Id like to come and see the prep work. going to be redoing mine in the near future as well.

 

Right now prep work = car sitting in the garage

Went out of town last weekend, hope to FINALLY have some time this weekend.

Dale

 

Dale,
Skip the paint job till after DGRR... she doesn't need to be pretty for them mountain roads.


Steve

 

^Good advice there Dale. Given the timeline to DGRR, the odds that your new paint will have the proper time to fully cure & harden before DGRR is pretty slim. Plus if they do any road repair work again, I recall some of the stretches of road in TN where we do the big lap of the Skyway/Dragon, etc. on Friday were recently asphalt chip sealed, so those sections are like driving thru a sand blaster. I remember how pissed I was after I had my freshly refinished front lip spoiler & and my FC's nose severely road-rashed on that stretch of road a few years back!

 

time for the 2023 wrap job! DGRR themed!

 

Yeah Pete! I remember it’s good stretch of road towards the end of the Skyway and with over 40+ cars picking up the pebbles it’s definitely like a sand blasters!!
But Dale don’t know our struggle cause he’s always in the front!
He’s a smart man

 

No wraps for him…. Dales a plasti dip kinda dude

 

Dale,

Just curious if you have decided on what paint you are going to use? As a DIY job you could probably go with a higher end paint since you will be saving a small fortune on the labor. I've always leaned towards PPG in the past but there are so many other good options out there to consider. I'm thinking about painting myself as well but will start with an extra front bumper I have and see how it goes...

A few painters that I have talked to would rather do the whole car in one shot, but as DIY job I think it makes more sense to paint it in stages with parts removed. Not sure as reinstalling freshly painted doors, hood, fenders, etc will be quite stressfull

 

its a trade off for sure, Mazda painted the body assembled, minus some stuff. see pic, and notice the fuel door

 

So, I got way more ambitious with the paint job project and DGRR than I would have liked

Current plans to get the car to DGRR -

- Get the red fenders bolted on and aligned
- Put on "plain" headlight covers to replace the one vented cover
- Get rest of small stuff back together (put taillights back on, etc.)
- Work on some of the Plastidip overspray to remove it
- Go ahead and work on sanding off the "rocker schutz" bumpy rock guard crap on the lower parts of the sides. If necessary hit it with etching primer.
- Test fit the side skirts I bought a million years ago

That's the body end of things. I may do a few other things, we'll see. Maybe a giant "DO IT FOR DALE" sticker

Mechanically the car is good, needs a few things -

- Hook the Wideband back up to the Datalogit and get that set up right
- Do some auto-tune goodness with FC-Tweak
- Fix the sender in the fuel tank, it's gotten goofy, I think I may be able to get away with just cleaning contacts
- Get the car stereo more dialed in, I put a new amp to drive the mids and it's pretty sloppy right now.
- Some general maintenance

As far as what paint to use and everything, there is a really nice local auto body paint supply place. Going to see what they have in stock and what they recommend.

Today I'm slightly moving toward the goal - putting new lights in the garage. The back half of the garage is somewhat dim and that's where a lot of the paint work will be going down. Replacing an 8' fluorescent fixture that I had retrofitted to LED's with 6 linkable super bright LED's. I think that will let me get the light more where I need it.

Dale

 

Good Luck !!!!
Did you also have to use an additional ground to the FC Tweak Igniter to get it to be more stable, I had a small issue until I did this?
Hope you get everything done you want for DGRR.

 

Hello fellow kids! So how about an update?

So, over winter (or what passes for winter here) I studied painting, did some minor work to the car prepping, but basically didn't do much. I found an RX-8 that had been sitting for 4 years, dragged it home for $500, and fixed it up for my best friend Matt in Nashville - car actually had a good engine!

So with DGRR getting ever closer I had to make something happen.

First, my old school buddy @Carlos Iglesias is coming to DGRR for the first time and staying in our cabin, so I knew I had to bring the FD one way or the other. I drove his old black FD back in '96 or so and that was the FIRST FD I ever got behind the wheel of. Backup plan is the RX-8 but the FD is way funner .

So, over the past month or so -

- Got the 99 side skirts totally off the car
- Bolted on a good set of red front fenders
- Fender rolled those fenders
- Bolted the nose, ducts, belly pan, etc. all back on

So, car is back in 1 piece again. Looks like hell, but it's in one piece and goes -





BTW those fender rollers used to be like $250-300, you can get them on Ebay now for $40. What the heck! That's a buddy's (Jimmy) fender roller I borrowed.

OK with that done, I wanted to do a few other odds and ends -

- Get the stereo happy. Last year I put a small amp to run the mids in and I wanted to get a small subwoofer. I found a really slick and SMALL Kenwood powered subwoofer on Amazon for $150. VERY happy with it so far, it's small, it's light, it's removable if you need to get it out of the way, and it has enough oomph to make the stereo sound good. Spent some time tuning in the settings on the main amp and dialing things in, everything works well and sounds way better.

The install sucked a bit since you I took most of the hatch area apart to figure out where I wanted it and also to find where I could pull a switched 12v wire to turn the amp on. I could have used the remote turn on from the stereo but I didn't want to run a new wire and didn't want to run a wire by the RCA's going to the amp and have it pick up alternator whine. I tapped into a wire on the stock power antenna plug (I've removed my power antenna and shaved the hole) that is 12v with key on that did the trick nicely.

Some pics, you can see in one the actuator I have tied into my aftermarket keyless entry to pop the hatch -






I had an old Bazooka tube that I initially tried, but it was very bulky and didn't work well after spending 20 years in my attic. I used the straps it came with and made some aluminum brackets that attach to 2 of the 6mm posts in the floor of the trunk. It's all totally reversible and didn't have to hack any plastics or carpet, so that's a win.

Today I topped up the AC with good old fashioned R12. I have a TINY leak somewhere. AC is nice and cold for DGRR. Long term I think I will do the RX-8 setup with JP3's parts, that is a killer way to go.

Also today I started using FC-Tweak in earnest, spent a lot of time learning some of the nuances and getting my logging all set up and my PC laptop up to snuff - it needed a new battery and DC jack. First impressions is WOW, it's amazing how nicely the autotune works! I will make a big post about that soon.

Hope to see a bunch of you at DGRR! We've got a pretty good crew from Pensacola going up this year and my best friend Matt is going for his first time in his new-to-him RX-8 so that should be a fantastic trip.

Dale

 

Was thinking of you last week as I struggled through the annoyingness that is plastidip removal on the wheels of the kid's Miata. It frickin sucks!

Bought some Dip Dissolver from DipYourCar. That helped a ton. So much easier than any other form of removal.

I think I've sworn off using plastidip on cars.

 

Big thing is putting it on THICK, if it's on thick and done right it will peel off nicely.

Doing a whole car, on the other hand, you end up with overspray in spots and that can be a chore. Dip Dissolver and a pressure washer goes a long way there.

I have no regrets dipping my car. I got to have fun with a yellow FD for 4-5 years and had a car that looked good. Now it's time for the Hard Way of a paint job.

I think after DGRR I'm going to have to do some motor projects first - got 2 guys in town that need rebuilds - then back on the paint job train.

Dale

 

Started to read your post and got worried at first. But HUZZAH!! as I read you are in fact bring your FD! I'm so stoked to reunite after all these decades!

 

@Carlos Iglesias remember these crazy kids?

 

FC-Tweak is kind of a game changer! we learn (again) that implementation of features are more important than the length of the feature list.

it is also true that if you have a car that isn't red, every used body part you get will be red. if you have a red car then the part you get will not be red. this is just fact

 

Dale she don’t need to look pretty to rip through them Mountains!

I’m lookin forward to this years DGRR with you guys again


Steve

 

I think it's going to be awesome having Stevie there in his own RX-8, that is just awesome!

Been auto-tuning around with FC-Tweak, MAN does it work well, car drives GREAT.

Got the speedometer re-calibrated today. I had Michael Gagne fix the instrument cluster last year and he bench calibrated it but it needs to be set up for my 4.44 rear gears and slightly larger wheels (17s). Got it back in business, it was about 5mph or so off at highway speeds which was driving me nuts.

Dale

 

OK, update after the weekend -

Drove around some more, car is running awesome. @suzukisteve came by Saturday and drove it around and was impressed with how it's driving and handling. I drove his '95 MB, car felt great but the Haltech tune still needs some more work. Got lunch at Philly's, we always end up there when we work on cars, great local Pensacola place with Philly cheesesteaks.




Also discovered that the wing on his car is my original wing! Pretty cool that it lives on . I have an RE-Amemiya spoiler on my car.

So, with doing some of the tuning I really wanted an AFR gauge back in the car. I have an Innovate LC-1 and I have had the DB gauge in the car in a Pettit steering column mount. The pod just got crappy over time and a while back I removed it. So, I got an inexpensive basic gauge mount from Amazon and put it on top of the steering column - looks pretty clean, easy to see, and doesn't block anything.

You can also see I got a phone mount that clamps to the AC vent. So far so good with that, I wanted one for DGRR and I prefer having the phone where my right hand can operate it.





Also did a better clean on the wheels and checked the air pressure in the tires.

Oh, my stereo in the car is an old Alpine IDA-X001, I bought it in 2004 when I bought the car. Great head unit, it has no CD player so it's just for iPod control. I've had my ancient iPod hooked up to it forever and the poor thing finally died. Bought a good refurbed one off eBay and it arrived today so I'm back in business there. I also found that there's a Bluetooth adapter that plugs into the CD changer port in the back, I hooked that up this weekend and it works perfectly - I can switch the stereo to Aux then listen to music or whatever from my phone. No control so I have to do things from my phone but that's fine. I like having the older head unit in the car, I think a big screen type deal is just out of place in the FD.

