Thread: 03 infiniti fx35 w/all the toys, add a carpc too? oh yeah... :)

Originally Posted by CJ8501

I def love the fx35.... really thinking about getting one myself in next year or so and mod the hell out of it like you're doing.... any good fx forums out there?

wow, cj, totally missed your post for a long time



there are 2 great forums for the fx, one is infinitifx.org , the other is infinitiscene.com

the org has been around since the fx began, tons of information there & pretty much everything fx related is covered.

the scene is a pretty new forum, was started by a few guys from out west who spun off from the org about 1 1/2 years ago, the scene is more about modding & is a really cool forum in general... theres even a turbocad's corner section you wanna mod an fx you'll want to check these forums out for sure. the fx community is really great, it's one of the things I also really like about the fx... so many other forums are full of so much nonsense


fx owners even have meets too





monkeyracer, I think that fx picture was stolen from one of those forums, think it belongs to a guy named min, his old fx... he supercharged too at some point with the same powerdyne blower I have, also set up by lms out in cali, but he had a lot of problems with his setup... it's returned to stock & sold already a while ago. a lot of those ebay guys always build there auctions by stealing pictures from the net... those halo's were not done by that auction seller at all....

oh & jay, I never finished adding the internal vertical vents... not missing them much really... may get to it someday, may not...? I do have a few other things I want to do too as winter projects

Originally Posted by turbocad6

monkeyracer, I think that fx picture was stolen from one of those forums, think it belongs to a guy named min, his old fx... he supercharged too at some point with the same powerdyne blower I have, also set up by lms out in cali, but he had a lot of problems with his setup... it's returned to stock & sold already a while ago. a lot of those ebay guys always build there auctions by stealing pictures from the net... those halo's were not done by that auction seller at all....

I really hate that. People stealing pics, claiming it's their own work, or at least alluding to that fact. They offer a service where you send your lights to them for modding, rather than the halo's themselves. I only looked at it because I want to make some halo fog lights. I have a really cool idea if I can get a nice set of LED's, but I might use the same ones you had (as I was saying in my worklog) as long as the ones I get are good. I couldn't find these at any of the local car parts shops, pep boys, autozone, etc, the closest thing was a strip of pretty weak lights, but not designed for exterior use.

There was one ebay guy that stole a picture of my unfinished body kit for my Galant, and when I confronted him about it, he claimed that it was his car. When I showed him a pic of ME standing in front of it, he tried to claim I bought the car like that from a customer of his, when actually, I put on the kit myself (hence it was unfinished.) Can't even keep his story straight. Turns out a week or two later there was a bunch of negative feedback from people he stole pics from that bought the kits he was selling but never paid, just to leave him bad feedback about stealing the pics. Irony.

I hate watermarking images, but it seems like that might be what we'd need to do to keep credit for our hard work.


Back to topic; what's next for the FX? I know you've got something hidden in your sleeve...

Quick qusetion, what are your thoughts on the new FX? I think its actually really ugly now, especially the rear end. I have mixed feelings on the front.

I test drove the new fx... I'd take it no problem , whatever I don't like about it I'd just change the interior is much nicer, the 7 speed tranny is slick & the fx50s is a beast. I'll get a used one in about 3 years to replace this fx

monkeyracer, what's next?

I winded up doing a conversion to the fx50s big brakes, worked with infinitipartsusa on this one to develop a retrofit for the first gens... they should be available to all first gen fx's pretty soon... there was a bit of mods needed to pull this off. I also had to design a new rear balljoint seat to adapt the 09 rear spindle to the earlier ball joint. I designed it using emachineshop...





hopefully infinitipartsusa follows through & orders these custom rear adaptors so this can be retrofited by anyone wanting to do it. these brakes are cool, 4 piston front & 2 piston rear non floating calipers, 14.1" front & 13.8" rears, & the best part, they are very affordable, to the tune of LESS than $900 for just the fronts, or around 2k for all around... best deal in big brakes I've ever seen, glad I could help be a part of bringing them to all fx owners

heres a few shots of the brakes:

front:



rear: (first pic is next to a brembo FRONT for comparison)





