I've gotten a lot of good info on this site so I thought I should post a record of how I've used it. Maybe it'll give some folks some ideas on their projects......and if I can keep it up to date, maybe I'll get some real time feedback on what I can do better. There's more detail in my Intro thread, but long story short......I bought this 2006 S eight or so years ago, but my sister has been driving it the last 4. It had 40K miles on it when I bought it, 60K when I "loaned" it to my sister, and now has 109K on it. Now that I have it back, I'm going to get it cleaned up and do some performance mods. Previously I had repaired the AC, installed new wheel bearings and brakes on the back, new brakes on the front and installed an Invidia cat-back system (and new parking brake cables while I was in there.....well, I needed new parking brake cables and installed an aftermarket exhaust while I was in there....I'll leave it to you to decide which is the right way to do it and judge me accordingly).

I'll post some pictures when I can, but I've currently got it in service mode and I'm cleaning up the sub-frame and prepping for POR 15 treatment. I'll do the same with the control arms, but I did find a hole in one control arm so that has been replaced. (it was small but I thought it was worth getting a solid used replacement). The insides will be treated with Blaster Surface Shield and will be reapplied periodically.....although I won't be driving it in the winter anymore so shouldn't see much salt from here on. Rusty bits that can't be removed easily to be descaled and painted with POR 15 will be treated with RP-342 on the outside and Surface Shield on the inside. Hopefully all that will keep the rust from getting to be a problem.

Parts waiting to be installed....in rough installation order:
-PS fan assembly and PS mounting bracket (two of the casualties of my sister's stewardship)....came back to me sans fan and the pump zip-tied to the subframe. hopefully the pump will hold up.
-new hydraulic motor mount.
-urethane bushings for control arms, motor and transmission mounts (inserts only where available), SC tensioner.
-Alta CAI (I wasn't planning to do this at all but found a decent deal and will be pulling the box anyway to do that mount)
-SC oil and seal change
-new water pump
-17% pulley from Way
-new ball joints, axles, tie rods and sway bar links.
-SS brake lines
-IE fixed camber plates
-Koni SA struts (but Way has me convinced to go with Megan coilovers once I'm ready to invest in some track time).
-B&M short shifter
-Center exhaust support and rubber mounts (was rusted pretty bad so bought a used one which will get the POR treatment to keep it rust free).

While doing the short shifter, I'm expecting to have to deal with a bunch of corroded heat shields that won't mount properly (when I did the exhaust, now years ago, there was barely enough metal left for the nuts to grab...I figure it's got to be worse now). I found some aluminum epoxy in the style of JB weld so I'm going to see if I can reform anchor points with that. could be a mess, but I'll give it a go. back-up plan is to get some aluminum mesh and use that along with the epoxy. I encourage comments and suggestions, particularly from those that have done something like this.

In the back:
-Aluminum trailing arms (the steel ones are really rusted...probably structurally fine, but was a good excuse to shed some unsprung weight and I happened to find that Way had a set for sale).
-Koni SA shocks
-upgraded sway bar (haven't purchased the rest of this stuff yet)
-urethane sway bar mounts, shock bumpers, whatever else is back there I may have forgotten.
-control arms? (not sure yet....I'll have to see how they look)

Appearance and misc.
-Plasti-dipped wheels....S-lites, graphite-ish
-New sunroof decal.....was checkerboard, will either do that again or go with a silver/black union jack
-Hood was repainted so I lost my stripes. Will probably go with a wider center stripe instead of the two slanted factory stripes. matte black with white or silver accents perhaps and carry it over the roof (except for the glass) and down the back. Still thinking about this.
-accent plasti-dip color for mirrors....red or blue likely. currently black mirrors (along with roof)..
-Car is dark silver (since I don't have pictures up yet).
-might black out the chrome......I would definitely like to do the belt-line, but I'm torn on the trim on the lights. Seems like it should be all or nothing though.
-new driving lights......originals got rusty. considering the Hella black LEDs.
-louder twin-tone horns. MINIs are small.

Longer term plans if the above goes well.
-coilovers (as mentioned above)
-water/methanol injection
-big brakes?
-LSD?
-track wheels?
-cam/head/tune? (may never go this far on this car.....not sure)

I'll put some pictures up soon, but I welcome all questions and constructive comments. I'll try to keep this current, but I don't budget a lot of time for this so bear with me if you happen to be interested and it's going slow.