MrZenki

Recently purchased my 1997 Type RB Bathurst X from a dealership here in Japan. It has 131k Km (about 80K mi), 99 spec front bumper, SSR Vienne LM9 18" wheels, side skirts (unknown brand), ARC Intake Box, Apexi Coilovers, and a Blitz Nur Spec exhaust. Other than that, everything is stock and in decent condition. I had been watching the auctions like a hawk and was either losing bids because prices were quickly exceeding my budget, the cars had been crashed/core supports replaced/crazy engine bays and wiring messes/ interiors were thrashed/etc, or I would be the highest bidder and the seller would refuse my offer because they wanted more. Found this car at a dealership about 1.5 hours away and went to look at it with no expectations of buying it, and just wanting to see what condition it was in and how it looked in person. The dealership is very active on social media and is ran by an american so I didnt have to worry about the language barrier. Here are some photos from their facebook add.









I ended up liking the car and working out a deal with them to purchase the vehicle. I ended up paying $24k, which was more than I had expected to spend for an FD out here in Japan but the car was sort of the happy medium between the beat up cars at auction and the nicer models going for $35k+. The dealership also had his mechanic replace oil, coolant, trans and diff fluid, spark plugs, ordered a new Blitz Nur spec exhaust since the one that was on there was bent, and put the car through the Japanese Shaken inspection.

As you can see, the red leather interior has seen better days and lost some of its battles with the sun, but overall the rest of the interior is pretty nice.

Here are some photos of when I saw it in person. Had just rained the night prior.





While I was waiting for the car to get back from the mechanics and from the Japanese Shaken inspection, my research and part hunt began. Ill make a second post to show some of the progess made so far.

MrZenki

Before going any further, I want to make a quick list of things that I have noticed are wrong with the car and need fixing/attention. Most of these items are cosmetic, some mechanical, and only 2 requiring immediate attention. Overall the car runs extremely well, I haven't found any rust yet (fingers crossed), has a solid boost pattern and pulls smoothly to redline.

Cosmetic Items: Shift boot and E brake boot are worn and faded and will be replaced. Map Lid is missing and has super glue residue from the previous owner trying to fix it. Missing Stereo Trim. Dash vent center piece doesnt sit flush. Seats and floor mats faded/worn. Front lip is very faded and sun damaged. Left headlight sits slightly lower than bumper line. Exhaust has started to melt stock bumper plastic. Want to replace 99 bumper lights and old style fog lights with LEDs, both are very dim. JDM arm pad is broken off hinges. Aluminum scuff plates are scratched.

Mechanical Issues: Rear end makes an occasional clunk on decel and braking, or when taking off from a stop. If you ever so slightly tap the throttle a couple times while idling, the car will want to die. ARC intake wont fit with stock intake cowl, leaving air that feeds the intercooler escaping to engine bay. Oil pressure gauge barely moves regardless of revs.

Immediate Issue: Random filters in ARC box are extremely brittle, break when touched, and I'm afraid chunks are going to get sent through my turbos. Driver door handle broke as I was picking up the car, so now I have to crawl through passenger side to open driver door.

Now that that is out of the way, lets move onto some of the parts I've acquired and installation. If you see or notice anything wrong, please let me know! This is my first rotary/FD so I'm researching as much as possible and open to all suggestions. First up was a Trust downpipe that I got for $65. Along with looking at the auctions, I was also checking the Upgarage website daily too see what parts would pop up. The downpipe popped up at a store nearby and I went to pick it up that same night.


I haven't had time to install this yet because, as of writing this, I've had the car in my possession for 3 days.

Next thing to pop up on Upgarage was a Apexi Power FC. Unfortunately, it was located at a store about 9 hours away from me, but one of the Japanese nationals that I work with let me know that Upgarage will ship items between stores for cheap. I went to the closest store, setup the purchase and shipping costs, and to my surprise, found a black suede passenger seat that wasnt listed on the website, and was $50. My wife did not share my same enthusiasm for finding a random seat. It had few small stains, but no rips and looked to be in great condition.


The same Japanese National who told me about Upgarage's shipping was also kind enough to help me with ordering parts from Yahoo Auctions Japan and ship them to his house. I'm in the military and have an APO address. Whatever I purchased would have to go from Japan, to the US, then back to Japan for shipping and could take forever. I was on the hunt for whatever interior pieces I could get my hands on. Ended up bidding on a set of black leather rear seats, and losing as the price went to $320. Found another set that was also for sale but had 0 bids and price was starting at 10000Yen, or just below $100. Ended up winning those and with shipping it came out to $127 and arrived to his house within 2 days.

First night I had the car in my possession, I got right to work in installing my new seats. Removal was easy, and I was very surprised with how clean it ended up being. I used some carpet and upholstery on the passenger seat and luckily the stains were surface stains and easily removed. The rear seats had some white glue or duct tape residue (I hope it was glue) which also came off very easily. Here are some before shots.





The floor mats are pretty faded and worn into more of a lighter red/orangeish color. Hoping that I can give these a good cleaning and restore some of the color, if not I'll order some garage alpha mats. Luckily, upon pulling the rear seats and passenger seat, the carpet looks to be in amazing condition, just needing a vacuum and light cleaning. Sadly, I kept forgetting to take pictures as I was moving along so no after shots.


Rear seat removal and installation was extremely smooth and easy. New rear seats look great.



