1320VR4 (Matt Stefans)
September 2008 - Ride of the Month 3000GT/Stealth International
Cosmetic:
- 1G 3000GT body conversion
- Painted valve cover
- Polished aluminum "3000GT" spark cover
- Chrome intake pipe
- Aftermarket shift knob
- Snake eye mod
- H3 fog lights
- RUFF Racing 18x8.5 rims
- 99 Garnish
- Sonic Blue paint
- Carbon fiber cluster trim
Performance:
- Injen intake filter
- Spark plug wires
- Bosch +2 platinum plugs
- Half shafted throttle body
- 3sx Downpipe
- Maximal test pipe
- Maximal solid motor mounts
- Tanabe Concept G blue single shot (custom)
- 3sx stock size crank pulley
- Ground wires
- General Exclaim UHP tires
Sound:
- Pioneer speakers, front and rear
- Pioneer head unit
- Visonik sub + amp
Brakes:
- New OEM remanufactured calipers
- Drill slot front rotors, new rear rotors
- Ceramic pads
My Story:
When I was 16 my best friend Dan bought a 92 R/T, at the time I remember sitting in his living room as he was showing me the car he bought via his computer. I’ve had cars in my blood since birth and at the time I’d never heard of what a Stealth even was. After about four months he convinced me into buying a 3/S.
I found a highly abused Stealth ES in some kid’s garage about a block and a half from my house. According to him some friends of the kid he bought it off of, went drunk driving and crashed it into some street signs. At the time It was missing most of the interior, had an engine, although wasn’t promised to run, a bit of body damage, and was covered in corvette parts and bondo dust. After salvaging it and having it towed to my house, the project started almost instantly. It took about 3 hours to get the motor to run, however, running a bit of sea foam in it a few days later ended up snapping the tip off a new spark plug and it extensively damaged cylinder one and the head. We ended up replacing the motor with another one from a salvage yard which ended up having bad piston rings.
After motor number two, frustration started kicking in which almost ended the project. To surprise me, for my 17th birthday, my father bought me a low mileage engine with a 3 year guarantee. It was faster to do the motor swap this time since we’ve done it twice and excitement kept us going. Luckily it did the trick, It fired up without any issues and ran smoothly. With some other minor issues that were taken care of, the car was fully drive able, however defiantly not pretty in the least.
After doing a body conversion from stealth to 3000gt, the car ended up being white, red, blue and black. I ended up spray painting it primer black for a winter paint job so it wasn’t a total eyesore. At least now that I can drive it to and from a job, I could put funds together and really turn it into a head turner.
For the next six months or so, I did anything I could to get funds for my car. Along the way I managed to get a bunch of bolt on mods while still managing to put away money on the side for paint, rims and tires. By the beginning of this summer everything started to come together perfectly. I shopped around and got some great deals, most I can credit to 3si members. By my 18th birthday, my car had a fresh coat of paint and some sexy Ruff Racing wheels
Now that everything is where I want it, the car has really become quite an attention getter. Everywhere I go people stare as I go by and I often get stopped by other tuners asking me about my car. It’s really a great feeling that a year and a half of almost non stop work, and all the days my friends and I were in the snow or pouring rain trying to get the next stage of the process out of the way, was all totally worth it. Minus a few things, this entire thing was built in my driveway with hand tools. She may not be a VR4, but she’s something I’ll always be proud of.
