back on topic.... With spring getting closer, the itch to drive the car again is getting strong. I have a few minor updates to the car that I want to get finished up. The first was the intake. I got tired of looking at the clap trap intake box so I made it more better. More better-er? Most bestest? I painted it....


the other BIG thing...paint....let's be honest, the car looks terrible. I'm starting to prep the car. I think i'm going to end up sanding to bare metal. At least in the trouble spots like the roof, bumpers, and spoiler. Speaking of the spoiler, has anyone ever repainted the FC spoiler? I have tons of little spider cracks that need to be sanded out, and I have no idea how to prep the surface for paint. It's like a hard neoprene material.

 

not sure if I ever showed the new wheels...


in that picture you can also see the remnants of the OEM mud flaps that were on the car. I had NO idea those were super rare. I listed them on marketplace for what I thought was a fair price and got inundated with messages almost immediately. Suffice to say I had way under valued them. Those silly mud flaps paid for half of the purchase price of the chassis!

any ways, the reason the mud flaps came off was to put these guys on...


They are fiberglass replicas. Try as I might I've had a hard time finding a full set of OEM side skirts. They look fairly well made, and should be a fun challenge to mount. haha

 

well, progress has been slow and painful.... If I ever decide to repaint a car someone remind me how terrible it is. Part of the pain is my own doing in my decision to strip everything down to bare metal (and plastic). Paint strippers are sh*t now-days so everything has to get sanded down which is so time consuming.



and while trying to remove the windshield trim, I cracked the windshield....Supposedly a local company can get replacements. Fingers crossed.


Although the hood, has been, by far, the most difficult part to strip purely sue to the shear number of times it's been painted, it's almost ready for primer.


here's about 5 hours worth of sanding with 180 grit....more fun to go...


And the paint cracking in the front bumper seems to be in the plastic as well. I can sand out most of it, but even thought the cracks don't go all the way thru the bumper, I always seem to be left with a bit of a "stain" in the plastic....boy is there a lot of cracking....


In my haste to get the body primed so it wouldn't flash rust too much, I ended up with a ton of orangle peel on the second coat of primer.



so I got the "opportunity" to wet sand it all down


and since it took me more than 3 days to wet sand, according to the primer spec sheet I have to put another layer down before the base....Needless to say this has not been a fun experience. haha. I'll be happy to have this done so I can just enjoy driving the car this spring.

 

No no. It's "custom textured paint"

 

do people pay extra for that feature?

 

A question for you, since I'm also slowly working away on repainting a Turbo II hood.

In the area where the corner of the hood-scoop transitions into the forward part of the hood, is it a perfectly smooth transition? Yours looks smooth in this photograph, but my hood has a slight upward bulge right in front of the scoop.

The other side on mine doesn't have that, but it also had a 6-7" wide shallow dent there, so I'm not sure whether it's smooth from the factory or not since I have block-sanded that whole repair area. I searched and found these photos:





Apologies for the tiny pictures, but it's hard to find good photos of this area. You can see the bump I'm talking about better on the black hood.

I could just keep blocking that bump down, but I'm worried about sanding through the aluminum. My other option would be to try and panel-beat it, but I think there's some frame back there under the hood skin so I'm not sure if that's feasible. Luckily I'm still at the primer stage.

This is probably one of those things that only I will ever notice. But I will notice it, which is enough for me to want to fix it right.

 

mine is smooth as can be

 

Damn. I guess I have more panel-beating ahead of me.

It's weird, I'm not even sure how someone would dent that area outward. There's frame behind that area of the hood skin.

Anyways, good work on yours. Just working on the hood has been driving me mad, let alone the entire car

 

having worked in sheetmetal stamping for a bit , I can tell you it very well could be from the factory. There's always variation from batch to batch, largely dependent on how the tooling and presses are set up.

 

Yeah, the more I look at it the more I think it's factory:



With it wet, I can see that it will be visible in the paint. But it looks like the variations in the paint in those sample photos I sent before, so maybe some hoods had it and others didn't.

I'm thinking I might leave it as-is. It's already almost up against the hood frame below that area, so I don't think it would be possible to fix it without also bending the frame in that area down somehow. I won't have time to shoot the paint for awhile anyways, so that gives me time to think about possibilities.

