The Titanic (Thanks Dan)
 

Life has a way of screwing with your plans and kicking you in the nuts when you're down. Jalopy, shit sled, disaster. These are the names I have called my 2nd FD. I've seen alot of crappy FDs around but I'd say my newest one is one of the worst. When you pick up your car and on the way home, you get a call from the seller saying that they see coolant on the driveway, you know you might be in trouble. When you first see the car and the seller is standing in a way to cover up some chassis damage, you might be in trouble. When you take a look in the engine bay and it looks like a hobo has been sleeping there, you might be in trouble. When the rocker panel has a dent larger than your head, you might be in trouble. When the chassis looks more "experienced" than the heartiest geriatric prostitute, you might be in trouble.

When your FD has wheels like this...
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You might be fucked.

This is my journey. This is my rolling pile of disaster, sorrow, heartache and bad luck. This is the story of shit box. Saddle up and prepare to cry (or laugh you smug bastard).

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Thank you Dan for the perfect name for my car. Haa.

Yikes, I had no idea it used to have wheels like that on it. And at least the bumper was put to good use. The new one will look nice once everything is all painted.

Best thing about those wheels is they're worth $25 each at the scrap metal place.

Dale

I ended up giving them to a friend hahaha. They were weighed as well. I think it was like 25lbs each or something. I forget.

So the original plan was to make this a non-seq car and drive it around as a beater for a while until I decide to go all out and go single. Well turns out the motor had other plans for me. A coolant seal definitely went and it was time for a new motor.

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So at this point I was sort of at a cross road. Is this car worth spending money on? Of course not. Common sense would dictate that I try to sell the car to some unsuspecting newb buyer but I couldn't. If there is one thing I lack, it's common sense.

Here is my busted fender!
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It's a bit hard to see in pictures but the car came with a good amount of rust on both doors and it looks as if it has been side swiped or it tried to squeeze into some area that was just to small to fully accomodate the car.

Sorta like this maybe...
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As for the huge dent in the rocker panel, maybe during a car chase, jalopy made a quick left turn to escape the cops and jumped a curb in the process like this!
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This would explain why the car was so extremely misaligned! I steering wheel had to be turned almost at a 45 degree angle to drive straight!

Maybe the car then proceeded to head first into the back of an SUV to cause this wonderful damage to the bumper!
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bahahahahahahhah roflmao. When you have to go to bubble tech to get body work done...you know youre in trouble bahahahha this is going to be great. i wonder if the dmv will except shitbox for a custom plate........ id steal it proudly =)

I must say, the body division of bubble tech is very good fellas. I highly recommend them.

Well, maybe things aren't so bad inside the car. I've got to admit, the interior pieces looked pretty good. They seem to have a protective layer of dirt everywhere. Dirt was in all the cracks to protect the wiring from the elements. I think this car was actually used as some sort of a trailer to transport dirt around!

Besides all the dirt that was on and inside the dash, I found these gems when removing some pieces around.

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Notice that one of the tabs for the taillight seems to be on incorrectly and for all intents and purposes, my antenna will remain impotent forever.

I'm afraid to rip into the interior some more. I wouldn't be surprised if I found dead animals or even babies in there.

Besides that, I discovered that pretty much all the switches don't work. Sweeeeeeet. Most of the switches seem to look out of places and hacked up to indicate that repairs were attempted and I was provided with a set of exterior door handles to fix the alarm blaring everytime I try to get into my car. This car and I seem to be getting off on the wrong foot.

Soooo where was I going with this...

O right. What to do. What to dooo. Finding a new motor to put into the car would be to expensive. I better do the next best thing and... Go v8!!!! No seriously, this was my line of thinking. So began the restoration of my fecal chariot. I'll finally be able to answer the question many of us have.

Can you put lipstick on a pig...

All signs point to NO.

:lol: hahaha No problem buddy....It may be rusty and beat up, but the Titanic shall raise again!!! :icon_tup: Looking forward to seeing progress pictures.

-Dan

PS I think black car track car is in worse condition...Minus the wheels, though they aren't far off.

So now we know some of what's wrong with the car. Let us look at what is right with it.

