You may have worked out I’m way into this build now so it’s a case of going back through my photos and trying to paint the picture of how it’s all come together. I was originally just going to get the S5 up and running and use it as a weekend toy to thrash when I could get the time. So I set out to get it running nice and inspect the over heating issue and after I bled the coolant system it never really gave me any issues, a quick blast up the road and it felt good.
Over the next few days my outlook changed and I decided to completely restore it as the more I started playing the more I fell in love.
At the time it was being stored at my mums and I never had the room to do the big jobs so I pulled out the motor and stacked all the parts together giving me no room to work at all. We had noticed a lot of rust under the car. The sills and floor was pretty much toast but I didn’t have the heart to dig any further. A lot of time past with me trying to decide if it was worth doing but I couldn’t find out more until I had room to work.
A year or so later I managed to hire myself a little unit with a mate who also had a little project going and we got started!
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I will worn viewers of the grafic content. Rust is a horrible thing and i should of scrapped the car and saved me a lot of time but hey I didn’t so here goes.
The previous repairs had burnt cables and caused more damage as none of the original rust had been cut from the car just extra plates and bits of tin welded/sealed to it to get it to pass various mots. It was a nightmare to deal with but it had to be done and I’d never tackled any kind of repair like this before so was more than happy with the results.
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Start at the back and work forward was the order of the day! (Well months) first I made the repair sections for the chassis rail supported and cut out the old and welded in new. As it was taking so long and the damp conditions I had to paint everything I did then clean it all back up when I can back to work on it again as it would just end up going rusty again.
i managed to order a sill from Mazda not that it’s of any use as it’s so small it’s a joke. So I had a mate fold me some from the template and they turned out sweet as.
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Didn’t like the idea of a large flat plate so made some press plates that formed some recesses into it to add some strength to it.
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Need a sill or two!
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That’s mazdas idea of a sill! Jokes!!
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Didn’t turn out bad at all, pretty sure he could of done more and sold them on.
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Old sill vs new sill! No contest lol

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Starting to get the hang of all this
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Front panel folded and welded in.
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Decided to dig out that filler and it’s way worse than I thought. 🤦🏻*♂️
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Chased it all the way back and the quarter is pretty much toast aswell. Not looking good.

Thanks guys I will upload more tonight. Try and get you up to speed.

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This is the state of the passenger side, not as bad as the drives but the same method was followed. Cut it out and start again.
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New sill all welded in, pretty proud of myself at this point.
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All painted up until I could get it in under body shultz

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With the sills and floor behind me I could get on with cleaning up the engine bay, granted it wasn’t rusty but it was far from nice.
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After a good clean it was noticeably better but thought to my self I’ve come this far as may aswell paint the bay to match the car. I quite like the wiring all tucked but not so much the smoothed out look.
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I set out welding up all the small holes that were no longer going to be used. It took ages but the finished look should be good.

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All smoothed off and ready for etch primer
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Etch all done now ready for some high build to smooth it out.
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First real go at painting and had a blast. Best get sanding now.

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So while I was messing with the spray gun I thought it was about Time the underside started looking complete. So out with the Shultz and what a difference it made!!
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My first new part for the car! Mile stone!!
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Stripped all the rear diff and arms out to clean up and paint nothing major done with it as yet. Some new wheel bearings, I didn’t tackle the bushes. I possibly should of done but plenty of time as I’d like to get all the parts powdercoated at some point.
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What a different a little clean up can do.
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So this happened I couldn’t bring myself to put the old suspension back on with the userside looking so good so a set of HSD Coilovers fit the bill just nice.

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Managed to drop on this rolling shell for £200 on a drift site. It didn’t have a bit of rust on the sills and floor. Couldn’t believe it. The rear had had a bump and the inner door supports had been cut away for a roll cage.
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Stole the wings so I no longer had to repair the rust along the lower edges of mine. Bonus!
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But that’s the bit I wanted it for!
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Nice rear quarter cut!
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Trimmed off the majority of the bad, so we could get to the intricate bits so it all lines up.
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Was happy with the results just needed to get it all in one colour so it really looked like I was making progress!
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My sunroof panel had far to much rust to save it and I couldn’t find a replacement anywhere. So I took the plunge and bought one from a mx3 and it fits like a glove.
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More sanding,painting,sanding and painting before all the parts where ready for paint.
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Finally the body was ready for some colour. This I have been waiting for years for. Now I look back why I didn’t have a professional paint the car is beyond me but at the time I thought stuff it have a go.

