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jdmAzn11 amazing 2nd gen Altima build

59K views 181 replies 16 participants last post by  sprocketser 
#1 · (Edited)
Hey guys, so I’ve been meaning to make a build thread for years now but never actually put forth the effort in doing so because I felt it'd be pointless.
Well I figured I'll start one anyways seeing as when I first got mine I searched all over for other 2nd gen Altimas for ideas and inspiration and didn't get enough. So, with my build thread, I hope to not only motivate those who were just like me and wanted some ideas, but to also give others a new 2nd gen to look at differently. :)

Bear with me as I have hundreds of pictures and will be trying my best to upload them and keep you guys updated to date!

2000 Nissan Altima GXE (Amanda)
Green Emerald Metallic/ True Green Metallic
Got her 12/02/09
Mileage was around 81k
Current Mileage is just over 108k (my daily driver)

How she sat bone stock back in 2009


How she sat on September 2014


How she sits as of September 2015


Modification List (As of 09/2015)
Exterior:
- De-Badge Rear Altima + GXE Emblems
- Carbon Fiber Hood
- AeroCatch Plus Flush Locking Hood Latch and Pin Kit
- Painted Black Front Grille + G̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶P̶a̶i̶n̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶F̶r̶o̶n̶t̶ ̶O̶E̶M̶ ̶E̶m̶b̶l̶e̶m
- S̶i̶c̶k̶-̶S̶p̶e̶e̶d̶ ̶D̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶G̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶C̶h̶r̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶S̶u̶p̶e̶r̶-̶T̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶H̶o̶r̶n̶s̶ ̶w̶/̶ ̶R̶e̶l̶a̶y̶ ̶H̶a̶r̶n̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶+̶ ̶c̶u̶s̶t̶o̶m̶ ̶e̶x̶t̶e̶n̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶m̶o̶u̶n̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶b̶r̶a̶c̶k̶e̶t̶s
- DEPO Blacked Out Headlamps Retrofitted w/Morimoto Mini H1 Projectors
- H1 Morimoto Elite HID System 5Five DSP XB35 5000k Moto-Control Bi-xenon 9007
- OEM Replacement Fog Lights w/ OEM Headlight Stalk w/ Fog-light Switch + Relay
- 3000k HID Fog Light Bulbs
- C̶u̶s̶t̶o̶m̶ ̶W̶i̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶F̶r̶o̶n̶t̶ ̶P̶a̶r̶k̶i̶n̶g̶/̶S̶i̶g̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶L̶i̶g̶h̶t̶s̶ ̶(̶S̶i̶g̶n̶a̶l̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶d̶o̶u̶b̶l̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶+̶ ̶s̶i̶g̶n̶a̶l̶)
- Amber SMD LED Side Marker Lights
- White Cree 7W LED Reverse Lights
- V-LED 5k White LED Rear License Plate Lights
- Light Smoked Tint on Reverse Light Part of Taillights
- Custom Mounted 1998-2000 Honda Accord Coupe Oem Optional Front Lip Painted To Match
- N̶I̶S̶M̶O̶ ̶C̶a̶r̶b̶o̶n̶ ̶F̶i̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶L̶o̶o̶k̶ ̶F̶r̶o̶n̶t̶ ̶L̶i̶c̶e̶n̶s̶e̶ ̶P̶l̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶B̶r̶a̶c̶k̶e̶t (stolen)
- C̶a̶r̶b̶o̶n̶ ̶F̶i̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶F̶r̶o̶n̶t̶ ̶L̶i̶c̶e̶n̶s̶e̶ ̶P̶l̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶F̶r̶a̶m̶e (stolen)
- Metallic NISMO Rear License Plate Frame
- Purple Washer License Plate Bolts
- Texas Front and Rear Plates (show set)

Interior:
- Llumar 20% Front and Rear Window Tints
- Weather Tech All Season Front and Rear Floor Mats
- Broadway Rearview Mirror
- Front and Rear Beige Window Curtains Custom Fit
- Gold Kintsuna Knot
- White Fusa Kiku Knot
- Custom Warm White LED Front and Rear Foot-Well Lights
- White SMD LED Glove-Box Light, Dome-Light, Map Lights, Vanity Mirror Lights
- White SMD LED Board Trunk Light w/ On-Off Switch
- Custom 1” MDF Wood Trunk Floor w/ Spare Tire Cutout