Well...
The car did have a hood and wipers. The wipers seem to have a case of metal herpes. The hood also has a cool mark from the UIM. That's pretty sweet. It's sort of like a reminder that once, the car had a motor in it.
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The car was fairly safe to drive around. The lights worked. The car also had an aftermarket koyo rad which is great and it even had a Blitz Nur spec exhaust that has a bit of surface rust. It did give the car a distinctive drone which made the ride home pretty pleasant. Ahh it doens't matter, I could just listen to tunes to drown out the noise but unfortunately, every CD I gave to the headunit was rejected. The head unit was sort of like the Manute Bol of headunits, never skipping a beat. Constantly rejecting everything I threw at it. It felt like prom all over again but at least prom ended or I could leave early to go cry myself to sleep. No my friends, there is no escape. I'll have hours of listening to BWAAAAAAAAAAH. I wouldn't have minded this so much if the car felt faster but it pulled like a Geo Metro. Besides the radiator and the exhaust, the car also had another awesome upgrade. The car was turned into a manual from an automatic! The best mod any auto FD can have (j/k hahaha, but no really it's true, come on fellas man up a little). Some things were left over from the swap though. The most notable, the 3.9 diff which made the car very awkward to drive at first. The tranny did shift great though and I forgot how wonderful the stock bus steering wheel was. Unfortunately, the car had a water temp gauge and no way for me to tell if the car was overheating. This combined with the voracious coolant thirst the car had developed made for a poor driving experience. I did not enjoy the ride home. The car shat coolant. It came out like diarrhea after you've eaten at Denny's or maybe even a white castle milk shake back when they used potatoes as a thickening agent. I got a bit worried during the trip and decided to get help from some rx7 buddies. I ended up going to Dan's place and have him top off my coolant. Thanks Dan! You rock!

Well, the first upgrade I did was to change the hideous wheels. I felt like an asshole driving around with them on. I couldn't let people see the car with these wheels on even if the car did suck. It was still an Rx7 after all and it deserved better...Right? RIGHT???

Let me remind you of what they looked like...
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See that guy on the top left? That's my friend Gary. I bet he wishes he doesn't exist anymore. I'd feel the same way if someone posted a pic of me next to this car.

Jesus man. I thought I was riding around in ninja stars. This was the type of wheel that a 5 year old would put on his drawing.
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Usually a kid grows up and realizes how lame his tastes were and goes with something better when he grows up but apparently the guy that bought these wheels did not come to this realization. Neither did the guy that designed the wheels. I feel very sorry for both of them. These wheels should not exist. It's just wrong. These wheels have a right to be on an FD like Gallagher has a right to be on stage doing his stand up. I don't understand. I really don't.

Sooo, I did what any other member on the forum would do. I bought stock wheels and put up a for sale thread for the wheels.

As some of you already know, this was not a success. Here is my FS thread.
https://www.rx7club.com/wheels-tires...wheels-945249/
In that thread, you will see the weakest description of wheels you have ever read. In retrospect, I wish I spiced up the description. I should have mentioned that they were round and maybe that they were made in the USA (maybe). These wheels quite literally had value to no one. Sort of like AIDs. Here are some great responses from the thread.

Diiicks hahahaha.

This one was my favorite.

I really wish this could have panned out. It would have been hilarious.

Looking back at the thread, I was wrong about the weight. They were 50lbs per corner.

So I did end up getting stockers on the car. Much better. I now have a roller with stock wheels. Now that the car isn't offensive anymore, it's time to actually get it on the road ASAP. It's time for v8.

because each tire is inflated with dirt lol ;) dont be a douche bag. if youre painting the car remove that lame ass antenna. if money is the issue bring it over. ill trade you some welding for a foot massage...... if u paint it with the antenna in, i will find you and key it.


PROMISES.

Hahaha yea man the antenna is going to be shaved off. A very Rx7 fix hahaha. If you see a CEL take out the bulb! I hate pop music these days anyway. Bierber sucks.

So now that it was time to get the car running again, I had to pick a shop to do the work. I had to pick a shop that would be able to do the job quickly. I needed a shop that had experience doing v8 swaps. I hunted around and eventually I picked speed1. Dave is surprisingly knowledgeable about the swap. Everything I researched he already knew. There was NO surprising him. Apparently, speed1 does ALOT of v8 swaps fellas. I ended up going with a Samberg kit and even Justin knew about speed1 because he ships so many of his kits there. I was drowning and finally, a hand reached down to save me. At first I was a little hesitant because I didn't know any of the people that worked at Dave's shop and I like to know who is going to work on the car but Brian was there and he's good people and certainly knows his shit. Plus he looks like Ethan Hawke and celebrities don't lie.
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Well, time passes. Swap parts were gathered. Work began. Of course, me being me, I had to complicate things so I ended up buying stuff like an oil baffle, Pez headers, custom exhaust, trailing arms, toe links, projector HIDs and Ohlins. Also, some swap parts were needed so I had to hit up Justin (awesome guy btw). Things were delayed, checks were sent, Brian was hassled (hahaha sorry buddy) and finally, the swap was complete.
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Not fucking bad huh? Yordan did a great job. Look how well the motor fits!! Everything looks O E FUCKING M!! I even put on the poseur vette fuel covers. I now owned an LS2 FD. The car still felt like a huge turd but at least it was a quick turd.

