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Hi All,

After several years of thinking it would be nice to have a Stagea parked outside my house I have taken the plunge. My Alfa 156 was dying a slow painful death (everything they say about them is true!), so I set to work on the Minster of Finance and got approval to start looking. After kicking many tyres around Sydney, I decided to import from Japan to improve my options. By this time I knew I wanted an RS four S....

I contracted J-spec at the beginning of Feb and after a month of rejecting options and missing the same yellow one twice and this came up yesterday ....

post-80362-0-99622200-1298628841_thumb.jpg

As it was my birthday yesterday, I had a good feeling and lucky me I won!

Minor Mods, including HKS coilovers, TE37's and Fujitsubo exhaust.

Now the really hard part....... waiting.... I never was very patient.... It's going to be a very hard two - three months ( if anybody says i could be waiting longer then three months, please don't, I 'll cry ... )

Ben at J-Spec has been fantastic, he has been patient with all my silly questions and I would recommend him to anyone.

Thanks for listening, just wanted to share with some people who would understand how excited I am.

Cheers

Bodella

(New to forums so if this post needs to be moved deleted etc please do so .... )

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ahh well "waiting is the hardest part" it may well be longer than you hope....but it should be worth it :D

I've imported 4 cars over the years and never been disappointed with what I ended up with

Sure can , here's the auction result. Remember this only the auction price, there is FOB/Freight ...etc etc to be added. I'll update once it is in country to give people an idea of costs.

For a clean example, mostly free of rust(try and find one without !!), under 100k, the auction pricing seams to be around 500-600 but as always with auctions, on the day anything can happen.

If you look around the car yards, this will appear to be an expensive price, however my feeling was the quality of the cars was just not there. And then there is ever present worry about the true K's.

Some more photos to give you an idea of the quality

Love the wheels .. yes.gif

post-80362-0-95475200-1298878399_thumb.jpg

Think I will be scared to sit in it , I can be a bit rough with my toysblush.gif

post-80362-0-68099200-1298878427_thumb.jpg

Has anyone sat in the back thumbsup.gif not to worry my boys will make short work of it.... pinch.gif

post-80362-0-22089200-1298878455_thumb.jpg

  • 2 months later...

Car is now parked at my home, Woohoo!! Transit time was quick , in Aus in less then a month. Compliance took longer then expected , between the freight company losing parts and Canberra taking it's sweet time, car was ready late last week. I was using a compliance workshop in Newcastle so couldn't get up there till yesterday. The first time I have truly enjoyed the drive home from Newcastle! Yesterday was the first day I saw it, wasn't disappointed. Workshop did a fantastic job, no short cuts and top notch service( even lent me a car to run around and sort rego) . worship.gif

Haven't added up all the costs but it is was very close to Ben's estimate of 15k landed and complied. This puts it at the upper end of the price scale but I'm glad I stretched that far, the car is very high standard, the Volks look great, HKS coilovers are tight and the Fujitsubo exhaust has a sweet note.

The only sad bit is my cargo liner went missing in transit and I haven't seen another like it. spank.gif time to hit yahoo auctions to search for another.

post-80362-0-77370000-1305281662_thumb.jpg

Now to sort:

  • alarm/immobiliser ( very nervous about it till this happens - woke up twice last night with dreams of it being stolen pinch.gif )
  • head unit - have a friend coming back from the states soon, will probably look to source from there. ( even though I mostly listen to ABC News radio - showing my age )
  • First service ( prob use Tunehouse in Marrickville ).
  • Locking wheel nuts , need to investigate and read about how useful/pain in the arse they are.
  • Investigate behind wing mirrors for rust ( love the info on this forum )

Big thank you to Ben, very happy j-spec customer.

Waiting for the first volvo comment, a work mate already labelled it a tissue box with wheels ( I'll hit him later ) and I suppose I'll go for drive, a long, long drive :).

(money shot because I can't help myself )

post-80362-0-41250300-1305281789_thumb.jpg

Very nice looking car! When I got mine in Feb I was frustrated by the head unit, until I found that there was a factory 6-disc CD stacker behind the little removable panel on the left hand side of the boot. I still replaced it, but having 6 discs of my own in the car certainly beat ABC radio in the interim, so it might be worth a look to see if yours has the same.

I haven't had a volvo comment yet, but it has been called a hearse lol.

Do know know much about the HKS coilovers yet? I'd love any details, suspension is next on my to-do list

Do know know much about the HKS coilovers yet? I'd love any details, suspension is next on my to-do list

Keen to know how they feel, but it'd be pretty hard to convince me to go with anything other than BCs considering the rep they get on here. I'd love to go Teins, but sounds like they're just not worth the extra ~$1k over BCs.

Tempted to order in time for the arrival of my sway bars...

cheers guys.

Very nice looking car! When I got mine in Feb I was frustrated by the head unit, until I found that there was a factory 6-disc CD stacker behind the little removable panel on the left hand side of the boot. I still replaced it, but having 6 discs of my own in the car certainly beat ABC radio in the interim, so it might be worth a look to see if yours has the same.

I haven't had a volvo comment yet, but it has been called a hearse lol.

Do know know much about the HKS coilovers yet? I'd love any details, suspension is next on my to-do list

CD stacker confirmed rolleyes.gif but not working sad.gif. I assumed I didn't have one because when I hit the cd button nothing happened. Appears no power going to unit, when I press eject nothing happens. Checked all fuses, all good. Once again this forums rocks, would have been lost without the fuse box translation.

Any Ideas ?

Car is booked in for a once over at Tunehouse next weekend and I'll ask them the question. I'll assume a busted wire or fuse within the unit itself, not going to spend money getting it fixed though.

To be honest I'm a complete noob, so my opinion on the HKS coilovers would not be worth much blush.gif but I'll let you know what I find out.

I have also discovered a small toggle switch down low right hand side drivers area, no idea what it does.... another question for next Saturday.

Congrats on your new stag, good to see another in Syd.

The toggle switch could be for the headlights, you have 3 settings on it. A good test is to park front facing a wall at night with lights on & move switch one possition at a time.

I have also discovered a small toggle switch down low right hand side drivers area, no idea what it does.... another question for next Saturday.

De-icer for the windscreen and mirrors......nice car by the way.thumbsup.gif

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