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This car has always been like one step forward and two steps back, its like a dance. when i put it together it coulda been a race car, so i left the windshield washer system out. easy weight reduction, although small.
however ten years on, it would be nice to have windshield washers, and who cares about the weight*
so i dug up the washer tank, and the line on the car
(do i loose points for having it on the dryer and not the washer?)
it seemed like it was going to be really easy, 4 bolts, peel back the fender liner. but of course the front bolt was kind of hard to get to, brake duct had to come out, and then i had to move my coolant tank, which required taking the washer out. putting the bracket back, and then putting the tank out. so it took way longer than it should have
and then, there were no washer hoses on the hood!
in theory i have them somewhere, but who knows where
so after way too much work, i just have this, lol
It's funny, I was just talking to a friend of mine about how times have changed. Back in the 2005ish era, everything was about weight reduction, at all costs. AC, PS, washer bottle, removing all the sound deadening... grams mattered because speed. At the time we thought the tradeoffs were worth it, but man I cannot fathom deleting the simple things that make a car functional like washer fluid "because racecar". Glad to see you addressing the quality-of-life things!
It's funny, I was just talking to a friend of mine about how times have changed. Back in the 2005ish era, everything was about weight reduction, at all costs. AC, PS, washer bottle, removing all the sound deadening... grams mattered because speed. At the time we thought the tradeoffs were worth it, but man I cannot fathom deleting the simple things that make a car functional like washer fluid "because racecar". Glad to see you addressing the quality-of-life things!
+1. a few years ago i had the thing running ok but wasn't really driving it much. i've been trying to make it something i want to drive more.
i'm pretty close too!
It's funny, I was just talking to a friend of mine about how times have changed. Back in the 2005ish era, everything was about weight reduction, at all costs. AC, PS, washer bottle, removing all the sound deadening... grams mattered because speed. At the time we thought the tradeoffs were worth it, but man I cannot fathom deleting the simple things that make a car functional like washer fluid "because racecar". Glad to see you addressing the quality-of-life things!
I think all of us who went thru that are getting older. Speed isn't as large as a concern as comfort anymore. All my cars are getting AC and power steering going forward.
a few weeks ago i decided to put the speaker covers back on. they don't fit with the Mazdaspeed strut bar.
so i cut little notches on the speaker covers
i also had installed the bar over the carpet, and i decided to cut the carpet, and put the bar on the metal. kind of glad i did, cause the bolts weren't that tight.
so now bar is metal to metal, and properly tightened.
It's been a while since i've updated this! the big thing that has happened is that i have acquired a 3d printer. its an old Prusa MK2S, and it has been kind of perfect. the first couple of weeks were figuring out how to get it to work. it came with a wadded up piece of plastic stuck on the nozzle. then there was no SD card, no spool for the filament, stuff like that. then the Rx7 choice, do you start by pulling it completely apart, cleaning everything, and putting it all back together? or just dusting it off and seeing what happens? (i was under the impression that something was wrong with it). i decided to just dust it off and see what happens, and its been fine.
so there was a mad dash to look for stuff to print, many thanks to Need a T2, who has a bunch of files.
after that i tried Fusion 360 again. many years ago (2009?) i took a Solidworks class, and so i knew how to use, well Solidworks 2007. Getting going with Fusion took a bit, it's frustrating i know what i want, but the buttons are all different.
i'm still getting the hang of it, but its been really nice to draw something up, print it, see how it doesn't fit, adjust the drawing, print it again, etc etc.
so far the best thing has been a LHD version of the RE Amemiya boost gauge holder that replaces the vent. the RHD one wouldn't work, as it needs to be a mirror image. i'm printing version E right now, these pics are like A or B (it got the screw holes, and some resizing)
its actually a lot of fun to make, the print bed is heated, so you have about a minute while the plastic is soft to bend it into shape!
after that i tried Fusion 360 again. many years ago (2009?) i took a Solidworks class, and so i knew how to use, well Solidworks 2007. Getting going with Fusion took a bit, it's frustrating i know what i want, but the buttons are all different.
i'm still getting the hang of it, but its been really nice to draw something up, print it, see how it doesn't fit, adjust the drawing, print it again, etc etc.
If you like Solidworks. Solidworks for makers is only $48 per year. Looks like it is on sale sale for $24 at the moment. Looks like it has all the features of the standard version except the .sldprt files are flagged/lock so they can't be opened in the professional version and vice versa. You can save all the non-SW file formats like. step, .iges, etc. just fine. If that's not a problem might be worth trying out. 3D CAD Design Software for Hobbyists | SOLIDWORKS for Makers
welcome to the never ending rabbit hole. You'll find a lot of freedom in being able to design your own parts the way you want them.
I also highly recommend the maker version of solidworks. For the price, you can't beat it.
Let us all know when you get tired of modeling complex shapes and start looking at 3d scanners! haha
lol! Fusion is free so it's hard to beat that. currently i'm stuck cause i had a big clog, and it wasn't the nozzle and wasn't the extruder (there is a thing that feeds filament into a tube, into the nozzle) and instead it was the fitting that adapted the heater framus to the heat sink jichas. i fixed the clog, but i think i screwed it in more tighter than they did, so the nozzle height is not the same, so yeah fun times.
oh yeah so the Monterey Historics is featuring Japanese cars this year, https://weathertechraceway.com/pages...sports-reunion
i'm an hour and a bit from Monterey, so i've been going down to car week for decades. its been a while since i've been to the historics, but if they are doing Japanese cars, i have to go, and it looks like i'm bringing the FC.
currently i've just resealed the oil pan (again) which wasn't fun, because its got that add on brace thing for the FD mounts i'm not using anymore. so subframe needs to come out.
its just bigger and dumber and more on a dirty floor than i'm used too.
