Hey all,

I own a JDM 94 R2 that was recently featured on Hoonigan Bonus channel. You can see the video and pictures here:

https://www.hoonigan.com/blogs/daily...-mazda-rx-7-r2

I never made a build thread on here but I was messaged by another member who thought it would be a good idea to share the build in greater detail. This won't be a traditional build thread in that the car is mostly complete. Basically what I've done is upload every picture I could find related to my car and sorted them by date so that I can share some of the work and details that went into the car. I also found some old random pics I'll throw in for fun.

Enjoy, and please feel free to leave comments or questions.

**ALSO** If anyone can tell me how to make these images smaller, please let me know haha

Oldest pictures I have of the car:




Once the car arrived, I did some maintenance and immediately took it to our local track


By the end of the year, the engine was showing signs of weakness. I took the engine out and build a student budget friendly single turbo setup that lasted for another year before succumbing to a corroded water seal groove. At that time, our local race track had shut down with no replacement in sight. I was also working full time, so I decided to serious up a bit.

New 13BREW:


I pulled the engine apart and had my friend Max (Maxthe7man on here) perform a 6mm bridgeport. I read every engine manual I could get my hands on, including Japanese versions before putting the engine back together with NOS 3 piece seals.



I bought a used HKS T04Z turbo kit from a member on here and started assembly.



Together again:



Old picture I found of my dad AutoXing his first gen:


Once the powerplant was together and working well, I wanted to make the car look a bit better.

 

Starting to fit new bodywork to the car:



Missed this, 4" "expansion chamber" downpipe


The Pro Shop Fukuoh demo car was a huge inspiration for me
https://imgur.com/fPPl2nH

high five to anyone that can guess the engine in the background:


Rywire harness


Tig brazing the rear quarter panels





Around this time, I decided to start focusing more on the weight of the car. It seemed inevitable that the more I wanted to mod the car, the harder I would have to work to offset the weight of all of the aftermarket components.

ti lug nuts


Carbon shift rod w/Wevo **** and aluminum/titanium lower pivot

 

ti hood prop


out of paint


car was too low at this point, I raised it after hitting and dragging a 355ml pop can that was rolling along the road




Drove the car for another year


Then decided to revamp the engine bay and interior a bit. Ti battery tray and lithium battery

 

Another old track shot


I forget when this happened, but I came back to this after working out one day. Never knew I could be that angry.


About this time I had my first trip to Japan. Saw a lot of amazing cars and shops, met lots of amazing people. I came back home and got back to work on my engine bay.

replacing the HKS piping with titanium




CSG lights. Visited the shop, amazing people and the quality of their products is a cut above.


OEM evaporator core delete. This thing is a piece of ****


cleaning up old wiring





"400ps over" sticker from Top Secret

 

Made some kevlar fender liners. These are not full replacements, just covers to keep the garbage out of the engine bay.


AST replacement I made. This mimics the design of the original AST with regards to the volumes of the internal cavities and the flow restrictor in the radiator feed fitting.


oil cooler ducts


787B plugs at KKM in Japan. Note the corner seal gauge in the tray.


Myself and Bruce Morishita next to the Funny Bone FD. This car is another huge inspiration for me as it's hugely powerful and fast, but has a very high build quality for a track car.



on track video of Funny Bone. Note, the button on the steering wheel the driver is always mashing is for NOS.

Some more stuff I found personally inspirational. First pic is myself and brother in a tiny room at Mazda HQ in Hiroshima. I took the factory tour and was super disappointed, so I wandered off. I found a tiny locked room with a bunch of Le Mans paraphernalia. A man in a business suit saw us peering into the room and said something to two girls who were nearby. They approached us and let us into the room and took our photo with my "Rotary Engine" book. As we left, I thanked them and asked them to thank the man who let us in. They said "it's ok, that stuff belongs to him." I then realized the man was Yojiro Terada, I just didn't recognize him without the racing suit.



removing some material from the UIM

Some gauges mounted

 

At the end of that year I took the car drag racing. Not really my thing, in fact I'm terrible at it. I was still on the stock differential and the track was 3 hours away from my house so I took it easy. Best run of the day was 11.7@128MPH. 91 octane, no water meth. 1.25bar on that run, car runs up to 1.4bar on 91.

Good sound:

catching my friend's longtube ZR1

this car tore me apart, I had time to read his 150+ trap before I crossed the beam haha


After that it was winter again. Road course and drag duty had revealed some weaknesses in the car that I was able to address.

Supernow rear arms in sexy pink


SL65 fuel pump to replace the A340



Bought these, garbage. Sold them pretty quickly.


Engine bay at this point


Prolapsed exhaust


Remade the full exhaust with a Magnaflow midpipe muffler and custom Rein Hard titanium rear muffler sourced through Rize Japan (#1 source for hard to get JDM parts)



making the WG recirc. WG re-entry is concentric with the exhaust at point of entry.


I pushed the exhaust as high up as possible which required new/modified tunnel braces



Nice colour after the next track day

 

I didn't drive it much the following year. Some electrical gremlins started to arise relating to the chassis wiring. Instrument cluster and lighting issues made it difficult to drive at night, which is 90% of the time I drive the car.