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Apparently the work done on the exhaust is top rate! I have no idea about what constitutes good work when it comes to exhausts so I'll just leave you with that picture. With the new exhaust setup, the car was LOUD. I still had the Nur spec on there and it was raspy as hell. The car was super obnoxious and I hated it. I even hated it when it backfired. When the car backfires, it makes these weird noise like metal rattling in a can or something. I thought something was wrong with the tranny. All of the obnoxiousness eventually grew on me and I learned to love the car. It shook like armageddon at around 2000rpm but man did the car feel raw. I see the appeal of v8. The T56 was another story. It felt like shit. I thought I was driving a truck. This may be due to the short shifter that was installed though. Apparently, a mounting plate was missing (or lost) so the install had to be a bit improvised. This was like, NY taco sloppy. I'm not talking about in terms of food (in case some of you didn't get the reference). When I first got into the car, the shifter had so much movement in 1st gear, I thought it was in neutral. I was trying to shift into diffent gears while I was in 1st. It was very confusing. Each throw of the shifter was so long. I felt like I was literally rowing a boat. The side to side was so long that the shifter actually hit the ebrake handle when it was up. I'll be adding a new short shifter to the list. In the end, the car ended up doing around 350/350 on a base tune that was running super rich (real tune coming up) and had enough torque to take off at 3rd gear, which was great because sometimes 1st and 2nd gear were hard to hit. The clutch was surprisingly supple for the power it held and the response of NA felt great.

Ahh crap, I'm late for my delivery. I better speed the fuck up. WTH? This small piece of shit sportscar is in the way of my exit. I should just slow down, get behind him and take the exit...

Hahahaha noooo. I'll just leave my turn signal off, merge into his lane and give him a quick honk as I merge into him. He should be able to read my mind and get out of the way in time. This seems like the better idea.

Ethan Hawk is actually Hudson Hawk's brother..lol!
.Nice stuff.

The exhaust looks good. Nice and simple. Trying to get my post count up.

My man!!! No freaking way!! What's up!! Thanks for answering all my questions and being an all around great car guy. It's rare to have a pleasant experience in the auto industry and my transactions with you were great.

Looks like she's had a hard life...How many miles on the chassis? Looks like she's been around the clock a few times :lol:

High 90s!

Aftermath of the accident.
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This actually happened on the way to the bodyshop. Hilarious.

Insurance going to step in at this point and help you pay for the work?

Man that conversion turned out super clean. Where did you source the engine/transmission? Please PM with a few more specifics, including approximate price of the work/materials done if you don't mind :nod:

Would love to have both a 13B and LS2 FD someday :icon_tup:

Stephen

They are but it was a case of the truck driver's word against mine so my insurance still had to pay out even though I was not found liable. So I'm guessing, they pay me now and pad my insurance so I pay them more over the long run. Fantastic!

The motor/trans was sourced by speed1. They have some local shop or something that sells them. Even came with a small warranty. I could have saved maybe a hundo or two sourcing the motor on my own but this way I could avoid shipping and have peace of mind. As far as the price, I wish I could tell you but I had extra stuff done so it was a bit hard to separate out. I'd shoot you a guess but you should email Dave to get a real ball park figure. The swap is the one thing that is good about the car and I'm certainly very happy with it.

I should probably give a shoutout to improved racing for supplying me with some of the parts. Very pleasant to deal with.

awesome write up and sounds like my first FD...i am sure you've heard "so why the fuck would you buy this car" all too often, i know i did!

Well, insurance ended up taking care of my damages which is nice. Of course I will get screwed with an increased premium even though I was found to not be at fault. An alignment was included with the repairs so I thought this would be a good opportunity to straighten everything out and replace my stock wheels with something a bit more suitable. I figured I do this ASAP since something seems to be rubbing against my stock wheels when I turn the steering wheel lock to lock.
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The changing of the wheels fixed the odd rubbing problem I had but the tires were as bald as it gets and SURPRISE! The wheels now rub against the damaged fender.

So if you'll permit me to repost an old pic...
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You'll notice how the edge of the fender sort of protrudes towards the tire acting like a steak knife getting ready to rip open my delicious tire steak. This is not good. Couple that with a larger diameter wheel that is about 1 finger from the sharp fender and it's pretty obvious that this car has now become a death trap. Out of the fire and into...the fire. I've actually made the car worse and so the suffering continues. The good thing is that the danger of blowing out the tire now distracted me from the constant droning of my exhaust and the heat coming from my transmission tunnel because I don't have a proper cover for where the shifter is. This is scary stuff. Everytime I hear the tire rub a little piece of me died inside and a little bit of poop would come out of me. None of my passengers noticed because this is NJ and anything can smell like poop at any random moment and I live next to two sanitation plants. This must be remedied immediately. It was time to make a trip to bubble tech to get my recaros back and to ask Benny for help.

^Hooooooooly crap.