2 years it's been since I've owned an FC, I had to get rid of my last one when I enrolled in college for Aircraft Maintenance. School done, and successfully employed, I decided it was time for another. The car had been sitting for the past 3 years, hadn't been run since fall, so I headed out to pick it up with my buddy whose an automotive painter, a bag full of tools, some fresh fluids, and a pack of red bull. It took two hours, a new battery, and some starter fluid, she fired right up, no smoke, good compression on both rotors. Put some air in the tires and here she sits in my drive way next to my buddies Impreza.





It's an 86' GXL with only 88,000 kilometers, J5 arctic silver originally, good condition grey leather interior. Still the original owner, who handed the car down to his son, who did some, lets call it, questionable decisions, like the grey paint without any clear coat, massive exhaust, under glow, and the well done, but excessive stereo. I am how ever happy with the Optma battery that came with it (needs to be brought back to life, or warrantied), the wheels are decent, and wrapped around them are Falken 215/45/R17's.

But enough intro, it's time to get onto the build. First item on the list is paint. Get the body done, so I have a good clean slate to build on. Going back to the original J5 Arctic Silver, with black trim, just like factory!

Pulling into the shop



Last time she'll be this crappy faded grey.





Frame rails look great! That underglow's gotta go though.

Eyeing the car up, the car is pretty rust free, some bubbling near the driver's side window frame.



Driver's seat rails where pretty bad where it bolts into the floor, thankfully, the rust had not spread to the body, I honestly could not believe how clean the floors looked. So some new rails, bolts, bit of Aviation Corrosion-X, and I'll be sitting pretty. Too bad the carpet is stained pretty badly though.



And on the rocker where the fender meets the door



Paint!



J5 Baby! Favorite factory color by far.



Window frame rust came off extremely fast, only surface baby!



Same for the rocker.

 

Full body sanded to find imperfections.



Having a painter as a buddy is sick!



Trunk area had some previous work done to it.



While he was hammering out the body I was getting the moldings/trim painted gloss black.





Not too bad for one day's work!



Next morning the rest of the black trim on the body got sprayed.





After being etch primed, the grinding marks where filled on the window frame, and rocker panel.





Tail lights turned out great!



More help arrived and we applied the rest of the filler, and began sanding.

 

Cleaning is the most important step for having a nice finish.





The hood was also warped and took a bit of filler/sanding to make it perfect again, seemed like it was dented from someone leaning with their hands on it.



I figured since I had the original seat out. Upgrade time! My Sparco Sprint I had in the living room for my racing rig.



Masking out the door jams.



Almost ready for primer



No painted rad or headlights for me!



Spray time!



Got the door jams painted early so we could have them closed on the final spray.





A little taste of the end product.

 

Next day we did a full sand/remasked for the sealer and paint, then moved to the spray booth.





All masked up.



Last Time I'll see her until tomorrow when I start putting together all the trim.



Stay tuned for end results/future mods that include:
-Pignose lip
-240sx Mudflaps
-coilovers
-emission removal
-full exhaust/headers

 

Great work! Keep everyone up to date on the progress.

 

Couldn't wait till the morning, snuck out to the shop after midnight to get a glimpse. And deeam she looks good.











Final touch up, and assembly will be tomorrow, will keep you guys updated.

 

yeah buddy! looks awesome!

-sean

 

Nice job, are you going to black out the vertical bits on the lower front grille?

 

Looking like a virgin again haha nice job

 

It took 4 days, approximately 50 man hours, 2-4 people $800 of materials, various shop supplies, a crap load of energy drinks, cigarettes, and take out food, but shes finally done, and assembled. Still more work to do on the interior, including a new wheel, shift ****, trim, some fluids, filters, and gaskets to change, do a massive clean up inside, outside, under the hood, polish the wheels, but one huge step is out of the way.

The paint turned out great, because of the quicker job, we did miss a few small dents that are apparent with the new paint, but I just think I'm being overly critical and knit picking at this point. The paint is blinding in direct sun light it shines so bright, and is smoother than a baby's ***, I couldn't be much happier with how it turned out. But none the less, on to photos!




































Enjoy, I know am I.


I knew something looked odd about that grill, yes I will be, or I will be blacking out the entire grill once I get my 240 lip on.

 

Time for a long over due update...

Since I last updated I:
Painted Grill inserts flat black
Installed Stereo
Installed FTP lenses
Installed 240SX Pignose lip & Painted flat black
Remounted my Sparco seat (my old mount broke, yikes!!!)
Replaced front passenger wheel bearings
Patched floor rust
Passed Safety Inspection-Registered
Installed Crown Vic Wheels with Falken Azenis
Installed BWR Purple tow hook

Some photos:






















Next on the list refinishing the Crown Vics, open end lug nuts, and coil overs.

