Last October my previous car was totaled (the other guy screwed up). I had been looking at a G35 (coupe or sedan), a FX35 and a Magnum. I checked the Sunday paper and I found a used car that had my name all over it. A brilliant silver Magnum RT!
From the start, I wanted to have a clean and aggressive look while keeping the bling to a minimum. And I had to have some big meats for it!
I dropped it within a week (Eibach Pro). Then to a local speed shop to get a custom cat-back installed. Within a month I bought a refurbished front bumper cover off of Ebay. Had a out of town shop cut and finish the upper and lower grille openings. I had to loose that "Dodge cross". I was supposed to get it back by Thanksgiving. The delays continued and I did not get it until March of '06. I think that the final product was done well, though. I had quite a few plastic tabs added for the mounting of a grille and/or extra support. I built the upper grille using 3/16 x 1" aluminum flat bent the hard way. This involved bending and milling slots in the vertical round supports with the aluminum flats tig welded in place, including mounts. I had the finished upper grille powder coated in a semi-gloss black. I was originally going to leave the lower grille open, but recently decided to massage a SRT8 lower grille to fit (LX Forums Made Me Do It). I think that one of the biggest and least expensive appearance mods was the Charger chin spoiler (LXFMMDI). Thanks 65Standard!
I debadged it and lost the side moldings. I was going to loose them all, but kept the "Hemi" and repositioned it a bit lower. I thought that the rear wiper was a bit ugly so I removed it. I wanted to leave the option open to reinstall it if I needed. Now that I am in Canada, I just might need it. I did not like the off-centered hole that it left so I shaped and painted a piece of aluminum with a small rubber edging and installed it with 3M foam adhesive.
My Mag (used) came with some nice 20x8.5" chrome wheels, although I just had to have some fat meats for her. I searched 1000's of wheels (literally) to find something that I liked that was wide, clean, and without too much bling. I decided on some 9 and 10.5 x 20" Axis GTR wheels in a 5 on 114.3 bolt pattern (FLAME ON!). The offset was a bit much so I had to use some 8mm spacers (FLAME ON AGAIN!). I am working on getting some custom machined spacers with incorporated hubcentric rings. These will be bolted to the wheels. By the way, I recently drove from Arizona to Toronto and have had zero vibrations or problems. One thing lead to another and had to find some longer studs. After a whole lot of searching I got some for both front and rear. With the 10.5" rims I had to find a tire that was not too narrow. A pet peeve of mine is to run a tire that is narrower than the rim. So it had to be a 315/35/20 with a section width of 12.3". And on the 9" a 275/40/20 with a section width of 10.9" worked out perfectly. I found these sizes in a Toyo Proxes S/T and it turned out that for these sizes they were not as heavy as most other manufacturers, especially the 315's. They are W rated and weigh 34 and 35 lbs.
Before I bought the wheels, I measured and researched what it would take to fit them under my MAG while keeping them inside the fenders (not just flush). And boy did I have my work cut out for me. The fronts fit fine, with the spacers but the rears needed some extra clearance. I cut out a hand sized area at the front inside of the wheel well (another opportunity to FLAME ON). I went in about 1.5". This area has ribs in the sheet metal structure. I overlapped and connected to each section while keeping a relatively stock looking appearance. I am confident with the integrity of the resulting structure. After tig and mig welding the paint-locked steel sheeting, I used a heavy zinc paint, both inside and outside of the structure, and an undercoating sealer. Then I had to cut, heat, shape, glue, and fasten the inner plastic fender well and support pieces. I installed a set of Hotchkis anti-sway bars. Since the wheels were so far inboard, the rear bar was actually inside the wheel. When the suspension was at full droop it touched the inside of the rim. I shortened the bar links by about .5" which solved the problem and should not affect the sway bar characteristics by much. A lot of work, but I think it was absolutely worth it to me!
Some other mods (LXFMMDI) that I have done are: LED taillights with matching paint, third brake light pulse module, HIR bulbs for low beam, high beam and fog lights, custom sub-woofer enclosure by Art of Noise with an Infinity 10" sub powered by a MTX amp, 6 Infinity Kappa series replacement speakers (2 ohm), powder coated wheel centers, and a SuperChips programmer.
A couple of projects that I need to finish, are to install my new set of KW Variant 2's (yep, the stocks are about gone) and to fabricate my own ram-air CAI.
Future mods might include hood scoop, headers, cats and upgraded seats. Boy is this fun!
THANKS LXFORUMS MEMBERS for all of the great information and entertaining posts as well as for helping me spend my money! Also, it has been great meeting many of you in person, from California to Montreal, at the various meet and greets and the virtual meets on LXFORUMS. This is a great connection we all have here. I was pleasantly surprised today as HAZMAN set me up with a cool avatar and signature graphic display without me asking. That just shows the gracious mentality of folks we have here on this forum.