& on my fx:




now honestly, even though these brakes are pretty awesome, I will probably wind up going back to my rotoras eventually unless someone comes out with some performance rotors for this setup... not so much for the slotted & drilled, that can be done even to the stock rotors, but more for the weight of these rotors, they are very heavy where the rotoras are a 2 piece rotor with an aluminum center hat section & about 1/2 the weight... I can really feel the difference in acceleration from the increased rotating mass of these heavy rotors.. had I not had the rotoras I might have not realized the difference but it is noticable... plus, the rotors are unsprung mass, so the lighter weight rotoras are better for handling & ride quality too. kinda sucks to negate the whole benifit of 3 piece wheels with a very heavy rotor other than that these brakes are awesome


other updates, well I winded up installing my stillen dual exhaust & a set of stillen headers, still never got around to installing the supercharger, but real soon now I think... can't find any pictures of these at the moment





sooo what's next? well, in 3 days it'll be my 1 year aniversary of driving this fx... when I first got her I wasn't really sure I would be really happy with it, I was concerned that I might not like the ride quality or just not like it in general, so I kept the body & the paintjob pretty basic incase I decided I wanted to sell it, but after about a year with this thing I now know that I'm officially in love with it. so now, I'm thinking I shoulda did what I really wanted to do in the first place, which was to customize the body & go with a bit more of a custom paintjob... I've got a nice black cherry in mind.

also for a while now I've been thinking about moving up to 22's, & I really like the staggered look. being awd, staggered can be a challenge, cause the front & rear have to be the exact same diameter with very little tolerance for differences in tire diameter, front & rear need to be around the same amount of revolutions per mile or the computer will see this as a slip condition & kick up a service light, more like 5 service lights on the fx really.


you'd be surprised how few tires there are out there in 22" with a nice wider rear & a bit narrower matching front that is the exact same diameter or even real close diameter. I looked at pretty much most tires out there trying to find a nice staggered setup in 22's that would be around the right size for the fx. with a nice fat tire out back I want a real muscle look


the tires I came up with looking for a staggered set of 22's are a street sport truck tire. the rears are 315 30 22's & are slightly less overall diameter than stock, but close enough to be fine really. the fronts are going to be 265 35 22's, I would have liked to be a little wider in the front too, but these'll do fine. I tried hard to find a wider tire out back, but can't find anything wider with a matching front, so the 315's will do I guess.

first step in a project like this is to select the tires, second is to build a set of wheels with the exact fit needed to put them where I want them for the body, then, last step is to actually modify the body around the wheels if necessary. it doesn't have to be done in that order I suppose, but that seems to be the best way for me to do this to me... I really don't want to use spacers or anything, I want a custom set of wheels that fit the way I want them to ideally

I ordered a rear tire to see... get an idea of how it fits & how much I want to or need to stretch. surprisingly I think it's very possible to fit this 315 tire completely in the stock wheel well with the right rim, but that would not do anything for my idea of a big fat aggressive body look & I'd still be stuck with stock wheel wells... I'm seriously considering altering the wheel lip & eliminating the whole shadow molding on the bottom of the truck. this is something I always thought I might do someday down the road, but the more I think about just getting one set of wheels the more I think i should do the wheel wells together with the wheels. I really don't want to have to buy another set of wheels in a year or so, bad enough I already bought one set of forged 3 piece 20's, I want just one nice set of 22's....












the real decision is weather I alter the body itself, & how much. I'm thinking of the possibilty of stretching out the whole rear of the fx, not so much flared, but have the body widen from the front 1/3rd of the rear door & the quarters also stretched & widened a bit. then, eliminate the plastic wheelwell trim & convert the wheelwells to something more similar to say a g37 or something, sleek, but kinda still factory looking, in that if you didn't know the fx, it will look like it coulda came that way.

here's an idea of what I mean... picture the door being closed, but the back of it being out like it's open a few inches, then picture the quarter also brought out to that level... I'm not talking huge dramatic stretch, just maybe 1.5"-2" out at it's widest point, then another 1.5-2" on the revised lip... total widening maybe 4" or so each side?












of course the quarter panel would be stretched out as much as the door, & the rear bumper & the rockers gotta be worked too... I got it all pictured in my head, just to see if it can go from my head to fx metal is the question this is one thought that I've been fighting with in my head for a while now.... if I do this then I'll have to repaint more than half the fx over again so I probably will wind up repainting the whole thing at that point. when I first did my fx I kept it conservative with the black pearl... if I redo it I may go with a black cherry that I originally had in mind for it, but chickened out last minute & just went with the black pearl

my redesign of the fx body is mainly targeted at the wheelwell & plastic moldings of the fx.I've been looking at all cars wheelwells for a while now, trying to decide which wheelwell design, or wheelwell edge, would be the perfect one to graft into the fx. if I do this I want to try & do this as much as possible out of sheet metal, want to avoid large amounts of fillers or fiberglass. a pre pressed perfect sheet metal edge is what I was looking for.


