Slightly Damaged Vespa GTS250 was what i got in my hands one evening. It was black, with some side sliding damage. Target was – get it looking brang new – in Lexus White color, brown leather seat – and some testimonials from Rock’n'Rolla movie! Hmm… Intresting… Long story – short – here it is in the paint booth – already painted – and ready for some brushing. First – lets start with some template lettering:

Lets add some base color:

Client wanted to add old School revolver image and lucky leaf over it somthere – so here it goes:

Finall results where not bad at all:

To finish it off – 8ball on other side! Looks pretty cool in real life!

Well – while engine parts were in the machine shop getting measured, block is getting honned and etc, we started on RHD to LHD conversion. As i had all the parts from one Donor car here – i was ready to go and change whole firewall, like it’s done on newer Toyotas (cuz it’s totally different in RHD and LHD forms). I thought it will be the same thing with my Corolla! NOT! Well – after quick inspection – it seems that RHD firewall and LHD firewall are 95% identical! The only difference is the steering shaft opening places are on RHD firewall - on RH side the firewall is FLAT and on LH side – firewall is groved – so what we did – we just cut these parts from LHD firewall – and cut / welded them into RHD firewall!  The TOP part of the firewall – is exactly the same as LHD firewall – what is needed – just to make new mounting points for the wipers motor and wipers mechanism. As I’m not going to use any heater core (stock one i mean), also – all the wiring will be new, and i will use Floor Mount pedal box – so i ain’t care about all the mounting brackets inside the car – so i just bolted on LHD main support (on which steering gear mounts) and mounted main metal beam inside the car – placed steering shaft – and called this A DAY!

Next – putting Engine together!

Finally forced my self to write another update! So here we go again. After i managed to get my Corolla on all4 – it ain’t lasted too long like this. Managed to start engine (never tryed this before cuz of the damage) and took it for a ride back home in RHD (we drive on LHD here in Lithuania) and in extremly small bucket seat + a bit too close to the steering wheel…

 So it wasn’t too comfortable as for the first test drive! Oh well – as I’m totally F/I guy – and i always said that N/A is expensive way to go slow – this test drive and engine ain’t gave me any WOW impression (i usually drive GC8 STi or something like this for a little fun – so people who know how EJ207 performs – can image the difference)   I drove few Hachis before – and this one was truly fastest of all – but still – I’m not going to leave it N/A ! At least few things that i was worried were ok – Gearbox + Diff! 

Well – the next day (as i left my Hachi at my friends garage – cuz my workshop is a bit busy as usual) my friend ain’t had much to do – so he started to take the engine out. As my friend at this time was working on Nissans and RB26 engines most of the time – 4AGE compared to RB26 was piece of cake for him to remove it out of Corolla body!  In 1 hour – he managed to have engine on the ground!  I was a bit shocked – cuz he was working alone !

We took all the wiring out, and started to rip the motor into parts to see what’s inside.

Here goes the head.

Going upside down – and let’s see what we got here…

And here goes nothing… 1-2 rod bearings – almost ALMOST dead… well – basicly the problem was in the oil pump / oil pressure – and THANKS God i ain’t took the car for another test drive – cuz i would now need a new crank…

Works done 

To take everything apart it took us around hour and a half working. We did this with my friend – so it was kinda fast, took all the parts into machine shop – and we will see how it goes once i get some news from these guys!

Heh, bought this SMEG fridge like a month ago, it had some transportation damages all around – so i thought why not paint it… 

Last 2 days before x-mas i was busy with it, gone a bit crazy and finished it Today, assembled and got it into place. It took me around 14 hours to get it looking like this from simple Black fridge, still not too satisfied with the look – i could spend another day or two working on small details – but for not it will do just fine

Sorry for poor photos – but house is a mess – getting ready for Christmas Eve so ya know Will do proper photos later on the run…

AE86. Finally, after lots of thinking – do I need it or not, trying to decide – will I have time to build it, where I’m going to use it - I bought it. While searching for the “right” car - I managed to bang on lots and lots of people, annoyed everyone – cuz I wanted it to be CHEAP, have a GOOD SOLID body, and to be a LEVIN…

When I saw THIS car – it was on Driftworks (www.driftworks.com) site, advertisment was placed by someone from Japan… Well -it was CHEAP, but at first glance – it was not in great shape at all (front damage) and it was Trueno Coupe (ahhh!!!)… Well – thought I will ask about it, got the price for it landed in Lithuania – and backed off… Cuz I was unsure if this was the Right car…

After months of searching – Andy from Powervehicles (www.powervehicles.com) offered it again to me… Got Email from him with pictures and little spec list – and started to think about it again… And as money was “burning my pocket”  I thought – what the hell – went and bought it.

