My second micra

   

This was my second 1995 LX Micra in 2003 just before I sold it to site member white knight for his wife to enjoy. Whiteline suspension developed the Nissan Micra suspension kit on this car and additionally I installed power steering on it one weekend. So this car was originally planned to be my major project car until I sold it when I grabbed the blue Super S micra that I currently own.

Luckily, this car was purchased by site member:Family Hack and has now been lucky enough to receive a supercharger conversion!

In this form, the car was equipped with:

  • Power steering which I fitted myself
  • KMAC Springs (approximately 50mm lowered)
  • Colour coded bumpers, grille, door handles, mirrors, number plate cover etc
  • Opened up and plastic-welded front bumper and grille
  • Hurricane 4-2-1 extractors
  • 2" exhaust
  • Custom re-upholstered door trims, much nicer than the bland factory LX ones
  • Super S 3-spoke steering wheel
  • Pioneer CD player
  • Custom made parcel tray
  • Tinted windows
  • Tinted tail lights and blinkers

Family Hack has named this car "White Knight". It was a great little micra and the power steering on such a light car was excellent. Extremely maneuverable and light.

These are the custom door trims I had made up for this car

Below are the steps I went threw to make the open-style front grille on this car

The standard grill after I just cut the centre rails out The standard grill after I just cut the centre rails out
Wax and Grease remover - a must before painting your bumper bars Wax and Grease remover - a must before painting your bumper bars
Front bumper cut and smoothed before plastic welding Front bumper cut and smoothed before plastic welding
Grill cut and smoothed back before plastic welding Grill cut and smoothed back before plastic welding
Grill cut and smoothed back before plastic welding Grill cut and smoothed back before plastic welding
New position for the horn New position for the horn
Plastic welding on my rear bumper where there used to be a tow-bar power plug Plastic welding on my rear bumper where there used to be a tow-bar power plug
Plastic welding on my rear bumper where there used to be a tow-bar power plug Plastic welding on the inner edges of my front bumper to smooth it out
Plastic welding on my rear bumper where there used to be a tow-bar power plug Plastic welding on the inner edges of my front bumper to smooth it out
Plastic welding on my grill Plastic welding on my grill
Plastic welding on my grill Plastic welding on my grill
Plastic welding on my grill Plastic welding on my grill
Caramel wheel - used to get sticky residue and old tape off paintwork Caramel wheel - used to get sticky residue and old tape off paintwork

Removal of air-flow blocker plate

I removed the black metal "blocker panel" which sits next to the radiator. This thing is designed I think to prevent excess rain or possibly bugs and stuff from going further into the engine bay. However it also blocks out plenty of nice air flow into the engine bay which could be used for your air intake and secondly to reduce under bonnet temperatures. Its as simple as 4 screws. It also gives you all this extra room to place things like an intercooler, turbo, air intake duct. etc

Removing the blocker plate that sits right where your intercooler should!
A view from further back
The "blocker plate" as I call it alone, all on its own
Ahh look at that new found air flow or intercooler space!

Weight reduction - Removed useless factory extras

Firstly I removed a lot of useless items from the car. This included mud flaps, child restraint clip, side stripes, perspex window shield thing, spare tyre, toolkit, jack, hub caps, skinny air intake pipe, black air flow blocker panel, parcel tray etc. I'll a photo of just how much stuff this was, and I'm going to weight it all and see how much it added up to. And yes, I do put the spare tyre and jack back in when I drive more than a call to a mate away from home!

The first picture is all of the stuff that I pulled off the car!!! Heaps when its all laid out like that. I forgot to include the spare tyre in that photo too.

The other photos are where I measured the weight of it all. The first two in the second group of photos shows the weight of all of the factory parts (This represents the weight saved on a standard micra - around 22kg (the white tub weighs 3kg). The last two photos show the weight I saved because my car actually had a stupid towing pack installed when I got it! (about 34kg). My guess is that my car originally 810kg from the factory should weight about 788kg now that I've removed 22Kg of factory rubbish. That's a pretty good weight. I'll have added to that with the power steering, but I'm going to do a few more things which should save a bit more weight also.

All of the stuff I removed! Everything I removed laid out on my garage floor!
Factory crap being weighed Everything getting weighed (parts from a factory micra)
reading of the factory garbage - 22kg The final result - about 22kg removed easily from a standard micra! (considering the tub weighed around 3kg)
same but with towing pack included Everything getting weighed (parts from a factory micra + the tow pack my micra originally had)
same but with towing pack included - 34kg The final result - about 34kg removed from a micra with a tow-pack! (considering the tub weighed around 3kg)