I've considered just about every wheelwell possible out there, the obvious to me g35, g37's even the 350z's, there all to small to match the fx wheelwell size. I don't want to shrink the wheelwell so much, need something like them kinda, but larger. I want the overall smooth flowing look of those cars, but the fx is larger & it has to be proportionate.

I decided the 300m wheel opening was the closest thing to perfect as I could find so far, has just the right amount of lip, right arch, right pitch into the fender, a lot of things need to be considered with this fitting & flowing well... in pricing different donor fenders & after seeing many that would cost $300 each & better, I saw that these fenders are dirt cheap, under $100 each oem , worth a shot to check one out.

I rough cut a wheel opening from the 300m fender & test fit mock up. so far it looks like a nice match. if it was trimmed & the car was trimmed to weld it all togeather it would fit pretty flush & flow right into the body, the door & quarter would be stretched out to meet the extended wheelwell.

you gotta use a little imagination when looking at these pictures to see what it could look like, but they give a pretty good idea. if I did this I think I want to keep the lower chrome band through the front to rear from the original body, the rear will just widen with the body, I like the look of the heavy chrome molding on the lower edge, even if it winded up painted I like the way that molding looks & sits & breaks it up a bit.

next thing I think of doing is getting another fender so I can mock up front & rear togeather at the same time on one side, take some more pictures, & then play with it in photoshop to try & visualize the whole thing togeather, but from what I see so far I think it would look great. to do this I would need to use 6 fenders, around $550 for all the sheet metal to do this body mod, so far it's looking good, possible & practical.














so, hows that for an update post

you never cease to amaze me! and i see the turbocad sans tag in front of the shop. that deville is a classic and should be back on the road with a polished up, supercharged ls7 under the hood. the fx will look like the beast it is with those body mods and new paint.

Come on turbo, you're killing me with the suspense. I am lurking in the shadows looking for updates every few days and I am starting to get disappointed. I hate you for being awesome.

Turbo you damn stud. I am astonished at your plastic fabrication skills, looks great. I was kind of confused what you were talking about in regards to backlighting and front lighting the LCD. I also would love to see pics of your HID's output on full against a wall from afar. Another question is about the paint job cost, you did that with $500 worth of supplies? I have the gun and supplies and would love to do my own paint job if I can do it for that. I have no idea what color I would go with on the truck. I have scratched my paint job from brush, mud, etc. Here are a few videos of my rig, the truck is pretty well known on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/getstuk

I have a lot in common with you as far as desires, but your beyond my skill level. I thought I did a lot of custom things with lighting on my 04 F150 until I came upon this thread and boy am I glad I did. I have white cathodes under the bedrails operated with a wireless keychain remote, they light up my bedrug and the contents in my bed. I also have electric retractable running boards when you open the door, and custom white leds that shine on the steps. I also painted my mirrors the body color of my truck and put LED's as turn signals. I've fiberglassed a piece of my dash to house a push start ignition button and an electric fan switch + power point.

I have wanted to add true HID projectors to my heads/fogs but I'm worried about sealing/condensation issues. You have any? I am often in water up to my headlights and don't want to worry about shorting them out. I have HID's in my heads and fogs but just retrofit kits, not true projectors.

I also have 3 tv's (powered by an AVIC-Z1) with all the optional goodies, it's a fully loaded Lariat with wood grain, etc. Added white cathodes under the hood for when this Ford lets me down and I'm stuck under there wrenching. Also added police issued A-pillar spotlights.

I am working on a flush mounted in bed ice chest/storage. I have a bedrug in my bed and I want the lid to the ice chest to be flush and almost invisible to the naked eye.

I am not trying to steal your thread but just share my builds with a likeminded person because I read through all 20 pages of this thread in anticipation so I thought you might be interested. Here are some links to my projects, if you have some free time please answer the questions I posted above.

<a href="http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i40/JosiahM1970/?action=view&current=ATT00718.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i40/JosiahM1970/ATT00718.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i40/JosiahM1970/?action=view&current=icechestdimensionscopy.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i40/JosiahM1970/icechestdimensionscopy.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i40/JosiahM1970/?action=view&current=frankraines038.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i40/JosiahM1970/frankraines038.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i40/JosiahM1970/?action=view&current=underhoodlighting.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i40/JosiahM1970/underhoodlighting.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

all i can say is .....Superrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Nice and clean. Well done dude....The price to complete all that is not bad. Good job

Superrrrrrrrrrrrrr All project is good but this is number one.