Dave:

I noticed you're using an FD throttle body, so I assume you don't have idle air control (since it is on the 20b throttle body). How is the idle when the AC kicks on?

 

Thankks for the progress reports David. The car looks great and I can't wait to see/read about the finished product ;o)

 

David, Any more updates?

Hope you made it out of good ole TX!

 

Looks great. Look forward to hearing what happens in a week.

 

Final Weekend Update:

Made it out of Dallas in one piece. Tried to post yesterday morning from the hotel but the forum gave me a database error.

Overall I'm pleased with the weekend. Got to see and drive the car for the first time in over 1 1/2 years. I'm still surprised at my emotions when seeing the car - can't believe a 13 year old car can be that good looking. Mazda did it right with the FD.

Major props to the Gotham guys who worked tirelessly (and without sleep) for the past months and this weekend. Brian is doing a great job on the car fixing the numerous issues the car had when it first showed up. Had a blast hanging out with Alex and Steve.

I put together a list with Alex of the remaining issues to be resolved between now and when I pick the car up for good in a week and a half. At the top of the list is the wastgate issue - it currently is externally vented and dumps on sensitve sensors and hoses. And because of the fabrication, very little room exists to add plumbing to internally vent the unit. Wolf did this fabricating and it simply has to be altered or I'll have bad issues in future months. The fabricators are going to take another look at the situation and see if they can get creative with a solution or we might have to take the current wastegate off and replace it. The turbo has been wrapped with a thermal blanket but the AC lines have to be moved or protected. We're also contemplating wrapping or ceramic coating the downpipe. Ceramic coating is the choice but we'll have to see if it can be done quickly. These above issues have to be fixed before Steve can finish tuning the car.

So the plan is to be back at Gotham a week from Thursday to officially pick up the car. Based on the punch list, Gotham will have a busy week and a half. They'll get it done though.

Rich, thanks so much for the offer and I'll take you up on the bezel. Need to call Gotham to see which one was missing. I think it's the passenger side one.

CMonokar, we didn't run the car yet with the AC on so I can't answer the question about the idle. With the Wolf unit that was previously in the car, the idle was rock solid so I hope it's this way with the Haltech. We'll see.

Finally, for those of you in NOLA that want to see the car when I pick it up, all rooms (and I mean all) were booked in New Orleans so we had to get a room in Baton Rouge. We'll be driving through the New Orleans area on Saturday, March 24th, so maybe we can get together for lunch? Any idea on where to meet?

 

Looks real good. You are going to make me do a single now..lol

 

Congrats David... not sure if i'll ever attempt a 20b conversion after reading the ensuing saga!

At any rate I'm sure the juice will be worth the squeeze.

Nothing better than a "squeaky clean" brilliant black 3 Rotor.

 

With some thought and hopefully experienced gained from my project, you could do a 20B conversion at half the cost and 1/3 the time. It just takes selecting the right person to do the conversion and managing the timeline. I did a poor job of both initially.

As for the "squeaky clean" part, hopefully that will happen by next week. The car is the dirtiest its ever been. Can't wait for the "grime" to be removed.

 

hiya David. Thanks again for Lunch! It was a blast getting to meet you this weekend. Brian and I were up until 7am or so on Friday night working while Alex feel asleep in the seat of that white s14 hahaha.

-Aaron

 

Good meeting you too. I appreciate all the work you guys are doing on the car. Hopefully you'll get a lot of satisfcation out out the car too.

Alex sleeping in the chair - should have taken a picture of that and posted it

 

hah, I left my camera at home over the weekend. Man I wish I could of had it. I could of taken a few pictures of how your car looked while we are going to lunch. Man it looks EVIL going down the road and sounds so very very very nice.

 

David:

Please be careful in areas of the unknown. There is alot of crime in those parts, gangs and such... You dont want to stop at a traffic light in the wrong part of town with out of state plates and next thing you know you are looking down a barrel... I don't want to scare you but be alert and lock your doors. Always check your mirrors for people following you and keep your distance between cars so no one can box you in... Always keep an eye out for an escape route. If someone taps your bumper, don't get out to inspect just keep going....

I always drive like this when ever I am in transit. I guess it's my New York mentality. I don't want read a thread that says, On the way home from Gotham my car got jacked... Just a heads up!... Enjoy your beautiful FD and remember If you cant see your car where it's parked... Don't park it...