Cheers!!!
315/35/20
MORE PICTS...
http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j312/jonnfx/
From the start, I wanted to have a clean and aggressive look while keeping the bling to a minimum. And I had to have some big meats for it!
I dropped it within a week (Eibach Pro). Then to a local speed shop to get a custom cat-back installed. Within a month I bought a refurbished front bumper cover off of Ebay. Had a out of town shop cut and finish the upper and lower grille openings. I had to loose that "Dodge cross". I was supposed to get it back by Thanksgiving. The delays continued and I did not get it until March of '06. I think that the final product was done well, though. I had quite a few plastic tabs added for the mounting of a grille and/or extra support. I built the upper grille using 3/16 x 1" aluminum flat bent the hard way. This involved bending and milling slots in the vertical round supports with the aluminum flats tig welded in place, including mounts. I had the finished upper grille powder coated in a semi-gloss black. I was originally going to leave the lower grille open, but recently decided to massage a SRT8 lower grille to fit (LX Forums Made Me Do It). I think that one of the biggest and least expensive appearance mods was the Charger chin spoiler (LXFMMDI). Thanks 65Standard!
I debadged it and lost the side moldings. I was going to loose them all, but kept the "Hemi" and repositioned it a bit lower. I thought that the rear wiper was a bit ugly so I removed it. I wanted to leave the option open to reinstall it if I needed. Now that I am in Canada, I just might need it. I did not like the off-centered hole that it left so I shaped and painted a piece of aluminum with a small rubber edging and installed it with 3M foam adhesive.
My Mag (used) came with some nice 20x8.5" chrome wheels, although I just had to have some fat meats for her. I searched 1000's of wheels (literally) to find something that I liked that was wide, clean, and without too much bling. I decided on some 9 and 10.5 x 20" Axis GTR wheels in a 5 on 114.3 bolt pattern (FLAME ON!). The offset was a bit much so I had to use some 8mm spacers (FLAME ON AGAIN!). I am working on getting some custom machined spacers with incorporated hubcentric rings. These will be bolted to the wheels. By the way, I recently drove from Arizona to Toronto and have had zero vibrations or problems. One thing lead to another and had to find some longer studs. After a whole lot of searching I got some for both front and rear. With the 10.5" rims I had to find a tire that was not too narrow. A pet peeve of mine is to run a tire that is narrower than the rim. So it had to be a 315/35/20 with a section width of 12.3". And on the 9" a 275/40/20 with a section width of 10.9" worked out perfectly. I found these sizes in a Toyo Proxes S/T and it turned out that for these sizes they were not as heavy as most other manufacturers, especially the 315's. They are W rated and weigh 34 and 35 lbs.
Before I bought the wheels, I measured and researched what it would take to fit them under my MAG while keeping them inside the fenders (not just flush). And boy did I have my work cut out for me. The fronts fit fine, with the spacers but the rears needed some extra clearance. I cut out a hand sized area at the front inside of the wheel well (another opportunity to FLAME ON). I went in about 1.5". This area has ribs in the sheet metal structure. I overlapped and connected to each section while keeping a relatively stock looking appearance. I am confident with the integrity of the resulting structure. After tig and mig welding the paint-locked steel sheeting, I used a heavy zinc paint, both inside and outside of the structure, and an undercoating sealer. Then I had to cut, heat, shape, glue, and fasten the inner plastic fender well and support pieces. I installed a set of Hotchkis anti-sway bars. Since the wheels were so far inboard, the rear bar was actually inside the wheel. When the suspension was at full droop it touched the inside of the rim. I shortened the bar links by about .5" which solved the problem and should not affect the sway bar characteristics by much. A lot of work, but I think it was absolutely worth it to me!
Some other mods (LXFMMDI) that I have done are: LED taillights with matching paint, third brake light pulse module, HIR bulbs for low beam, high beam and fog lights, custom sub-woofer enclosure by Art of Noise with an Infinity 10" sub powered by a MTX amp, 6 Infinity Kappa series replacement speakers (2 ohm), powder coated wheel centers, and a SuperChips programmer.
A couple of projects that I need to finish, are to install my new set of KW Variant 2's (yep, the stocks are about gone) and to fabricate my own ram-air CAI.
Future mods might include hood scoop, headers, cats and upgraded seats. Boy is this fun!
THANKS LXFORUMS MEMBERS for all of the great information and entertaining posts as well as for helping me spend my money! Also, it has been great meeting many of you in person, from California to Montreal, at the various meet and greets and the virtual meets on LXFORUMS. This is a great connection we all have here. I was pleasantly surprised today as HAZMAN set me up with a cool avatar and signature graphic display without me asking. That just shows the gracious mentality of folks we have here on this forum.
Cheers!!!
315/35/20
MORE PICTS...
http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j312/jonnfx/