Thanks everyone! Keeps me motivated to document the car's progress. I'm pleased to say this weekend, I've finally got the car put back together, brakes and clutch properly bled, and all 4 wheels have finally touched the ground after 16 months of slow progress and procrastination. Now all that's left is to get the car registered and on the road to its much needed alignment (and corner balance).

 

um is this a track car?

 

thats the plan

 

oh i see, the paint sorta threw me off, nicer than what you normally see on a track car

 

Nice job!! hope to be there someday!

 

it's so clean, i'd be afraid of taking it to the track.

but then...

carol's a serious baller, so it doesn't matter. =p

 

how are you liking the Nagisa Fender braces? Been thinking about getting these myself. http://www.more-japan.com/nagisa-aut...fd3s-rx-7.html

 

The fitment and the quality of the Nagisa Fender braces are impressive - but I haven't gotten to drive the car yet (VERY SOON THOUGH!). I'm probably not the best person to ask how I like certain mods done to the car, since its been down for a little over a year, and I slapped so many parts on it all at once. Tough to isolate which mod, contributed to which improvement!

UPDATE:
- I finally have my car registered, so as soon as this 5 day rainstorm blows through, I can pull it out on the driveway, give it a good wash, and take it to its much anticipated alignment

- I just finished repairing an old cheapie fan mod that was on the car, that kept the fans running on high at all times. My car took way too long to warm up, and it stayed way too cool. I think it was a patch mod done to the car back when it was getting temperatures that were too high (most likely from the one oem fan that I had found with a bad bearing and was making all sorts of high pitched noise). I never was a "fan" of self-soldering (I suck at it)....but I found the one wire that was cut from the fan relay, and grounded - removed it...soldered the lines back together, and wrapped things all back up :pats self on back:

A bummer, was that while I was under the car to bleed the clutch line - I noticed I'm getting a slow oil leak. It seems to be gathering right where the transmission housing lines up, near the back of my oil pan (with Garfinkle brace). I don't know where its originating from yet. This is going to require more investigation.

I also have my Knightsports VMIC listed for sale right, but with no biters - I may end up installing it sooner than later now that I have nothing else to do.
I was listing this for sale, because Ive had some voices in my head that were tempting me to change gears on the car and consider going LS1. But it may be just cheaper for me to set aside some money for my single turbo, and finish the damn thing the way I had it planned originally

There's always "later"!

 

Carol, if you go v8 I'm taking you off my friend list. Are you on crack?

 

That's the dark side of your brain calling out to you to go LS1.

It also whispers in my ears at night about the evil swap but the good part of my brain says to stay rotary.

 

Well I liked the idea that I could possibly B.A.R. the car and lay relatively "low" from the po-po. But I think financially, I'll keep trekking onward with the GT35R plans. You guys need to be my voice of reason!

 

lmao this made my day

 

(at the heart of it all, it still looks so stock! for now, at least)

With a big 5 day rainstorm that dropped 15ft of snow in Mammoth, and a record breaking 7 inches of rain in LA...it was way too chilly and wet to do much with the car. But the sun finally popped out for the long weekend and I was able to accomplish several things:

- apply my long delayed registration sticker
- install my new hood cowl, wiper arms, and wiper blades that Paul bought me for Xmas '09
- set the car down and test drive the brakes, make sure the new fan and rewire worked, try out the new tires, check for rubbing issues with the brake ducting
- wash my car (extra dusty from the sawdust that my dad was causing with his cabinet building)
- get started on buffing the paint to follow up on spots that were missed when it left the paintshop

It took a few times around the block to reaquaint myself with the Mazdaspeed twin disc clutch, but the good news is - my brakes work! Major pat on my back for that since I'd never worked on that before 0_o That was super important since my house and neighborhood is made of all steep and long stretches of downhills and uphills! The clutch also works...which means I didn't screw up bleeding that either I'm still pleasantly surprised from the excellent feedback the Atomic Rex rack provides - but with my muscles and joints falling apart as early as they are - I figured it'd be nice to purchase the Electronic Assist (EPAS) option for the rack to help make parking more of a breeze (this'll be for my birthday next month ^^;; ) There is some rubbing coming from the driverside wheelwell on right turns (admittedly, I've not tried hard lefts yet to see if its the same on the passenger side) - but I'll have to check that out soon.

Not much I can do with the car until after the new year though - first thing on the agenda is to get the car properly aligned, and then to get my Feed hood and have it paint matched. Besides that...I'll be having the differential worked on with the Greddy diff cover that I treated myself to for Xmas '10, to be installed with the Carbonetics 1.5 way carbon LSD and 4.44 rx8 ring and pinion.

Once all of this is completed, and I find time to install the VMIC and the Atomic Rex EPAS, I'd imagine there's nothing else I can do to put off dropping a single turbo in 0_o.

By the way, did I forget to mention I bought titanium shims for all 4 braking corners? Because I did!



Also - for good measure, a couple more interior pictures...because they were requested








I know...the steering wheel's yellow threading doesn't match. But steering wheels are like shoes for girls right? You can never have too many? I'll get around to buying another one sometime I'm sure.

