I'm looking for some advice on automatic shifters.

[]V[]essenjah · Post by **[]V[]essenjah** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:25 pm

I've been working on my car again and so far my ideas for makeing it look a little sportier have mellowed out a bit since last fall/early winter. Anyway, at first I wanted to add a neon licence plate, glowing shifter knob, accent lights, fog lights, and some windshield nossle lights. Which was going to most likely make it look stupid and make it look to much like a rice car. Anyway, I decided to stick with two low-profile green accent lights on the bottom grills and some fog lamps.

However, I still wanted to add something to the interior. I did take a cool car decal sticker with an interesting design on it and a clear background. I cut it in half and stuck it on my automatic shifter knob to add to the somewhat sporty interior. This car is an 89 Nissan Sentra 4-Door hatchback with an automatic T-Shaped floor shift.

However, I figured, why not have something that adds a bit of illumination to the interior but is still conservative. So, I started looking around for a Neon Glow Automatic Shifter Knob or at least an LED based one. The problem with my car is that it requires a button in order to shift so this poses a problem and I looked for some time with no luck. Then I ran onto this:

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-AiGiKyeJQz ... 5041111006

It states that it is for a single button automatic shifter only. What exactly does this mean? There is only one button that I know of on my shifter? Anyway, a little advice would be nifty.

I probably won't buy it from that site but I might be able to find one on Ebay or somewhere for a lower price.

kurupt · Post by **kurupt** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 7:08 pm

sigh, the rice has got you

Sting_Ray · Post by **Sting_Ray** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 9:29 pm

I think I speak for everyone when I say: Hahhaha!!

Riceboy

Get something that DOESN'T light up dude. Just a brushed aluminum shift knob would be great. Better yet, save your money in sporting up a family car so you can afford later to buy a SPORTY car. Kids...

[]V[]essenjah · Post by **[]V[]essenjah** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 9:50 pm

Well, I don't rip around corners doing 50 if that's what you mean. I just like to dress my car up a little. Besides this car has a story behind it and it is the only car I own and will even be able to own for quite a while. It was free so I figured I would add a new stereo system and a few little things to make it look a little sportier. Around here there aren't many actual heavy ricers and the ones that do, mostly dress their cars up to look cool. I even made sure to get permission to use the accent lights first.

Here is a list of what I have at the moment:

2 accent lights. They look about like two green christmace lights but a bit brighter. They don't really distract from the rest of the car itself and one was placed on seperate grills that are on each side of the licence plate. They won't blind you like driveing lights.

2 Fog lamps. I got square fog lamps for two reasons. For fog and to add a little bulk to the front of the car. My car has a wimpy looking front so these lights manage to add a little bit to it.

2 Silver stripes. They blend in nicely with the champaign gold color of the car. The hood has a mid section on it and I ligned it with some silver stripe tape. I didn't run it the full length of the car. Just enough to give the fugly front some personality.

2 silver licence plate holders with plain black dragons on each side. My parents gave these to me because they figured they looked classy and would be better than sticking some ugly neon holders on. 1 for the front and 1 for the back.

Leather steering wheel cover with silver dragons on it.

Barbwire sticker that has a clear background that I cut in half and stuck on the T-Shifter to match up with the Steering wheel cover. The inside of the car was very sporty originally so I didn't need a whole lot.

Pioneer 6500 reciever with screensaver. Gives my hatchback some pretty decent sound.

Blanket with wolves painted on it to cover up the back seat.

Things I am looking into at this point:

Tinting the windows

Sun roof (I have no air conditioning so this would be a cheeper solution and it would allow me to sit back and gaze at the stars on clear nights.

A decent 200-300 Watt Amp

A single subwoofer. Just enough to get a little more thump out of my stereo system.

[]V[]essenjah · Post by **[]V[]essenjah** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 10:01 pm

Actually, brushed alluminum shift knobs are hard to come by as well.

Thus far, I only have 3 things that light up:

Headlights

Fog lights (you will rarely see me use these)

Accent lights (very small and produce a very small light that won't blind people).

Besides, if I get anything it will most likely be a small, wimpy looking truck because I'm going to end up moveing within a year or so.

Nitrofox125 · Post by **Nitrofox125** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 10:53 pm

I have 4 neon bars, neon washer LEDs and EL wire. I do no racing *or* ricing, I have it because it helps me pick up chicks. And omfg it *WORKS* I never would have thought.

KompresZor · Post by **KompresZor** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 11:03 pm

Mess, search for "momo shift knobs"

Vindicator · Post by **Vindicator** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 11:13 pm

Nitrofox125 wrote:I have 4 neon bars, neon washer LEDs and EL wire. I do no racing *or* ricing, I have it because it helps me pick up chicks. And omfg it *WORKS* I never would have thought.

