sherff

So last year around February my room mate was shopping for a supra when he came across an RX7 for sale. When he saw it he said to me "hey, you should buy this" and me being the impulse buyer i am, i was hooked, i started researching, looking and fantasizing all about these cars and their silly little Wenkel engines. after deciding i could handle whatever these things could throw at me i went for it, i contacted my room-mates importer and we started looking for my new car. We must have bit on 35 to 40 cars between April and July, constantly increasing the bids yet no luck at all, then finally a year ago today (which is coincidentally my birthday) i got fed up with the auctions and told him i would like to look at some dealerships in Japan, then the very same day i was looking on Goo-net (a used car auction site) with the help of google translate when i found this car<blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="a/drOpc"><a href="//imgur.com/a/drOpc">What it used to look like</a></blockquote>

I was hooked, i immidiately emailed and texted my importer and told him, this is the one, so we started the paper work and by august 8th it was my car.
After a long 2 month wait for it to make its way from japan, to vancouver then over the mountains to get inspected i got the call that it was ready for me to pick up, so i flew down to Calgary



took the worlds most expensive cab ride to the inspection garage and got to take my first look at my new toy.





and with that it was time to learn how to drive a stick...on the wrong side of the road...in a city i had never driven in befor...in a car i had no clue when it could blow up on me...






took a few lurches and stalls before i managed to get her to the registry






and then i limped my way to the other side of town to get my car alarm (viper smartstart with GPS tracker) and new deck installed (i bought both from this place and i wanted the deck for the drive home since it had built in GPS and i was already lost, so i got them to install it, even though i could have done it myself, i didnt want to chance it when i was in a unfamiliar city) anyway i ate lunch next door and then called a cab back to my hotel (this is where i discovered how much the previous cabby scammed me by like $60), i checked in and lounged about at the pool for the rest of the afternoon waiting for them to finish the install, then i got the phonecall around 830 in the evening to come pick it up, so one more much cheaper cab ride into town and there she was sitting in the parking lot waiting for me. the installer quickly showed me how to work the remote start then left me on my way...this is where i discovered my first issue...somehow the guys that did my out of province inspection...despite installing daytime running lights (that used the fog lights)....failed to notice that my actual head lights did nothing...at all...and it was pitch black out...so i had to take back roads at a snails pace with only fog lights to guide me the 10km back to my hotel, and when i finally made it i was sweating buckets, but i made it.



I parked it for the night arming my sweet new Alarm and went inside to check to see that the GPS tracker was working


The next morning i was up early(for me at least, read 10am), went for a quick swim and had breakfast at the hotel then started to make my way north, stopping only 5 times for gas along the way :p and once at my buddies house in edmonton who i hadnt seen in a wile. but with the concept of driveing on canadas most deadly highway at night with no headlights had wanting to get home rather quickly, so i could only visit for a half hour or so, then on the road again stopping only 2 more times for gas and a fast supper before ariveing home about an hour before sundown.



always have to take pictures of things moveing on the highway that are larger than my house

That whole drive was the funnest drive i have ever had, no one else in the car, radio off, windows open and driveing one gear lower than i should have been the entire trip home :p, the noise this car makes it truly spectacular, couple that with the gorgeous views along the way home winding my way into northern alberta, the freshly twined sections of the highway, and the fact that it was a weekend with very few people or trucks on the road, and i was wishing for another 800km to go by the time i got home (although my bank account wanted me to stop)



home at last after an amazing drive to join my room mates supra and civic and my prelude in the driveway


This is where the fun began, first thing first i had to get some headlights, so the very next weekend, i went to work (literally, im a mechanic so i went into work to use my tools) and it didnt take long with probeing and metering things (also a bit of help from this lovely forum) to find this...



Some idiot at some point had decided to remove the main headlight relay and not put it back, im assuming it was the inspection garage that unhooked it wile they were doing the DRL install, but cant guarantee. Anyway a $15 relay and 3 day wait for shipping and i was able to say "let there be light" (let me have that one :p)

The next thing to tackle would be to get it good and clean from the 2 months it spent collecting dust getting to me and winterizeing it to put it in my shelter, so after getting a couple last weeks of driveing in i went back to work (again literally) and detailed it inside the hangar (was turning into winter rather quickly) and left it inside overnight to dry.



