Name: Chris Location: Adelaide, Silver Sands Car: VL Calais SII Year: 1987 Colour: Metalic silver interior: Dark blue SII Body: Stock calais Engine: grandpa spec RB30e Gearbox: Auto Wheels: Stock VL calais Mods: Lukey 2.1/2" cat back exhaust, High flow air filter (http://imageshack.us) (http://imageshack.us) Sorry about quality of the shots, taken on my phone... I bought this 8 months ago with 130k original (i have papers showing kms) on the clock, it now has 140k. It was a completely original calais with RB30e Auto in it. It had a blocked exhaust when i bought it so i put a 2 1/2" cat back system on it for good measure. It currently has a Clarion 52x4Watt head unit, JBL 180w 6" in the rear with stock 4" in the front (YEW!!!). Sound system will hopefully be swaped over with a full pioneer setup i had in my VC. Bad things with the car currently: It got hit in a carpark 3 days after i bought it (grrrrr....) and left a crack in the rear RHS bumper and a nice graze over the drivers side rear wheel arch... Wish i knew who did it... The eyelids dont work, i'm missing some of the links between the motor and the eyelid rods... where they went I have no idea. (and yes it is an original calais, i've checked the numbers). Also some of the windows are missing tint and others are bubbled so i'm replacing it with really dark tint in a few weeks. Mods that are on the list include: getting a new stering wheel (I personally don't like the single spoke wheel, its too big and ugly), Getting the original calais mags polished and have the gutter rash removed as its really bad (self explanitory reason and they look good), Lowering the car by 1 1/2 - 2" with koni shocks and king springs (it rides way too high but still want to keep it legal and not get rediculously low), Thinking of Putting on a HDT Calais LE kit (subtle but effective, still not sure if I'll do this), converting the crappy auto into a 5sp man, prefferably the turbo one as it has better ratios and is stronger (I personaly dont like auto's and this one is no better IMO), possibly turboing the RB30 and putting on a twin cam head or dropping in an RB26det with 5sp man from an R34 skyline (stock N/A 6 just doesn't have the balls... again, not sure what to do here but I dont have the money for it yet anyway) Adding swaybars or something of the like to make it handle even better than it already does (you can't have a car that handles too good) I'll post up with new pic's and a progress report when things get done. Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

car looks very neat and your future plans sound promising... good luck with it

Cheers mate, its in awsome condition. Can't wait for the money to give it the attention it deserves Reposting the photo's from the first page as they dont seem to be working correctly anymore... Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

Typical... I re-post the pics with a new host and the old ones start working again... grrr... Anyway, I got the original mags polished and they look sweet. Once I get a cut and polish on them they'll come out even better. They went from this: (http://imageshack.us) To This: (http://imageshack.us) Which I think is a drastic improvement considering the damage to the outer rim and face of the mag. This is what the car looks like now: The work was carried out by GLM Metal Polishers in Lonsdale, SA. And I am very pleased with the finish that he got with how ****ed my mags were when I gave them to him. http://www.glmmetalpolishers.com.au/ More updates soon... Hopefully Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

looks nice mate how much did it cost you if you dont mind me askin ? and also did you have to give them to him without the tyres on ?? oh and one more thing did you have any major gutter rash that he got rid of ?

Quote: Originally Posted by seans VL looks nice mate how much did it cost you if you dont mind me askin ? and also did you have to give them to him without the tyres on ?? oh and one more thing did you have any major gutter rash that he got rid of ? Ummm... He asked for $45 per rim but mine were ****ed, really deep gutter rash on the outer rim and even some nasty scrapes accross the face of the mag. Yeah, I had to give them to him without tyres as he doesn't have a tyre remover and it gets in the way of polishing the edges. There were a few small "mop" marks on the mags when I got them back but a quick polish with a lint free cloth brought them up awsome. It sounds like alot for getting them done but they take a good 2 hours to do (so the guy doesn't get payed much per hour) and it saves you the hassle of doing it yourself, and the transformation is amazing as can be seen in the photos Hope that answers your questions Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

**Update** Sourced an MX7 5sp from SPRIGZY and that will go into my car as soon as its out of his [gld jet]. So hopefully within the next month my car will no longer be an auto Also got another centre console as mine was cracked in numerous places and brought down the overall appearance of the interior. It looks so much neater with the new one in there, which is awesome. More photos when something substantial gets done. Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

After shredding both the drivers side interior and removing all the brake booster and steering column my mechanic and I finnally removed the pedal box for the swap... And to make things worse my alarm/immobaliser wires crossed though everything and had to be removed and re-routed. But all in all it wasn't too bad, I was expecting a **** of a job to get it done. Also replaced the spark plugs with bosch platinums and put in a lukey high flow air filter. With all the stuff done the car runs smooth as, only problem is it whines in 1st, 2nd and 3rd, but i'll get that delt with at a later date. All in all... Hell yeah 5spd's kick arse!!! Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

sounds like all is going well thank god those stickers are gone from the centre caps they looked terrible!

The eyelid lifter rods were missing when I bought the car and I finaly found some at a wrecker in Lonsdale and replaced them. Its so much better, now I can actually see when I have my lights on at night. I got a sports steering wheel off my mates VLC before he sold it to replace the boat helm single spoker. My custom plates arrived a few weeks ago [ANARKY]. Got a stainless-steel tip put on the exhaust just for looks. Also getting tinting redone very early January once all the Christmas crap is over with buisnesses being on holidays and stuff. Also considering either lowering the car with either King "lows" or "super-lows" depending on legalities as I dont want to put anything on my car that is gonna send me to Regency... Pics are on my camera and are gonna be downloaded to my comp then uploaded here shortly.

Just some pics I took with some of the work I've been doing. The Calais is starting to look awsome + Custom plates [ANARKY] + Resprayed the side-skirts black as they were really faded + Sports steering wheel as I really don't like the single spoke boat-helms + Got a stainless tip for the exhaust to finish it off New shot of the interior showing steering wheel soon. Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

Tuff man, any turbo plans?

With being at Uni I dont have a great deal of money influx so putting the money into doing the motor up for a turbo is out for now cos when I do it, it'll be completely rebuilt to take the turbo and I'm thinking of putting the RB25 head on and working that too; flowed, ported etc. But I have put in the MX7 gearbox and I have a Turbo LSD to go in later aswell. Just gonna continue restoring and upgrading parts (new springs/shocks, newer bigger brakes, aswell as the smaller little things like the tinting) untill I finish my degree and then I'll go nuts on the engine when I have a bigger budget for the car. So it'll stay pretty well standard for now, except mabe extractors and a mod chip, but there is some big plans on the horizon for it in the future.

this is one neat calais mate, any updates???

I got the tinting redone by Action Window Tinting in Lonsdale last week. Its 35% transparent (darkest legal tint) which makes the windows look alot neater than the off colour, bubbled and peeling old stuff. Also got a set of venetians which cut out alot of the light going into the car and makes the tinting look even darker and harder to see into. Overall i'm pretty impressed by how dark it came out with 35% and venetians considering its within the legal limits. Fitted my Pioneer 6x9's to the parcel shelf, which is a vast improvement over the JVC 6's that were in there. I'll give the car a polish tomorow and take some shots and post them later.

Finaly got some time to give the car a good wash'n polish and go out and take some photos. Thought you guys might want to have a look now that the tinting has been redone and venetians have gone in... Some original photos have not been recovered yet.