So, I defected from the 1st gen crowd and finally broke down and bought an FD. Its a '93 Touring edition with 87000 miles on the clock, original engine. My purchasing story:
I saw the car on ebay on a Friday morning for 12k. Called my bank, got the loan and made the purchase Friday night. The following Monday, two of my friends and I drove to Massachusetts (about a 7 hr. trip, we live in upstate NY), leaving at 10am and getting back with my car at 2am tuesday morning. The po was nice enough to leave his MA plates and registration on it so I could drive it back. It ran beautifuly the whole trip back, I love boost!
Here are some pics:






It's not perfect, the Veilside imitation kit (i think c-1 or something) is on a bit crooked in the front, the headlight cover that came off is not paint matched properly, and there is some chipping paint on the bumper from stones and such. Also some paint bubbling around the bottom driver's side of the hatch seal, no rust, the paint just didn't adhere. Passenger's side door pull is broken.

The mods are: m2 downpipe, high flow cat, hks-style catback (i had to take the silencer out of it, made a high pitched whistling noise at wot), apex'i fuel commander, boost and water temp gauges, apex'i intakes, upgraded rad (can't remember the name right now), and MOST of the silicone hose mod is done.

The only issue I have is the boost pattern is roughly 10-6-7. I've been doing my research and I have a few things to check, also have to replace some hoses closer to the turbo. There is just the tiniest amount of smoke on first startup (and I mean tiny) and clears up instantly.

I ended up paying 11.5k. The guy I bought it from was awesome, one of the best deals I have done in a while. He was extremely accomodating. He had the car for 5 years, and only put 20,000 miles on it.

Anyways guys, sorry for the long post, tell me how you like it!
Jason

 

change the front bumper and rid the skirts...other than that nice ride. Enjoy trouble shooting the seq system

 

i remember that FD. the owner was a pretty stupid ricer.. he saids hes trying to sell his fd because "it catches too much attention with the super agressive sexy veilside kit"... lmlao... i hope you can turn that FD around. congrats.

 

man I didn't think there were any FD's out there with the old school veilside front....

I actually dig the sideskits but the front bumper that's another story . The car looks clean congratulations.

 

I don't think this was his car. This guy wanted to sell it b/c he has no time for it since the birth of his son. This guy was in his mid-40's and was pretty non-ricer (outside of his choice of body kit). I'm pretty thumbs-down about the bumper as well, all the little ricer kids around here love it. I've already had one guy leave a note under my rear wiper saying if I ever wanted to sell it, call him.

Thanks for the reply guys!

 

good luck with your new fd! just like everyone else ditch the front and sides get some better or stock wheels on it so it looks right again! i hope the motor holds out for you until you can biuld up your funds. even though i hate the front don't worry about it until you have enough to pay for a rebiuld b/c that would suck if you put all your money in buying a new front then your motor blows now you have a 11k paper weight sitting in your driveway! anyway have fun and goodluck!!

 

The cars looks good, you just need to give to get rid of the bumper. The skirts could probably look ok if you got some nicer wider rims.

P.S. I smell a rebuild...

 

Good luck with the car, FD's are reliable if you treat them right.

 

yeah theres definatly a rebuild in sight... I made out like a bandit with extra parts, i snagged the factory catback, 4 new rotors, stock radio, stock foglights and a set of stock twins that need to be rebuilt from him. upon further inspection, the stock twins have quite a few cracks in them that may or may not be repairable.

i know i can rebuild a 12a with no problems, and the 13b isn't that different so i'm sure i can nail that one down. i've been studying diagrams and spending a lot of time with the hood up doing "exploratory surgery" learning where everything goes. Definatly a lot more stuff in there than my fb where you can see the ground on 3 sides of the engine!

 

how much vacuum are you pulling on your boost gauge at idle?

 

Nice ride , just add some graphics



shave your head and you are in the club

 

gah! I saw the top of the car and loved it, I scrolled ot see that bumper and............ ugh. Change that and the skirts to 99-spec or at least stock. Nice car otherwise.

 

"yo dom, why'd you bring the buster?"

"CUZ THE BUSTER KEPT ME OUTTA CUFFS! THE BUSTER BROUGHT ME BACK, DIDN'T JUST RUN BACK TO BASE!!"

 

99 spec is in the works, i hate the bumper too

 

 

yeah do that and you'll have my dream car except red.

 

skir2222 -- i'm pulling about -500mm/hg on the powerfc or so at idle, i'll double check later

 

Damn thats great mmhg for an original motor at 80K + congrats, and im sure youve heard enough about the bumper

 

Yeah, that and being called "Dom".

At the risk of sounding retarded, good vaccum at idle means good motor? I'm pretty new to turbos and fuel injection, but i'm a self-proclaimed wiz with the 12a's... I mean sure, this indicates that i don't have any vaccum leaks (i think), but I never thought that this would indicate a "still good" motor. The po said he had the motor completely checked out a year ago and that everything was hunky-dory, and he had the silicone hose mod done whenever. I think they missed a few hoses tho. Like I said, I've got to spend a good day going over the whole messy sequential setup testing vacuum chambers and lines and such.

I know you guys have seen enough of the "my boost pattern is *blah*, what is wrong?" threads so I'll keep searching and testing...

 

Idle vacuum is a little bit like a running compression test. Of course, like a compression test, the RPMs have to be accounted for, so for FDs we talk about idle vacuum when the engine is all warmed up and running around 800rpm.

Dave

 

the old veilside side skirts look pretty sleak and sexy to me compare to the new 1.

 

well, you learn something new every day. I'll double check the vaccuum tonight when I make it home and she's all warmed up and report back. Thanks again guys

 

that makes sense

however, the seals pull vacuum travelling over a different part of the housings than they do during compression, so it would be a good idea to check both, correct? but both are necessary, so you're half way there.

nice find BTW (i've seen that kit look alot worse). you may get some good mileage out of the engine yet, depending on how it was driven. my project 93 had 125k on the engine and still made fair compression. well i suppose it was borderline, 85-90 psi / about a 6.3 on the mazda tester. that's not to say i even bothered to run it.

good luck

 

So I pull -470mm/hg at idle when warm. Half throttle to closed throttle in 5th at 60mph, roughly -600mm/hg. The engine feels very strong, aside from the low secondary boost that I'm trying to track down.

Anyways, thanks for the comments guys, I love talkin to fd owners, as there aren't any up here that I know of.

So if anyone lives in the upstate NY region, pm me and we'll meet up. I live in Potsdam. I plan on going to the next car show on Monday in Watertown, about 1.5 hrs away.

 

I would get rid of that bumper. Makes the FD look like a duck. Well at least that is my opinion. The rest of the car is pretty clean and well kept.

Good buy overall