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Final upgrades before my FD's 1st trip to Deal's Gap
This will be my 1st time taking this FD to DGRR, so in addition to all the usual maintenance work I always do prior to the roughly ~1300 mile round trip + about 200 miles of driving the snot out of it down there (i.e. all fluids, brake & suspension checks, etc.), I wanted to do a few more little upgrades & restorations on the FD to make it a nicer ride...
First up was to fix my FD's missing left oil cooler under tray piece, and getting a left side plastic fender liner to replace the hacked up one that was in my FD. I scored a good used oil cooler under tray piece from a guy on facebook, and got a new OEM Mazda fender liner piece from Mr. Crowe. Getting that new fender liner piece in was a bit of a PITA, that adventure is discussed here - https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...lties-1156348/
With that done, I was now able to deal with this. It always bothered me that my FD was missing an OEM front air dam, so I got a new OEM Mazda R1/R2 air dam via brother Ray. IMHO, this really improves the looks of the car, and it now looks "complete" to me. End result pictures:
Next up is lighting upgrades. I replaced all of the exterior bulbs with the exception of the headlights so far with LEDs. The LEDs are significantly brighter than the original incandescent bulbs, and they draw orders of magnitude less current from the electrical system which will keep your alternator, charging system and lighting circuit switches & components much happier. The other LED benefit is with brake lights - they reach full brightness MUCH faster than incandescent bulbs, giving you maybe 1/2 of a second more to get the attention of the cell phone using idiot behind you when you have to hit the brakes.
Only downside is when you replace the turn signal/flasher bulbs with LEDs, they will "hyper flash" because they draw much less current than the original bulbs - this was by design, to make the dash indicators hyper-flash whenever an incandecent bulb burns out. Easy modification to the flasher circuit in CPU#2 fixes the hyper-flash issue with LED turn signals. Dale has a great how-to post on that subject here - https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...ht-way-943516/
Couple of interesting things about Dale's flasher mod I discovered - (1) It works for the FC's CPU/flasher unit too, and (2) You don't need to replace the R1 resistor with the higher resistance (1M ohm) R1 Dale suggests - you can simply de-solder one of the 2 leads of R1 from the circuit board to open up the circuit. Which makes the mod easier to reverse if you ever decide to go back to incandescent bulbs. Why anyone would do that after using LEDs makes no sense to me, but car collectors craving "OEM original" can be OCD crazy about that sort of thing. Here's a picture of the R1 resistor that gets de-soldered:
This is actually a picture of an S5 FC CPU flasher unit, but it's identical in the FD.
I didn't take any before & after pictures of the LEDs to compare to the original bulbs, but here's one shot to give you an idea of how they look:
FYI, looking at the photos I can't tell for sure but if your front turn signal lenses are a little yellowed/tired you may want to do a restore kit on them. Turtle Wax has a $10 kit that's available at most parts stores that's amazing, has multiple sandpaper grits and has a wipe-on clear coat to protect when done. Did wonders for my RX-8.
Here's where I discovered that kit, great bang for the buck -
FYI, looking at the photos I can't tell for sure but if your front turn signal lenses are a little yellowed/tired you may want to do a restore kit on them. Turtle Wax has a $10 kit that's available at most parts stores that's amazing, has multiple sandpaper grits and has a wipe-on clear coat to protect when done. Did wonders for my RX-8.
Here's where I discovered that kit, great bang for the buck -
Dale
Yeah, that's just my garage lighting & my crappy phone photography. If you look at the air dam pictures with the lights off, you can see that the lenses are nice & clear - I already used a similar Meguire's kit that I had to polish out the dull yellowing on them.
One other thing that was bugging me with my FD was the floor mats. It came with a set of original OEM Mazda mats that were in great shape on the top/carpeted side, but the foam undersides were shedding away into these tiny gray/black chunks of foam that was making a mess of the carpet and required constant vacuuming to clean the mess. I was going to buy a set of mats from one of the vendors here, but really didn't want to since the part you see on my original mats looked practically new. Hell, the heel area on the driver's side mat had almost no wear, and the passenger side looked even better. So I thought maybe I could restore the undersides with some kind of rubberized coating, and figured why not try Flex Seal Liquid? The stuff goes on with a brush or roller, and it leaves behind a flexible water tight rubbery coating. Picked up a pint of the stuff at Walmart for about $15; can says a pint is good for covering about 17 square feet, so I figured it would be plenty. Here's some pictures of the process...
