lol probably sounds like a corvette? anyway cool car

 

Should sound Z06ish when complete. Thanks for the kind words^

 

Purchase updates/notes:

new black sun visors ~ $160 (the sun visor PN for the Base/R1/R2 model have been discontinued, but Ray checked and the visors for the touring/PEP are identical).

Because my fiberglass front wheel well liners are slightly wider than stock, we had to ditch the factory coolant and washer fluid bottles. In order to keep this functionality I purchased a pair of Moroso reservoirs for the coolant overflow and washer fluid. The black plastic bottles are light and compact and are very unnoticeable once the white Morosso stickers were removed. Now that the bottles are mounted and the coolant system has been plumbed, we need to find a nice compact electric pump to power the new set of nozzles that Ray is sending us.

The new speedo is installed reading just 2 miles of usage (I guess they run it through a 2 mile test cycle before shipping it from the factory).

The tachometer was not working when Zach started up the car. He traced he signal all the way to the tach and found the tach to be bad. I called Fritz to see if he had another tach on hand and he did; one from an automatic FD. The tach failure turned out to be a good thing because the 7k redline tachometer (versus 8k for the 5spd FD tachometer) will work better for my application since the LS6 redlines at 6500 RPM (versus an LS1 standard redline of 6000 RPM).

The new dash looks great with the new trim rings. If your interior is looking a little dated I highly recommend replacing the gauge cover/bezel assembly.

I also highly recommend buying a LED dome light conversion. The pure white light makes for a better-lit and more modern looking interior. I don't remember who I bought my dome light from, but it looks pretty trick.

I could use help finding a nice modern 6-speed shifter for this car. I am looking for something similar in size and shape to the FD shifter with a black body and possibly a brushed metal face. I ordered a mustang Cobra shifter but am unhappy with the color of its leather, a kind of gray black. Any ideas?

As of right now the car is running open loop through the exhaust manifolds on a 2002 Camaro timing map and tune. We will not be able to install the O2 sensors and tune until we get the downpipes fabricated and installed.

Also, the new J-spec door handles that I purchased through Ramy's group buy are different in texture to the USDM handles that I'm used to seeing. Apparently Mazda switched over to a matte texture at some point as opposed to the semi-gloss that we are used to. Also, the new handles did not include a lock sensor and harness for the driver's side handle so I went ahead and bought one off of Fritz.

I think at some point I will post a list of every bit that I have purchased for this project to give you guys a good laugh. Let it suffice to say that you could damn near build an entire car from what I have purchased from Fritz, Ray and my GM parts guy.

 

Something like this:

 

Pic no worky^

For the shift know, how about the illuminated RX8, 6 speed ****? It's extremely high quality and looks very cool:



Here is a link to more pics:

http://www.rhdjapan.com/home/product...oduct_id=2976#

The metal bezel around the top is actually polished chrome and the light is provided by an LED. It glows orange and matches the dash lights perfectly. I've always said its one of the best purchases I have made. Pricey though at a little over $200.

 

Thanks for the input David, It looks excellent in your car so will certainly keep it in mind, though the "R" is going in the wrong direction for my application.

Here's the picture that I attempted to post earlier:

 

Hey, that's Bob's interior!

 

^Yep, that's not my car, pulled the pic off of the forum. I do have the **** installed on my car though and it looks great.

Still can't see the pic

 

I have the voodoo racing Titanium shift **** that i scored from Gordon Monsen's old red FD and love it

 

Update: The exhaust has been acquired. I went with a new RB dual unit straight from RB as well as a "super quiet" resonator, an extra 3" 2-bolt exhaust flange from RB to bolt the cat and resonator to the cat-back. We will use two 2.25" V-band assemblies welded between the cat inputs and down tubes as well as two 2.25" flex tubes to reduce strain and vibration before the down tubes are terminated with set of laser-cut flanges and bolt to the stock manifolds.

My old head unit was shot so I went with an HD Radio head unit from Crutchfield.

My latest purchases from Ray include new sun visors w/ hardware ($200ish) and new complete seat belt assemblies ($500ish) that will take 2+ weeks to arive from Japan.

The Feed side skirts are now installed to match the Mazdapeed rep front lip.

The car is running, but is misfiring in one cylinder. We will investigate this further once the exhaust is complete.

