When I did my Project Leopard assessment in December 2019, I noted all the pieces that were missing and what needed to be redone.
Note the interior is brown
I then got all the pieces that were missing/broken.
The door cards for Project Leopard were rough!!!
I figured I would go with the R31 door cards (which are black and grey), I would need to redo the WHOLE interior to try and match the door cards. The interior is tan/brown. Also the Zenki F31 arm rest is also grey… Chris posted this picture and this is what inspired me.
So I got a set in Japan.
In February, I went to LA. It was a quick trip. The mission was to meet up with friends and take out the interior.
This also gave me time to look at all the parts I had collected in 2 months.
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- Greddy
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- Tomei
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- Phase 2
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- Nismo
My friend Rob Pia stopped by with his Legend.
Roger V stopped by and helped me strip out the interior! Thanks Brother. I was trying to keep track on how to disassemble. Roger V ran though it like nothing!!
Tan interior out!
This also gave me an opportunity to look at for more parts issues. Example – tweaked radiator support and headlight bracket.
Marco noticed the intercooler is upside down. So he looked at the magazine to verify.
I loaded up the van with a lot of the brown trim. The next day, I was gonna load up the carpet and dash. I had this idea that while Marco worked on the engine, I would be able get the interior done in the bay area. I had to paint the interior trim to be dark grey and get the dash redone anyway.
Then my wife suggested that I have Marco find someone locally to do the dash. Which made sense (kinda lol). I still brought the pieces up to the bay area with me.
I put them in my storage and before I was gonna start working on them…
Malik tells me there is a grey m30 coupe in the Oakland Pick n Pull. So I go and check it out. Once I saw it had the grey interior… I realized I could probably use all of it.. And so I pulled all of it!!!
I spent the night cleaning all the panels. I still needed to get a few things off the car… then COVID19 happened and it was shelter in place.
Luckily…
One of the junkyard dogs I know (this is his hustle) was able to get me the carpet!!!! I mentioned I needed to grab it, but I ran out of time. I didn’t know he got it because of all the shut downs! But he dropped it off!!!!
So during the 1st week of shelter in place, I contacted a detail shop we used and he said just drop it off and it would take a couple days.
I dropped off the carpet, headliner and sun visors as they were dirty.
After I get them back, I wasn’t completely satisfied.. they did clean it up… I just felt I could do a bit better and I actually did!
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- Grey carpet
All 4 pieces were better after I spent some vacuuming and Resolve spray!
I also noticed the headliner had some spots of possibly mold.
On the other front. I found someone that would rebuild the dash in Gardena. Unfortunately. I was dumb enough to bring the glove box with me.. which will also needed to match the dash. Everything is just on hold because of COVID19 shelter in place.
So now that I have most of the interior taken cared of, I figure why not start working on the rest of the stuff.
R31 shift boot and bezel. Replaced the shift boot with my Shift Royal koi design boots.
I also started to clean up the Zenki F31 arm rest.
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- Zenki F31 arm rest
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- Vintage JAZZ coin holder
Since it is retro build, I wanted to have as much retro items as possible. I noticed that there are tons of companies that make stuff nowadays… but I wanted to use items that were around when I started to build stuff. Project Leopard doesn’t have pedal covers and I didn’t want to use some knock off “Nismo” ones. I wanted to use something I used before.
Razo!
My friend in Japan got me the whole set new!
I kept thinking of what else I wanted to go with this as I had an Ignited push button in my EK Civic. Interior theme is blue.
While I am planning for Greddy’s Profec B boost controller and Link G4 as my standalone… I couldn’t but help to fall in love with the old HKS stuff. Some of the components are standalone and some are with use of the HKS FCon.
Come on… that buttons and small knobs yell 80s/90s!!! Scramble boost controller with Trig button!!!
And one component I want to install is the audible voice warning from a Maxima.
Just like anything else… there are still a few things I need to get and then start setting it all up.
Gauge pods.
Gauges
steering wheel
Those type of things!