Ah, I remember that! Was your Instagram picture or something right?

Yeah, I'll admit that I've done some tool throwing in the last week or so with this wiring stuff Sometimes a tool just needs to get chucked at the floor in frustration! Better than breaking something at least.

That's right! I totally forgot about that, been a while since I swapped from a beehive to a FMOC. I'll have to cap that line off and just run the line to the rear housing - thanks for the reminder!



That's what I was working on tonight. Looks like I made absolutely no progress, but there's a lot done in there. I'll take some pics once it's all organized neatly again - won't be fora while yet I think.

 

This package was shipped on January 28th, and finally made it to the door today.


FB FMOC with stainless lines - I have an FC FMOC on the way with FC SS lines that I think I'll use instead, will have to decide when it gets here on Saturday.




Got the wiring all sorted out tonight!


Palm connected to the Rtek.


Palm showing the fault codes from the Rtek ECU.


Bluetooth Dongle plugged into the ECU in order to tune on my phone.


Running the Rtek tuning software on my phone, glad it works!


New phone background, in order to motivate me to make progress on the Epsilon wheels soon - maybe I'll get the tires dismounted this weekend.

 

Opening greasy car parts on a nice carpet. Like a boss!

 

That's the way to do it!

Car selfie today, woke up with my hair like that.


Opened the garage door finally, in order to clean the floor.




Painting 5 different parts all black at the same time.


Chassis is good and rigid! Only jacked up the driver's side and the passenger's side wheel came up - good to see!

 

Hey Austin, I just saw your car up for sale on Craigslist! I sure hope you're not serious

 

x2...WTF:scrat ch:

Girl problems huh

 

noooo....at least let the 7club guys have first crack at it. Or come on here to talk about it so we can talk you out of this. Hope everything is good..

 

Congrats on the first post in the build thread! I knew I'd catch some flack for it.

Not girl problems, just a moment of personal weakness.

Already been talked out of it, no worries

Alright, short story is this:
I had a day of weakness with the build. I did what I chastise my future mother-in-law for, not separating the process from the project. The process is the progression as the build moves forward, the project is the build in its entirety. I worried about the entire cost of the build in its finality and said I couldn't pay for it all with cash right now, so I therefore must not be able to afford it. Being younger than almost every member on this forum doesn't help since I grew up in the generation where instant gratification is rampant and usually a hindrance. The fiance wants me to keep it and finish it, and that's what I want as well. Just had that one day of doubt and I'm done with it already. Ad is deleted and I'm moving on! Glad to see there's a whole lot of support here though, thanks guys!

In an effort to continue to be motivated for this build, I made some visual progress tonight:


Got the passenger's side GSL-SE strut off of the black chassis. So I'll try to get the driver's side off as well pretty soon too. Then swapping in the ones from the red car so this one will roll onto the trailer nicely. Sad part is that I only really need the spindles and struts, since everything else is getting replaced.

 

austin, i will say...have a budget in mind on how much you can reasonably afford to spend to fix the car and stick to it. personal example...i would have loved to go single as it would have been easier and could easily make more power but due to my budget, i have to stay with the twins. can always upgrade down the road. if you don't have a budget, that's when you'll get into trouble.

 

Yeah very true, you need a realistic budget for both money and time at the start. Both will be somewhat fluid of course, but having a general idea before you dive in is key. I tried telling you a number of times that your "Drive by May/Summer" goal was unrealistic - as a result of having such a tight deadline you felt the need to spend money like crazy buying up ALL the parts you'll need in a short window of time. If you had planned on having it done by the end of the year, or next spring etc then you'd have more time to collect parts as you worked with the parts you did have.

Set more achievable, smaller goals to shoot for (milestones if you will, yes I work in project management if it's not obvious by now lol) and that'll help keep your sanity - example: "I want to have the wiring done by XX date" rather than "I want the whole car done by XX date". If you look at the thing as one big goal then you'll lose focus. Do we all want to go out right this minute and drive our finished cars, of course, but it takes time to get them to a "finished" state, just roll with it

 

Like me! I say since I have no budget, I have no schedule. But I'm getting tired of looking at it not progressing. I feel your pain Austin!

 

lmao, that is exactly where i'm at. usually i have a time deadline (sevenstock has always been a good one), and a loose budget. actually its more like the time deadline dictates a smaller scope of the project.

anyways, with the current FC, it hasn't had a time frame, as i didn't really even want the thing in the first place. its actually turned out to be kind of cool, i've gotten some incredible deals on some neat stuff, and its going to turn out to be pretty badass.

so i guess you could get a good look at a t bone by sticking your head up a bulls ***, but wouldn't you rather take the butchers word for it?

 

----new thread name----
My nightmare of an fb build that makes me feel like....OMGWTF.


