Sprockett

I have noticed while flipping through various pictures of FD engine bays that a lot of people have a silver throttle body elbow like this:


Mine is black:


I was just wondering if people painted the black plastic to look like metal, if certain years or models came with an aluminum elbow, or if it is some sort of Jspec conversion (like the Y-pipe). Just curious I guess

kyle@insight

hmmm... never noticed that before. I know some people go to the Greddy elbow but that doesn't look like a greddy elbow, maybe some sort of other aftermarket one?

Sprockett

Yeah, that's not Greddy. It looks just like the stock elbow. Here's another one:

You can even see the stock dimple

OneBadRx7

Nope, certain cars came with black, some silver. Its been talked about before but I dont think a definite answer to the reasoning some cars got them and some didnt. I guess mazda had a big box of them, some black, some silver and just grabbed whatever and slapped it on, who knows.

OneBadRx7

Both are plastic also, no metal ones came stock.

Sprockett

So....is there any way to paint them? I kind of like the silver because it takes away from the "black plastic" feel of the engine bay (at least, the mostly stock engine bay)

911GT2

Hmm, I've never noticed that before. Odd...

OneBadRx7

Yeah you can paint them, check out this link you can see my engine bay, everything is painted, no polishing or anything,

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...hreadid=201749

Sprockett

What kind of paint did you use, if you don't mind?

OneBadRx7

Oh and disturbd, get something to cover the hole on the intercooler duct. The stock ic effeciency sucks enough you are losing even more with that gaping hole uncovered, just a little tip.

Sprockett

What would you suggest? Is there a kind of tape, or should I use plastic? I am not good with working with metal and can't weld....thanks for input. I am trying to see what I could find around the house that would work.

OneBadRx7

I used Dupli-Color METALCAST stuff. I just used the ground coat stuff, it turned out wonderfully and even withstands the which I thought might be an issue. They do have colors too but if you do them in a color you will need the ground coat for sure first. You can pick the stuff up at Napa.

OneBadRx7

I would just go to the hardware store or something and get a thin piece of sheet metal, you can cut it with a tin snips and use pop rivets to fasten it on or you could even use some small self tapping screws to fasten it.

c00lduke

I was told at one point in time that 93s had silver and 94s had the black ones and so far thats been true. Not to sure about 95 but if i had to guess i would say black.

~Luke

OneBadRx7

I have seen many 93's with black though so I have no idea.

rynberg

I thought all 93s came with silver cross-over tube and intake elbow. I believe they switched to black in 94.

disturbd: Definitely plug the opening. You can just use duct tape but better is to just get a piece of black plastic and use screws to attach it to the stock inlet duct.

RX794

OK, from working at a Mazda dealership for so many years I know the answer to this, the 93's started in silver color piping(remember 93 was a long production year due to the FD being released in 1992, even though it was a 93 model), in the end of the 93 through the beginning of the 94 model year they started using black color piping, there was a substantial amount of 93's that the piping was replaced under warranty, and when it was replaced, it was replaced with black colored piping, so that's why some cars have black, and some have silver, not to mention that people take parts from one car put it on another.........etc. So now you know wjy there's 2 different colors. Just my 2cents.

turbojeff

iTrader: (30)

All early 93s had both the crossover tube and the intake elbow painted silver. Somewhere in 93 Mazda switched the crossover tube to black. Purely a cost savings move I'm sure.

94-95s had black intake elbows and crossover tubes.

You might also notice that 94-95 cars don't have chrome intake manifold nuts either. Mazda did a bunch of cost savings moves on the later cars along with some quality improvements everyone talks about.

I've owned 13 FDs, early 93s with build dates 2/92, late 93s with the last 5 digits of the VIN over 10000 and a couple 94s and a 95 (didn't own, but had it for 2 mo).

Jeff