Really? I always thought chicks saw through the rice... o_0

Regardless of what some chick with bad taste thinks about my car, I'm not gonna spend any money to enhance it cosmetically (at least, not at this point). Its bad enough dropping $400 on new tires, let alone something thats just gonna make it uglier and slower.

Top Wop · Post by **Top Wop** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 11:02 am

Save up the money to get a nicer car. You dont need to rice up an old Nissan, it will look cheap.

Zer0Cool · Post by **Zer0Cool** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 11:11 am

i dunno, my car isn't riced out and i don't have any problems in the world gettin chicks?

http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/448498

[]V[]essenjah · Post by **[]V[]essenjah** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 12:22 pm

Guys, there are so many reasons I'm stuck with this car that it's not even funny.

1. The only reason I can even own a car, is because this is a car that my Grandma owned before she passed away. No one else needed another car and I needed a car but couldn't afford one so I ended up being the new owner. However, It was free and my Dad put me on liability only so I don't have to pay a thing for the car itself, even on the insurance.

2. The car has everything I need at the moment. Roomy back space for carrying stuff around. It's a four seater so I can carry 3 of my friends and a good ammount of cargo in the back. It's a hatchback so I can get really good sound with a smaller sound system so I have all the space I really need, the car only has 70,000 miles on it and only has a very small ammount of nicks and scratches that came from this past winter that have been driveing it. The only sad part is that it is a wimpy looking car.

3. I make a little over a whopping $100 bi-weekly at the moment. Most of this money goes to dateing, computer software, health insurance, and other needs. My parents provide everything else as long as I keep my grades up in school and help them out with housework. This next year I hope to get a better job but until then, I'm stuck where I am.

4. Being that it was my grandma's car and it was a gift that she had said specifically that she wanted me to have and that it is about the only thing I ended up recieveing, it has some other value in my life. However, I wanted to modify it in order to help get rid of feeling weird about driveing it after she passed away.

5. If I end up getting anything before I leave, it will probably be a sissy looking truck being that it will be for moveing purposes only so probably I won't be able to get anything else for a good 2 years at least. So why not modify it a little bit, make it look nice, and a little more fun to drive, drive it for a few years, save my money, move out, get a better job and a better education, save for a while longer and buy a good car?

The problem isn't really buying a nice little sports car. If I sold this one (it would sell for around $1500 since it's in excellent condition) and had the money saved up to buy a little sports car, I wouldn't be able to even pay for the insurance because the insurance on a nice sports car will suck your money up like none other. Most of my money will end up going into that car rather than my future. My parents also pretty much stated that they won't help me when I move unless I get my own small pickup.

Besides, even if I did buy a nicer car, most likely I would be adding these lights and stereo system on it because I like to personalise my vehicles and that just happens to be one of my favorite things to do to a car or any project I work on.

Yes girls like it but I wasn't haveing any trouble before that with girls. I just decided too because I enjoy makeing my car feel a little more like my own. I don't want it to look like everyone elses car.

Tricord · Post by **Tricord** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 1:13 pm

Mob, it's just a car. If you "jazz it up" with neon lights and whatnot, it will just look so wrong. In my opinion, no car looks better with color lights than without.

If that's what makes you happy though, go for it. Don't listen to us in that case. I don't even live in the same contintent as you so I won't accidentally run into you and your car, so I won't have the opportunity to laugh my ass off at your queer lights.

[]V[]essenjah · Post by **[]V[]essenjah** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 1:33 pm

Ummm Tri, I haven't jazzed it up with Neon lights hardly at all. I stuck 2 small green accent lights that you can barely see inside the grill. Their about the size of green christmas lights but slightly brighter. That's all I did. I wanted to do something to the inside though that wouldn't be overkill.

I originally wanted to jazz it up with lots of neons but decided I really didn't need it. The tiny green lights I added to the front simply compliment the rest of my non-neon work that I've done to it.

Tricord · Post by **Tricord** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 2:22 pm

By the way, pics?

[]V[]essenjah · Post by **[]V[]essenjah** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 5:04 pm

Here ya go!!

http://sonicstormproductions.150m.com/NISSA.html

It's a little messy, this was taken only about 3 hours ago right after you posted Tri

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 7:02 pm

Honestly, the only thing I'd do to that car is to either add blinking lights to the front grill (ala Knight Rider) or slap a Delorian logo piece on the front grill and pop the Nissan one off.

If you're going to do the Knight Rider one, it'll only set you back like $20 for the parts to do it (including the breadboard). You'll have to do a little digging on how to wire up a counter chip to do it right, as well as a 555 timer to get the right frequency (2Hz should do it), but thats about it. That, and take out that AM/FM radio and put an mp3 player in there instead.

kurupt · Post by **kurupt** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 9:43 pm

if you're only making that much money, you probably should not be spending money on lights and $50 shifters for your 89 nissan. if you're going to spend the cheese on your car, buy some new tires, get a new paint job/body work, restore the engine so it lasts alot longer. get a decent stereo so you can at least jam. do something else!