I was losing light fast so some of these pictures look funky from a combination of an older phone and using flash. Only thing I had to do to swap the passenger seat was move the seatbelt receiver to the black seat from the red one.

MrZenki

Now onto trying to restore my lip and some interior trims pieces. I'm not necessarily a fan of painting interior pieces and wanted to save it as a last resort. I've had great results and experiences with Mothers Back to Black before so I went to the Auto Hobby Shop on base, bought a bottle and attempted to use it on my lip and some of the trim pieces in my trunk area.

The front lip was extremely faded and looks very light grey. The rain had made some spots look darker than other from the moisture but the whole lip is that light grey color. I attempted to dry it as best as I could, then applied a liberal amount to a terry cloth and started to massage it in. Within 1 coat the lip looked better and closer to how it should.


Untouched passenger side

First coat on the driver side. (Car has dual oil coolers, but this side is missing the ducting.)

It came out ALOT darker than it was previously, but also was shiny, so hard to get an accurate picture as its much darker in person. Sadly, the next day, it was back to looking light grey, so I'll end up painting this. Thinking plastidip so it will stand up to rocks and road debris a little better.

Next up was some of the trim pieces that were sun faded in my trunk area. Almost forgot to take pictures before starting but luckily caught myself. You can see that I had already started to apply the back to black here on top of the trim, hence the darker color.

Water had dripped down onto this one as I opened the hatch. Not a leak.

Similar results as the front lip. Came out much darker and looked 100x better than before.

This photo you can still see stains on the trim pieces. The back to black did not change the color of the stains so it remained a lite grey color and is slightly noticeable against the darker surrounding areas.


As much as I dont want to, I'll have to end up painting these later down the road, but they are good enough for me for now. I've heard people have had good results with SEM products, but I've yet to use them for myself.

Bonus Night pictures with shitty phone camera. Could use a good cut, buff, waxing.

XanderCage

iTrader: (1)

Beautiful car, looks like an extremely nice find overall, congratulations! Yeah, you mentioned it already but addressing the holes in the intercooler ducting and air box would be my only "Must do's", then go out and enjoy it. Looking forward to seeing more!

MrZenki

Taken care of a few of the things from the list. I'll work on my car and realize I havent taken any photos to update this thread, so I'll have to make a more conscious effort to do that in the future. On to whats been done this past week.

First trip was to the local Super Autobacs in town to pic up some replacement lights. Started with the bumper lights, where the bulbs that were in there were about as bright as a christmas light bulb from the 70s. Some LED t10 bulbs rated at 260Lumens were about $15 and I'm very happy with how bright these are and how they turned out. Luckily, I was able to reach my hand between the headlight and core support to change these bulbs out, as I really didnt want to remove the bumper.

I ended up going back and buying the same brand, but in the correct bulb size for my fog lights. Forgot to take before and after pictures of those. Also adjusted the foglights to proper height so they arent pointed so down anymore. However, I noticed that the drivers side bracket is broken and wont allow me to adjust the light up any more, and is currently just pointed about 2 feet in front of the bumper.

When I picked the car up from the dealership, the owner of the dealership went to open the door for me and the handle completely snapped and broke. He offered to find replacements and we worked out a deal. Ended up finding a set of aluminum handles from a guy who lives close by and got them for cheap. His handles were fixed by the body shop when he got his car painted so he had these sitting around. Overall, the install of the door handles was extremely easy and took about 10 minutes in total to do both sides. I ended up grabbing some 2x coverage paint and primer and painted my handle trims as they were pretty scratched and showing bare metal in some places. Very happy with how these turned out. Used a scotchbrite pad to scuff them and shot about 3 coats with 45 minutes of drying in between each coat. Note that I didn't paint the door handles, it just happened to match the finish and color perfectly.


After this, I tackled replacing the filters in my ARC intake box. Overall, this was a little easier than I thought it would be. The intake pipes, BPV, ABV, and air pump hoses all came off extremely easily, no bolts were stripped on the intake box, and everything went smoothly. If looking for replacement filters, I followed the advice from a thread on here and got KN filters for a Land Rover Discovery filters from 1998. The top filter dropped in and fit exactly how it should. The bottom filter was a little harder to get to fit, but I think thats more of a build quality on the ARC box issue than anything else. Still was able to get it to fit with a little finesse.


Box could use a good polish. Thats a job for future me.

Size comparison of old vs new filters. The old filters were the worst I have EVER seen. Extrememly hard, would break and crumble to the touch, and I'm pretty sure limited air flow and was letting debris past in the open holes.


Took it for a quick test drive to the local konbini and had to take the appropriate picture. Notice the fog light difference?

MrZenki

Tried to see if I could get some of the stains and dirt out of my OEM floor mats. Sadly, these are pretty stained, and while some of the color was brought back, they are still a little too grimy for how I want my interior. Going back and forth on garage alpha mats (red or black), or phase 2 motor trend floor mats (checkered black). I have the P2M mats in my S13 and absolutely love them.



So prior to moving to Japan with my wife, I spent a year deployed, she moved back in with her parents and were able to save some extra money. I would often joke that the money was instantly getting dumped into an Rx-7 upon arrival to Japan and so she had one of my texts embroidered on a roll of toilet paper. She had sent me a care package during my deployment with this tucked in and told me to shove it up my *** lol. Found this the other day tucked in my stuff and tossed it back at her and said who is laughing now .



Bonus Photos my S13 and of the Phase 2 Motortrend mats I have for it.