Scrub adubdub




the next day i took it home and put her to sleep inside my reinforced shelter with desecants scattered through the inside and engine bay, steel wool blocking the intake and exhaust and a fresh coat of wax to keep crap from freezeing to it. (wish i had taken some pictures of it in my shelter, it was actually kinda cool, i had concrete blocks put over plastic underneath and i had welded reinforcements to all the tubing that held it together, then covered the whole thing in a second tarp to keep as much weather out as i could, then i had a little combustion heater in the corner and could get the shelter up to around 25 degrees C when it was -20 outside which was awsome.)

with her all tucked in it was time to start shopping and researching what i would be doing over the winter, and once again i turned to the forums for guidance. the first thing i bought was my AEM o2 sensor, and installing it was fun in the shelter, i had to use my scissor jack under the car in order to get it high enough to fit my floor jack under, then with it up on jack stands i used a air mattress and crawled underneath with a can of kroil and a few wrenches to pull my Cat out, which was painful (******* are heavy) I took it to work along with the A-pillar interior piece and welded the bung in and made the first iteration of my recessed pillar pod by cutting a hole in the interior piece, putting the gauge in the hole, cutting off the studs on the back, wrapping the whole thing in suran wrap and fiberglassing over top of the concoction. This didnt turn out as badly as you would have expected.

*Will have to continue this thread some other time, its 3 am and i need to work tommorow, so going to sign off for now with leaveing you all <blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="a/eGwuF"><a href="//imgur.com/a/eGwuF">The end result</a></blockquote>


Please see my other threads if you would like some more info on what my setup is

Spalato

iTrader: (33)

very nice! Love the Greddy V-Mount

sherff

So the car is dead
May 6th after escaping the Fort Mcmurray fires after loosing my house, my other car and everything I had built my life from for the last 6 years, I got hit by a distracted driver...
Was slowing down to turn left off the highway and the guy behind me "didn't see me till to late" and when he did see me he swerved...right into the left side of my car and drug, scraped and pushed it I from the rear tail light to the front wheel well












both me and my passenger are fine, but had we been slightly further into the turn we would not have faired so well, as it was he more or less just bounced off the side of my car and went in the ditch(yes he's fine too)
This all happened a couple of months ago so I have had a chance to get things in order now which is why I'm makeing this post, the other guy was completely at fault so I got paid out within a month of the accident(was quoted 29000 to have it repaired) and I bought back my shell, I've even had a chance to more or less strip it now (having gotten 3 ******* people messaging me "part out?" Wile I was still at the police station writing my statement(don't be a dick and do this by the way, you likely will forfeit your chances of ever getting anything cause it's an extremely dick move)) and sold a bunch of the interior and trim bits and such to a guy who's house also burnt up here wile his car was in the shop for paint(so he had all the plastics, trim and other stuff stiped off at home, which don't fare well to flames)
The engine is out too and I'm keeping it with all the toys still intact although it may need new bearings cause I didn't notice it till we were putting it on a trailer to bring it home but the shock had broken my oil pressure sensor off of my filter pedestal so it pumped all the oil out of that (only hoping that since it was only idleing for like a min or 2 that it'll be fine, and it still turns)
Anyway I've got a few more things to pull off her then this shell is going to the scrapers.





For now though the "racecar rebuild" is on hold since I don't really have time or energy to do it so I just went to my importer and told him to get me another one as fast as physically possible so I now present you with the new baby, 20000 less KM (73000), next model higher (type RS), same year (1999) better body condition (4.5)
And practically bone stock(save for body kit and hood)















I'm going to try to mess with this one as little as possible and keep it somewhat clean, I'm just hoping it gets here b4 August (was purchased mid June) so I have some summertime to play with here

R-R-Rx7

iTrader: (24)

Sorry to hear about your misfortunes.
Congrats on the new purchase!

yurcivicsux

wow very sad, glad you're alright and wish you all the best on your build. car was amazing btw. same thing happened to my friend in his built S2k. really bad situation.....