Monday, September 26, 2022

Yeah, I Could Not Resist the Cupholder Mod

Curious about how I stumbled on this mod? See this post.

Inspired by Murray, and very much against my own strict rule of no food or drink in the car, I went ahead and decided to see how this mod would work for me. (Note - so now water only ok...maybe...?)

Yahoo Auction to the rescue. The seller sent me the GTST center console, all nicely wrapped up. Note that this part is apparently no longer offered new - plus I knew that some work would be required to make it fit properly and thus being an experiment, I preferred working with a used piece anyway.


But talk about DISGUSTING...(shocking for Japan!)

So after thoroughly cleaning AND disinfecting the relevant part, I tried to see if it would fit as is:
Green arrows show where, despite firm pushing and pressure, the piece did not fit snugly

But unfortunately, given the extra thickness of the drop in location due to the awesome leather work by my friend Cesar about 5 years ago (already!), some judicious sanding down was required.

But getting it to fit properly was only one concern - is it me or do you see wear and tear and small scratches?

No? Well here is a close-up. Note the circular patterns from obvious use.

Oh and here is a scratch I found on the side as well. Wonder how this happened?

For you guys who need to look for this piece for your own mod - here is the part number, although you may just want to pick up the entire center console - just remember that this cupholder part will NOT work unless you have swapped out the OEM G-sensor for the new, flatter digital ones available from Do-Luck and other tuners:
Green arrows points to the part number WITH the hole for the GT-R logo

The scratch remover ended up removing more dirt than scratches:

So after another attempt to lessen the scratches, I decided that the quickest and easiest way to lessen the presence of the wear and tear and scratches was to use up the remaining matte black paint I had that I had used on the dashboard surround refresh I did a few months ago.

Before painting

So it looks somewhat thickly laid on here but just the lighting.

As you can see I still kept the fake leather grooves:

Here is a comparison of how it looks the next day after drying, along with the other versions I currently have - wrapped in Alcantara or matte carbon-ized (both from the leather interior project)

I thought I was finished - looks pretty good close-up, right? - but then noticed this. Wear and tear on my car's original GT-R logo.

I tried to use a permanent ink marker to try to touch up the left side of the logo piece

But in the end it was easier to just replace it with new.
New vs. Old. Part number included just in case

So not as perfect as I want - the paint job could have been better, actually - but now the coloring matches the shift surround and the main cluster surround. Plus the new GT-R logo is nice. Details, man!
All done! Still not perfect but good enough fit and finish for now

But the REAL issue is - since no one uses coins anymore at toll gates - it's all electronic now - do you think I should modify those coin holders to the left of the GT-R badge? If so what kind of switches should go there - putting aside the inevitable ejection seat jokes - what do modern cars have in the center console? I need some inspiration! Thanks for reading everyone, looking forward to the feedback.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a switch in my gtr that replaced the coin holder. No idea what it does though. Will take it apart one day and find out.

Stuart said...

The Hakone Turnpike and Izu Skyline both still require payment in cash — I vote for keeping the coin holders.

Anonymous said...

I cut out the coin holder and installed a dual USB charge port haha

マット said...

Modern cars have a wireless phone charger in the centre console!

Aki said...

Ha! All good points and ideas.... Matt you guessed something I am working on. Stay tuned!

Taras said...

Hey, I bought an r33 gtr about a year ago and have some issues. I live in Japan as well and I was wondering if you don’t mind helping me out? Anyway we can get in contact?

Aki said...

sure Taras - aitoh at hotmail dot com

Murray said...

Just now catching up with this post. Glad it worked out for you Akisan!