My BB R1: Stock Body, Small Turbo but FULLY Modded (TD57)
 

Well the time has finally come to begin a build thread. My wallet is now in limp mode from collecting parts over the past 6 months or so and if I don't start working on what seems to be an endless project already, I'll never be able to enjoy my dream car on the road.

A little history on my black on black R1:

I purchased my first RX7, turbo'd vehicle, and actually my first car (I own a truck) as well during the summer of 2012 from AllRotor93 and imported it from the US to Canada. It was a lengthy process and a huge thanks goes to John for bearing with me during the paperwork process. I drove 6 hours down to Minneapolis and met the shipping company, loaded it on the trailer and hauled it back 6 hours and across the border. I hadn't even got to drive the car yet and noticed how everywhere I went people were giving me thumbs up, waving, and even taking pictures as I made my way home! The great part is that I left around 5 am and made it back to Canada, completed the import process and had the car safely in the drive way around 7pm and ~675 miles later. I was 22 at the time and already had my dream car, I couldn't wait to get started.
She came with a ton of aftermarket parts installed, still on twins, painted approximately 3 years ago, a moderately low chassis milage of 68k, a recently rebuilt block and the exterior was tastefully modded to be more aggressive but not over the top.

My future plans:

First of all I will be getting the smaller stuff out of the way as I learn the ins and outs of my new immigrant - mostly interior and exterior stuff that non or mild car enthusiasts notice first. With that being said, I'll also be performing all my own work as much as possible for the learning aspect as I go along. Next will come a suspension clean up and overhaul as I am still debating whether or not to keep the delrin bushings, and finally Ill begin the process of upgrading to a single once I move and have a garage. I have a large majority of the parts already but I am being a bit conservative on my spending until I move this fall.

-The interior has a few minor scuffs and the colored section around the AC knob is faded slightly from 20 years of wear and tear. And when I say minor, I mean small enough that most people would leave the panel as is but I am a bit obsessive.
-The cluster is currently a US spec one that reads 59k miles so it will be changed to one that is in KM. Also because the mileage has already been claimed as being incorrect with the insurance company, I'll be importing something nice from JapLand.
-The bumper received damage while being shipped, and the paint over the carbon hood is beginning to bubble around the vents from the oven inside and the fact its black. Both easy, yet time consuming fixes. It also gives me an excuse to make and mold in GTC lense covers.
-After that, upgrades and fixes will be completed as they come up, are discovered or I decide its time for a change.

After that nice wall of text, here she is (My hood was unlatched, pins unlocked):
Attachment 757318
Attachment 757319

A massive thanks goes to these people: (Will update as I progress)

FDNewbie: Sourcing and selling me those notoriously rare JDM items, awesome to deal with, knowledgeable, and professional when handling high dollar transactions. He even followed up to see how they were working out and if I was pleased, overall an excellent person to deal with.

XLR8: Answering my questions and even providing pictures or additional thoughts that may help me out. My goal is to have my build rival yours in attention to detail. (And yours as well goodfella!)

And finally everyone else that I have had a positive experience with so far.

nice!

is that a real Mazdaspeed bumper?

Sadly it isn't but the fitment is very nice as it sits. The body shop that fit it went through a lot of trouble and built up a good portion of the backside, and if you were to look at it from the front there are two additional holes for brake cooling ducts. Ill try and find a pic so you can see what I mean. The stock airbox is slightly holding the hood up in this picture otherwise it sits flat as well lol. It took me a minute to figure why it was slightly off on that side.

Stay tuned though, I have since acquired some very nice genuine parts.

Attachment 757317

niiice, can't wait to see more!

CCW? I though the car was sold with it....nonetheless it still looks great!

Beautiful car; congrats on the purchase. I can't wait to see the build!

Its been a long time since my initial post, but I have revised my build plans around my current priorities in life and have decided to take the car in a new yet more exciting and oriented direction. My revised goal for this build summed up into one sentence is:

-Keeping the car within its roots of being a balanced, exotic, slightly more aggressive yet not over the top jdm sports car true to its roots.