Audio:
- Kenwood KDC-MP342U Head-Unit
- Alpine Type R SPR-60 6.5” Coaxial Front Doors and Rear Deck Speakers
- Power Bass S-652 6.5” Coaxial Rear Door Panel Speakers
- (2) PAC SN-1 RCA Ground Loop Isolators
- Hitron HA-1000.1 Mono-Block Amplifier
- 4 Gauge Amplifier Wiring
- 6 Gauge Stinger Amplifier Wiring
- (2) Pioneer Premier TS-W126C 12” Subwoofers
- Dual 12” Enclosed Subwoofer Box
- Jensen Power 760.4 4 Channel Amplifier
- Cadence 12 Gauge Speaker Wiring
- Custom Amp Rack

Suspension:
- SE Front Upper Strut Tower Bar
- Custom Rear Mid-Brace Bar
- Suspension Technique 22m Rear Sway Bar
- Racingline V2 Rear Endlinks
- Yellow Speed Racing Dynamic Pro Sport Series Coilovers

Brakes:
- SE Rear Disc Conversion
- Front and Rear Stop-Tech Stainless Steel Brake Lines
- Rear Hawk HPS Brake Pads

Wheels/Tires:
SOLD Track Set SOLD
- Nismo Ray Gram Lights 57C
17x7.5 +47 offset
235/40/17 Toyo Proxes R888

SOLD Show Set SOLD
- Sportmaxx 962 Gold w/ Polished Lip
Front: 18x8.5 +35 offset
Rear: 18x9.5 +35 offset
Replaced Center Cap Bolts w/ Locking Nuts
Metallic Purple Dice Air Valve Caps
Gunmetal Volk Racing Style Extended Lug Nuts w/ Purple End Caps
215/35/18 Delinte Thunder D7 Tires
5mm Spacers In Rear
25mm Spacers In Front

Non Show Daily Set
- 2004 – 2006 Nissan Sentra SER Spec V wheels
Complete Sand Down and Respray Metallic Silver
225/45/17 Bridgestone Potenza RE040 Tires
Chrome Air Valve Caps
P̶u̶r̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶D̶N̶A̶ ̶M̶o̶t̶o̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶L̶o̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶L̶u̶g̶ ̶N̶u̶t̶s
4 Sets of OEM McGuard Locking Lug Nuts
1̶5̶m̶m̶ ̶S̶p̶a̶c̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶I̶n̶ ̶R̶e̶a̶r
2̶5̶m̶m̶ ̶S̶p̶a̶c̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶I̶n̶ ̶F̶r̶o̶n̶t

Winter Set
- OEM Steelies w/ Gunmetal Painted Hubcaps

Engine:
- Unorthodox Racing Pulley
- Full A/C Delete
- Power Steering Reservoir + Hoses Delete
- Cruise Control Delete
- Fuse Box Tuck
- Throttle Cable Tuck/Reroute
- Dual Fans Wired
- Full Cadence 0 Gauge Grounding Kit
- Full Cadence 0 Gauge Big Three Upgrade
- Ghetto Short Ram Intake Setup
- Interstate Battery
- Gold Positive/ Negative Battery Terminals
 
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#2 ·
Bear with me! As I was a young highschool teenager going through phases haha

Well here’s the closest thing to how she looked when I got her. (Minus the awesome jdm mounted front plate yo)


Here’s when I wanted her to be a SE so badly, so I vinyl wrapped the front under bumper part.
Before:

After:

At that time I was also going through a weird yellow headlight phase… so I yellow tinted part of the headlamps. (Don’t know why I didn’t just purchase yellow bulbs lol)
Passenger side before:

Passenger side after:

OEM vs. Yellow Tinted

Before:

After:

Final…
 
#3 ·

Ditched the look pretty quick and picked up a HID kit finally


Well, well, well, what do we have here…

Just a reference picture of before

Yep… got a full set of 5 Spec V wheels with center caps. (Peep those mad jdm seat covers yo)

After shot of them mounted.

I was holding them off until I had enough money to get them powder-coated and a new set of tires but things happened and I had to sell them...

Well I hated the matte black grille look and the chrome girlle trim look so I gave them a quick spray. Didn’t have any shots of that sadly… Also at that time my girlfriend at the moment had an Integra and I got a spare Type R replica front lip to mess around with. So, I did some trimming and got it to work.

Peep the mad jdm license plate relocate bracket lol
 
#4 ·
Another shot of the car with the Type R rep lip on

Was bored again and decided to remove the stock intake resonator box for a little more airflow and hopefully more noise.

