I really should focus more attention on this poor car... Been too busy rebuilding my RX8 race car, keeping my Spec Miata running and racing, my street Miata and my tow vehicle / truck. Need to get rid of my 2 SA/FB projects / driveway art then focus back on my FD.

In recent news, I picked up a new-to-me mod that I am super excited for! Anyone wanna guess what it is?

 

I can sympathize with this. I have way too many projects going at once and it becomes a total headache to ever focus on one thing at a time. I just recently sold an FC I really had no plans for, and next on the chopping block is probably the gsl-se.

That box looks suspiciously sized for a turbo...

 

Exactly. Need to start purging soon. This is supposed to be fun but it's starting to feel like work.

Not a turbo but good guess!


The mod is not a power adder. It is exterior aesthetics.

 

Ganadors?

 

moar sexier than that

unboxing on friday or saturday once it arrives

 

 

Nice, looking forward to updates.

When was the last time you drove the FD?

 

@Johnny Kommavongsa
Drove it running well? Was probably around the early days of covid. During covid it sat and the primary injectors went to ****. @SakeBomb Garage did a compression test which showed low numbers too so.... I've got a lot of work ahead...

Leading up to covid when I was recently divorced, bored, probably drinking too much and making bad decisions etc, I accumulated too many projects (RX8, SA, FB) and got over my head. I have my RX8 race car running finally so that can move in/out of the garage it shares with the FD on it's own power. Which makes it easier for me to remove it to work on pulling the engine on the FD. Before starting on the FD, I want to get rid of my 2 first gen projects because I have way too much mechanical clutter around me right now.

So the general plan on the FD's revival:
- remove the engine and get it refreshed locally by a racer buddy
- clean up and either touch up or repaint the engine bay DIY style in the garage
- swap over to the RX8 a/c compressor and get the a/c working with the @JP3 Motorsports goodies that I collected
- replace the melted poly engine bushings with mazda comp\
- try and figure out why the sequential system never worked consistently after the last engine and turbo updates
- bunch of other things under hood that I won't remember until I get my hands on them...

At least I have my own house and garage now so I won't have to deal with any extraneous forces affecting the work I need to do and the time I have to do them like when this thread started. The uncomfortable challenge I'm going to have to deal with is that although I've owned this car for over 20 years, I barely had to do any work to it after the drivetrain restoration in 2009-2010. As a result, I forgot most of what I had learned over the years of wrenching on this engine. So I have a lot to relearn as I take on this project. The hardware around the complex sequential system is intimidating. Makes me want to consider a single turbo but I need to worry about smog still so that is out of the picture for now.

@GoodfellaFD3S BBK was done decades ago! Also, not an aesthetic mod.


Before I do any of that though, I will be installing the sexy goodies in that big box that I bought from a very nice forum member.

 

Working on it again shouldn't be too bad. It's like riding a bike.

 

Behold the sexiest headlight kit ever!
My precious!

@cloud9 thank you! Seriously, big thanks for selling them to me.

I've been wanting these forever. Now I have them. With the wife's number one son's college graduation, I won't have time to install for a few weeks so I'll cuddle and caress them until them. Err... Or something like that.

 

Really happy that you're so excited and glad something positive could finally come out of my indolence with these haha. They deserve to be used, enjoy them!

 

Just took a look back at all the projects you're juggling so wanted to share some advice I recently came across..
(explicit language warning)
https://www.instagram.com/william__h...tfUuBg2/?hl=en

 

lol
I have learned to say no. Now I just need to purge.

 

So, local race car fab shop that I've been using for the last 16 years had an opening they wanted to fill and I've had a dream of Recaro seats in my FD so....

Wait... let's backup and start with the backstory first... I bought these Recaro seats from an RX8 about 10 years ago. The idea / dream / nightmare / whatever was to install them in my FD. There are a couple of threads on mods and fab required to fit RX8 seats to FDs scattered around the forum. As with most overly ambitious projects I attempt, this got nowhere. I've been stepping over them in my garage thinking - someday...

Then this opportunity presented itself and I decided to see if they were interested in doing the project. They had done roll cages and custom seat mounts for my RX8 and Spec Miata race cars and I've... ummm... tested their work a few times... so I am very confident they can fab something up that will allow these seats to mount and position me lower in the car and be as sturdy as OE. The timing sucks monetarily but I'll sell off some of my parts hoard to help fund this.

I started removing interior bits to decrease the time they need to spend on stupid non-fab work. My relocated red top died a few months ago so this is a good time to replace the battery as well. Started pulling it apart. Realized that the carpet really needs to come out to have enough room to fab and weld whatever they might need to do... Sigh.... I've also had an aftermarket replacement carpet sitting in the garage for probably 10 years ago so maybe this will be a good time to install... Except the dash needs to come out to R&R carpet... Sigh... Talk about scope creep...

Anyway, the summary is that my interior is mostly scattered around my garage and piled on top of my RX8 and the car is going in on Monday for custom seat mounting.

Here's the driver seat. The pax seat is somewhere in the garage...

Here is what it looks like behind the dash:


It is amazing dusty behind the dash... I suspect some additional scope creep might happen in the form of dismantling the HVAC system and cleaning the ducts and potentially re-foaming the HVAC box thingy.

Did I mention that i have a replacement gauge hood, a/c panel, center console and other new-in-box interior bits that I bought from Ray Crowe years ago? I should probably install those, right...

Let's get 'er done!