Started re-polishing the rear backup lights/reflectors and that turned into a whole thing....more on that after I get further on that project.

But, generally the car is DONE and just messing with small fun projects before DGRR.

Dale

 

What's that thingy sticking out of your lighter?

 

It's the DANGER TO MANIFOLD button

Don't know if they still make those, it's a mini LED flashlight that charges from the 12v socket. Really cool idea, easy way to always have a flashlight handy. Bought it like 10 years ago and it's dead now but it fills up that hole so there ya go.

Dale

 

OK, how about an update?

DGRR was a BLAST. I got an AirBNB and we had about 10 of us in there, HUGE house. The gravel road to the house sucked, but we all managed.

Got to meet some Rotary Royalty, Chris Regan, Peter Hahn, and Rich Mills made their first DGRR and had a great time.

Also my best friend Matt came in his RX-8 that we found for $500. Awesome that a car that had sat for 4 years and literally was a phone call away from getting hauled to the junkyard made the trip to DGRR, tore it up on the Skyway and Dragon, and made it home with ZERO issues.

My FD did great, ran perfectly and carved it up. I DID have a spin out on the Skyway - actually more of a back end coming out and sliding sideways while facing the mountain. I made have made a little poo but the car was fine, just got a lot of dirt on my front driver's wheel. That's what you get for pushing it in the rain.

Some pics -



View out of the AirBNB, you can see the gravel road. Good amount of elevation coming up!

Went to the grocery store to stock up on garbage snacks for the cabin. Not pictured: 2 boxes of donuts.

After the first run on the Dragon. Matt's grey 8, Stephen's silver FD, Carlos' CYM, and Tito's VR.

Matt and I eating the giant Calzone. We made custom shirts with "RATT Rotary Rangers" for the trip.

Dirty wheel after my incident on the Skyway.

Myself and Carlos Iglesias both wearing our vintage RX-7 Mailing List shirts

 

OK, so drove the car a little after getting back from DGRR, nothing big. Got it all washed up and happy again.

BTW, on the highway legs I got around 22 mpg. If your FD gets crap mileage on the highway, your car is broken and needs fixing.

So I'm starting to re-focus on the paint job. One concern is the windows and window trim - the front and rear glass has trim that overhangs the paint work and I wanted to remove the trim to paint things properly. A friend of mine is the main dude at one of the big auto glass places here in town (Lloyd's Glass) so I took the FD over there to get his opinion on the trim.

I actually have a brand new rear glass rubber trim I bought in 2009 (no kidding) from someone on the forum that didn't need it any more. We looked at things, the rear trim can come off and leave the glass in place and he said that pulling the rear glass and installing new trim is something he can do.

Front windshield is OEM factory glass. It's OK but it's pitted, one SMALL crack, and just tired. He said the only options he sees are Chinese made glass (made by FY) that is so-so quality wise. Ray Crowe thinks he can get some OEM glass from Japan so he is working on that for me.

Anyhow, I pulled the trim around the window on the rear glass, it came out OK. You do have to be careful since it could get stuck to the glue underneath and when you pull it puts tension on the glass and could break it.

So, noticed something when I drove to the glass shop.........

 

So when I gave it a little boost, I heard a distinctive siren type noise that increased in pitch with turbo speed.

Yep, I know EXACTLY what that sound is.




That's my primary turbo. That looks to be foreign object damage, NO IDEA what it could have eaten. Once the blades get bent, the assembly goes out of balance and starts to rub and you get the siren sound.

BTW those are 99 twins, you can see the black plastic abrade able seal in there. Secondary turbo is fine.

So.....what to do about it?

My options -

- Fix these turbos. I can either send them to BNR for rebuild, swap in a good front turbo, or even just get another good used set. Definitely the cheapest option.Heck I think I have enough turbo parts in the attic I can probably fix them as-is, the replacement may not be 99 spec but it would work.

- Go upgraded twins. Either BNR's or the 3KAI turbos or whatever from Australia. I know where a good used set of BNR's may be too. This is getting pricier for sure.

- GO BIG OR GO HOME.

So, @estevan62274 cleverly let me drive his car with the 8374 Borg Warner a while back. That, folks, was one EXPENSIVE car ride.

Yep, I'm FINALLY going single. Going to do the BW 8374 internal waste gate with the cast manifold.

Now, I'm a HUGE fan of the twins. I've never been a fan of most single turbo setups for many reasons.

- No power under 4000 RPM. That just SUCKS driving around town.
- Crappy external waste gates that leak, fail, stick, overboost, underboost, you name it. And loud screamer pipes.
- Crappy welded stainless manifolds that crack all the damn time.

So the 8374 -
- Power from 2000 RPM, FAT power band, and the power up top is INSANE.
- Internal waste gate that WORKS. And since it's internal no screamer pipe.
- Nice cast exhaust manifold that isn't going to crack

So, yeah, I'm going to do it. I have some other plans too but I will save that for another post. And get a paint job. Boy this is gonna be a lot of work.