Well the weather is finally somewhat nice and my workspace is no longer hovering around the freezing mark lol. The car has for the most part sat in storage since last year, awaiting the attention it deserves. This will be more of a pre-update as I got called out of town for 2 weeks just as I started to dig into things. This post will also serve as a tracking point for any future owners of my car (yeah right :lol:) details are below.

As I mentioned above, my car was imported and my cluster was MPH based. It did display km/h as well, but it was squished into the inner portion of the speedometer so it was time for something new. With a bit of help from Circuit Theory, I was able to make the change to something suited for our roads that also updated the interior quite nicely. The car displayed an incorrect mileage on the speedometer already but the chassis mileage is documented as currently being 68k miles. This new cluster reads just over 5000 km so anything past that should be added to the current chassis mileage in case the car changes hands in the next few years.

The original cluster that was being swapped out:
Attachment 756923

To get the cluster out, pretty much everything other than the dash itself needs to be removed on the drivers side. With the help of one the guides posted by RX7Boutique, I got to this point fairly quick.
Attachment 756924

And the new replacement thanks to circuit theory!
Attachment 756925

While all of the panels were out, I gave them a much needed refreshing and got them back to the point of being near oem brand new and thats when the need to refinish and completely clean the car to my standards started. Next the original R1 seats were removed and sold, the entire carpet and mats scrubbed down with oxy clean products to get the years of dirt stains out of them, and the horrible $40 white ebay stereo was removed. This is how the car sat just as I was heading to work for a few weeks:
Attachment 756926

Before I left for work I dropped the bumper off to be professionally repaired and repainted to get rid of the giant curb rash eye sore. I said I was going to do as much of the work myself as possible, but the car was recently repainted and getting it professionally done was the only option to restore it properly. Oh and I removed this effective, but weathered duct work and started to clean it up and make a few changes (ugly I know!):
Attachment 756927

Now as it sits - the car is too high, the delrin bushings are for sure getting changed out and I will eventually include a write up on my before & after ride and handling opinion of new bushings and pillowballs, the car is seatless, a gtc bumper needs side skirts to balance it out and my bumper isn't authentic. Ironically I have the solutions to all of these things and 3 weeks off next time I'm home so stay tuned :)

Just a small update:

June 23rd will be the first summer meet in my city; no huge sponsors, no hordes of people coming from all over, just a fair sized group of locals with the same passion for cars as myself. I'm home for the next 3 weeks and just coming off of two weeks straight of night shift and a day or two to flip back to a normal schedule before I dig into things was needed. Its definitely worth being able to work 6 months out of the year and blow things up for a living at 23 though. Anyways back on track, the to-do list to be ready for that date is a large one but it covers some important changes needed to prepare for a ~425-450whp monster next spring. Until then, I'm going to make full use of enjoying and learning the car while its still running the twins.

Things left to do: | Deadline - 16 Days.

-Full superpro bushing change out, out with the delrin and superpro in for the win.
-Full pillowball replacement
-"Refurbish" the aluminum suspension components so they look aluminum again :blush:
-Install coilovers and level the car. Ps: Ricer-Stanced is for (choose derogatory term)
-Repaint calipers back to vibrant red
-Sand down the scoot hood to the clear coat.
-Pick up the freshly repainted bumper from the body shop
-Recover metal rad ducting
-Install Twin Power
-Install new 1300cc Secondaries and plugs (My mail man is slow apparently)
-Install new intake and remove the accordion hose air box setup (.. Mail man ^)
-Prime, paint and install street diffuser (Pending actually receiving it in the mail)
-Install 99 Spec Tails
-Install feed sides
-Install Spirit R Recaros
-Replace drivers side glass
-Replace dome light cover
-Replace coolant overflow neck (Thanks muibubbles!)
-Find a Vacuum leak
-Spend a horrible 6-8 hours polishing wheels.

Extra's I may attempt pending time:

-Mold in new GTC lenses
-Recover shift knob, and learn leather work at the same time.
-Recover my currently inbound Nardi wheel first try and ditch the bus driver wheel :lol:

Thoughts/Notes/Questions:

- I wonder how an A-Spec bumper looks in black.. it would be fun to be able to switch between the two. Anyone have any pics?
- These next 16 days will cover all of the exterior and interior mods I have planned and if it seems to be overkill, I'm taking care in ensuring they are easily reversible. From that point on, building a reliable single turbo FD will be the goal for next spring.

Sounds like it ll be a good build for an already beautiful car I remember when it was for sale I looked at the ad over and over again just to see the car good luck!!

Thanks ! I should be able to get a fairly decent update in tomorrow. Glad to see your looking to get an FD again as well!

Time for a bit of an update;

The old squeaking, bone chattering delrin bushes and all 6 six pillowballs have been completely changed out and the car is now rolling on a full superpro poly bushing kit. The quality of the bushes was great in my opinion, all evenly formed and very firm but not too tight fitting. The kit also included a good amount of grease per set of bushings which I made sure to pack in as excessively as possible to avoid any futures squeaks. I do however recommend that no one puts lube-groove/delrin bushings in their car - ever. A bushing is meant to flex, absorb and transfer energy which poly does. Delrin is rock hard and fails at all of those tasks. Overall it was a fairly easy job considering I didn't have access to a hydraulic press, I have zero formal mechanical education, it was my first time ever doing something with bushes and I had to do the job myself lol. So it was the good old find a socket and push them out method using a vertical vice I found in my dads shop. A simple tool, but it pushed the bushings and all 6 pillow balls out with ease!

This is it right here, the big box of time consuming fun!
Attachment 669099

The simple vertical vice/press I found in my dads shop:
Attachment 756622

I also took a light-gauged wire wheel and polished up the suspension components as they were pulled out. This picture shows how just one pass cleans it up compared to the a-arm sitting up in the top right that I just started on. What a difference!
Attachment 756623

And here are the monsters themselves - the squeaky delrin bushings and pillowballs pushed out ready to be replaced.
Attachment 756624


During the cleaning, replacing and checking over of each corner of the cars suspension I also remedied not having adjustable ride and dampening. I know, Taiwanese coilovers, the most frowned upon of frowned upon but the car isn't tracked and I needed more adjust-ability than my koni setup would allow. To be honest the deciding factor was that I managed to get them brand new at a veeeeeeeeeery good price and from the few reviews floating around they were rated to be O-K :lol:. In my opinion they feel and ride great although much of that could be attributed to having changed everything else out as well. But they work for me, I'm happy with them and that is all that counts.

Apexi n1 EXV's!
http://i.ebayimg.com/t/APEXI-N1-EXV-...No!~~60_12.JPG


And I finally got around to my favorite part swap so far.. My new Recaros and I absolutely love them. This was probably the easiest thing I have done with the car so far as well but I'll let the picture speak for itself.
Attachment 756625


Only 6 days til the meet and tons left to do, but I wasn't able to include everything in this update so check in tomorrow night!


-Repaint calipers back to vibrant red
-Sand down the scoot hood to the carbon fiber / clear coat.
-Recover metal rad ducting
-Install new 1300cc Secondaries and plugs (My mail man is slow apparently)
-Prime, paint and install street diffuser (Pending actually receiving it in the mail)
-Install feed sides
-Replace dome light cover
-Find a Vacuum leak
-Spend a horrible 6-8 hours polishing wheels.
-Replace drivers side glass
-Install Twin Power - Back ordered everywhere.. uurrgh
-Replace coolant overflow neck (Thanks muibubbles!)
-Install Spirit R Recaros
-Install 99 Spec Tails
-Install new intake and remove the accordion hose air box setup (.. Mail man ^)
-Pick up the freshly repainted bumper from the body shop
-Full superpro bushing change out, out with the delrin and superpro in for the win.
-Full pillowball replacement
-"Refurbish" the aluminum suspension components so they look aluminum again
-Install coilovers and level the car. Ps: Ricer-Stanced is for (choose derogatory term)




-Touge

woah this is one nice build! how difficult was it to get the 99 spec cluster to work?