Here's a shot of the passenger side mat underside as it was. I used a putty knife to scrape off all the old foam. In some parts where the foam was still flexible and not crumbling, you can use the knife to start on an edge, and pull the rest off slowly with your fingers. This leaves a little bit of foam behind, but I just used a Scotch Brite pad to scrub off whatever was left. And here's the passenger mat with all the foam scraped/scrubbed off. Then I hit it with the shop vac to remove any dust from the surface, and it's ready for the Flex Seal. Here's the Flex Seal product I used. The 1st coat used up about 1/2 a pint, and the 2nd coat I applied used up almost the rest of it. I used a disposable foam brush to apply the Flex Seal This is the driver's side mat with the first coat applied & cured after about 18 hours. I noticed that the waffle pattern from the carpet substrate was showing thru in places, and since the mat remained very flexible, I figured a 2nd coat would be necessary. Here's the driver's side with the 2nd coat applied. Picture was taken about an hour after application, so it's still wet. Gave them a full 48 hours to dry/cure before putting them back in the car. This is actually a picture taken before I restored the mats, but you can see why they were worth restoring!
Overall I'm very happy with how they came out. For the $15 and less than an hour of my time, it sure beats spending $150~200 or so for a nice set of OEM style replica mats. The restored mats have about the same feel & flexibility of the originals, though the passenger side mat which lacks the "stay in place" grommet that the driver's side has, tends to slide around the carpet floor a bit easier than they did with the original foam bottoms. I was expecting that since the rubberized surface is a bit slipperier. Time will tell if this Flex Seal stuff is durable or not, so remind me to update y'all in about a year!
One other thing that was bugging me with my FD was the floor mats. It came with a set of original OEM Mazda mats that were in great shape on the top/carpeted side, but the foam undersides were shedding away into these tiny gray/black chunks of foam that was making a mess of the carpet and required constant vacuuming to clean the mess. I was going to buy a set of mats from one of the vendors here, but really didn't want to since the part you see on my original mats looked practically new. Hell, the heel area on the driver's side mat had almost no wear, and the passenger side looked even better. So I thought maybe I could restore the undersides with some kind of rubberized coating, and figured why not try Flex Seal Liquid? The stuff goes on with a brush or roller, and it leaves behind a flexible water tight rubbery coating. Picked up a pint of the stuff at Walmart for about $15; can says a pint is good for covering about 17 square feet, so I figured it would be plenty. Here's some pictures of the process...
Here's a shot of the passenger side mat underside as it was. I used a putty knife to scrape off all the old foam. In some parts where the foam was still flexible and not crumbling, you can use the knife to start on an edge, and pull the rest off slowly with your fingers. This leaves a little bit of foam behind, but I just used a Scotch Brite pad to scrub off whatever was left. And here's the passenger mat with all the foam scraped/scrubbed off. Then I hit it with the shop vac to remove any dust from the surface, and it's ready for the Flex Seal. Here's the Flex Seal product I used. The 1st coat used up about 1/2 a pint, and the 2nd coat I applied used up almost the rest of it. I used a disposable foam brush to apply the Flex Seal This is the driver's side mat with the first coat applied & cured after about 18 hours. I noticed that the waffle pattern from the carpet substrate was showing thru in places, and since the mat remained very flexible, I figured a 2nd coat would be necessary. Here's the driver's side with the 2nd coat applied. Picture was taken about an hour after application, so it's still wet. Gave them a full 48 hours to dry/cure before putting them back in the car. This is actually a picture taken before I restored the mats, but you can see why they were worth restoring!
Overall I'm very happy with how they came out. For the $15 and less than an hour of my time, it sure beats spending $150~200 or so for a nice set of OEM style replica mats. The restored mats have about the same feel & flexibility of the originals, though the passenger side mat which lacks the "stay in place" grommet that the driver's side has, tends to slide around the carpet floor a bit easier than they did with the original foam bottoms. I was expecting that since the rubberized surface is a bit slipperier. Time will tell if this Flex Seal stuff is durable or not, so remind me to update y'all in about a year!
