hello all. some of you may know me by now from the gobs of parts that i try to peddle out to fund this addiction. this is my build thread that i am overwhelmingly excited to finally make. long story short, i fell in love with this car since the first one i bought that ended in a disastrous part out and the source of my fd3s blowout sale pt 2. with this new found passion, i bought a second and blah blah blah here i am now. i would really like to become a guru for this car. i dont want to be on the level of dale clark or anything but being of the more knowledgeable people instead of just a casual user is a goal i would like to achieve.

so i start this build thread with the goal of building my credibility as a "guru in training". i will be doing pretty much every small project there is to do along with a lot of custom work. my ultimate goal is v mount set up on the stock twins full non-seq. i may use a set of 99s instead but i havent really decided yet. i plan on keeping the boost conservative at 7-8 pounds which is less than stock. this car is a monster on .55 bar and is way more than enough for what i can use it for here. im not one of those super high horsepower people. i just want manageable power.... or better yet, practical power.body wise, i will be keeping the c-west kit and just getting it fixed and properly fitted.

now onto the car. as you can see from the pictures its not in all that great of shape. im sure most have seen worse. there is a rust problem with this car. its not all over the place or anything, its mainly in one spot... the left rear quarter panel. other than that, the body is in pretty good shape. its a 92 and it definitely shows its age.







the exterior is pretty beat up. just to set the story straight, i bought the car like this. so dont go saying i dont know how to take care of car or anything. the interior is pretty bad too. there isnt much to an fd interior to begin with but still. the left side rear quarter panel is rusted to the point that it is separating from the car and the previous owner used some sort of sealant to patch it. its actually holding pretty well.

 

the engine bay isnt the best looking thing around but trust that this is what function>form looks like.





this is what it will look like for quite some time



my plan with this car is to make it something worthy of being november in one of those car calenders. i can do it. with enough time and dedication, i believe this to be very easily attainable. i have acquired enough skill and knowledge to be able to do what it is i want to do with this car.

i have no idea what kind of hp this will put down when all is said and done. i honestly dont really care to know. all i am worried about is that it runs properly and is a lot of fun. im really excited to get started on this.

 

Subscribed. I am really curious how it will turn up.

 

It will be an interesting build.....personally, i'd get rid of that nasty bodykit on the car

good information though, since you'll be sourcing parts for your car and I currently have a build thread going...I may need you for some things

 

You've got your work cut out for you but I'd imagine being that your in Okinawa high quality parts aren't too hard to come by? Not sure how true that is but I bet your car will be amazing when you're done!

Best of luck and take tons of pictures!

 

Hey man Good luck with your build , I'm curious How are you Holding hte PFC there??

 

Intercooler duct is way more function than form :P

 

i was going to at first. i have all the parts for a 99 body but i decided to keep the c-west kit once i saw how it looked done properly. i am thinking about just using the front bumper and sideskirts and using the stock rear with a nice diffuser. im really not a fan of the rear bumper.

i actually have all the parts i need for this build. ive been slowly collecting them. there are few tiny things that i have put off buying but i have all the big stuff. i dont mind helping you out as long as your looking for small stuff. i cant do body panels or anything large.

yea, i definitely am expecting this to be a lot of fun and im fully expecting the unexpected. high quality parts for the fd are pretty easy to come by. the catch is, they are crazy expensive. crazy crazy crazy expensive.

thanks, i will post a picture of how i the commander is being held on. the previous owner made it.

before i bought the car, the previous owner had a really nice treadstone intercooler installed and when he was getting ready to sell the car, he stripped all the really nice parts off it to include the intercooler. this is how i bought the car. its 99% unchanged from the day of purchase. i had a stock duct at one point in my life but then i gave it away because i didnt think i would be buying another fd.

 

Subscribed! Got your work cut out for ya. Shame the p/o neglected the shell.

 

well its not that... he had every intention of getting the car fixed up. the rust on the rear quarter was there when he got it and the white stuff on the door wasnt his fault. someone hit his car in a parking lot and the fender was keyed.

 

You have a lot of work in front of you. Should be a good thread.

