Hi All,
After having owned the car for more than a year I'm finally making this thread to partly keep a track of things for myself, and partly sharing this all with others.
And while I'm writing this my car is in the city of Angeles for a motor rebuild, although it's almost finished and I'll pick up the car in couple days.
So far I've been keeping an Excel file by documenting (will still keep on doing) every little bits of changes in the car from the first day I got it, such as the type of resisters used to dim otherwise too-bright AutoMeter on-pilar gauges, etc.

A very enthusiastic beginning. Year 2014


arrival

It came with a wide body kit (I believe it's bnsport) molded into it. Converted into single turbo and the original engine at 95k miles (I knew it may not last too long at that stage, so no surprises for me so far).

Well, I must say i wasn't really comfortable driving an FD too low/too fast and too strange to me [It didn't show any abuse at all externally but I "made sure" it didn't last too long], so after some abuse and some fiberglass cracks here and there I've decided to go for a whole body fix/repaint (I had a friend running a body shop at that time, so I got some discount there).

Stripped down and being prep-ed:





There have been lots of additions like BBK brakes, interior (notice the steering wheel), suspension etc. But I'll skip them for now in this post.

So fast forward NOW.

Now my car is in a rotary shop named Garage Life in Los Angeles for engine rebuilt and tune. And actually it's already almost ready for pickup, probably I'll take the car this weekend.
So far they have been updating me with pics and videos about the progress (and I've not visited them since I dropped the car off).

Couple pics of the blown engine and new one



damaged rotor, housings



new housings


We decided to go with a moderate power levels for the new engine at first for a duration of some brake-in period. On the dyno car pulled 270whp and 220wtq at 7-8psi.



on the dyno

I'm planning for more power in the future. So, to be continued.
And thanks for your attention.

 

Any updates?

 

In terms of power, not yet. i'm planning on taking the car back to the shop in couple months to have a boost controller installed and tuned for more power. pm me if you have a particular question

 

Any more pics of the body work. What color are you going with?

 

Actually we finished it already several months ago. I decided to go with the original color code - brilliant black. Although I was thinking about orange and red too.
I don't have many pics for this work, only few. Here it's
already finished :

 

Last weekend was kind of SBGarage dedicated. Installed their passenger side foot rest which in my opinion looks super cool inside the car and you'd start thinking it should've been there from the beginning.
Also installed their rear big brake kit (bigger rotors and custom made brackets). Needless to say, they look better than the smaller OEM rotors. And I guess they are a better fit (in terms of performance) with my project mu front BBK.

 

Couple more things I've added during last couple months. New floor mats from JasonS (a forum member) which I really like - a very quality work:




And my upgrade for front brakes into Project Mu 4 piston/4 pad BBK. Haven't tested them to their max potential, but so far I like them. Although now I've to push the brake pedal deeper (than with OEM calipers) to engage the brakes, and I guess this is because these new pistons are bigger in size than OEM ones. So my next mod, in terms of brakes, would be upgrading the master cylinder.


New vs old