WOW!!! If you dont mind I am going to have to copy you. Mine are original also and I have the same problem. I am so glad I did not throw them away.
So this year was my first time taking the FD to Deals Gap, and the twisty roads there confirmed my suspicions that its existing suspension sucked and had a tire rub problem, mainly on the left front wheel where it chewed up the brand new plastic fender liner I installed before the trip. Here's a shot of the carnage after I returned home...
I put that aluminum tape there to act as an indicator of rubbing & act as a sacrificial material when I installed the plastic liner. Plastic wore down to the metal though in one spot.
The FD was riding on a set of unknown spec Tein lowering springs, and Tokico Illumina 5-way dampers, and its alignment was suspect. Anyway, the worst of the fender liner wear was on the left side; right side had only minor rubbing evidenced. At Deals Gap, I had a chance to drive Dale Clark's FD for a bit, and that basically sold me on the Tein Flex-Z coil overs, which were already on my short list for my suspension upgrades.
Upon returning from Deals, I ordered a set of Tein Flex-Z coil overs for the FD, Some pictures of unpacking the box & inspecting the parts follow. They came with a pair of height adjustment wrenches, an Allen head thumb wheel tool to adjust the 16 position dampers, a comprehensive instructions manual and some cool Tein swag/stickers. Best deal I could find was on AutoHance.com; cost me $774 shipped and they delivered in about 3 days after the order was placed.
Yay, they arrived! Time to unpack the box... And all unpacked & bench inspected
Upon bench inspection, I noted a few minor concerns that might slow your roll on installation. 1 - Height adjustment of the 2 front coil overs were about 1/4" off from one another out of the box, and 2 - None of the dampers were pre-adjusted to the maximum stiffness setting as it says they should be in the manual. No big deal though, you can easily adjust the height of each corner when installed on the car, and it was easy enough to follow the instructions to adjust the damper's stiffness to where you want it.
Installation of these are pretty easy, simply follow the FSM procedures to remove your old spring/damper assembly and installation of the Flex-Z coil overs is basically the reverse. Then you set the ride height with the provided wrenches according to their instructions. I went with their manual's recommended settings, which it appears get you to a stock ride height. Some pictures of the installed coil overs:
Here's the installed front left Flex-Z. I also ended up priming & painting (black) that roughly 2 inch patch where the plastic wore down to the metal, re-attached the liner with some new clip fasteners, and added some AL tape to detect future rubbing And here's the right rear one installed
With the height of front & rear set to Tein's recommended settings, my car definitely sits a bit higher than it did before - best indication of that is I can stick more of my hand in between the fender arch and tire with the car sitting on the ground. So I doubt it's going to rub anymore, and I may even be able to lower it a smidge more.
Took it our for a little drive on my closest twisty road, and the ride & handling improvement is like night & day! It still can use an alignment, but it feels a lot more stable and planted than it did before, and no longer bottoms out or gets discombobulated on those off-camber corners like it used to
That is good news!!! The new Teins that is.
Please post a pic of the ride height. I was pretty surprised I didn't get any rub out of mine except one small area where the fender was rolled, but bent out a tiny bit while exiting a track and hitting a huge dip with the wheel turned. Nothing on the plastic though. I should have fixed it before the Dragon.
Deal's Gap was awesome and I was very happy to meet you and everyone else!! Congrats on the new coilovers!!!
So this year was my first time taking the FD to Deals Gap, and the twisty roads there confirmed my suspicions that its existing suspension sucked and had a tire rub problem, mainly on the left front wheel where it chewed up the brand new plastic fender liner I installed before the trip. Here's a shot of the carnage after I returned home...
I put that aluminum tape there to act as an indicator of rubbing & act as a sacrificial material when I installed the plastic liner. Plastic wore down to the metal though in one spot.
The FD was riding on a set of unknown spec Tein lowering springs, and Tokico Illumina 5-way dampers, and its alignment was suspect. Anyway, the worst of the fender liner wear was on the left side; right side had only minor rubbing evidenced. At Deals Gap, I had a chance to drive Dale Clark's FD for a bit, and that basically sold me on the Tein Flex-Z coil overs, which were already on my short list for my suspension upgrades.
