint, Lighting, Chrome-blacking
3: Wheels, Tires, Exhaust
4: Brakes, Supercharger, Body kit

I expect this to take a little while... Spreading it out over a couple years... Stage 1 I hope to have done within the next week or two, with Stage 2 getting done within a couple weeks of that. Stages 3 and 4 I'm going to be holding off on for a little bit, expecting to get it done maybe in a year or so...

As I said, I've never really done much as far as performance upgrades to a car are concerned, and I feel like my knowledge of car mechanics is only just above "basic" (I can understand my Chilton manual and follow repair directions, but I wouldn't know where to start on my own...) so any suggestions and criticisms would be gladly welcome. Whatever I've listed is basically what I've seen around that I think looks nice, sounds nice, from a company I know, and is within my price range...

 

welcome to azine... ...first mod would be to save for when teh slushbox tranny takes a on you. As everyone would chime in and say the n00b guide is your friend and search function. gotta any pics? and not really feeling the body kit on the list you might want to scratch that out and go with ronjon, custom TL lip, or find some other tasteful lip kit do something different and have it retro to fit teh CL

 

Welcome.

Post some pictures please.

 

The first day I had her down in SD...


I got her a carbon fiber license plate frame :-)








Tinted rear windows...bought it with stick-on type tints, gonna get factory tints soon...


How the calipers turned out after painting...





Love the xenons


Me and my baby, my buddies with their Turbocharged Volvo wagon and Eddie Bauer Explorer

 

hadn't really shopped around much for the body kits, just sorta picked one i liked to have something on my potential list... definitely like hte ronjon one a lot more, though...

 

why only 18 inch wheels? if i wasnt going with 19 or 20 id stick with stock wheels and slam the bitch and get some spacers, if not going with 19s or above id get some honda or acura, aspec wheels

intake yeah, you forgot headers probaly the best mod for the money on our car. im not a big exhaust guy, unless its going to pull out decent power its not worth the sound IMO. there are other "silent" mods that offer just as much power gains as exhaust but youd never know they were there.

you have a lot of planned mods, spanning years lol, id slow down a bit and think near future. id first do suspension- either tein super street coilovers or k sport pro kontrol coilovers, they arent cheap but you dont want to be like me and get tein basics realizing when you get them they arent any different than stock suspension and later buying ksports.

rear M3 lip spoiler would be a good simple mod to do too.

 

Welcome. Plans sounds good minus the body kit. If anything, lip kit FTW!

 

welcome.

 

welcome! check the meet section. the san diego guys have meets pretty often.

 

welcome!

Agreed on not doing the demon body kit. I'd also suggest changing the front turn signal bulbs to sylvania silverstars and/or clearing the reflectors. 18s are all good imho if you like performance. I'd avoid the grill lighting personally - i had it on my last car and consider my former self a semi-ricer because of it lol. grab a lip spoiler. all else is good stuff!

 

nice. I just picked up an 02 cl-type is in the same color except with the stock spoiler. I really like the red caliper paint. How long did that take you to do? What type of paint did you use and how much was needed?

Car looks good!

 

Welcome!

Nice list of future mods, but do you really want your car to look like this?





I'm strongly urging you to reconsider that disaster of a kit.

 

:ghey: ... the kit i mean

 

Wow thats a sweet looking body kit!!!

 

Not a fan of body kits in general. Have nothing nice to say about that kit in particular.

 

I just went down to Kragen's and bought some high-temperature spray paint that they offer for engine and caliper painting. My tool collection is pretty limited at the moment (asshole stole my tools out of my garage a few months back! SOB!), so I didn't even bother taking the calipers off the car. Took about 3.5 hrs in total, most of that waiting time. 5 minutes to get the wheels off, about 20 minutes to wrap up the wheel wells and surrounding body with paper and then cover other non-caliper parts in tape. 30-seconds to lay down each coat, 10 minutes between coats, and then 3 hours after the third coat to let it dry before I put my wheels back on and took her for a spin When I get home today, I can let ya know what brand of paint it is, too, if you want.


Yeah, I'm still very much deciding on a kit. There's a good reason it's one of the last things I plan on doing... I just ordered the suspension and intake; I will have it installed this Monday, so I'll see how it looks after the drop. Mostly, I just don't like the huge gap under the car, so once it's lowered I'll probably be fine with it as-is, but if not I think now I'm leaning towards possibly the RJ Aero-Kit...simple, subtle, pretty :-D

 

Suspension, Intake, and Breather ordered today, installing them Monday :-D

 

I actually checked through the FAQ and found EricL's shortened tranny summary... My car's VIN checks out as unaffected by the recall...and i've still got about 40k miles before that factory warranty expires (purchased car with warranty still effective

 

You should definitely add a lip spoiler to your list of asthetic mods...

 

y'know, this is the first car i've had without any kind of spoiler on it... i'm enjoying the change, for now :-) we'll see if that lasts

 

Welcome aboard bro. I saw you post in the SD meet thread. What part of SD are from? Most of us are from the Mira Mesa area or down in Chula Vista. I am coming out of National City. We'll get a meet going soon and talk about these mods you're planning on.

-Luis

 

Welcome to the team...