19bonestock88's 2004 Saturn "Ion Green Line" build...

[19bonestock88]

So I was involved in my first accident last night... nobody was injured, it happened at less than 5mph, and I was stopped. Some college freshman didn’t take a left turn wide enough and dug my front corner into the side of her new car. Because I drive a Saturn with plastic body panels I just had some paint scraping. Her Nissan however didn’t fare so well...

[Daox]

Doesn't look too bad. Glad to see it didn't do more damage!

[19bonestock88]

I work fast guys! Instead of posting about the damage earlier I was working on the car. I got my new intake elbow, so I worked over my airbox base, enlarging the inlet and adding lightening holes in the support brackets.

Next I set to work actually fixing the damage caused to my car. I ended up painting both fenders and actually using clearcoat this time!

[19bonestock88]

My car also seemed to need brake pads suddenly. I should have gotten a new set of Stoptech pads again but I was trying not to be forever getting it fixed and just got the cheap ones from the local Advance auto parts... my drag reduction clips didn’t last, and were broken and rusted when I took the brake caliper off... I also realized that the accident threw my alignment off. The steering isn’t self centering like normal and there’s more rolling resistance than normal...

But I did get two of my Mk2 wheel covers done, I think they look good. I also used a scrap piece of vinyl from the wheel covers and wrapped the Saturn logo on my steering wheel...

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Looks good! How long did you have the brake reduction clips on for?

[19bonestock88]

I had them for about 6mo or about 27K

[California98Civic]

Those wheel covers look aggressive!

[19bonestock88]

They do, and I *love* how it looks! I’m gonna try and wrap all the rest of the coroplast on my exterior in the CF vinyl, I think it’ll look great! I’m already getting tons of compliments from my passengers on how it looks...

[19bonestock88]

Got two more mods done to the car, though they’re almost purely cosmetic...

I wanted to do an exhaust exit bezel. I drew my inspiration from the import cars that would have a shiny stainless plate right above the exhaust tip, usually etched with the brand exhaust they’re running (HKS, Tomei, etc.). I cut out a piece of flashing and hand etched it with the graphic from the Thrush muffler line (the duck or whatever it is), screwed it to the bumper cover, and it covers the ill-cut exhaust exit hole

I also finally wrapped my wheel skirts in CF vinyl like I had been wanting. I also bought a length of the edge trim that’s supposed to go on the edge of doors to protect the paint, and wrapped the outer edge of the wheel skirts in it to hide the edge of the coroplast... I think it looks great!

[19bonestock88]

Got my alignment fixed today, it was BAD... was showing like -0.34deg LF and -0.43deg RF... thing tracked straight but steering didn’t self center like normal and rolling resistance was awful, now the front alignment is 0.02 degree on each side(toed in *just barely* at all, factory spec is 0.1)... sadly it wasn’t all good news though... guess who needs fuel lines? This guy... we found a slight fuel leak, in the typical place for a Saturn Ion, due to the awful brown cancer that happens everywhere they use any salt...