Dwayne

 

To add to what Dwayne said, more importantly, Dave PLEASE get a stated value policy like a Hagerty policy covering the FULL cost it would take to replicate the car again (parts, labor, etc). That way you can rest assured that regardless of what happens, your investment is protected

~Ramy

PS: I can't remember if we discussed this earlier in the thread, but if not, plz do a search w/ my username and "Hagerty." I've posted tons of info about such FULL VALUE specialty car insurance policies, where market value is inconsequential. You get what you've insured it for, in cash, no questions asked

 

I would pay money to see that shot

 

Hey, I'm from FL, home of where this happens to tourists. I'm always on the look out for situations like this. Better safe than sorry, right?

 

Ramy, last time I spoke with Hagerty they did not insure RX7s because they were too new. Also, the had a very low limit on the number of miles (<3,000?) you can drive each year. Has this changed in the last year or so?

 

I have had Haggerty for the last three years. As far as usage, the policy states that you must be insured on another vehicle for full time use, which I take to mean you will be driving the other vehicle to/from work etc...

 

So, whats the mileage quota? 3k miles? How are they keeping track of this? Do you have to get it inspected by some firm? Because state of AL does not require inspection.. hence no record of mileage.

 

Just got off the phone with Hagerty and they DO NOT provide insurance for RX7s (nor any other car) if you are going to actually drive the car. What I mean by this is they write policies for "car show" cars not ones that will be driven daily or ocassionally, like mine.

What "washed" me out is when they asked me if I planned on driving the car to work (I said every now and then) or on errands (I answered occasionally). Even though I also have another, new model car (also a prerequisite) I'll be driving more often than the FD, I do not qualify because I actually want to occasionally drive the RX7.

This is what happened to me a few years ago when I tried to insure through Hagerty. The rep did give me the names of a few companies that might provide 'agreed value" insurance but I haven't called them yet:

American Collectors
American Modern Home

 

I had State Farm on mine.

Collectable policy. I had mine insured for 75k, and they would have gone up to 125k - but the price difference was quite large really. Yet, the 75k was only 39 a month, with a 1m/3m/1m policy; and a 500 deductable.

Rules for the Collectable policy on mine were simply; not a main transportation vehicle. Rather, a "weekend cruise" or "weekend warrior" and something that visits car "enthusiast events and outings". The mile restriction was set to 7.5k per year. I insured mine on the second bout of the build; and by the time I had it on the road - I had 15k miles stored in the "bank". Statefarm only checks the milage if you were to claim, and the math is original policy date milage minus current claim date milage.

 

They DO insure FDs. I know, because I got a full quote on mine See below for details.

And yes, they limit it to 3,000 miles per year, although you CAN get approved for additional mileage per year as long as you let them know ahead of time (eg you're going to distant car shows and events etc). Point is, they wanna make sure the mileage is NOT for daily driving/errand use.

Not to be an a$$, Dave, but this is exactly why I said to READ my posts (and they are several, and quite lengthy at that) about Hagerty. I practically outlined EXACTLY what to say and what to expect from 'em.

I honestly don't know about those. But I can tell you that Grundy offers essentially the same insurance and coverage/plans/benefits that Hagerty does, but w/o any mileage or vehicle age restrictions/limitations. Again, this is provided you meet their criterion. So AGAIN, do yourself a favor before you call 'em and read my posts I put a LOT of time and effort into 'em to save ppl from the exact mistake you fell into...

Correct. Also note that the newer modified "show car" insurance they're doing is still subjective; they don't have preset solid criterion, so it's highly dependent on which agent you get. impactwrench, if you would be so kind as to post which agent you spoke to over the phone who approved your plan, that would be incredibly helpful to the rest of us

They reserve the right to come out and inspect the vehicle. They'll also ask you what the current mileage is, and record what you say. So you're looking at fraud if you lie, which is a BIG crime. And I wouldn't be surprised if they were suspicious of your use of the vehicle and required that you take it to your local insurance dealer (who either works for or could be subcontracted by Hagerty) to inspect your vehicle's mileage.

Red-Rx7, yes, State Farm will honor a "stated value" policy. The MAJOR difference, however b/w traditional insurance companies (like State Farm) and speciality insurance companies such as Hagerty and Grundy are that traditional companies DO NOT guarantee that they will actually pay the full stated value in the event of a total loss. They are actually required by law to share that disclaimer w/ you either verbally or in writing. They will perform a market analysis of the value of your vehicle at the time of a loss, and pay based on that. So basically, you're paying for $75K of coverage, but you may only end up with say, $50K payout. I know this b/c a) I've spoken w/ them personally, and b) I know 2 Skyline owners who subsequently wrecked their cars, both of which had "stated value" policies w/ traditional companies, and both of which were NOT able to recover the full value they had been paying a premium for.

