Dliverance street/autox build
 

Hi everyone. Ever since I can remember I've had a strange fascination with cars. When I was in middle school I saved money from cutting lawns to buy a playstation and the first game I got was Gran Turismo 2. Back then the rotary didn't mean a whole lot to me but I fell in love with the body styling of the FD. At 16 I bought my first car and every car after that just didn't live up to my expectations of what a car should be. I wanted something sleek, RWD, fast and sporty. A few years ago I got into the Mazda Miata for the first time and four times after that. My most recent Miata was a 99 that I boosted and spent entirely too much money on. I never thought I'd see myself in an FD because every time I shopped for one they were just too far out of my price range. Well, last year a good friend of mine (Tem120) sold his Miata and bought an FD shell and literally built the thing from a shell to a strong running car. I didn't think it could be done and I thought he was insane. After spending more time with him and his FD I just had to have one and it seemed more realistic.

Here's my Miata
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I spent months looking for the right deal. I found cars as cheap as 8k that needed a lot of work. I started to give up but then I found my car. It was on craigslist over 200 miles away. I called the guy and asked him if he would trade me the FD for my mMiata but he wasn't the least bit interested. His asking price was 6k for a running FD that had no 5th gear, no front bumper, no wheels, half primer, half black and originally Montego blue (all time favorite color). Needless to say, I sold my miata for about 3k less than what it was worth rushed to get the car. Somehow the car didn't manage to sell in a month and when I finally had most of the money I contacted the guy and next thing I know I'm driving 200 miles away in my company truck towing a u-haul dolly to pick up my dream car.

When I first saw the car I knew it needed a bit of TLC. There was obviously some damage to the exterior that had been repaired which is why the primer was so patchy but I didn't care. I spent 5 years in a body shop so as long as it wasn't rusty I didn't care.

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To my surprise the engine bay was almost mint. Unmolested and free of modification. It had 125k on what looked like the original motor and had 0 of the reliability mods done.

Engine bay
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Unfortunately the wheels didn't come with the car so I had to borrow some wheels from a friend of mine to get it home. When the deal was all said and done I paid 6k and got a running car with quite a bit of extra parts.


The first thing I did when I got the car home was buy a set of wheels. I picked up a set of mustang replica wheels for an extremely low price in 17x10+20. This was good enough to get the car off of my buddies wheels but not good enough to track.

17x10 wheels
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I tried to mount the bumper the car came with but since It didn't have any of the metal brackets, that didn't work. I remembered my friend had a fiberglass GTC replica that didn't need the brackets so I picked one of those up from a nice gentleman on craigslist.

GTC rep
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Since I'm not a huge fan of fiberglass parts the GTC bumper didn't last very long. within two weeks I had it up for sale on craigs and I had plans to buy a plateless 99 spec bumper with 99 oem lip. The next day I got a call from a guy who wanted to trade me his oem 93 bumper with all brackets and hardware for my GTC clone bumper. He needed something with more airflow to cool his F22 powered FD (Strange I know but hey it's original). I got his bumper, removed all of the metal and sold it. Shortly after my poly replica bumper arrived at my job followed by the oem lip.

93 with r1 lip
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Bumper and lip.
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Next on my To-Do list was the suspension. With the crazy offset wheels at stock height, the car was rather funny looking so I did some shopping around and found a reasonably priced set of buddy club junior spec damper coilovers and picked them up locally.

Buddy clubs
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With all of this work done to the car I still had not driven it. I lowered it, put wheels on it and got a front bumper but I still hadn't fixed the transmission. In south Florida tranny's were a dime a dozen but I couldn't afford to have one installed. I did some shopping and picked up a JDM 5 speed. and saved up some money to pay someone else to install it. That didn't last long. One night I got a wild hair up my ass and decided I was going to install it myself so i put the car on jack stands and started ripping the tranny out. Three hours later I had the tranny out and the new one was ready to go in but I found a leaky rear main so things came to a stand still.