On another note...I can see why it would discourage you when you add up total costs. One thing that I am concerned about is will this stuff you are doing or plan on doing increase the value of the car? Or is it personalizing it so much as to decrease marketability?

I say this for 2 reasons:
1) you plan on moving to another state,
2) if you're thinking of selling it down the road then do you really want to throw money away?


Now don't get me wrong I have no idea about FBs value. However, even in my FD builds I try to think of what will get me the biggest bang for my buck.

Ive seen your old t2 FB sitting up on CL for a numerous amount of months and it worries me.

I just don't think FBs have a strong market...at least here in Minnesota.

now that I probably made you rethink this build again (sorry ahhaha) good luck with the build .

 

Very good thread.

I actually went with cash to buy the former car, had everything on paper that I wanted, but I figured at the price that it's at, you'd have to be tossing quite a bit of money to upgrade the suspension, interior, stuff that needed to be redone, etc. I decided to pass knowing that if I bought the car and went to fix it, I'd be into it for almost 10K.

The one thing about a totally modified car to your liking is that it doesn't have the most value unless it's clean. I sold my former FC with a LS1/T56 and numerous mods for HALF of what I had into it. The only thing I did well on was parting out the extra **** the buyer didn't want/need. But I never did a complete add up to see what I lost.

So all in all, I agree with Broke.

 

I get what you're saying, I didn't stick to a budget up to this point and that's a huge part of why I'm at where I am with the build. I'd love to go REW but can't afford it right now so this one will be staying S4 TII for quite a while and I'll have to learn to be ok with that. Thanks for the insight!

I guess it never occurred to me that the constrained timeline would also constrain the budget, I was missing the biggest part of what you were saying. I probably would have still gone nuts, but maybe not quite as badly as I did there.

Looking at the whole car is what made me lose the drive and focus for it. I'm usually pretty good at getting small attainable goals done on time and I'm getting better at prioritizing which ones to get done first. I will just have to keep remembering to set small attainable goals that are pertinent to the final product that the car will be. Thanks for all your help so far man, couldn't have gotten this far without ya!

No doubt, the no budget and no schedule is definitely a dream killer. Watching it sit out in the garage with no plans on it moving under its own power for another year is very hard for me to watch. It'll get better though man, keep chugging away at it!

Haha that's a similar mentality to mine! I thought I could have this beast up and going by this summer and that I'd just scale back on some of the peripherals and just get it to run and drive. Turns out that I'll end up getting to do more than I bargained for to this chassis in the end and I can't wait to get some more big projects done to it! I never would have snagged the louvers, glass sunroof, widebody, wheels, SE suspension - all of that stuff if I didn't have this swap already in mind.

I love that quote. Long live the legend (because the man unfortunately died)!



Bwahaha I'm not that bad!

All of you FB guys in here feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!

The four most valuable First Gen RX-7's are generally these (not in order, it varies):
1. Low mileage and unmolested
2. Completed, beautiful widebodies that are generally turbo swapped
3. Race-prepped and ready to rip sanctioned chassis
4. Early VIN SA's (preferred low mileage and unmolested status)

Some of the widebodies that I've seen roll through eBay and the forum here have fetched upwards of $8,000 and are usually listed for no less than $5,000. They generally have a turbo engine of some sort or another, and are in decent to immaculate shape to get up towards that $8k range. Low mileage and low VIN will always fetch good money, and race-prepped cars generally get a fair amount as well when someone wants a good base to start racing on the track with.

That TII FB has many drawbacks that this chassis already doesn't have:
1. Open rear end
2. Drum-braked rear end
3. 4x110 wheel pattern
4. 13" terribly offset wheels
5. Extremely molested interior
6. Sketchy wiring (to anyone but me, I could still figure it out)
7. Huge crunch in the back corner that probably needs to be cut out and rewelded or Bondo'ed like crazy (I didn't do it)
8. Unknown engine internal condition and mileage
9. Non-widebody or aftermarket exterior parts - bone stock and boring besides IMSA wing
10. Paint fading on roof and hood, needs a whole repaint

Those are probably the main reasons that car has sat, and will continue to sit, on the market for a long time.

The reason I've decided to do such a huge build this go-round is to make it better, faster and better-looking.
1. LSD GSL-SE rear end
2. Disc-braked rear end
3. 4x114.3 wheel pattern
4. 16" staggered 3-piece Epsilon Center Lock wheels with awesome offsets
5. Standard, unmolested and clean interior that looks almost factory
6. Tucked wiring that's clearly labeled and ran nicely
7. Body is straight, relatively dent-free and has no rust
8. Known engine internal condition and mileage after rebuilding the engine
9. Widebody kit with wing will be installed before it's done
10. Fresh coat of paint when it emerges

That's exactly most of the reason that I haven't bought it back yet. Someday I'd love to park that one next to my other cars since it was the first car I ever bought and paid for with my own money. It taught me a great many things and I'd love to have it back for sentimental reasons.

