pretty much my engine had low compression and my tranny was going out. car has 189k on it. i am the second owner of this 95 SE 5spd. ruby pearl with nasty tan cloth. i bought the car in 06 and was completly stock. i have been changing her ever since. this summer i decided it was time to replace the engine and tranny with a 3.5 6spd repaint the entire car, engine bay, door jams and trunk. convert the tan interior to black. seems to me like this project wouldnt take that long but i always underestimate everything.

so this is where my build starts

how she looked before i started taking everything apart

 

i found a complete 05 engine and tranny with 50k and drove to Nevada and picked that bad boy up. came with everything i needed for the swap. tranny mount, speed sensor, shifter, shifter cables, 02 wire harness, 02 speedo cluster, egas pedal all that good stuff.

the plan was to run the engine with the 02 ecu so pretty much a complete swap considering i didnt wanna mess with the timing. that turned out to be a big mistake. after thinking about how much of a pain it would be to get the ecu key and ignition to match up i rethought about the timing swap. ultimately the timing is the best choice!

 

hmm... seems to be a good thread I will keep a look @ this thread

 

Good luck. im in the process of doing an overhaul.

3.5/3.0 hybrids is usually the best option. Go ahead and replace your bushings and most rubber parts aswell, you can ES some of them or just replace them with the normal rubber parts. Ball joints and wheel bearings, replace them too. The car will feel brand new after that.

 

Subscribed..

 

some carfornication is gona be had up in this thread...

 

Those headlights look odd for some reason but the overall look is pretty sick. Just slam it and your done with the outside. Good luck.

 

Love the colour. Mine is just a really big rust bucket, not worth painting. Definitely going to keep and eye on this thread though.

 

need pics of the build..

 

um, the car looked really nice, but he painted it....agian. lol cant wait to see the new color schem

 

well i went ahead and tore out the inside so i could start preping the car for paint. dash, seats, door pannels, seat belts rear deck for speakes, headliner, all of which will be painted black. yes painted with dull black duplicolor vinyl & fabric paint. turned out pretty well actually. i also started to paint the carpet black as well.

 

Aw man, I'd love to transform my Tan interior to a nice black/grey.

Car looks great in the before pics btw.

 

thanks man!

so i removed the engine on a good day. weather hasnt been the best in Cali. i cleaned up everything the best i cood to make it ready for paint. i wanted to remove the original 5spd tranny mount consitering it is useless with the 6spd ill be installing later. i noticed that i only had to grind down and cut out the mount on 2 sides and i could leave the under part alone. just drilled out the stop welds and pried that sucker off. grinded it smooth and it was ready to be painted.

 

 

I like these threads..subscribed.

 

Agreed, we don't see many like this. It gives people like me motivation to get busy

BTW to the OP, going from tan to black will be huge. I went from grey to black, and it was a big difference to me.

 

Do work son!!

Nice progress so far, keep up the good work..

 

I dont get it, the car looks absolutely sick as-is, but, I do like the progression of projects, so good luck bro....

 

the car was pretty nice on the outside but the interior was well tan. i hated it and many people seem to be going towards repainting their maxima red so im trying to get away from that and be completly original in my idea. obviously black interior and a 3.5 6spd have been done but not like this.

i guess ive gotten to a point in my life where i just wanna start all over with this car.

as far as going to black interior its gonna be super dark on the inside at night but i have ideas for solving that problem

 

I like where this thread is going. subscribed.

 

Fabric paint, eh? Good idea. Are you doing all of the painting yourself or just the prep? What did you use in the engine bay there, paint-wise?

I love to read about stuff like this. Good luck.

 

I am doing everything to this car myself! Paint engine work and tons of custom fabrication. Some parts will become carbon fiber here pretty soon and others will be painted pearl white.

Interior colors will be mainly black with a tiny bit of white. All lights will be white LEDs maybe some purple under the seats when the front doors open. I havent decided about this just yet.

I'm still looking for some black leather seats but Cali seems to never have any maximas parting out. They are all on the east coast

 

White? Im skeptical of how that will look with the black interior and red exterior. Awesome work you're doing by the way. Subscribing as well.

 

I do not believe there will be any red left on this car when he is finished. So just black and white. Looks great so far, keep it up man

 

Here's my 95 SE - Ruby red with black and medium gray leather interior. I didn't like the black on black interior when I bought this car new in 94. So the dealer let me select whatever color leather I wanted, and had the seats and door inserts recovered. 16+ years later, the interior is still in great shape (these pics were taken a year ago).

 

WOW.. nice car.

 

Don't be hatin on that Red n Black

In for progress.

 

Ive got my interior all black, black leather,console,door panels and black carpet..... and its awesome.
The first time I sat in it after ditching the previous grey interior I was like whoa, being surrounded in all black is sweeet.
BTW, why not ditch those cloth door inserts for the leather ones?

 

Really? Red and black is a killer combo. Flows better to me then red and grey or red and tan.

 

Red and tan looks fantastic on the right car.


The Maxima, however, is not the right car.

(I take any opportunity I can get to post photos of an R107 SL.)

 

Agreed 100% on how great it is to be surrounded in all black. I still have the gray carpet and headliner but when I first installed my black leather seats I thought it looked great, then when I added the OEM black leather door panels it really set it off. Will never consider another interior color.


OP: what exactly did you use to dye your carpet black? I've always wanted to purchase black carpet like flava did but have never been able to justify the purchase.

 

IDK, to me it would look better with black interior. Isnt the top black?

 

I was referring to the black and white on the interior. So I was thinking there was going to be red on black on white with the color theme. Someone mentioned that the cars exterior was no longer going to be red after I posted that.

 

Yea, i had gray cloth did black leather and it felt amazing inside, to say a differnet car. Full black interior now, next is suede headliner to finish it off

 

Comming along nicely! I can't wait to see the finished product.

 

Sure, but who's got the top up?

I guess it's hard to explain why, but I never thought the black interior looked good on the red SLs. I've seen more red/palomino (the official name for tan) than red/black, but neither is uncommon, so I guess it's a split among tastes.

Maybe I'm biased - my dad had a red/tan.

 

fabric paint huh... I never knew such a thing existed.

that is good news for me because my next project car is a car that almost always comes with a tan interior which I hate. gray or black are exceedingly rare, so fabric paint might be just the thing if it really doesn't stain your clothes or smell like paint.

 

man you guys are really going at it with the black vs tan.

TO ALL WHO ARE READING THIS MY CAR WILL NO LONGER BE RED!!!!!!!!!

with that being said all black interior with hints of white will look ballin.

as for the vinyl/fabric paint i only used it on my carpet, then everything else but no seats! this produck does not transfer to your clothes once it is dry but i'd suggest not using it on cloth seats i painted my passenger seat just for the heck of it and it turned the cloth to black as expected but it sure made that stuff stiff. still comfortable but not as soft as before. you can buy black carpet pre molded on ebay for like 80-140 i was just too cheap and painted it. ive heard no matter what it will rub off over tome with wear so i just bought some cool floor mats to prolong the carpets life

 

well got most of the interior done. here are some shots of the headliner and rear cover. oh and a couple CF projects ive been working on







since my SE didnt come with tweeters i went ahead and made my own