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Over the past few days, i made and tried quite a few different color combinations of the TE37SL sticker to see what would work best on the red TE37RT wheels. Besides the ones i made in my previous post, i also made a few multi-layered decals so that instead of having the letters being cutouts to allow the color of the wheel define the letters, i used another vinyl color for the letters. I thought this was a better idea since it showed less red, which helped break up the color a little bit. Below are a few of the various color combinations i tried:











I even tried duplicating the sticker that RAYS provides with the wheel in different colors:





In the end, i decided to go with the black background and silver letters which is the same color combination of the sticker provided with the wheels, except, to make the wheels stand out just a little bit more, i made a slight change to the standard black/silver combo. Instead of making all the letters in silver, i decided to leave the "RT" and the "R" in Racing as cutouts, so that when i applied the sticker, the natural red of the wheel would show through.

Here are the stickers all done and ready to be applied:


And here's what they look like when applied to the wheel:




And lastly, here's the full set complete. It's too bad that i'm still months away from getting these wheels on the car. Hopefully my body kit arrives sooner than expected so i can start putting everything on the car.



Besides the black sticker i made, i also really liked the silver sticker, so i might make a silver set as well and leave it on the side in case i want to spice up the wheels again later on down the road.

After nearly 16 years, i finally got another set of Volk Racing TE37's. The only other time in my life where i've owned a set of Volk Racing wheels was in 1998 when i had a set of white 17inch TE37's on my 1995 Honda Civic Si hatchback. When i had my first RX-7, i only had Advan wheels, but i always dreamed of owning Volk Racing TE37 wheels again, but under one condition, they had to have the concave face. Unfortunately, at the time, it was impossible to achieve the concave TE37 look on an FD without a widebody kit, and i had no plans to do a widebody kit back then. Now that i've fully committed to doing the full RE-Amemiya AD-GT kit, i knew it was time i owned another set of TE37's.

My initial plan was to get the TE37SL Black Edition wheels with the fluorescent yellow stickers, but then i saw the TE37SL 2012 Limited edition wheels where the Volk Racing logo was engraved onto the spoke, instead of the usual sticker, and i knew that if i was going to own a set of TE37's, it had to have the logo engraved onto the wheel. Unfortunately, the 2012 Limited wheels were never sold outside of Japan, and they were already discontinued, so i was pretty much out of luck. The only other variations of the TE37 that contained the engraved logo were the TE37RT and the TE37 Ultra, but given the fact that the Ultra's only came in size 20's, really the only option was the TE37RT. The only caveat, however, was that the RTs only came in red, and unluckily for me, my car was red. At first i thought there's no way i could put red wheels on a red car, but at the same time, i couldn't bring myself to buy the TE37SL's that didn't have the engraved logo because i would i always wish i had it, so in the end, i bit the bullet and ordered the RT's, thinking that i always had the option to paint the wheels a different color, whereas with the SL's, there would be no way to get the engraved logo. On the upside, i managed to get the RT's for cheaper than the SL's by ordering directly from Japan rather than going through a local distributor which would've cost me $1000 more. After i ordered the wheel, i actually started thinking that i'm glad i ordered red wheels because it's so different from what most people would do, so it would actually make the car stand out more. So i did some searching for other red cars with red wheels, and i stumbled upon this car on Facebook and i actually think that red wheels look awesome on a red car...i just hope my car manages to look as good as this guy's car:



Here's a picture of the specs from the boxes


After doing some research on Minkara and checking out the wheel specs of a lot of guys who track/race their FD's, I decided to go with a square setup, so i ordered the same size for all 4 wheels. I also ordered a set of Bridgestone RE760's 265/35 18 that i'm still waiting to receive. I'm kind of partial to Bridgestone since i run their tires on my bikes and they're also the sole supplier for MotoGP which i'm a big fan of.

I also did a quick test to see what the wheels would look like on the car...not bad...definitely unique


After seeing ER34Sky's FD with the TE37SL 2012 Limited wheels and how he got a custom SL-style sticker for his wheels, i decided i was going to do the same for my RT's. Unfortunately, there weren't too many options when it came to getting stickers here in the states, especially custom ones. A lot of the websites are based over in Asia and they charge quite a lot for even just the regular SL-style stickers. Since i have plans to add a bunch of stickers to my FD after i finish the body kit, i decided it would be worth it to buy my own vinyl cutter and just start making some of my own stickers instead of trying to source stickers online. After doing some research, i ended up with a Silhouette Cameo which is quite popular among the craft-making crowds.



As you can see, the cutter itself is not much bigger than a regular printer, but because of that, the cutter can't cut anything wider than 12 inches, which should be ok for my needs. My first order of business for the new cutter was to make some SL-style decals for my new wheels.



The biggest difference for my custom decals is that it's meant to be fitted on the left side, as opposed to the right side for the regular SL decal. Here's a picture of my first test fit on the wheel




I also wanted to add a smaller TE37RT decal, but i'm still trying to decide where to put it. My two options are

1. Underneath the valve stem, similar to the way the standard TE37SL wheel has it


or

2. I could be it on the spoke opposite of where my other decal is. The only issue with this particular spot is the engraved logo is on that same spoke so it can look a little crowded, but i kind of like it in this spot.