I was disappointed with no noise so I pieced together a short ram intake.

And yes that is clear tape around the vacuum hole on the MAF adapter lol

Hated how it didn’t have any mud guards so I ordered a set.

Wonder what’s in the box…

0 Gauge Cadence wire for a custom engine ground kit.

Got the wire cut to size and ring terminals soldered on.

Somewhere down the line (not all at once) I got the OEM SE strut tower bar installed, a new battery, threw the OEM intake setup back on, replace the water pump and the radiator

New radiator vs. old.
 
#6 ·
Looks great. Im watching........
 
#7 ·
thanks guys, more updates on the way

Front brakes needed replacing and I kept pushing it off… well it was metal on metal… (Don’t worry I replaced the rotors as well)

Being at the time a broke high school student who couldn’t afford another set of wheels, I decided to paint the OEM hubcaps bronze!

And the little lug nut caps purple…

Not too shabby if I do say so myself :p

Close up shot.

Quick snap of my buddy and his maxima (Yes his OE wheels are painted purple and yes I used that leftover paint to paint my lug caps lol)

So one of the first things I did when I got the car was replacing the radio and speakers. I always had different setup for sounds and these are just the FEW pictures I could find of the setups I had…
2 Diamond Audio 12’s

2 Kicker Comps 12’s

Single DD1500a 10 (Digital Designs is NO joke! This single 10 had people thinking I had two 12’s with a crappy amp powering it!)

2 JBL 12’s
 
#8 ·
Didn't post yesterday so two posts today!

I tried to do clean wiring lol

This is all during my audio phase. I decided to mount some rear speakers on the rear door panels





Anybody know where this panel piece goes to?

Custom volt meter w/ on-off switch!

Remember I said ghetto?

Don’t worry, that didn’t stay long. Ripped it all off and started to make a trunk board/amp rack. (p.s. peep the rear trunk brace mod originated by StanzaDescendant)
 
#9 ·
Let the building begin!

I wanted to have a flip up portion for easy access to the spare tire.






And yes it does clear the rear trunk brace

For some reason I didn’t like the tilted look and went with a basic “rack” design (looking back I regret doing that haha)

 
#10 ·
Well the bronze paint on the hubcaps started to chip ALL the emblems fell off onto the road somewhere... So, I decided to go gunmetal with black lug caps.



Pops had some round LED fog-lights around so I decided to mount them on. They’re tapped into the parking lights so it turns on when the parking lights are on.

They matched the color temp. of the hid’s pretty well though!

Hazy headlamps = no es bueno. So I decided to polish them clear again!
Before:

After:

Difference is night and day!

I came across the newer set of Spec V wheels for cheap and I couldn’t pass these up!
Pretty dirty before.

Filthy…
 
#11 ·
Cleaned and sanded them up with 1,000 grit


Test fit! Yes, I know the tires that were on there were a massive 55 or 60 series!


Those tires were just stupid thick…

Picked up some barely used Potenza’s from a buddy for a great price! Time to get them mounted and balanced!

Fam's crv always being put to great use.

Getting them ready for paint!

Tried to go for that OEM metallic silver look, not too bad IMO

Letting them cure
 
#12 ·
I wasn’t going to rock the new wheels with rusted ass rear drums.

So, I gave them a quick silver caliper paint spray.

Starting to like the way she looks now…



Yes, that is a pepboys/autozone exhaust tip I have on there… the brackets later rusted so bad that they broke and it was removed.

Found a set of DEPO black housing headlamps and I just HAD to jump on them.

All mounted up. I got tired of the boring type r look so I bought a mugen rep lip and made it work.


Thought this was a pretty cool picture lol
 
#14 ·
thank you! well I'm currently in school for mechanical engineering, I just like working on cars as a hobby haha

back to the thread!

I was dying to get tints on her and got 35% on all five window. Looking back at it now, I wish I would’ve done 20



Sometime down the line, I got all weather Weather-Tech floor mats, installed some foot well led’s, replaced everything else to led’s, and mounted a 5 panel wink mirror which eventually I took back off due to too much vibration.

They light up when the doors are open and fade out after 30 seconds like the dome light.




These are bright as heck at night! lol

Teaser picture from my Fall of 2013 Photo Shoot.
 