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So there it is all in it’s glory
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Not bad for straight out the gun so I thought.
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Very happy with the engine bay can’t wait to start building everything up.
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I’d still got my old rota grid drifts from my last car so be rude not to roll it around on them!
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First time it’s been on the deck for a good year or two I’m sure. But things are looking good.
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It was at this time I’d just bought a new house and I’d got a double garage, so I moved the car over to the garage along with all my tools and kit. I kept the unit for a month or two as I still needed to paint the doors/bumpers and so on.
Well the weather turned a bit wet and the unit gets very damp. That’s my excuse anyway!
I carried on blindly to the conditions and started painting anyway.

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The rx in its new home! So happy it’s untrue.
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For saying the dash had bee sat in the unit all this time it never came up to bad. So a good clean and it was back in along with the carpet.
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Swapped out the old headlight bowls for some new ones and cleaned up the plastics. A lot better.
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Back to painting the rest of the parts! I don’t know why. More than likely my inexperience but when we painted all the other parts they came out so orange peely it was untrue the clear just wouldn’t level out.
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Hours and hours of flatting to get the doors and wings somewhere close but I had noticed spots where we had been light with the clear and I’d then buffed through. ;(
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I carried on as it was just one spot and I could live with that. But the more I did the more I found.
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These are how I got most of the panels.
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This was right before we buffed through the bonnet and that was the last straw! I had to re sand it all get a paint guy to come round and give me a price and a date, the guy knows me quite well and he was just buying a new booth and my car would be the first in it. Sweet he also gave me a good deal. Down side was I had to wait for the booth to be built and set up.
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The Last time it would be all shiny! Sure a heartbreaking moment when you have to undo all your hard work but it’s got to be right.

Thanks buddy, it was tough at times but I had to just keep going with it. Will update some more later and hopefully bring you guys up to date.

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Sanding all that hard work off was soul destroying but keep thinking of the end goal!
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Got the car sanded back and had a word with the guy that’s doing the spray job and he said a few months so I thought it would be perfect time to start rebuilding that running engine I was so happy about having. So I thought re seal and check parts an rebuild everything. Happy days!
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Wrong! Both housings had major scores! But the rest of the engine was fine. Obviously the tips had groves in them but none were pinched in the rotors and the rotors were sweet. Almost like someone built it with the housing like this.?
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Managed to get myself a set of housings which meant I could practice my porting on the old set. Went with the pineapple racing full bridge port, goopy one piece apex seals, solid corner seals, and new side seals and gaskets.
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All the parts after I had cleaned them all up ready for paint.
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Build up time. This was my first time after watching many many videos, I won’t fill it with pics as I’m sure we’ve all seen so many threads of these things apart lol
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All built up!
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Dropped into the car. At this point I started the wiring. I’m going to run an adaptronic ecu as the guys I’m using to tune it use that ecu so I figured that’s the best tool for the job. Wanted to run maf less so I terminated the wires out of the plug at the ecu and any other wires I wasn’t going to use. Cruise control is out, Abs is out, Power steering is out. Ran all my wires and extended what I could to get to all the new positions. Should be clean but not bare.
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Had the exhaust manifold from an fd and when the turbo turned up I had to make a few mods to make it work, all it needed was two cuts and for me to try tig welding for the first time.
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Not bad! Now I do weld but it’s mainly stick welding and some mig. So I do have an understanding of the process.
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Trial fit of the turbo and I’m well happy with how it’s turning out.
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So while I have the tig I thought I may aswell build the exhaust so the down pipe was so easy to make. Plus a nice smile on your face knowing you’ve pretty much built everything.
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Now on to the coils, from what I have read the std FC coils are not the worst things in the world so I thought I’d keep it simple at the minute. I could always change them out at a later date if required. But this is the look I went for. The igniters are mounted next to all the relays and my main fuse box is mounted there also. Think some future rain protection will be required.