I still need to experiment a little bit more with the decals, so nothing is final yet. I'm also considering some other colors, such as 青い or 黄色い. I'm still waiting for those vinyls to come in, but i'll post another update once they do.

Well, unfortunately, the body kit isn't coming for a while, so i still have a lot of time to continue experimenting with various designs and colors before i make a final decision.

Update:

I got some more vinyl colors, so i decided to try out some different colors. I also got my new lug nuts in. They're McGard Spline drive chrome nuts with a blue cap. I was going back and forth between getting chrome or black lug nuts, but i ended up with these blue ones and i actually think it looks quite good.

Blue:




Black Chrome:




And here's a picture of all three colors so far. One last color that i still want to see is Yellow. But so far, i'm leaning towards Silver.



On a side note, i still can't believe how much snow we're getting this year. We just had another major snowstorm yesterday that dropped over a foot of snow on top of the 1-2 feet of snow (ice) we already had. Here are two pictures i took from yesterday's snow storm

Here is my Toyota Camry complete buried in snow


And here's Naomi-chan showing us how much snow we got

So i finally decided on a set of wheels and purchased them...Volk Racing TE37RT! I know i know...why am i getting red wheels when my car is already red? To be honest, what i always thought i would get were the TE37SL, but then i saw the TE37SL 2012 Limited, which has the engraved Volk Racing logo instead of the usual sticker. Unfortunately, Japan only TE37SL 2012 limited wheels are no longer being sold, even in Japan, so i had to decide between the TE37SL, TE37SL Black Edition, or the TE37RT. Of the 3, only the RT comes with the engraved logo, and since i was able to find the RT's for the same price as the SL's, i decided to just jump on it. My original plan was to paint the RT's black, to make them look like the SL limited, but after thinking about it, i decided to just keep the wheels red for now and add an SL-type sticker in either silver or white as an accent. I haven't even seen the wheel yet, so right now what i imagine it to look like is all speculation, but time will tell when i finally get the body kit installed and the wheels put on.

As for the size, i ended up with 18x10.5J +18 for both the front and rear. Since i was planning to run a square set up, 265/35's on both the front and rear, why not just get the same wheels all the way around so i could at least rotate the wheels if i really wanted to. I was originally planning to go with a staggered setup, but after doing some research, i found out that a square set up is a better set up for the FD because of the oversteer attributes verses the understeer attributed to a staggered set up.

I'll post up some pictures of the wheels when i get them.

After lowering the car with the Ohlins 車高調, the thin 18x8 inch front wheel became very obvious as the wheel was fully tucked under the front fender, leaving a large gap between the fender and the wheel. What i really wanted to do was buy new wheels, but since i'm waiting to install the RE雨宮 GT AD II widebody kit before buying new wheels, i had to make do with the wheels that came with the car. So, i decided to buy some 20mm wheel spacers to push out the wheels, making them fit 9.0 inch wide wheels. The wheel spacers came unpainted, so i used some leftover paint i had from painting my rotor hubs to paint the wheel spacers to match the hubs.



Installing wheels spacers is fairly straight forward and only took a few minutes to complete. Here's a picture of the wheel spacer installed:


The wheel spacer isn't quite as wide as the rotor hub, but considering it was a temporary thing, i didn't mind too much. To give you a better idea of the huge difference in stance these wheel spacers made, here are some before and after pictures:

Before


After


It's nice to see the front wheel stick out a little bit more and show more of it's tire making it look beefier and more aggressive

Since my birthday and Christmas are so close together, I decided to give myself a special RE雨宮 treat this year, especially since the past few months have been so difficult. I've been making my purchases based on whether or not it was something i could make use of right away. I didn't want to get into parts hoarding and never getting around to installing them, so when picking out which part to buy next, i always make sure it's something i can use right away. So for my birthday i decided to buy an RE雨宮AD9カーボンボンネット. I had a replica version in the past on my old RX-7, but since i've dedicated this current build to 雨宮さん, i made a pact with myself to only buy original parts directly from RE雨宮.

Replica RE雨宮AD9カーボンボンネット on my old FD


I ordered the ボンネット on 12/3 and i received it in just over a week. I was shocked when the delivery guy came knocking on my door because i had just gotten the tracking number the day before, which means it only took 1 day for it to ship from 日本 to America.



RE雨宮 Original Seal of Approval


Since i couldn't contain my excitement, i ended up installing the hood the same day i got it. Installing a hood isn't a major affair. It's simply 4 bolts by the hinge and thats it.



The only challenge was doing it by yourself. Without any help, moving such a large hood can get a little tricky, especially if you're trying hard not to scratch it. But by taking it slowly, i eventually got the hood installed without any drama.



Having a bare carbon hood on a non-black car has always been a dream of mine as well, ever since i saw the original Spoon Sports Honda Integra Type-R that started the whole craze. Unfortunately for me, my first Honda Civic was black and so was my first FD3S. So finally after getting a non-black car, getting a carbon fiber hood was on the top of my to do list. I'm glad i got around to it before the end of the year...just in time for Christmas!



The hood even makes the engine bay look cooler when it's opened



And lastly, i leave you with a picture i took of the Christmas tree in front of the New York Stock Exchange on my way home from work.