Time to strip it down


FD body harness



further disassembly


aluminum UIM brace


IGN-1A coils


/32 wire vs std automotive wire, both wires are 22AWG


mmmmmmmm



simplified power door harness

 

Last time the car sported the clean look


Picked up my favourite hood locally from FEED AFFLUX v5



aluminum door bolts


PowerFC no more


remaking fuel lines and prototype oil filler


Went to PRI around this time and saw the PAC performance car, amazing guys



metal lines punched out of the UIM


wrapped the dash in alcantara


PDM keypad mounted on carbonmiata panel, Lots of people ask why I wrapped FRP panels with dinoc instead of buying the carbon panels. Easy answer, bare composite in hot interior results in mind-altering fumes.

 

Went to Japan again about this time.

SuperNow FC


(I think) Lady driven FD


Beautiful FC


Looking FD, one of the best engine bays ever


RE Miyoshi lineup




Some rotary oil


600+whp pump gas FC at KKM. 1.9bar on a T51R SPL with an HKS dogbox




Speaking of Cosmos, we also went to the Coca Cola Old vs Now Festival at Tsukuba. The Cosmo guys were nutters with several owners driving flat out. The 2000GT owners club just stayed in parade formation for a couple laps.

 

Back home, David and the guys at Final Form had been posting a ton of pictures of some miraculous engine bay transformations. I messaged him for some tips and soon got to work on my own.




Makeshift paint booth



Grigio Telesto.


I'm not sure at what point I started to become fond of mismatched engine bay colours but I suspect it started with body-in-white race cars. When I first saw the grey/red combo on a Garage Ito R34 I knew it was the one for me.


Coming back together. The little red and white placard hanging in the window is from that classic car festival at Tsukuba and reads "Adult, yet child in car." Seemed fitting.

 

Dash bar silver cadmium plated


Amemiya H11 headlights


Hood paint prep



Complete front harness


Complete rear harness (excluding fuel pump wiring)


EMAP line


EMAP canister. I made this by turning down a Fuelab filter housing until it was wafer thin and then welding on the required fittings and mount. Bolted to UIM with aluminum hardware.


PDM mounting


My father is a mischevious man

 

Mostly back together






Lightweight key


Alive!


I threw the car on the corner scales before heading out to a local show. Please don't mind the cross weights, nothing was level and sway bars were still connected.

 

I like this shot


Looking back at the pictures, I realized that the Amemiya lights and hood had given the car a much more aggressive look. The Vorschlag wing didn't gel with the car anymore, but thanks to Mr Suzuki I knew what had to come next


I hit up Rize Japan and ordered an Esprit 052S wing and TCP Magic side skirts



The TCP skirts are very very similar to the FEED skirts. It takes a keen eye to notice, but they are about an inch wider than the FEED units and they also have a little extra doohickey at the trailing edge of the skirt


I had the wing painted to match the car



Around this point, my friends and I all decided to make the trek down to Seattle for Formula D and Wekfest. We aren't really car show guys, but we do pretty well in the local events and wanted to see how we stacked up on a grander scale.

Our AirBnB at Seattle


We showed well at Formula D, catching the eye of Larry Chen of Speedhunters fame. At the end of the event, we drove out onto the track and shot my car. The next morning he met up with us and shot the remaining 6 cars in our group for Hoonigan Bonus. My brother's 944 V6 feature is up already, 5 more to go!




And that brings us pretty much up to date! I drove the car to Seattle and back, around 2500km round so I'm taking a little bit of a break from it presently. Over winter I might install a Motec M130 once the GPR-rotary package is available, but other than that I just plan to go over the car and make sure it's ready for use next year. I haven't been using it on track as much as I'd like to and I'm hoping to fix that for next year. If you made it this far, thanks for reading!

 

 

I love the car and I love the sprit.

Just for your information, on JDM cars, Rear wiper means R1. R2 don't have one. They are the lightest FD3S version available from factory. But according to your work done, this point is not subject of discussion anymore.

 

Awesome, thank you for taking the time to share the build.

 

Saw the video and thought it's one of the coolest original builds - one to truly call your own. Great work!

 

Thanks for posting all this, Mike. This is definitely a build that warrants people studying it. Really drinking it in. It's a great concept and great execution. I'm hoping some of the more serious racers, like Fritz Flynn and Peter Hahn, comment on it.

 

Awesome build!

Props man! ​​​​​​I love your vision and all the small details that add up to a very cool one of a kind build!
Thank you for sharing

 

I'm so impressed by the passion and work you have put into this car.

I was blown away by your car in the Larry Chen Hoonigan feature and then seeing the pictures of the progression and being able to spot some of the hidden details and work.... I don't know what to say.

Thank you?
You are one of those FD owners that really increase the prestige of the FD in ways I appreciate the most.

 

wow, awesome.

 

love it!

 

Great work. And thanks for waiting to share. In this world of instant gratification it's awesome to see a build thread that you don't have to wait 2+ years to see unfold (like mine haha).

 

Great work!

That's the thing with the FD, there's no "free lunch" as far as weight savings, because Mazda had already done so much. For instance, normally switching to race seats might save you 40-50 lbs on a regular car, but I doubt once you add mounts/rails for your race seat it's but a few lbs. on our cars. So what you're left with is exactly what you've done, a ton of little details that add up. That's an incredibly impressive number, given you also still have an interior. Love that Esprit wing. I looked at it, but couldn't justify the cost.

Inspirational! Though I can't even imagine the work of gutting and redoing all the wiring. I'll probably never do it.

 

I agree, very inspirational.

I think doing the wiring stuff would be cool but from a quick cost analysis it's crazy how much all that stuff cost.