 

Those Recaros are gorgeous!

 

Very very nice!

 

Haha sorry just saw this!! Yep! I have a '93 with the motor that shall not be named. Swapped it about a year ago. I sold that blue 240 a while ago and someone made it into a pro drift car. I've been following your build for a while! Great job as always Carol!!! PM me sometime and we'll catch up!

 

Carol, looks like you had some custom top bolster covers made to integrate the seatbelt clips? pretty cool.

I've been considering these seats instead of my Spirit-R ones (assuming i'll fit), but don't know if I can justify the money given I'd be moving from carbon/kevlar buckets to fiberglass ones.

They look gorgeous without a doubt. If I had a white, black, or silver FD i'd probably be much happier with my red S-Rs

 

Yup, there's some kind of vendor I found on yahoo.jp that sells the TS-G/RS-G side bolsters and shoulder bolsters to help protect against wear protection for the entry sides and to add that seatbelt clip. I randomly searched for 'recaro'...clicked the first link that it opened, found what I assume to be the auction category for recaro or bucket seats, and just search "TSG" or "RSG" to pull up the bolster protectors.

If I were you, I'd be hard pressed to give up the Spirit R seats with the carbon shell...but I'm happy with what i ended up getting

PS - anyone noticed my driverside cushion is raised? I double upped on the cushion there to raise my short self up a little more LOL.

 

Really really nice build Carol. Hope you are able to enjoy it now after putting alot of time and money into it.

 

Rich, I would stick to Spirit R seats... I've seen you and I don't think you'll fit into these seats

Joking aside, I recently put Bride Exas III in MB and compare to TS-G, TS-G is 5mm narrower by the hip/legs. I'm not a big guy (32-33 waist) and its a tight fit. Spirit R's are far FAR more comfortable in terms of street driving and also going in and out. For track, I think TS-G/Exas III might be better in that you will feel like you are part of the car.

 

Great build – just say no to pistons.

 

Thanks Gordon. BTW, I was looking at the Atomic Rex thread earlier today and saw this "The assist is using a completely different column, so no the standard switch gear and ignition key are junked. We could supply the switch gear that the new columns come with if you require....not sure whether we have kept any so I would need to get some fresh ones. This is purely as we have always put them on track cars that don't run standard switch gear...and obviously no key." I've emailed Jon to find out more about this - I have to admit 3 point turns are absolutely no fun right now without power steering...but unless the switch gear and ignition key OE pieces can be incorporated into the steering column...I may just have to put up with the slow speed efforts for now and pass on the EPAS.. What do you think?

 

I was scrolling through this thread and realized it was missing some old posts:



I thought I'd backdate a little before memory gets more muddled.
The fd was the 3rd car I'd ever owned. It came at a great deal, but definitely needed a lot of TLC. Clean title, great price, strong motor (was on its 3rd one), reliability mods....and....left a lot to be desired in the chassis with 208,000 miles. As expected, the interior, the suspension, and the body needed some good amount of work.

I picked it up end of spring 2006.

And then I got to doing a lot of maintenance.

New tires, fuel pulsation dampener, spark plugs, fuel filter, flushed all fluids, new master and slave clutch cylinders, new battery, new balljoints for the front lower and upper control arms, new tie rods, switched in another set of twins, and started fixing some of the cracked interior pieces like the driverside door+ trim. New glovebox handle, center tunnel since the brackets for broken and loose, driverside window switch was dead as well.

I eventually got around to the funner stuff. I picked up a HKS downpipe and sent it to Swaintech for their White Lightening ceramic coating. I've never seen any ceramic coat that could compare, but its surface texture renders its application to be more limited.

I also picked up the UIM and LIM ceramachromed from Rich.
HKS RS intakes with some purple filters went on as well
Can't forget the Apex-i PFC
Oh...and I decided I didn't want the. airpump and installed block off plates.
..and a polished alternator cover.

The carpet...oh man that needed to GO! That eliminated a great amount of smell in the interior!






After updating the carpet, I freshened up the shiftboot and ebrake boots from Redlinegoods and topped it off with a rx8 5 speed shiftknob.

The cat was beyond dead on the car, as was the thermal exhaust. They both were past their last leg. So out it dropped and in went a SMB metallic cat and a Ganador titanium exhaust....only to be replaced later on with a Feed sonic titanium exhaust....which then got replaced with....another Feed sonic titanium exhaust. hahaha.

See? I really did have two :X




I went through the strut bar phases.
First the Autoexe front, then the ARC titanium one....twice =P I never learn!
I was sad to let the rear Autoexe go, I spent so much time making it fit so flush!

And then boost controller phases. Knightsports EBSIII, ESIV, and I finally settled on the Apex-i AVCR.

Oh...and suspensions....aragosta? ohlin? aragosta?...ohlin pcvs it is!

Somewhere along the lines I ended up upgrading the fuel setup with a supra pump and refreshed 550s and 1300s using Witchunter.
Oh yeah! and the surge tank cover.

And you guys know the story about how it came together for the exterior, but here were some progress photos I missed:

 

 

The suspension parts before they were installed: