I figured it would be a good time to start a build thread even though i have the car mostly dissembled minus the suspension. Will be getting ready for a paint job in the next month or so. Was planning on changing color slightly to a more darker red something like the solid red a54 on the 370z.

My intentions with this build is to take a 20+ year car and bring it back to life. My plan right now consists mostly of bringing the car back to almost stock condition except for bolt on mods.

The car was working when i bought it but visually not in the condition i wanted so here we are

This is my very first attempt at restoring a car so it will be slow.

 

Looks like you have quite the project! Did you spray a sound deadener on the floor boards?

... Those wheels need to go! :-)

 

Yeah I sprayed lizard skin down. The car had a body kit and those 19's when I bought it. Trust me they are being changed lol. 19's don't look right on a stock body rx7.

 

Little update picture

 

Little teaser. This isn't my work but rather a company in Edmonton, AB.
The color I had chosen is the Mazda true red.

 

Fresh from the paint shop

 

That looks great! I am happy to see someone take all the proper steps to repaint their FD! Pulled all of the glass, trim, and bolted on panels. On top of it you sprayed it in a booth. Great job!

Is that the factory red?

 

No its Mazda's OEM true red. I didn't actually do any of the painting, i stripped it all myself and sent it to a paint/autobody place. They done everything from sand blasted engine bay, stripped to bare metal rest of car and best of all, repaired my weld jobs lol.

 

Been working on painting engine bay brackets, headlight brackets, brake booster, etc.

I used a 2k epoxy then the sem trim paint. I'm happy with the results. I may have put it on to thick but still looks good, the semi gloss finish helps.

Looks 10x better then before.

 

That's a nice bright red. I like it. Now, did you strip everything down yourself to help mitigate some of the cost that otherwise would have been added to the paint job?

 

Yeah i stripped it all myself. Had a glass company remove the glass front and rear and then i shipped it out on a trailer to get the paint job done.

 

Yeah stock for now. I got ahead of myself in buying parts well before they were needed lol. Got a gruppe CF intake along with a greddy SMIC and a full SMB 3" exhaust with the 100 cell substrate.
So for now to avoid wasting all that money I'm going to keep stock twins and engine. Get it all up and running and then look into another engine ported with a single maybe.

 

Way to stay in the family by going with "true red". It looks super vibrant, and actually adds a bit of a more modern feel to the car compare to vintage red. Wish I can afford to paint my car

 

Yeah paint jobs aren't cheap that's for sure. Today's age labour is the most expensive part about it. But it saved me the grief of doing it myself and then redoing it lol. I can only imagine the cost of a paint job for them to strip the car down also.

 

Been working on it constantly. Haven't been posting nothing new so here it is. Once i get sick of doing something i try to do something else so this project will be all over the place.
Brake booster and clutch master is in, along with wiper motor and wipers. In the process of stripping down all interior vinyl wrapped plastics and dying them a deeper black. It may not appear to be different then OEM but 20 year old vinyl is showing a bit of age, that combined with my OCD i had to do something with it lol. The picture posted is after the dye. I'm happy with the results. Also stripped down the blower and A/C evaporator unit and cleaned it all up.

 

Forgot to mention a back up camera, mirror hasn't arrived yet.

 

Looks good man, keep it up!

 

Looks good, hard to believe how much nicer that shade of red looks especially freshly painted.

 

what dye did you use for the door panels? they came out looking brand new, thats amazing......

 

Vinyl Dye | Plastic Paint | Body Filler | Leather Paint | Vinyl Paint | Wood Filler
Varikote

Some areas I messed up.. somewhat rough texture caused from my limited use of a spray gun. Inconsistent distance from the part but the major issue I had first was the gravity feed cup lid had a small vent hole that clogged up causing insufficient paint to come out. Overall I'm happy with the results. I haven't tried it but tempted to use a acrylic thinner and see if it can be wiped off and reapplied.

 

Well, here we go.
Here are a couple pictures of my battery cable re-route. I went through the transmission tunnel. At first I thought I didn't think through it enough because after it was done i looked at the ppf and figured it would be touching it but after further inspection I believe the ppf sits further up in tunnel. Then, I forgot that the catalytic converter runs down there as well. After sizing up a few pictures online I think I may have gotten lucky. Worst case scenario I have to move the positive bulkhead further up towards the front. Also, I have a SMB 100 cell substrate which is alot smaller then aftermarket cat's.

 

WOW. This is truly inspiring! Must be nice earning that oil money. Keep it up man.

 

Yeah being in the oil patch has definitely fueled this project for sure but also I made good choices. This is my one and only toy so my baby get what she wants lol. I figure this will be the only sports car I ever own . And to think that two years ago I didn't have the confidence to rebuild a two stroke 800 cc engine in my 01 mountain cat lol.

 

Hey man, all gotta start somewhere. Haha ya, you clearly have a much more responsible hobby than a lot of the other dudes up there. Keep the pictures flowing!

 

Yeah, im settled down pretty good. I've become more antisocial since getting the car actually but its all good, keeps my mind occupied.