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Mission Everything Orange
I like the interior
instrument colour to be uniform, like those found in Audi and BMW. So the big
headache is to transform the 6 BFs, Controller and RSM into the orange with the right tonality for the Celica. This tone is actually light orange as opposed to the strong orange found in BMW. Even the tone for the speedo and clock differs. I decided
to go for a tone that matches the clock.
It is quite regretting
that the cabin box in the centre console has a dimension that will house exactly 2.5 display meters without modification,
which means you mount 2 meters only, be it HKS, Apexi or Defi.
I got 6 Defi BFs from
my previous ride, and not prepared to settle for less. After much analysis, I got this idea of modifying the cabin box. So
gotta be Like A Surgeon – Weird Al Yankovic! And here’s
the surgery….
The inner area is spray matt black to match that of the speedo and
RPM meters.
The right kind of plexiglass
to use here is dark orange to bring out the right orange tonality to match that or Celica or any continental car like BMW.
Only the light orange is available in Sg, which does not give you the right tonality no matter how or what you do. Got the
dark orange one in Tokyo’s Tokyu Hands.
A flat plexiglass looks awful. This plexiglass is cut to size
and oven baked to form the exact contour of the curvature of the Celica’s centre console. This dark orange plexiglass is somewhat bright especially under the sunlight; which stick out like a sore
thumb. Hence, I’ve applied a layer of dark V-kool to minimise the sore,
and yet maintain the correct orange tonality. The edges are lined with black decal.
The next headache is to
think of an idea place to mount the Defi Controller Unit II. The curvy dash of
Celica made dashboard mounting of any kind difficult. Finally, I found an ideal
spot, smack right in the middle!
The other 3 BFs goes to the A-pillar. I
avoided the idea of an aftermarket pod so that the pillar will not be bulky. So the Defi cups comes into good use. I considered changing the pillar vinyl cover to black (lay PVC) to match the cup, but decided not to do
so since the black cup can give a good contrast with a light grey pillar. Afterall,
there’s already too much black in the face lifted Celica interior.
As expected, it turns out nice, similar
to the good design found in Nissan 350z Fairlady and Alfa 156 GTA.
The
Apexi RSM went through a total conversion. Firstly, the traditional blue matrix display is converted to Orange. This is quite
a challenge, especially when I realise that after opening up the RSM, the matrix display is actually light green. The reason
why we see blue is because of the blue plexiglass outside. Secondly, the entire silver housing for the RSM is sprayed matt
black to match. The only thing silver left is the round cursor button on the right.
The text line and spectrum (partial) in
my head unit is also converted to orange.
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Defi Controller II, converted to orange.
Sitting on top of it is NeoTec XJ802 Air Ionizer.
Apexi RSM - silver housing sprayed black, blue LCD display converted
to orange.
Head Unit - partially converted to orange.
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