Borderline plug and play except for the addition of the map sensor, but routing a wire through the firewall took all of 2 minutes :) Its going to be a long time before another update due to being out of town for the next 3 weeks and some unexpected life challenges popping up. The diffuser and a few other parts still haven't arrived either as much as i was hoping to work on them, but on the plus side this will give me time to order a few other additions I had in mind as well.

Nearly three years since I have checked in! Life took many turns and has thrown a ton of obstacles at me .. but overall, me and the car are in a better place now.

Yes I still have the car! It was stored and maintained during my absence, and even did the 1200 mile move with me to a much more positive environment. I'm now close to tracks, tuners and am much happier. And as a bonus, my new place has a small, but cozy attached garage that allows me to work on and store this car in my slippers if I want haha.

Some of the original to do list has been scrapped, some has been completed and some of it is now void. A complete to do list and outline of what I intend to do will be added soon, just hammering out the minor details and ensuring the car is redone and built for my needs the first time around. I didn't have the time or accessibility to resources I needed to do this car properly so it was better to wait than make do in my opinion. The boxes should give you guys some clues as to what's to come!

--------The spirit R's have been long sold, modern / safer track seats will be replacing them--------


In orders of the pictures:

#1: Loaded up and ready to be transported, what a drive lol.
#2: The original twin turbo setup, running a stock fuel system minus injectors and full bolt-ons was fun, but it was time to be modernized.
#3: Lots of goodies on that shelf, I literally have a full build waiting in boxes.
#4: I'm moved in, settled in and things have stabilized so it was time start taking out everything that's either dated, in need of replacing or getting replaced by the new set up.
#5: This garage isn't huge, but still has more than enough room to work on the 7 considering it only takes a handful of sockets and a screwdriver to take the car almost entirely apart lol. Japanese simplicity at its finest.
#6: Lots of parts coming out to be up for sale soon, we're going big and going JDM.

Nice work space! That pic of you under the car kinda reminds me of the Wizard of Oz lol! Keep us posted!

Over the course of a few days a lot has been completed. The engine bay has lost at least 20 lbs with the help of the Jenny Craig Do At Home Diet Plan, the new wheels have been put on and are my favourite part of the entire car now my spirit R's are gone. Fluids have been drained, plans have been drawn up, the to-do list is on paper and almost finalized, parts are on order like always.. lots of good changes to come. Think weekend warrior / street spec track car. Ps.. The Meisters are street / show wheels, I plan to run a set of Enkeis for track days. The hardest part of this build so far is finding a way to ensure my car for the street. Getting a careless charge really screws you over, keep the haywire driving for the track lol. So, I may need to wait til next May to ensure it since my record is wiped then. On the plus side, they did insure my Evo! If the review comes back saying I need to wait, the car is getting a lot more attention than I currently have planned.. Which is a lot lol.

Small update:

I have taken even more from the engine bay, taking pictures along the way. I'm going with a very simplified single turbo set up so most of it is getting taken out permanently but it's better to be safe than sorry. The UIM, pulleys, alternator and a few other misc things have been pulled to be cleaned up and prepped to be powder coated. Just waiting on powder to come in!

The engine bay, once cleaned up and cleaned out will be powder-coated a mixture of satin black for the larger pieces, a really nice purple called Illusion Purple from Prismatic Powders for the small accents like pulleys and misc stuff, and accented with a brand new polished aluminum vmount setup.