#17 ·

And with that the stock steelies/hub caps were thrown back on and we begin the purchases!
As a Christmas present my homeboy bought me a set of OEM aftermarket foglights, shout out to Eric if he's reading this crap lol

I could not stand the horrible light output of reflector based headlamps, so I pulled the trigger and bought Morimoto Mini H1's!




So, I swapped out the black housings and threw the stock ones back in for the Winter.



Picked up this cool license plate bracket seeing as I needed one. I always loved the way Hawaii plates looked so I picked me up a set for shows
 
#18 ·
Picked up a Liquid-Ink A-Arm brace from a fellow NissanClub member, On-The-Run, through Ebay.

Also picked up his rear se disc conversion as well :p

Got to match the SS lines in the rear, so I picked up a front set for a Sentra.

Major purchase was made here. Met a cool guy from a buddy who is sponsored by Yellow Speed Racing. Hooked it up with a killer deal that came with warranty as well. If you're ever reading this, thanks again Evan!





Check them out on their website!

Finally hit 100k in her :/
 
#20 ·
thank you! more updates on the thread

Got some SickSpeed gold “Hella Horn” horns w/ wiring harness



Sick Speed FTW…. Not really…

Guess what's completed?!




Well here is how she looked right after that Fall of 2013 photo-shoot I did. She looked like this all through Winter and even early Spring as well.

And with that folks, let the modding begin...
 
#21 ·
First up is the rear disc brake conversion.

Before:


After:


Next up are coilovers, front stainless steel brake lines, and paint the front calipers. I was never able to get around to installing the A-Arm Brace

Distance from ground to wheel well (it was the same on all corners)

Distance from ground to front lip

Before shots of the front setup.


Painting the front calipers.
 
#23 ·
haha awesome.

don't believe I posted yesterday so two posts tonight! (unless I did, then you guys get an extra bonus post tonight lol)

no coilover,

Look at the difference!

yes coilover,




Came across some wheels for a price I could not pass up (yes, I know, the tires are pretty big/wide)

Can anyone guess the sizing?

Front setup overhead shot (car is still on jack-stands)

Rear setup overhead shot (car is still on jack-stands)
 
#24 ·
The moment we all been waiting for, after shots of her on the ground!



After shot of distance from ground to wheel well (same on all four corners, it only took me one try, and it was during installation, winning!)

After distance from ground to front lip.

Last shot of her on steelies.


Looking a hell of a lot better with the Spec V’s!


Overall it was just about a 2” drop from stock height.


Note: I did have to roll the rear quarter panels to EVEN fit the OEM steelies. There was barely a finger gap between the quarter and tire before the roll.
 
#25 ·
Looks REALLY good man. I really like the Sentra wheels on it. Verrdddyy nice.


And as for the wheels, they are XXR 962's, I'ma say they are staggered, they look it from the angles of these pics you took anyway...front 8.5, rear 9.5...if not they are all 9.5.

And I'm gonna say they are 18"s. And yes, the tires are way too much, get some 215/40's and you'll be :bigok:
 
#27 ·
thank you! haha yes, of course you know your wheels ;) good ol sportmaxx 962's 8.5 front 9.5 rear +35 offset front and back.
I wish i went with 40's but I miscalculated and got 35's instead :/ (probably since I thought since I was going up to 18's I needed lower profile) oh well, it still looks fine and drove good when I had them on so I wasn't going to sell and rebuy lol

Dope thread man!
thank you!
 
#28 ·
As expected, my alignment was total whack! I was scared driving around the block alone but luckily made it to work in one piece and got an alignment done!

Still have some adjustments to make but at least the wheels are pointing in the same direction!

What’s this? More parts?

Suspension Techniques 22m rear sway bar. (I still don’t know why they sent two...)

Time to order some rear endlinks.

Some random shots at work after a quick wash.



So all of you are probably wondering why I haven’t installed the retrofitted headlights, fogs, or horns yet. Well I was still waiting on one important component that was backordered for awhile!

H1 Morimoto Elite HID System w/ 5Five DSP XB35 5000k, Moto-Control Bi-xenon 9007
 
#31 ·
Some more random shots at work. Next to a co-worker’s sc.

Some close scrape shots from parking at work.




An old buddy decided to visit and show off his newly purchased Miata. (Since then she went through full body work/paint) If you're ever reading this, Hi Jon!



Here’s how his Miata currently looks as of June 2014.

Pretty damn sexy if I do say so myself.


Stay tuned for more updates on his Miata and high quality shots as Jon is also working on his photography/camera skills.
 
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