Description:

Does it have a clean accident free history?  No
Does it have pristine sparkling paint? No
Will it constantly make you smile?  Absolutely

Before any swap hater gets crazy, realize I saved a clean title FD by transferring the swap kit into this car.  That quickly turned into, well lets build the LS and do everything the right way.  Powder coat this, rebuild this, slippery slope!


Lets get the bad out of the way first.

Long before my ownership the car was in an accident. Based on the AutoCheck report the accident appears to have taken place in Texas around July of 2001 with the car having 88,923 miles. From Texas it went on to NY where it received a rebuilt title at the end of 2002. In 2005 it was purchased by the previous owner in Wisconsin. According to the owner in Wisconsin he received the car in a repaired state and continued to work on the car including painting it as seen today. He mentioned putting a new/rebuilt engine in and in a very few miles later the engine blew. The car sat in his shop until my ownership in 2017. I only started working on this car towards the end of 2019 and have put under 1k miles on it. This history is why I estimate the car to have between 90-100k miles as I do not know how many miles the owner in NY put on the car as it does not include the original gauge cluster. DMV’s now simply exempt putting the mileage on titles of older cars. The non original to this car gauge cluster shows 100k miles.  When you look at other FD's for sale do not simply rely on what the cluster says for mileage!

Getting right to the point, here is the extent of the damage I have found relating possibly to the accident in Texas.

-The driver side headlight bucket area. A previous owner was able to straighten the headlight bucket out without having to cut and weld in a new front section. I believe this is for the better as any future owner can still see the actual damage, nothing to hide or stories to make up! I was able to align all parts without problems including sway bar mounts, strut bars, bumpers etc… thus I do not believe there is any frame damage. While it may have been a small impact as this piece was able to be straightened out, the airbag sensor is right in that area and of course popped the airbags. This is why I believe the car was totaled out by insurance and eventually assigned a rebuilt title.

-The under-body right behind the drivers side front wheel. This area shows scrapes and a dent. I would guess was caused by the car jumping a curb?

-The last piece of the puzzle is what looks like tack welds on the drivers side, inside C panel, near where the roof joins body.

Putting the three area’s together, my best guess is the car jumped a curb and hit a stationary object such as a street sign that caused the damage to the headlight bucket and under-body. I do not believe it was a serious accident based on the fact the original sheet metal around the drivers side headlight area was able to be straightened instead of replaced. The front/rear sub-frames and the Engine/Trans/PPF lined up without issues when I had a rotary in it.


The previous owner in Wisconsin ended up repainting the car a brighter blue color, engine bay and all. He also painted the door jams, hood/fender gaps, etc… in a darker metallic blue. This helps your eye transition from body panel to body panel without seeing the bright paint in any of the gaps, quite a nice touch. Paint is not perfect, some imperfections which will be detailed with pictures below. Car was originally SSM. If the car does not sell this fall, I do have plans to re-paint the car to match the darker metallic blue from the jambs.


As I dug into the car starting with stripping the interior, I noticed many cut wires on almost every harness. Looked like someone installed an aftermarket stereo and even removed the ABS wiring on the engine bay side! I ended up pulling out all the wiring and replacing it with known good low mile correct 1994 w/ glass roof $harnesses$! Only thing retained were the door harnesses which was easy to fix cut speaker wires.



The Good

Attached PDF on the engine/drivetrain build.  Engine is completely rebuilt with quality parts.  For this build I aimed for a reliable 400whp by utilizing the hotter version of the c5 z06 cam.  Car will start/drive/idle like a stock LS however make quite a bit more power.  Simply swapping the cam would net another 50whp however you start to get away from the OEM smoothness.  

Granny's Speed Shop LS low mount kit all powder coated

Factory GM engine harness was married to the FD harness without anything being cut, done the right way.  Two stand alone ground harnesses were added to have completely separate grounds coming into the car for a wideband o2/obd2 port/engine ecu etc...

BP automotive fan relay setup for controlling the dual engine fans just like the factory LS setup.  

Secondboltracing.com AC wiring harness & AC hose kit to make the LS AC plug and play.


Suspension & Steering related:
-ALL suspension arms from my 70k mile FD, that have Powerflex bushings with under 2k miles.  I did this as I do not trust a car that has been in an accident!
-Inner tie rods from my 70k mile FD, might have been replaced by PO, very very tight. New boots
-New OEM Mazda outer tie rods
-Powerflex power steering rack bushings
-OEM Mazda Bathurst coilovers
-2k mile old OEM Mazda wheel bearings
-AWR solid front sway bar mounts
-Powerflex front and rear sway bar bushings
-Thicker 1993 17mm rear sway bar
-70k mile sway bar endlinks front and rear
-Fresh alignment

Wheels & Tires:
-Freshly powder coated oem 94+ reinforced wheels in Forged Charcoal. Two wheels were straightened, not visible from the outside, needed some extra weights to get a perfect balance however.
-Hankook RS4 225/50/16 ~1k miles

Brake related:
-Power slot front and rear discs
-Hawk 5.0 pads front and rear
-Ti brake shims front, should help from burning up the boots. Rears don’t fit because the 5.0 pads have a thick backing plate. Rear Ti shields included in sale.
-Rebuilt front and rear calipers with OEM seals & boots
-Rebuilt Master Cylinder with OEM seals & tank bushings
-Rebuilt ABS pump with new o-rings / crush washers
-Stainless brake lines front and rear. Rear’s don’t fit where it attaches to the body with a clip, so used a zip tie to prevent the line from flapping around. Lesson learned, buy SakeBomb’s, they fit perfectly.

Electrical related work:
-Rebuilt gauge cluster
-Swapped in a good condition front chassis harness
-Swapped in a good condition front dash harness
-Swapped in a good condition interior chassis harness
-70k mile charging harness from my other FD
-All new fuses
-New exterior light bulbs, all of them.

Stereo: (could use a nice aftermarket setup)
-OEM Bose stereo
-Center channel & rear sub amps rebuilt, door amps checked out OK
-OEM Bose cd-player
-New center speaker
-Center speaker amp relocated under center console where the non bose amp is

Interior related:
-Newly recovered black seats, ridies.com synthetic leather
-Redline goods Alcantara shift boot, parking brake handle, parking brake boot
-New black seat belt webbing (not taking any chances from a car that's been in an accident!)
-Previous owner removed sound deadening
-POR15 on the bottom half of the interior
-New foam seals inside the HVAC system on blend doors etc...
-OEM carpet, decent shape
-New Garage Alpha floor mats
-New clutch and brake pedal rubber stoppers for the sensors

Body related:
-Paint code: House of kolor. Base coat bc02 Orion silver. Top coat cobalt blue kandy uk05
-New 99spec air guide
-New 99spec brake ducts
-99 spec front lip (not the best fitment with the 93-95 front bumper)
-99spec round taillights, passenger side is cracked, see pictures

-Molded in side skirts, fenders, rear bumper
-Antenna was shaved off the body, still hooked up in the car.
-Carbon fiber wrapped SSM oem hood
-Carbon fiber wrapped headlight covers

Issues, cons, things that need attention, or me just nitpicking:
-Paint. Numerous paint issues all around the car. No clear coat fading however numerous spots the paint has chipped/scratched.
-Passenger side taillight is cracked
-Interior gauge cluster hood is cracked and was repainted at some point
-Rear bumper is cracked where the license plate lights mount. Can only see the cracks when your under the car looking up at the lights.


I will have it on the dyno in the next week or two after I put some more miles breaking in the build.

Would trade for a hardtop FD shell/roller + cash.