 

Good to see you finally broke down and bought those seatbelts.

Don't see the big deal - with 7 cylinders you'll still walk anything out there.

PS: Hofbrau beer is excellent. How's the Augustinerbrau?

Dave

 

I can think of a lot of better ways to spend 500 dollars. lol

I'm glad you like the HB Original. The Augustinerbrau is excellent as well - I know because I just drank 3 bottles of it while I was grilling some Sausages, dogs, bacon and bangers during a break from yard work ;o) Thanks again for the box of brew!

How was FedEx BTW?

 

The exhaust is almost done!

Here's another picture of the shifter that we are using:


We are modifying a Pro 5.0 shifter and working with Redline Goods to make this handle work.

 

It was as much fun as you can have (legally) for the price of an OEM seatbelt. I no longer have to feel guilty for having not-even-scrubbed RE-01 Rs on the car.

That shifter will look sharp.

Dave

 

 

OOOoooohhhhh...

And you beat Jimlab by an infinite margin, to boot

 

The car looks beautiful. Congrats!

 

I appreciate you guys showing love to a V8 car

Here's another pic that I snapped with my camera phone in the driveway before we headed out:



I'll post more specifics later, but after I finished installing my The PFS girdle and Banzai brace (took a little cutting grinding and figuring-out to make them both fit) We jumped in the car and went on a maiden voyage into town. The car handles surprisingly well with an eye balled alignment and pulled strong. The car does experience a bit of chattering which we attribute to the light flywheel, and the amp needs an overdrive pulley because it's currently only making 12V at idle compared to the 14v when rev'd. We noticed a squeak coming from the front suspension which we fixed by tightening the coilover mounts and we had to pull my useless custom fiberglass fender liners because they were rubbing. I also went ahead and put an injector on order at GM to replace one that is currently sticking.

We made a quick pit stop at Zach's place where we upped the tire pressure, adjusted the suspension height, tightened the coilovers, ditched the liners (ordering some new OEM replacements), put a few wraps of electrical tape around the rear hatch latch loop to eliminate a squeak, bled the clutch and brakes and eyeball's the engine bay and under the car for signs of damage. The exhaust is currently needs some slight modification, but other than that, the car is surprisingly solid with no leaks to speak of.

The exhaust note is louder than expected, but has zero raspiness. The tone is pure bass. I may look into installing a 3rd muffler to get it a little quieter if I can find a way to make it fit. I also think I'm going to be ditching my performance motor and tranny mounts for some OEMers to reduce the slight vibration that is currently present. The car at present feels and sounds like an absolute rocket ship.

 

Congrats Rob! The car looks fantastic!!

 

Shifter, metal e-brake handle and leather boots installed:

 

Hey Rob. Been folowing this thread. Car looks great. Makes me a little jelous. I'll have to meet up with you and nick one day to check the cars and to pick up some of those bushings when they are in.

I got a quick question. I'm orderinga a set boots from redline but wondering how much shorter your shift boot is. Thanks, Mike

 

Looking good Rob, is the car back in the area yet? I'd like to go for a ride and see what that thing can do.

 

Hey Mike,

The shift boot on my car is a German leather stock RX-7 dimension boot that I've had sitting around since way back in the day. We fastened to the bottom of the **** where the opening circumference was about 4". We were able to do this because Zach had a custom short shifter fabricated to fit my Pro 5.0 which sits a bit lower than the stock RX-7 ****.

The shift pattern is 1-6 and right/up for reverse. The shifter is centered in the boot and stands about 2" tall.
Here are the approximate boot measurements for the minimum size boot required for my setup.


from rear right corner of the shifter opening to 1st gear = 5"
from front right corner of the shifter opening to 2nd gear = 5"
from rear left corner of the shifter opening to reverse gear = 5.5"
from front let corner of the shifter opening to 6th gear = 5"



I will be driving the car to its new home very soon and I plan to make the first Friday Chik Fila show at Dulles Town center to unveil the project. You and Joe should come on out; I'll make sure Nick shows up and I'll have to work on getting Zach and Dave to make the trek down from PA.

 

Whooo congrats! Im so jealous! The car is absolutely beautiful... I can't wait till I can afford my very own Rx7 =']

 

When is it? I've been thinking about bringing my car up to DC with me but put a lot of time into paint and have a feeling that its going to get ruined here.