[]V[]essenjah · Post by **[]V[]essenjah** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 10:32 pm

LOL, a Delorian logo? What the crap? At least I'll admit what my car is!!

And actually I never even watched knight rider

Pluss the local police don't like lights if they flash. You can do anything you want as long as it doesn't flash.

Also Korupt, I allready stated a bunch of times that I replaced the stereo and that is the next thing I'm going to finish up on.

Restore the engine? A 4 cylinder engine that has only 60,000 miles on it and has rarely been run over 15-35 mph and has never even made a squeek in it's entire existance? Ummmmm that would be kind of pointless. If it aint broke, don't fix it. New tires? The tires are perfectly fine. It has the most expesnive and best quality tires that my Dad could find on it. Fairly old but they are still in excellent condition.

/me invisions self with all the engine parts layed out.

me: "oooh I found a hair, I better get that out of there."

/me returns back from vision.

I almost got an mp3 player for it but decided against it since I don't mess much with mp3's and I don't take really long trips very often.

And ummmm, most of my cheese goes on programs to develope mods and on dates.

Heh, I really should have known better than to ask a bunch of nerds for advice on cars anyway.

I like the fact that no one else's car in town looks like mine because I gave it my own style and look. It's easy just to drive around a car that is stock built but it never becomes home until you add some personal touches to it.

me: "Naaaah."

Sting_Ray · Post by **Sting_Ray** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 11:20 pm

Messie... HERE is a good place to look for good modifications for a car like yours.
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[snicker]

Sage · Post by **Sage** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 11:46 pm

Get those spining hub cap things with neon lights on them.

Vindicator · Post by **Vindicator** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 2:31 am

Here's a sweet long-term project you could try, mess:

http://www.nissanperformancemag.com/pro ... roject.php

kurupt · Post by **kurupt** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 3:23 am

well, i guess after that dimwitted response i won't feel as bad knowing that everyone in your town that sees you drive that car thinks your an idiot.

and trust me, if the car is as old as it is and has 60k on it, theres something on it that needs fixed. when it breaks you'll be wishin you hadn't spent your last $200 on a glowing shift knob, led gas and brake pedals and washer lights.

and i'm sorry but i'm very passionate about idiots and their rice, so i'm probably coming at you kinda hard. i'm just trying to knock some sense into you. everyone knows that "i want my car to express who i am" is just a ricers excuse to be like everyone else without admitting it. if you haven't realized, your car is not original. your car is just like every idiot ricers car out there, a glowing hunk of junk.

especially at your age, you should save that money. how much have you tossed into all that stuff?

Tricord · Post by **Tricord** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 3:30 am

I would add to K's post: either I like a car the way it was built, or else I don't like it and will not attempt at making it look better myself.

kurupt · Post by **kurupt** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 3:32 am

i just realized you posted pics...

lets see here, exhaust tip, dragon steering wheel cover, "racing stripes" on the hood that look curiously like duct tape, lights in the grille, a sticker on your shift knob, foglights, chrome hubcaps (on bald looking tires no less), a cd player becuase it has a screensaver on it, a wolf blanket acting as a seatcover, and i'm still trying to figure out what that is under the hood.

yep, thats rice in the truest sense of the word. you don't even have a decent type R sticker on there.

[]V[]essenjah · Post by **[]V[]essenjah** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 11:37 am

"i just realized you posted pics...

lets see here, exhaust tip, dragon steering wheel cover, "racing stripes" on the hood that look curiously like duct tape, lights in the grille, a sticker on your shift knob, foglights, chrome hubcaps (on bald looking tires no less), a cd player becuase it has a screensaver on it, a wolf blanket acting as a seatcover, and i'm still trying to figure out what that is under the hood.

yep, thats rice in the truest sense of the word. you don't even have a decent type R sticker on there."

Wow, so did I run over your cat or somthing Korupt? I mean sheesh.... what are you raggin on my opinion so much for because I'm not just a clone of you.

I never stated that I have anything under the hood nor do I have any intentions of saying I have anything under my hood. When people ask me about my car, I simply tell them that it is a sluggish armored go kart. I never build my car up to be more that it is.

At my current job I could MAYBE buy a better car in 10 years of saveing every dime I had and then I wouldn't be able to pay for the insurance!! So I would still be screwed over!!

""racing stripes" on the hood that look curiously like duct tape"

Those are a temporary thing. I've been looking around for a way to give my car some personality. Those stripes were only like about $2-4 to put them on. My folks recommended that I put a hood ornimant or a bra on it but a bra would cause the paint to not look right and a hood ornament would most likely just look plain silly. I used a silver tape that is normally used for pin stripeing to do that because I figured on removeing it at a later time.