Upon returning from Deals, I ordered a set of Tein Flex-Z coil overs for the FD, Some pictures of unpacking the box & inspecting the parts follow. They came with a pair of height adjustment wrenches, an Allen head thumb wheel tool to adjust the 16 position dampers, a comprehensive instructions manual and some cool Tein swag/stickers. Best deal I could find was on AutoHance.com; cost me $774 shipped and they delivered in about 3 days after the order was placed.
Yay, they arrived! Time to unpack the box... And all unpacked & bench inspected
Upon bench inspection, I noted a few minor concerns that might slow your roll on installation. 1 - Height adjustment of the 2 front coil overs were about 1/4" off from one another out of the box, and 2 - None of the dampers were pre-adjusted to the maximum stiffness setting as it says they should be in the manual. No big deal though, you can easily adjust the height of each corner when installed on the car, and it was easy enough to follow the instructions to adjust the damper's stiffness to where you want it.
Installation of these are pretty easy, simply follow the FSM procedures to remove your old spring/damper assembly and installation of the Flex-Z coil overs is basically the reverse. Then you set the ride height with the provided wrenches according to their instructions. I went with their manual's recommended settings, which it appears get you to a stock ride height. Some pictures of the installed coil overs:
Here's the installed front left Flex-Z. I also ended up priming & painting (black) that roughly 2 inch patch where the plastic wore down to the metal, re-attached the liner with some new clip fasteners, and added some AL tape to detect future rubbing And here's the right rear one installed
With the height of front & rear set to Tein's recommended settings, my car definitely sits a bit higher than it did before - best indication of that is I can stick more of my hand in between the fender arch and tire with the car sitting on the ground. So I doubt it's going to rub anymore, and I may even be able to lower it a smidge more.
Took it our for a little drive on my closest twisty road, and the ride & handling improvement is like night & day! It still can use an alignment, but it feels a lot more stable and planted than it did before, and no longer bottoms out or gets discombobulated on those off-camber corners like it used to
Nice Pete!
I’ve been riding on my Tein Flex Z coilovers for 4yrs and over 15k miles now with zero issues!
Bought them in 2018 for $699
I love the ride and they’re price very well for whatcha get 👍
Get that alignment done and you’ll be golden!
I bet you a nickel the old springs were the Tein S-Techs, they had an aggressive 1.5" or so drop. The H-techs were only like 3/4" and would not have had rubbing problems.
With stock spring type setups the rubber spring perch on the front driver's side wears down more since the car typically just has one person on it and more weight there. It sags more there and then you have rubbing issues. The coil overs solve that by getting rid of that rubber spring perch entirely.
BTW, the recommended settings in the manual for the Flex-Z are their recommended ride height, NOT stock FD ride height. Mazda had the car SUPER jacked up on stock suspension, especially in the rear. Tein's settings are a good ride height where it looks good, handles good, and doesn't rub.
I don't know if you could adjust it all the way up to stock ride height, the car would look horrible . But, there is a large range of adjustment for height with those coil overs which is good.
I bet you a nickel the old springs were the Tein S-Techs, they had an aggressive 1.5" or so drop. The H-techs were only like 3/4" and would not have had rubbing problems.
With stock spring type setups the rubber spring perch on the front driver's side wears down more since the car typically just has one person on it and more weight there. It sags more there and then you have rubbing issues. The coil overs solve that by getting rid of that rubber spring perch entirely.
BTW, the recommended settings in the manual for the Flex-Z are their recommended ride height, NOT stock FD ride height. Mazda had the car SUPER jacked up on stock suspension, especially in the rear. Tein's settings are a good ride height where it looks good, handles good, and doesn't rub.
I don't know if you could adjust it all the way up to stock ride height, the car would look horrible . But, there is a large range of adjustment for height with those coil overs which is good.
Dale
Hey Dale, I think you're right about having the more aggressive drop on the old Tein springs, and the rubber perches on those springs were basically chewed up & shot; driver's side worse than the passenger.
As far as my initial height settings, I'm using what Tein recommended in their install manual for a US spec FD. From their chart, I set the "B" dimension (length between the adjust collars) at 38 mm / 1.5 inch Front and 36 mm / 1.4 inches Rear. Not sure how that compares to a OEM stock FD ride height, but it looks like it's sitting a lot higher than it was before. Here's a quick picture of it sitting on the 4-post rack to give an idea.