I'm finding quite a bit of oil and mess around the oil filter and fuel lines so I couldn't be more happy that I chose to completely dig right in and give the entire bay a full painting, clean up and once over. I had planned to quickly bolt in my parts collection to get up and running but I'm not one to take shortcuts, especially after getting a firsthand look at how much gunk has built up.

- I'm replacing the spark plug lines with a brand new set of sakebomb plug wires, definitely needed. If you guys have any pointers or notice anything feel free to chime in :)

Tons of progress today, at this rate I'll have the engine bay almost completely cleaned out very soon. Taking this apart has been tedious, but each line and wire has a purpose and once you trace it out and make a label by wrapping a piece of tape around each plug, it's not so bad. Bagging parts and nut/bolt sets will speed up putting it back together as well. It's a slow process, the wiring harness is a bit crispy and brittle in places but I'm glad to be doing a complete tear down.. Found a few surprises.

- The main fuel line was hanging on by less than 1/4 inch of overlap and the band-clamp was spinning free. The potential for a fire was almost guaranteed.
- Mice had moved in while the car was in storage, pulling in leaves and sticks.. Again the potential was there for a fire.
- The ignition side of the block was covered in oil and fluids from sloppy oil changes.

I'll be glad to start scrubbing it down and prepping for paint once everything is out, more updates coming in a few days and hopefully it gets a bit more interesting.

Lots of effort and time here. Where are you located?

Thanks, I'm not stoping until this car is done to the best it can be. And a little ways outside of Toronto, middle of nowhere.

Lol I know exactly what you mean, that's too funny.

It's been a couple of days since I checked in but progress is still being made some way or another every day.

First off, I couldn't stand the look of that big old ABS unit any more so I did the car and myself a favour and removed it. It's visually nicer, the car weighs less - it's a win-win. So, the ABS pump along with all the lines were deleted in place for a new kit from Alex Rodriguez. Really nice guy to deal with btw.

I decided to ditch the AC as well and remove all the lines along with the compressor etc. I can't believe how much more room is available and how visually appealing the engine bay is starting to look. Removing all that junk was easier than expected as well. The only hard line routing I will have to worry about is the power steering cooling line it should be easy to tuck in now.

That same day I also removed the inner fender liners along with both outer fenders as I slowly worked away towards removing the entire front end in preparation for paint. Simply put, the drivers side fender liner is pretty much toast. That'll have to be replaced but isn't too high on the priority list right now lol.

With the hood props removed and due to limited space, I had temporarily propped the hood up using an old pool cue before turning off the lights for the day. One would have been sufficient but I don't like the hood sitting warped overnight lol.

Plans:

-Repaint the engine bay (in progress)
-A brake overhaul is in need or I'll possibly be going with a wilwood setup if the right deal comes along
-Turblown turbo kit.
-V-mount,because all V's need to be mounted and I used to be well-off before I got laid-off. Lol.
-Relocate the battery to the trunk. I'm not a fan of cutting the bins and jamming a battery and some sort of mount in there.
-A big ol' fuel kit, fuel pump and tank full of shitty pump fuel because that's all I have available .. 2/3 things right is still 66.6%
-Stock Body+. By Body+ i mean keeping the gtc bumper, side skirts are in storage, the duck wing is on, we've got a scoot hood up front and a shine street diffuser will be laying low in the back with the 99 tails. That's enough body mods for two cars lol.
-CLEAN, PAINT OR POWDER COAT EVERY PART BEFORE IT GOES BACK ON THE CAR. This is what will extend this project from a couple months to a couple couple couple of months lol.
-Order $20 gaskets and misc stuff repeatedly and pay $20 in shipping each time since I forget something every time I place an order lol.
-Whatever else comes up along the way. As of now, I'm focusing on the engine bay and getting it prepped and painted, organizing the garage and selling the extra stuff I had laying around. It surprisingly eats a lot of time selling old parts lol.


That's a medium list of what's up, what I have planned and what I have ordered so far.


