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FIRST LOVE
I first fell in love with 3S cars in the fall of 1994. I was admiring the new 2nd gens on the lot but they were out of reach for me. A salesman suggested a test drive in a 91 TT stealth and I was duly impressed with the gadgets and the performance! A few weeks later I bought a glacier white pearl 1991 VR4 with only 17K on her. The next year I saw the Spyder on the cover of Road and Track and I told myself that if I ever hit it big I would buy one.
SPYDER ACQUISITION
Five years passed and the company I was working for had seen its stock jump 10X in the dot com boom and suddenly I had a windfall. My family took a summer vacation in August 1999 and I stayed back to work but stumbled on two black Spyders parked in front of Courtesy Mitsubishi in San Jose. One was an SL and the other a VR4. I took the VR4 for a top-down spin and fell in love all over again! It was pretty clean - I bought a new shift knob and some floor mats and had to figure out the CDs go in upside down but I was all set!
I drove it stock for a couple of years while I still had the white 91 VR4 which was BPU by now. With the growing family I couldn't justify having two GT's so I pulled the upgrades out of the 91 and installed them in the Spyder and sold the 91. I still miss the 91 with the tall gearing.
EARLY MODS
With the 91 gone I concentrated on the Spyder, first powder coating the brakes, then upgrading the leather with the CFI kit which had no Spyder rear seat pattern at the time.
JNS ENGINEERING
JNS Engineering
Since around 1999 I was a member of Team3S and I knew Matt Jannusch had a setup where his DEI remote worked with a bunch of timers and relays to automate the top up/down. In 2004 I decided I had to figure out a way to make a remote top system. I managed to drain my battery a few times when my early prototypes left the car powered up but finally developed a prototype unit that would work with an aftermarket alarm system. When Bob Stirling (OhioSpyderman) agreed to try it out I refined the design and started group buys as JNS Engineering. To date I've helped about 40 Spyder owners get remote top systems.
From the early days of Spyder ownership I had joined 3000Spyders on yahoo groups which was setup for owners to discuss retractable top issues and fixes. Folks had read the manuals and knew there were proprietary hardware and software that the dealer used to talk to the Spyder roof computer and diagnose it. Finally some group members were able to obtain the original software and discover the company that made the RS-232 / ISO-9141 adapter to plug into the car. Unfortunately the adapter was over $200 and we could not build the cable that would connect it to the car. Further the program ran on an old school DOS computer with a serial port. In 2009 I developed the Toplink interface that runs the original software in a DOS window on a modern laptop with USB ports. More than 50 Toplinks have been sold to Spyder owners at this point, savings owners from high dealer fees to "diagnose" top issues.
THE MOD BUG HITS
When I'm not building stuff for JNS Engineering, I enjoy working on my Spyder. In the last couple of years I've done a few more mods to the car including engine chroming, lowering with new ECS struts and tein springs, and installing new rims. At nearly 100,000 miles and 15 years my Spyder looks and runs as well as ever!
MOD LIST
Apexi AVC-R Boost Controller
Plugs gapped at 0.032
K&N FIPK Intake
Greddy Type S BOV
Bradi slotted and dimpled rotors
Porterfield R4S pads
Red powdercoated calipers
Motul 600 fluid
Tein S Tech / Tein H Tech springs on new ECS struts
Volk Racing SF Challenge 18x9 wrapped in Bridegstone Potenza RE760 255/40/18
CIPA 36500 RV Mirror with compass and temperature gauge
Katzskins custom leather seats
Audiovox Prestige AP-996a Remote Start Alarm
JNS Engineering custom Remote Top Controller
Chrome Plenum, valve covers, throttle body and water housing
Kenwood DNX-7160 DVD / Navigation HU
Rear view Camera
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Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by HilbillyHomeboy
. Too bad DuTTch and LilRed didn't get the entries in on time. Jan's Spyder would have been really hard to beat but maybe being the only black one would have swung it.
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