So here it was – my new toy to play with: 83′ AE86 GT-APEX Trueno with Ae92 Engine and LOTS of goddies to start with

While it was in transit from Japan,  I started planning, buy things for the project. The idea was to equip AE body with S13 chasis – and to drop a 4agte Engine in it to have anough power to play around with.

Bought some very first parts for the engine:

4AGZE Pistons / Rings

4AGZE Rods

ACL main / rod bearings

And some other stuff smal stuff…

Once the car arrived – after some quick inspection – found out it had NO RUST AT ALL! Anywhere! It was IN TOTALLY perfect condition, and I could not believe my eyes – how good as the Base it was!

So the first thing was to get the body straight again, and so it went to bodyshop of a friend of mine, who does all the metal works for more then 20 years now – and as I say – has a Golden hands

We got it on the straightning stand – and works got started:

3 days later – finally some signs of Trueno face:

And another few days later – it was standing on its’ own:

After last picture – AE86 got her name – Pitbull! Cuz it was looking like one with different color “eye” and lots of battle scars! After I saw this look on it - I clearly new – Trueno face will stay on it!

That’s it for PART1 – there will be more on the progress of this car – cuz it’s been in the works for almost a year now – so a lot of stuff is done already. I will try to update as often as possible – so stay tuned!

When I got a call from a customer, asking to paint his helmet, I was not so fancy, because he wanted something on the Simpsons theme…

 I’m not a big fan of them – so ideas were not going into my head at all… After few talks with him, he gave me few directions of wanted colors (ConocoPhillips 76 Logo, and this logo on the top of the helmet) and everything else – was a complete freedom on the Animation style theme! And I guess every single artist loves when they can express themselfs without any “frames”. So here it’s the result after 1 full day of work:

I thought so – when I got offer to work on it. As I’m NOT a big fan of all the Euro cars, and especially working on them – but I thought: what the hell – let’s try something new. And it was super Fun project in the end!

When it came in my garage – it was just a  JC W Mini Cooper with Orciari Aerodynamic Body Kit, Orciari seat covers and some Kahn wheels. Nothing too fancy, nothing too flashy.  Owner of this car wanted to have some English Flag spirit theme on this car – so the main point in whole paintwork – was UK flag.

First – mirrors, they were painted to look like they are covered in UK flag:

Next step – Orciari seat covers – in the same UK flag style:

Same theme followed on custom armrests in interior (sorry for horrible pics… they are from my phone):

Headlights got some paint too – had to disassemble them – paint all the inside in 2 main colors that the car was painted to:

Even more UK flag – made see-through sticker on the glass-roof:

More ideas were popping into my customers and mine heads – so we decided to keep the 2 tone paint theme flowing on every chromed piece of the car. So all the chrome had to go. It was a hard task – cuz it’s hard to prepare chromed parts for paint, and to paint them. So – exhaust tips, fuel tank cover, door handles – painted white.

All the chromed stripes around the windows – were covered in gloss white vinyl – cuz rubber sealing is glued to the metal – so it was almost impossible to paint it.

2 tone theme continued even on brake calipers – for more fun – we painted all the calipers in different color – 1 front in white, another one in blue, and so on the rears too:

Same 2 tone treatment was continued on the wheels too – adding even more FUN, painting one wheel spoke in Blue (it looks so damn awesome when wheels are spinning!)

Owner of this Mini wanted to add something to the front wings – something to finish up all the English flag / spirit theme – so I ended up painting John Cooper Works logos:

Hmm – way too plain? I thought exactly the same – let’s add more FUN! Ripped metal + Flag = way better:

So – in the end – this car started to look like a mini Hot-Wheels toy. It puts smiles on the faces everywhere it goes – and looks totally different, stylish, and FUN!

This Mini will be coming back for even more changes – so I will be updating progress of it later on next year!

Hehe, yes, another BIG build. This one is build in progress by my Co-worker. It’s a Drift weapon – and it should end up totally Awesome! Keep on checking – there will be lots of more!

Some of you know this car… Some of you don’t – but I guess I will just post this teaser pic for the people who don’t know all the story / progress on it – so keep on checking – there will be LOOOOOooooonnnnggg post about this BadBoy.

When i got this order – i was kinda scared… A Rolls Royce Phantom steering wheel?

Oh well – some one has to do it anyways… The aim was to build bigger / thicker wheel with Wood “look-a-like”  inserts… All the inserts where airbrushed to match the original Rolls wood. And it was a nightmare – spent almost 48 hours working / matching colors, trying to get the right texture, style, shades… In the end – it came out not too bad i guess? You judge.

Here’s one pic of the progress – had to build 2 of these steering wheels – both had different wood texture – both came out perfect. In this picture – insert is not clearcoated yet, so has slightly different shade:

Bad picture of the first one:

More pics of the second steering wheel: