I’ve always loved my car…

I take very good care of it, and i like to tweak around with it. I wash it by hand, i dry it by hand, i wax it… I’m very anal about keeping it nice. Which has definitely paid off, since my car is almost two years old and it literally looks like near showroom quality still. There arent even hardly any swirlmarks.

Digress, since my very brotherly hermano vanbergs recently found himself looking down the business end of a brand new Chevy Cobalt – I found myself inspired to start doing a couple random “Mods” to my car again. So, I ran around this entire morning doing things to my car.

First on the list was a new radio antenna. Yes mine was working fine.
I went to a honda dealership and purchased a radio antenna for a Honda S2000. Now, you may think to yourself…”Vanberge, dont you have a scion tC?? Clearly a scion tc is not a Honda S2000″ Yes, yes, both are accurate… However, the honda antenna is short, sporty, and fits perfectly on my car. It goes very well with the angles of my car – it really looks like it was made for it. So i spent 20 bucks and my car has a ‘cool’ antenna – which surprisingly seems to add alot to the look of the car.

Ive also been toying with the idea of upgrading my headlights. I pulled out one of the stock bulbs today; “Sylvania” – which is actually a pretty good brand. So I almost didnt bother upgrading them.

BUT, today I found some “Blue” tinted high quality headlights (Made by Philips) at Autozone… They were 37 dollars, which was alot more than i was thinking, but I decided to splurge for a bit of a “cool blue” headlight look. Basically just so everyone passing by me at night can be annoyed by my headlights. The actual bulb has a light blue tint to the glass – it looked very cool. I installed and tested those this morning. The new headlights work (as in, turn on), but its hard to see how “blue” they are when it is 10.30 a.m. and extremly ‘not overcast’ at all.

Then to cap the day off i went to sears auto center and got an oil change/tire rotation. I always use mobile 1 full synthetic (5w-30) engine oil – so my oil changes costs about 45 dollars instead of 20. Its so worth it. You can feel smoother accelleration with that synthetic oil vs regular conventional oil. Synthetic oil is proven to lubricate better and provide better engine protection. Mobil1 is actually the stock oil on the chevy corvette and dodge viper – so really it has to be good… The dudes at Sears threw in the tire rotation for free, and since i had already bought a case of Mobil 1 oil, my sears bill was only 18 bucks. Not bad.

That was enough (or maybe even too much) car stuff for the day, but theres still a few things that i have very close on my radar, and will be doing/purchasing in the very near future.

Current installed Mods to my car (bulleted mickeyvb/rusty style):

• K&N Cold Air intake
• Greddy SP2 Performance Exhast
• Hotchkis Strut bar (cornering stability)
• 32/22% tint on Front/Back windows
• OBX shift knob
• Honda S2000 Antenna
• Phillips “Cool Blue” HID’s

Mods that WILL BE DONE before this summer is over:

• Redine MT-90 synthetic transaxle oil (Gear lube)
• Brass Shifter Cable Bushings (replace rubber bushings, provide tighter ‘more sporty’ shifting)
• B&M Short Throw Shifter

Its amazing how little changes can make a huge difference… Obviously a new intake and new exhaust are big things, which add big changes in sound and in horsepower. Bit little things like brass shifter cable bushings, synthetic gear oil… those two things combined are 50 dollars. Little, simple things like that can drastically change the feel of your car when driving. Its just a matter of reading into it and researching how your car works and what aftermarket parts exist for it. www.scionlife.com has been an awesome reference of information.