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So to keep track, things I have so far that absolutely need to be replaced are:

-The passenger side upper A-arm since the boot is torn
-Passenger fender liner, although replacing both sides with new or almost new would be ideal
-Power steering hard line
-The entire front brake setup. It is probably fine and I have new rotors, the rebuild kit is cheap.. but I'm leaning towards a wilwood setup. Got one for sale anyone?

Too bad. You could have helped me with my car hahah.. Looking forward to updates

There is a meet on June 4th. You should try and make it out.

I can only ensure my Evo right now haha, dunno if it's invited considering it has only got an ecu flash and a set of lowering springs. I keep it mint tho.. 23000 km and it's a 2013 lol. Man, I'm winging this and making it up as I go lol. It's fly high, all-in or else crash and burn at this point. I'm feeling confident so far though.

I'll try and get better pictures for you guys once things start getting interesting. In the mean time, here's that ripped boot I came across.. Poor guy. And my new coated manifold and down pipe setup! What's your guys opinion on wrapping the down-pipe with DEI Titanium? Yes, no, half? This is a no rain or snow car.

All is welcome. I won't be there in my FD either. It's going in for paint so I'll probably be in my daily

---------This post is where the build thread and formatting of the journal begins.----------


I'll be breaking the build down in to four stages. Everything that gets removed from the car will be cleaned up or refurbished before being reinstalled 1) Repainting and refurbishing the engine bay, right down to the nuts and bolts 2) Building up a solid single turbo (TD57) setup. I'm aiming for it to be clean, reliable and simple.. not dyno numbers. 3) Cleaning up, overhauling and protecting the metal suspension and brake components since the bushings etc are already completed. 4) External mods


Progress:

*The OEM turbos and manifold were removed! No broken studs, no fighting whatsoever. I even mocked up the TD57!
*The engine bay was then 90% stripped, almost of all the extra components other than the block have been removed.
*Wipers, hood and plastics are stripped
*Emission controls and all the smog related stuff has been deleted on the UIM and LIM plus blocked off with plates. I'm aiming to make the car as simple as possible. My girlfriend even brought me wraps so I could finish it that night haha.
*All of the electrical components, plugs, nuts and bolts have been removed from the water pump assembly, UIM, various brackets, the hood catch, throttle body, alternator casing (I've got to grab a socket from my father's place) and pulleys in preparation to be media blasted and either polished or powder coated. I'm extremely glad I tore this thing down completely.
*My street diffuser came in so I prepped, primed and painted it with a nice thick coating of black bumper paint and set it aside.

Left to do / Waiting on:

*Pull the engine! It'll be a week or so for my engine hoist/shop crane to come in, maybe a bit longer due to the holiday so I'll be refurbishing parts in the mean time.
*Also waiting on a pineapple racing engine stand adapter. This is my first engine pull, super stoked to be doing this all myself.
*Remove the steering linkage.
*Sand and paint the bay once the block is pulled, I don't want it to get contaminated with rust and other garbage.
*Strip the blocks accessories and paint them, as well as the block while it is out.
*Repaint and protect the plastics from the base of the windshield area.

Questions/thoughts/extra:

*I chose the td57 so I'm forced to keep the car at moderate boost and power levels. I'm going for longevity and simplicity as I mentioned. The entire build plan is complete overkill for the turbo itself (ID725/2000s, stealth pump, 425lbs torque clutch) so increasing power is as easy as swapping the turbo and getting a tune.
*I found missing gaskets, lose connectors, missing connectors, corroding nuts and bolts all over the place. No wonder so much gunk had start to build up.
*The biggest modern (not classic only) car meet in my small town is a group of mustang owners.. They might love their mustangs, but only until they see the stock body lines of an FD! Plus my wheels are on! Work Meisters :grin:
*The build thread was everywhere.. a lot has changed for myself and what I'd like the car to be once complete so from here on the build thread will keep this format and be updated as much as I can between work.