If anything, I think it can stand to be adjusted a little lower, definitely not higher. As it sits now up front, I can now get my whole hand & wrist into the fender well from the arch top, and then easily make a fist once inside there at the top of the tire. Before there was barely enough space for me to squeeze my hand & wrist inside there and making a fist once in there wasn't possible. The other tell was that now when I put the car on my 4-post lift, and use the jacking tray & bottle jack to lift the whole front end from the cross member, now I only need to use the 1 big bottle jack in a single step. Previously, I needed to use my smaller bottle jack positioned a bit off-center on the cross member to lift it about an inch, so I can fit in the big bottle jack that can raise the car high enough to lift the tires off the ramps & put jack stands under there.
Shoot, I'd leave it that height, you don't have to be mega slammed and that ride height looks good.
I'd definitely measure from the wheel arch to the center of the wheels on each one. I'll look in my garage and see if I have my notes on how I set up my car, I wrote down the measurements as I went.
Greetings from Morocco, Pete! Just stumbled upon your thread. Congrats on all of the hard work. The payoff is very nice. Look forward to making it back to DGGR someday soon.
Greetings from Morocco, Pete! Just stumbled upon your thread. Congrats on all of the hard work. The payoff is very nice. Look forward to making it back to DGGR someday soon.
Thanks David, missed you at Deals this year, hope you can make it back next year!
Took it our for a little drive on my closest twisty road, and the ride & handling improvement is like night & day! It still can use an alignment, but it feels a lot more stable and planted than it did before, and no longer bottoms out or gets discombobulated on those off-camber corners like it used to
it turns out that tuning the damper/shock/strut is really easy. find some bit of road you can have a little fun on, no need to drive really fast or anything just something safe.
to calibrate the butt dyno, you will turn the shocks full stiff and go for a drive (it can/will be short)
then full soft, and go for a drive
and then set them in the middle, and you will now know which way to turn the **** to get what you want
Shoot, I'd leave it that height, you don't have to be mega slammed and that ride height looks good.
I'd definitely measure from the wheel arch to the center of the wheels on each one. I'll look in my garage and see if I have my notes on how I set up my car, I wrote down the measurements as I went.
Dale
Yeah Dale, I'm leaving it where it sits with Tein's recommended height settings. Car sits at a good looking height, I'm having zero rub issues with the tires even when pressed hard in tight corners. Got an appointment to get my alignment done at a shop next Friday. I didn't take measurements of the wheel center to fender arch before, but I did take ground-to-arch measurements that line thru the wheel centers. Same wheel/tires before & after, now all 4 arches are sitting 25-3/4 inches above the ground; before the rears were sitting at 25-1/4 and fronts were 25 (right) and 24-7/8 (left). The left to right difference up front was likely due to the chewed up rubber spring perches.
it turns out that tuning the damper/shock/strut is really easy. find some bit of road you can have a little fun on, no need to drive really fast or anything just something safe.
to calibrate the butt dyno, you will turn the shocks full stiff and go for a drive (it can/will be short)
then full soft, and go for a drive
and then set them in the middle, and you will now know which way to turn the **** to get what you want
Initially I just went with Tein's recommended setting - 8 clicks softer than max stiffness up front, and 9 clicks softer than max stiffness rear. Car seems very composed & happy that way. Then I was curious and basically did what you suggest to see how the calibration felt on the extreme settings. I suspect I'll experiment with running a click or two softer for driving the roads around here, which tend to be bumpy. For smoother & twistier pavement, I think the 8/9 click default settings or a click or two stiffer will be perfect.
Ride height looks good as is but...
Personally, I'd probably go for measurement closer to 25.5" if being conservative. Mine are around 25.25" up front and a wee bit higher in the rear since the rear is going to sit lower once my fat *** is in the driver seat.
This is now a few people who have said they are happy with Tein Flex Z coilovers, but I might want more ground clearance than in your photo. How much adjustment is left, do you think it could get near stock height?
04-15-22, 08:48 AM
. But, there is a large range of adjustment for height with those coil overs which is good.