"chrome hubcaps (on bald looking tires no less)"

Well, putting rims on it would be very expensive and a much larger waste of time than the stuff I've added thus far. When I got it, it had some really crappy looking hubcaps with rims that had a lot of rust on them. As for the tires, they aren't bald at all. My digital camera sucks so you can't get a very decent look at them but they aren't bald.

SR, on his website, he states that a ricer is someone who claims their car is something that it is not. I don't claim my car to be anything more than an 89 Sentra. I don't even go near stickers and emblems. I wouldn't even do that on a car that actually had those things in them. If I had it, I would keep it under the hood and not wear it as a badge.

Now also consider this:

Which is worse: A jack@SS that crowds the road all over the place and is always waaaay over the speed limit in a really fancy sports car that has a nice big engine, or someone who takes a regular car, decorates it a bit and drives around like a normal person. I mean, what is the point of haveing power in a car you will almost never use?

Would I choose another, real sports car over this? Absolultly but I can't do that right now so why not enjoy what I have? I'm actually makeing money by driveing this car, being that I never paid a dime for it and I'm still not for the insurance.

Also, if you ever were a 20 year old who owned a car of someone in your family that you were very close to that passed away, wouldn't you try to make the car feel a little different and more like yours? I wouldn't even look at the car for a long time. The only way I would even drive it was after we cleaned it up, stuck some new hubcaps, tailpipe extention, and a steering wheel cover on.

BTW, Vindicator, I actually have some of those lights but after I got the accent lights in I now figure that I'll just let the batteries run out of those and I'll dump 'em. Their $15 a pop. They can be fun but at least the accent lights hook up to my battery.

As for a performance upgrade such as the link above, really, doing that would require that I pay a lot more than my car is even worth and I might as well just buy a better car.

As for the stereo, I didn't choose it because of the fancy screen. I bought it because it was the only one I could afford and it has quite a few nice features. It was certainly the most expensive one in my area that I could locate. If I had known the one above it even existed at the time, I would have picked it up. Even Sting Ray likes the 7500 head unit.

Oh, and the wolf blanket is used for emergencies. I actually didn't really want to put that in but my parents insisted that I have a blanket in my car so they gave me that one. It wouldn't have been pretty had I not agreed.

kurupt · Post by **kurupt** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:17 pm

kurupt wrote:and i'm sorry but i'm very passionate about idiots and their rice, so i'm probably coming at you kinda hard. i'm just trying to knock some sense into you. everyone knows that "i want my car to express who i am" is just a ricers excuse to be like everyone else without admitting it. if you haven't realized, your car is not original.

KompresZor · Post by **KompresZor** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 6:19 pm

All this talk about fixing up cars reminds me of my 69 Z-28 Camaro and my 68 Chevelle SS 396 and my 66 Charger with the 383 magnum and my 70 Impala rag-top and my 73 Vega with the 450 hp 327, everyone should own a low 11 sec. door slamer. I better stop now before I start to cry.

*wipes tear form cheek*
Yes you do need a knob with a button and not just any button, it must be made for an Automatic Transmission. A lot of shift knobs have butons on them but most of the time there are for "roll control" or "NOX" if you get one make sure it's for an auto trans like this one from Momo. Nice Without the Rice

Santrix · Post by **Santrix** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 1:52 pm

You might want to look at some new tail lights, those are pretty easy to come by and pretty easy to install. You can get them for just about any model. Another suggestion I'd give is to put a hood scoop on, hood scoop kits tend to be universal, they involve some work to install though. If you want a functional hood scoop though, then that might be a little harder to come by and probably would require some custom modifications. You coudl also replace the hood with a CF or fiberglass hood, they look cooler. Something else I might suggest is removing the black trim pieces. You could replace them with chrome strips or leave them off completely; it makes a subtle difference. Lowering kits can be foudn for most cars. I personally don't like them very much, but it's your car, you want it to reflect on you. my final suggestion is to get on Cardomain.com and look to see what other poeple have done to cars like yours, that's the best way to get ideas.

Fusion pimp · Post by **Fusion pimp** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 2:47 pm

Insurance job.

Pun · Post by **Pun** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 3:02 pm

My advice is to clean it up real nice and then burn it.

Dude, it's a beater. Don't spend any more cash on it than you already have. It's totally pointless. I think the car bone stock with the original hubcaps would look much more appealing. And my god, take the "Modified" off that web page. Modified doesn't mean putting a sticker on the shifter knob. Haha! Sorry man, but I really find that humorous. But then again, I'm sure I'm a lot older than you are and we are living in two different worlds.

Dude, a bit of advice, start saving your money to buy something nice down the road. Then you can really have something.

And when you do mods, do subtle things, not things that stick out like a sore thumb. You can even use neon and not make it look all riced up if you do it in a tasteful way. For example, my action.