But just like you said, for $5k purchase price I'd want to upgrade at least $5k worth of suspension, body and engine work so it's just not worth it to me right now. Someday I'd like it back, but if it's not in the cards then I'll just whoop that thing's a$$ with this car I'm building now in every single way possible

I completely hear what you both are saying. If I finished this build up and left it in a similar condition to my last one it wouldn't be worth the approximate $4,000 I have into it so far, with another $2,000 needed to get it towards running and driving like my last one did.

I'll be even more deeply invested into this car by the time it's done but it'll be clean, be relatively unmolested and original (wiring and interior-wise I mean), and will hopefully be able to win some car shows. This is quite a while in the future, I've still got a lot of work to get done and more money to invest to get to that point.

 

Congrats if you read through all of that!

Now for a car update, finally!

FB oil cooler on bottom, FC oil cooler on top:


Comparison between the FC FMOC lines and the FB FMOC lines - the FB lines are much shorter because the FB FMOC is meant to mount directly underneath the FB radiator whereas the FC mounts in front of the radiator.
Long SS oil cooler lines on bottom, shorter ones on top:


So this car is getting the FC FMOC (Front Mount Oil Cooler) with the FC SS lines and adaters for the engine are already here. I just need to order the adapters from the FMOC to the AN lines - any idea what the thread pitch is on an FC FMOC? I'm going to look at Mazdatrix in just a minute because I know that they carry some of the adapters at least.

 

Wow...you must have spent quite some time with the images ahahhahah

I'm doing a 2jz in my g35. That is definitely not going to be cheap.

My motto is this, "if you're not making money then you're doing something wrong in life."

Well I think I just made it up ahah.

 

Epic reply.

Nice thing is that you learn from one build to do a better one next. Which sounds like you're doing. Can't wait to see it.

 

Adaptors?

My understanding you're referring to the one on the oil pedestal and front cover?

If so, the rear pedestal is 18mmX10an and the front cover is the same as the 20b front cover: 16mmx10an (1.5 thread).

If you want to verify, I have both. I'm using them, but it would be a "test fit" for you to make sure.

 

lmao! were you in there just now, you are a psycho!

for value i think you're generally right, a real IMSA car with race history would top the list, followed by low mile GSL-SE's, then SA's, and then everything else. not sure about widebodies.

i guess with my FC, i've been able to do a lot of neat parts, cheap enough that i'm not loosing my shirt if i sold it.

 

I didn't realize anyone on here actually gave a **** about the value of their builds when they were completed lol. I thought it was kinda common knowledge that these cars aren't, and most likely never will be, worth much of anything. Other than the very low mileage SE and SA examples as mentioned above. To me that's part of the appeal, the fact that you can build one without spending an arm and a leg, and if done right you're left with a small, good handling car that can keep up with or pass most modern cars.

Back to the budgeting comments - Honestly to me, there is only one budget when doing a project and it is made up of both time and money, they're that interdependent. The big difference between building a car for yourself, and working with a team on a $20+ million system upgrade (it's as boring as it sounds) is that you don't have bosses breathing down your neck for "deliverables" and sign off dates and what not, it's all for you. Just figure it'll take you an extra 6 months to finish it and just work on making it as perfect as you can

 

thats the problem with these cars at the moment, its easy to spend 10k building one, and then its worth like $2500? so i just watch what i spend building it.

 

Yeah it's definitely easy to get that much into one of these. I guess my point was that I didn't really think most of us cared, we just build these cars up because we liked them/wanted to. It's not like we're restoring a 71 Hemi Cuda with intentions of going to Barrett-Jackson and making a fortune. Most cars, other than the really rare/desirable ones, will never be worth as much as what's invested in them, so I don't really bother caring

 

have to agree here. everyone who mods their cars should know that they'll never get 100% return (u'd be lucky to get 50% return even). that doesn't mean u have an unlimited budget though so spend smartly, have fun during the build process, and enjoy the end result (if ever we get to it). for me, it's a hobby that takes my mind off work and the everyday stresses of life so i don't mind spending a little to keep me sane...or i could pay a shrink, but i'd rather not =)

 

Amid all of the replies, I was able to get some stuff done to the car in the last few days since the last update.

Dumb drum rear axle removed from the red car finally.








Burned out the bushings from the rear control arms, in order to replace them with the polyurethane ones I have sitting in a cupboard.






In the process of removing the rear Watts Linkage I broke the two bolts off of the center section. They were very rusty and I should have known better than to attempt to remove them in the state they were in, but I tried anyways. So now I'll have to shop for a new center section for that linkage.


Rusty old bolts before sitting in a container with Coca-Cola, Mineral Spirits and some WD-40.