 

Good luck with the build , long road ahead

 

and just like that, i have been swayed in my body choice. i will not be doing the cwest kit anymore. i will be doing the shine auto feed replica kit. i started looking at the kit and i started looking at other kits and i realized that i dont really want the look of a super kitted out fd. i thought about just using the front bumper or just using the front bumper and side skirts and going with a diffuser in the rear but all the cars i saw with that set up didnt really look all that great to me.

the cwest bumper hangs kind of low to not use it with the rest of the kit. the hardest part will be finding this kit a new home since its so jacked up. i may have to just keep it and do something else with it. the only issue im facing with going this route is whether not they will ship the stuff to me.

 

That's a nice 7! The kit seems mild enough in my eyes, although I've never been a fan of the rear flares unless they're molded on thus eliminating the seems.

Are you planing to rebuild the block? And also what are your driving plans DD, autocross, full race??

I assume since you're going with the stock twins DD/autocross... But I may be wrong.

 

the motor ia already rebuilt. i put about 3000km on it since i got it running to this point so theres no need to open it back up. here in okinawa the only thing i can do with this car is autocross. once it is built, tuned, and running properly i will be taking it out ever now and then. once i get it to the states in how ever many years, it will be treated like most other fd's....

garaged and taken out on the weekends...

 

will be a good build good luck

 

thanks...

small update. i struck a deal with a local guy that has the authentic feed fenders and front bumper. shine auto doesnt ship to apo so sourcing some of these parts could prove to be difficult.

 

so i am facing a difficult decision....

i will be getting my hands on those feed parts soon and i am trying to get in contact with shine to get those rear fenders. once i have all these parts, i will be able top drop my car off at the body shop and have the body work portion of this build complete.

the main thing im worried about though, i still have a million and one projects to do on the car before it will be complete. i dont want to be working on the car and accidentally mess up the body somehow, whether it be a scratch or a dent from dropping something.

my other option is to wait and do everything first THEN as the final step send it off to the body shop. i REALLY want to get that rust on the rear quarter panel fixed so it doesnt eat any more of the car. that would then require 2 trips to the body shop and will shoot the overall cost up by a lot. theyre telling me ~300$ just to fix that one spot.

i see on a lot of builds, people do the body and paint as step one and work around that. im slightly leaning towards that option but with me not having a garage having the car sit outside under a car cover for extended periods of time may mess up the paint or something.

im not sure what i should do. opinions?

 

im not one of those careful people, paint is my last step. especially if i do get my car into my garage, its pretty tight, i know im bound to tap the door or something... but thats just my .02

 

Do the work first, disassemble, then paint, reassemble.

 

^^^^^^^^^


What he said

 

i finally got my order through shine for my rear fenders. those will get here at some point. since they dont ship to apo, i have to get it sent to my home in florida then sent to me so it may be a month or more before they show up. im also not sure if they have them already made or if they need to make them. its all good though. i started the tear down process and it going smoothly so far. i will take some pictures tomorrow of the progress.

i let the car run today for a while since its been a while. i think im going to go ahead and rebuild the motor just because. my car will be immobile for quite some time when i pull the motor out so in that time why not. according to the person that i bought the motor from, the apex seals were already replaced so that means they probably replaced all the other seals and stuff too. i put 3000KM on the motor since its been running but i will go ahead and do it again just so i know 100% for sure that the motor is good.


how my commander was mounted

 

That cars definitely been owned by a bodger in the past! Plenty of work to do on that one . I'd keep it sequential, though. With your planned boost levels you'll get none of the benefits of non-sequential and all of the downsides. Sequential twins are much more fun .

 

well... its definitely seen better days. the previous owner took pretty good care of it honestly... ive been non-seq for quite some time and ive ran the car at a few events. im incredibly happy with the way it performs. i really dont like the seq set up at all and will never again in my life EVER go back. i start building boost at ~3500rpm and it just carries all the way to redline. im running .55bar which is incredibly low but is more than enough for me. i even was able to convince some of the other fd owners to make the change. in fact, every fd owner whose gotten a ride in my car wants to ditch the seq set up.

it looks like a lot of work but i think once i get rolling it will be pretty easy.

 

Get it working properly in sequential and I guarantee it'll change your mind . There is no benefit at your power level to go non sequential.