mcalvert

My name is Mark and I own a 93fd. I got the car when I was a kid, and did no further modifications to it. Fast forward 10 years and my wife is done with school and I now have a little play money. My dad and I own a hot rod business, so I will be doing most of the work myself. When I got the car, the previous owner had a nice down pipe, catback, light weight flywheel, 12psi remap, Tokico adjustable coilovers, and about as wide a set of wheels as you can manage without rolling the fenders. This fd has not been started in years, as I parked it after it had overheated a couple of times and then life happened. My plan has evolved over the past year, from big single to bnr twins to small single, and this is where it's at in order by priority:

Body work - getting a simple front bumper from vis and fixing some small dents and door dings(will be using lead on all metal surfaces), finding a rear diffuser I like, roll the fenders and contemplating pulling them just a little, seibon hood
3mm seals - hopefully the housings and rotors are in descent shape
Power FC
Supra pump
ID 2000 secondaries
GTX3076r kit from Rotary Performance in Garland (not going for high hp so will be using a small turbo)
Air pump delete
Pettit intercooler and battery relocation
Koyo radiator and non-plastic AST
Silicon hoses and SS lines everywhere i can use them
Oil filter relocation
Resonated midpipe from Pettit
M2 air box will be rebuilt for a single turbo
AFR, temp, and EGT gauges
5th gear sync and shift kit
18s - 9.5 and 10.5 wide and I'm really liking some TSWs
Nitto Invos or Toyo R888s(owned Toyos and loved them) 255 front 295 rear
Gasoline and a tune at Rotary Performance
New seat skins, Seibon door panels, and Mazda shift boot/****


As of right now I'm about half way done with the body work and just have the doors to lead. I'm also starting to pull stuff out of the engine bay as I will be changing from the resale red to a candy blue of some flavor.

lawless

iTrader: (4)

I spent 7 months in san angelo. (I'm from Dallas) Chris is good peoples! Good luck with your build!

mcalvert

Thanks man, and my wife just finished her masters from Texas Women's at the Baylor campus in Dallas. I actually went to see Chris just to meet everyone there at Rotary Performance and they just let me hang out until the old battle axe drug me out. I've been back again since just to see what was in the shop and chit chat about my goals for the car, visiting really. The guys there have always been super nice to me and I'm really looking forward to working with them soon. I will post pictures of my body work in the near future. I have a lot of picture updating to do for our facebook page on a client's car first.

meetRoX7e

iTrader: (6)

I have family out in San Angelo, hated it out there. Water is terrible and nothing to do but go to the boys and girls club. That was like 20 years ago though so it may have changed. Good luck with the build.

mcalvert

I have not been able to do much body work lately because of work, but I was able to get the motor pulled Turning the motor over makes some healthy puffs, so hopefully the thing is in descent shape. The CHRA in the factory twins had a lot of shaft-play, all but coming into contact with the housings. I'm trying to figure out how to post pictures with photobucket because I don't know how to resize them from my work camera(files are way too large). As soon as I get this 350 v8 for a truck I'm sprucing up rebuilt, I will make a little crate and run the motor up to Garland and see how much it will set me back.

RiceFx306

iTrader: (7)

Awesome work. I grew up in San Angelo. I actually really enjoyed it. Thought about going back to finish up college (and get out of the city for a bit).

mcalvert

I haven't been able to get a whole lot done on the car this week, but I am ready to build me a little wooden box for the motor and drive it up to Dallas in a month or two so the good men at Rotary Performance can give her a look. In the mean time I will be finishing the body work and ordering a front bumper cover and a hood from seibon. I may not have to fill but a couple more dents with lead.. I think the others should work out with a little heat

tt7hvn

iTrader: (5)

That motor is pretty nasty looking, I would suggest putting the front cover back on before u sneeze and get a bunch of gunk on the oil pump chain and hardware

Johnny Kommavongsa

iTrader: (13)

In for updates, why are you considering PFC over other standalones? Because of plug and play?

mcalvert

tt7hvn, the motor is disgusting. The car sat in a shop uncovered for years, so I have a lot of cleaning to do in the engine bay.. just keep in mind everything is getting attention. does anyone know what temperature limit is good to use on the engine high temp paints? I am planning to use the pfc for now because I feel like it will be adequate for a lower power build like this one, but I am no expert on the standalones and am always open to suggestions if you have one.

tt7hvn

iTrader: (5)

if you're rebuilding it don't bother painting it.. just powder coat it because it will last a lot longer. however, if you're not rebuilding it because it still has good compression I used VHT to do mine, which has around a 500 degree F rating. you can get it at autozone

mcalvert

Powder coating sounds great.. and also a lot more color options as a bonus

mcalvert

trying to figure out why my photo bucket crap isn't working...

mcalvert

I have not been able to buy much for the rx7 yet because a 350 I'm building has sucked me dry at the moment. Should be done spending money on it in about a month or so. I have been able to get a few small things done on the rx7 though. I took the engine cradle out(the piece that the lower control arms and motor mounts anchor to) and it was filthy.. copious amounts of grease and sludge had built up. In the following pictures you will see it nasty, cleaned and sandblasted, sprayed with a truck bed liner to hopefully prevent scratches/gouges better, and covered with some basic silver paint. It is now ready to receive new motor mounts .

mcalvert

I also took the oil pan, filler neck, and front of the motor(where all the oil pump stuff is?) off and sandblasted it/prepped it for powder coating. I went ahead and powder coated the oil pan a color called "mirror black" which is just a high gloss black. It came out great. For the motor and anything else in the engine bay I can powder coat, I have decided on a color called translucent grape. It's a very transparent cross between blue and purple, so I'm going to powder coat reflective chrome first as a base and then the translucent grape to give it a lot of depth. I think it will really pop in the sun. I want to powder coat all of the engine stuff at one time if I can though, so I'm going to have to snag an excessive LIM, aluminum powersteering pulley, and air pump delete pulley set first.. I can understand spending 500bones on the LIM, but $350 for 3 pulleys?! I nearly shat.. I picked up a couple of Setrab oil coolers that were in great shape. Soon I'll make some brackets for them so they sit where I want them to with the new bumper cover I'm getting for our anniversary. This week I am taking off the control arms and I'm going to powder coat them the mirror black color as well. While snooping around my wheel wells I found that I actually have GAB coil-overs with eibach springs.. so I may powder coat the springs with the keg/engine bay. That's where I'm at on my "build" which really seems more like another restoration than anything else.

Initial_fd3s

iTrader: (2)

Hey man goodluck with your project. I myself am also doing a single turbo conversion on my free time. Please post lots of picture especially on your fuel set up

mcalvert

So I was reading threads one night and was thinking about the intake manifolds and tb's and saw some sweet port jobs. I never did see a thread with any actual dyno numbers to show the differences between stock and ported, but I decided to port match the uim, lim, and tb to my gaskets, and knife-edge my tb. I'm pretty happy with the uim now, and when I get my xcessive lim in I'll gasket match that too. I want to do a tiny bit more work on my tb, but it's mostly done too. I also got my uim ready for powder coating which just involved smoothing it out some on the top for the reflective chrome base coat, and I also lopped off the bracket that sticks up to hold the smog pump on and got that piece ready for powder coating. Here are a couple of "before" pictures and some of the parts almost all finished up.

mcalvert

jacobcartmill

iTrader: (6)

that water pump housing is pitted pretty badly. i wouldn't reuse it.

mcalvert

I was actually pretty worried about that.. thank you for speaking up. I'll have to find a good one.