Tranny job pics.
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Finding this rear main seal made me do a bit of thinking about reliability and maintenance. I decided the car wouldn't e driven until all of the maintenance was up to par. I changed the rear main, got a downpipe, Greddy intake elbow, changed the oil, some vacuum hoses, air filter and a few other things. Right now the car is still sitting in the air waiting for tranny fluid, diff fluid, fuel filter, plugs, wires, and some other things I might be forgetting but you get the idea.

Here's some of the other thing's I'm working on that I'm too tired to explain right now. Check back for updates soon.

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And for anyone who is wondering, Here's my daily driver/sts autox whore :)

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Coming along nice!

you're making me want to go single man... But damn I cant find those crazy deals like you

Thanks

I just spend a lot of time on ebay and craigslist. If all goes well, I'll have the single conversion done by the end of the year. Right now the goal is just to have the car on the road within the next two months. All I really need is to get some tires and clean up the rats nest. I'd like to have the intercooler done pretty soon too.

So...About the wheels and turbo.

I picked up a pair of dirt cheap rpf1's in 17x9+44 that needed some cleaning up. Last week I sent them off to fusion powdercoating and they came back today. Mint. I needed a pair for the rear so I decided to go 17x10+38. With this setup I should be able to run 245/45 in the front and 275/40 in the rear. I'll be ordering the tires in three weeks.

The turbo is a turbonetics 60-1 with .70, .77 rear. I know most people are going to think that's too small but my power goal is between 325 and 350whp. I want the car to have a lot in the bottom for autox so this will do.

here's a pic of the wheels and turbo

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Thanks Gmonsen. When I first picked up the FD my plans were to keep it stock and make it reliable. After doing some reading I learned that the single turbo was a great reliability mod and the wheels were a bonus. My main goal is to make the car as reliable as possible, have fun, and add some personality to the car with the wheels, height etc. I'm not shooting for a showroom perfect car, just a car that I can enjoy for a long time.

I haven't posted in a while so here's a few updates and things I forgot to mention before.

Jdm steering wheel installed along with push start.
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Greddy elbow for extra injectors chopped and welded to accommodate 1/8" meth injection fitting.

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Low ride height :)
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Bay with air pump removed and air box in the works
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And I'm buying a set of Enkei Aegis 18's for those days when I want to show off. Theyre 18x8.5 front and 18x10 rear. Going to rock these til I get tires for the rpf1's. Once the rpf1's are mounted I'm going to have these refinished in a nice dark silver or maybe even gold centers.

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Nice build man! Really coming along nicely. Question, where'd you get that rep bumper from? Fitment looks great!

I got the bumper from a local who bought it on ebay. The fitment wasn't the best but it was close enough that I could tweak it to fit.

Here's a video of the car idling. Sounds a but off to me. Maybe an exhaust leak.

May be a vacuum leak.

That's also a possibility but it didn't start sounding like that until after the downpipe install. I'm going to be changing out all of the hoses for silicone before I start driving it so if I missed something, hopefully that'll solve it.

nice build... i like the progress... only thing i would change is moving the fog lights to the oil cooler opening... thats the only minor thing that stood out to me... any thoughts on that?

You lucked out on that trade for the front bumper looks way better. My new FD needs body work to I would be interest to see how you make out getting it painted. Im subbed for this one

Thanks guys. I might move the fog lights one of these days. I've just been being lazy.

I got the Enkei Aegis's installed last night. I'm pretty happy with the fitment.

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looking good so far. what are you're plans for paint? also, where'd you get your 99 bumper? fitment looks great man.

Right now the car is painted black but the original color is montego blue. I have every intention of returning it to its original paint. The bumper is an eBay bumper that fit pretty well but still required a lot of tweaking.

That Fd is coming along very nice. I hope mine will turn out that good. Good luck with the build.

Haha, yeah right Rick. I'm still miles away from catching up to you.

So...my ADD got the best of me again. I saw a really good trade opportunity and jumped on it. Got myself some work xd9's in 18x9, 18x10.

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This is my fourth set of wheels with this car and I still have not driven it.

Great wheel choice sir!

did you sell that miata to a guy in kentucky?

As far as I know it's in Texas.