As for the 7.5K mile restriction, that's not for a stated value policy exclusively. That's the limitation State Farm has on what they classify as a "leisure vehicle." In fact, I have a regular coverage traditional plan w/ State Farm for one of my cars, and I have the 7.K mile restriction secondary to me classifying it as a leisure vehicle. As such, my premium is a bit cheaper, but not significantly. Nothing like how cheap you pay for specialty insurance premiums like Hagerty or Grundy.

Not to be annoying/**** etc, but really, I've covered ALL of these points (and then some) in the other threads I've posted about speciality insurance. Search for "Hagerty," filtering by "FDNewbie." In fact, you don't even need to filter, cuz I'm fairly certain I've posted in virtually every thread this subject has come up in. So save me the time and yourself the mistakes. Read the posts

~Ramy

 

Thanks for the info Ramy. You're never an a$$ when you post tons of good info

Not sure what I could have done differently though. I did read your posts (read them when I tried this a few years ago and just reread them again) and I followed what was listed. Tried to get the FD insured under the Exotic category. I have another car insured by another car company, I'm 40 with a spotless record, and I garage the car. What eliminated me from contention was I wanted to drive my car, albeit not many miles each year. Also told them I was taking the car to car shows, but since I actually want to drive the car (errands and on the weekends), it was a no go.

I could have told them it was a show car and I wasn't going to drive the car, but if I have an accident and they check my mileage (which they will do), I'm screwed. Plus it's just not ethical IMO.

So, if anyone has an agent at Hagerty they have used, I'd love to get the name.

 

edit

 

hey ramy, so basically what your saying is that we have two (legal) options for highly modified FD's...
get a specialty insurance policy that will cost less, but will not allow us to drive our cars
OR
get a "standard" (if you can call it that) insurance policy through the normal insurance companies which WILL let us use our cars to drive, but will not give us our stated value in the event of an "incident" and will be more expensive.

with the general insurance companies like AAA, state farm, etc im not surprised... thats kind of their standard practice. wayyyy baack in the day when i had a pristine mustang GT conv. (you can flame me later lol) that was stolen from my driveway 4 months after it was bought. i payed a fair price for the car (it was mint with low mielage) $17K. AAA offered me $9K for the car as determined by "market price". problem was they weren't comparing oranges to oranges... they were comparing to cars with higher mileage, and even scooping up data from bidding auctions etc. basically they were specifically ignoring 2 important things... the price it would cost ME (as a general consumer) to buy a new/similar car, and the true condition of the car beforehand. to them, a 95 GT was a 95 gt, and if the mileage/condition didnt match they tacked on a few hundred more and gave me an offer of nearly HALF my purchase price (which was a fair price to start).

long story short we argued back and fourth with them for a few weeks, had a few heated discussions. i submitted every receipt and picture that i had, and told them go find a car in SIMILAR CONDITION and we'll talk. obviously they werent able to at the price they offered. we walked with $15.75K. it was by no means what we paid, but thats just how insurance works. ive had similar scuffles with AAA and other insurance companies (when i hit a deer in my FD, and when my miata was vandalized)... neither were totaled however. they did not want to pay the full price to fix all of the damage incurred until i hassled them ALOT. during my FD repair, the insurance lady from AAA told me "theres no way it costs $6K to replace a fender,bumper,and headlight" to which i replied (this lady had been bullshitting with me for a week)... "look sweetie... (long pause) think of it as a Japanese Ferrari. pick up the phone, and call the dealership yourself for a price quote on the parts, then call me back. goodbye." low and behold, (and after a little more arguing over how i wouldn't settle for used panels) they paid for everything no questions asked .

now, the moral of the story is... the standard insurance companies ARE willing to insure your car for "market value" and you will be able to drive your car... but in the case of a total loss you must be willing to A) Argue, B) back up EVERYTHING with receipts and pictures, and C) not expect to get all of your money back. the insurance companies thrive on their policy owners having little to no knowledge about their cars. would they rather argue with you for a few weeks, or low-ball on some minivans and civics. put it this way, if you want to drive your car whenever you want it will end up costing you later in case of a loss. how much depends on your willingness to skirmish with them, and attempt to PROVE the market value of your car (which will be difficult for them to argue against as 20b's are pretty much one offs). i mean, they cant just look through the classifieds and come up with a similar 20b FD cause they dont exist . anyway thats my plan for my 20b FD... just calculate what you can reasonably get for the car (by backing it up with receipts) and add another 5-10K onto that. then you have wiggle room to argue... but be prepared to take less than your "receipt amount" if something happens. -heath

 

so red, do you still have state farm? and did you ever have to make a claim