Can anyone chime in on possible colors to powder coat my wheels? I'm going to be polishing the hell out of the lips, but for the face I cannot decide. I'm debating between Black(w. purple lugs) Red (w. purple lugs) Gold (w. Purple lugs) or Purple (w. Red lugs)... I'm open to other ideas, I thought of a nice flashy green, orange or blue as well, but I'm trying to keep the color scheme to Silver with Red & Purple accents.

 

Loving it so far! Clean, clean!

 

Nice!!!

 

Thats a good looking car you have there.
Love the shots in the hangar! Do You get to work on any aviation 13bs?

 

Nice! What did you paint your trim and tail light surrounds with and how well has it stood up?

 

Looks sick dude...TII swap! TII swap!

 

looking gud.,.

 

great project!

 

No 13B's in aviation are very rare, I mainly work on Lycoming/Continental opposed engines (turbocharged, carbed, fuel injected, 4 - 6 cylinders) larger radial engines, some turbine engines.


I just used rattle can gloss black/flat back for all my trim, the key is prepping, it's gotta be scuffed up, and super clean, it's held up super well.


I wash/waxed the car the other day, took some decent photos this time.

























Thanks for all the love guys! TII swap won't be coming till the winter, cause I won't be driving the car anyways, and for now the NA is fun, going to be doing some Auto X with it in a bit, I want to compare stock vs coilovers to see the differences.

 

i see you're from winnipeg.

i used to live there.

does it still suck?




lol i tease, i had a lot of good times in the peg

-sean

 

man I love the color!! car is coming along great

 

lol, actually I don't live there anymore either, I was just there for school, I live in Brandon, it's a smaller city, about 50,000 pop, 200 km west of Winnipeg. I'm gonna have to update my profile lol. But yes, it sucks.

 

ah yes, wheat kings territory. i renewed my MPI car insurance in brandon once lol..

i was only in winterpeg for school too, UofM

-sean

 

Progress update

Stock air pump started getting noisy bearings, so I removed it, and blocked off the ACV, while I had out the stock airbox I decided to ditch it for a high flow cone filter, and ended up cleaning/degreasing a bunch of engine parts, I even tried tire foam on the rubber intake tube, worked for a bit, anyone have any tips for cleaning it up real nice, and giving it a new-black shine again?

Some Engine Bay shots all cleaned up.





And a cool shot of me working on her.



So after I did that, she seemed to be running great, smooth idle, sounded much smoother without the air pump noise, and then a week later this happened:


Turns out my fast idle cam was stuck! I checked the TPS for flat spots, checked the plugs, did a vacuum leak check, and turned up with nothing. Scratching my head because I hadn't adjusted anything, and the car was running fine before the drive home, and I moved the throttle plate towards closed, hear a click (return spring) and she ran great!

All was fine and dandy in the 7 once again. Till I decided I wanted to do more maintenance, finally got around to swapping out the fuel filter, did an oil change, and put a bit of seafoam in to decarbon my engine a bit, went for a long drive, drove it just about empty to burn off the seafoam, stopped for gas. Went to restart after fueling, and crank, crank, crank, crank... What now... I figured vapor lock (hot day, hard drive; happened once before). So I let it sit for a few hours, and still nothing. Next day pulled the plugs to check compression, checked fuel pump voltage, relay, sensors... What the hell, everything seemed o.k, but the car would only run on ether. Towed the 7 home, and kind of suspected faulty fuel pump (PO had said he replaced it a few years ago). Tore it out and hooked it up to the battery, nothing, not even a peep. So do I pay $170 for a new stock pump, or do I upgrade now for when I want to turbo...

Found out a Walbro 255 LHP is only $100, but luckily a friend had one stashed away not even opened.



So that's one issue out of the way when I decide to boost it.

The car is definitely reminding me it's an RX-7 again... But hopefully that's it for running issues... I want to start Auto-Xing soon, but I think I'm gonna go ahead and upgrade the Rad, get an E-fan and a dual alt pulley, cause I'm noticing pushing it on hot days the heat can get up to 3/4 of the gauge, and that's the last thing I want to worry about when I'm trying to lay down good times.

I had a buddy take some great pics with his new camera just before the fuel pump went, and he finally got around to uploading them. Love how the rolling shot turned out, by far my favorite shot of my FC.

 

The walbros are cheap, but will overwhelm your stock fuel system, especially an NA. I'm sure the classifieds will yield a cheap stock NA replacement pump.
Of course when you boost it, the walbro will be needed.