 

as long as it's symmetrical on both sides I'd leave it alone.

 

well...turns out you can polish a turd after all...



I still have a lot of finishing work to do, but at least it's finally all one color. I also still need to finish fitting the lip spoiler and adjust some panel gaps.

painting in a small garage is a terrible idea people...


I've got about 200 miles on the engine rebuild so it was time for another compression test. Numbers aren't terrible, but they are lower than after the initial compression test. I was kind of stupid and reused the side seals that came in the engine. They are all within mazda spec, but i'm sure I could hand fit new ones better. Such is life i guess. If it start having starting issues I'll pull it, but for now I'll keep driving it.
front:


rear:

 

Me Likey. I still haven't even started mine😭

 

at this rate, ill have my 20b up and running before you and it's still in pieces.

 

Dude, I haven't even gotten the basement finished to move it down there and the s2k is already on the lift missing it's transmission and entire front suspension. The clutch job kinda went sideways.

 

project creep at it's finest. haha. Pretty jealous you have a lift in your basement though.

 

How about I only paid $3500 for it. Installed.😁

 

Well.... I've got a little over 1000 miles on this swap and figured I should report back on my impressions to date. I have to say this is one of the most fun FCs I've owned. It's not the fastest by any means, but the power band of the renny works very well in the FC. It's got noticeably more torque down low which makes day to day driving super fun, but you can still pull pretty good up top. I've been pretty bad about doing the engine break in. After about 400 miles I started giving her the beans and am not disappointed. I'm averaging around 18MPG doing mostly "spirited" city driving and if the car didn't sound so good it would be a lot easier to keep my foot out of it. The racing beat catback does a great job at keeping the car fairly quiet. At cruise it's very easy to have a conversation or listen to music at a reasonable volume, but when you put your foot down you hear it. Pro's and Con's I've found so far.

Pros:

• I still think this is the cheapest option to get an FC with no motor back on the road. Especially if you can find a motor that doesn't need a rebuild.
• the engine and 6 speed fell like they are meant for the FC chassis. It is SO fun to drive and significantly quicker than a S5 NA (so my butt dyno says).
• It's been very reliable so far. I'd have no issues taking it on a mini road trip at this point.
• I can't go anywhere without someone wanting to talk to me about the car.

Cons:

• I'm a little disappointed with the fuel mileage. I was hoping it would be a little better given it's in a lighter chassis then the RX8, but if I'm honest with myself, I'm guessing my inability to stay off the gas has a lot to do with it.
• the tranny mounts need to be reworked. While they support the trans very well in the "up and down" direction, they have almost no "side to side" support which lets the trans bounce a little when getting on/off the clutch. By a little it MIGHT move 1/4", but it's still enough to annoy me.
• still no working AC. This is going to be a project I'd like to address before next summer, but doesn't really have anything to do with the swap directly.
• The tach still works intermittently. I'm starting to think it's something with my actual gauge, so I'm going to swap it out for a manual tach with a higher redline anyways.
• I can't go anywhere without someone wanting to talk to me about the car.

Steps going forward while I enjoy driving it. I got a used COBB accessport that I'd like to play around with. Mainly for lowering the fan on temperature, which is 207F from the factory, but i'd like to see if I can get the OMP running a bit more oil as well. If i get really sporty I may see if I can lean out the cruise AFRs. Need to figure out the tach issue. I use my OBD2 scanner now for RPM if I need it, but it's kind of annoying. The paint still needs work. It's wet sanded and buffed, but it could still be a lot better.

 

i'm glad you did this swap. on paper it makes a TON of sense. it seems like except having to do the work, this is all just win.

 

Yeahhhh, I'm thinking real dirty thoughts about an f22c myself. Or a plain old k20 swap.

 

the S2000 is the only car i've ever driven that made the Rx8 feel fast. K20 swap is where its at.

 

actually worked on this car a little. Trying to get the tach working I swapped out the tach unit to the higher RPM unit from a manual cluster.


looks good....but still doesn't work



I got the scope out and looked at the signal at the check connector by the training coil pack (or where it used to be). I'm getting a pulse signal that seems reasonable so I guess I need to pull the gauges again and see if I'm getting the signal to the gauge or maybe there's a broken wire somewhere.