Yep, that's it. Looks great in person. With the strong lines of the Cosmo, it will accent very well. And I'll likely put a little pearl on top.

Go for the stock Cosmo paint code known as A1 (like the steak sauce). It is a dark blue and looks great on my 76 Cosmo. The PO had started the process to convert the stock white interior over to a dark red/burgundy. I could go either way on the int color but the outside A1 color looked good.

Looks great so far Aaron! I am totally enjoying the videos too!
As far as bodywork goes, are you going to keep both the rear side windows?
They probably won't look as Gaudy if you ditch most of the trim like you planned on, but I think it might look good if you filled in the rear-most one.
I don't have any photoshop skills, and MS Paint won't do it justice, but I think you'll understand what I'm talking about.

I've always felt like these cars needed something to make them pop more because it seems like Mazda was going for the pimp-mobile look.

Looks great so far. Question on the interior; besides the color, what kind of look are you going for? What about convenience features? More toward high-tech or keeping things simple?

Is it metallic? I don't paint stuff with flat colours. Either way I'll have to see if my local dealer still has a colour chip on file for that colour so I can check it out.

Yes, absolutely. The odd rear window configuration is a staple of the quirky look of the car. In fact, everyone I have showed the weird little roll down windows to has just gone wide eyed and said "Awesome!". I have located a set of rear quarter windows, I just need to actually pay for them so they can be on the way.

Late '70s Japanese culture must have been quite interesting. Then again, they were trying to make the car for the North American market....

For the most part I am going to keep the interior stock. I personally prefer simple and clean interiors and I think the stock interior accomplishes that. I suspect that I'll change the door panels a little. And of course I will need to find a spot for a few more speakers and a modern stereo.

Also, I am going to track down a set of fender mount mirrors. :D

Part 4 - Engine Cleaning Continued
 

In part 4, I continued cleaning the engine as started in the last video. Anyone who has done this before knows how involved a task it is to clean engine parts before they are ready to be reassembled, and how time consuming it is. While I did clean all the parts from the Cosmo 13B, I will actually only be using the housings, oil pan and a few other items. The rotating assembly, irons and lower intake will come from a GSL-SE 13B.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5A5q61bzRI

Very nice.

In regard to the ECU, what would be the deciding factors for choosing a MegaSquirt3 over the MegaSquirt2? It is going to be primarily firmware? My understanding is that the hardware has already been sorted out.

It is going to depend on where the firmware is. MSII is basically stable and has been for a while. MS3 is a work in progress. I don't really want to screw around with beta code so I'm going to delay the purchase of the actual ECU as long as possible. I can always just buy the wiring harness and wire up the engine then buy the ECU at the last minute. This isn't some car that will be a hobby project or can act like a bridgeported beast. It has to start instantly, idle on the BAC valve, get good mileage and be drivable by everyone. There can't be any quirks or constant remapping as new firmware versions are released.

So now that I've said all that, it looks like MSII at this point.

I agree with you on that. MS2 has stable code and it's already established on the rotary, but what draws me to the MS3 is the extra hardware. I'm waiting for another year or two before I go the MegaSquirt route and I too am in no mood to deal with unproven code.

I'm hooked. When's the next episode.

Me too. I love the fact that the MS3 is a dual core chip, and the SD card logging. But I will not be using sequential injection so that isn't a big draw for me. If the code is out of beta, then for sure I will pick up an MS3.

Don't know. It might actually be a week or two because I am waiting for some parts. But I have been doing some random body work so I may have enough footage for something sooner.

:icon_tup:

awsome vids
you might want to wear gloves parts cleaner kills sperm

I would consider dead sperm to be a bonus. Seriously.

But what I don't like is the fact that the parts washer cracks the skin on the back of my hands. The it takes a week of moisturizer to fix. Dry skin sucks.

Spent last night on my back repairing a hole in the floor, and have another small one to do tonight. With any luck my shaved door stuff will arrive this week.

Yes nothing worse than finding cracks in your hands with brake clean and parts washer lol goota love the burn.

wear gloves problem sovled

The problem with gloves is that the thin ones tear easily, and the thick ones don't let me feel what I'm doing. And with either style, one drop of fluid inside the glove has the same result as not using them.

Part 5: My 76 Mazda RX-5 Cosmo Restoration - Shaving Holes and Minor Floor Repair
 

It has been a few weeks since the last update. I've been working on the car on and off during this period. So, here is part 5. To take a break from some of the engine work, part 5 deals with shaving some of the body holes (antenna, sill trim) and begins the floor repair with patching a minor hole.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVh0NrJJo5k

Ouch, yeah that larger-than-expected hole in the floor is not the most reassuring thing to find, but I'd say compared to my FC, you might have an easier time of it.

I was going to hold off on these questions, but I thought you might want to get your mind off that hole. It has to do with the electronics.

You shaved the antenna hole. Is your stereo going to have an FM tuner, and if so, what type of antenna will you use? Or will you?

One thing that stood out from the very first video was all the exposed and rather nasty looking wiring; in the engine bay and the interior. What are you doing with the electrical system? Are you going to build a new one from scratch?

In addition to the AutoLoc kit, are there other convenience features you're planning to add that were not originally in the car?

BTW, I hope you don't plan on chrome rims.

On the plus side, there are few rust issues I have seen on the car. I know for a fact that the inner front fenders are a little soft, and there may be some issues in the areas that have already been filled (rear quarters), but I doubt I will see anything as bad as the floor hole in the rest of the car. Overall it is very solid in the important areas.

There is a factory windshield antenna. It will likely suffice for the few times a year that I listen to the radio.

The car came like that. As far as I know, everything still seems to work. I'll need to take a close look at the electrical to see if it has been mangled. Sometime in the '80s, an idiot installed an AM/FM/Cass stereo and just made a horrid mess of the wiring. Thankfully it was sort of laid on top of the factory wiring so I have been able to rip most of it out without worrying. Many joints were just masking taped so it was an easy job. Most of the wiring in the engine bay will be gone anyway since a lot of it is for the old coils, solenoids, etc.

I can't think of anything else that wouldn't be silly. Obviously a new audio system. I'm going to modernize the interior and exterior. The drivetrain will be an EFI turbo 6 port 13B with all the modern necessities such as closed loop O2 correction, an idle valve, etc. Also I'm planning an air suspension.

Why not? I don't think I will be going chrome, but it is hard to say until the final colour is laid down. At that point I will have to make some cardboard mockup wheels and try out various colours. I'm leaning now toward gunmetal or black chrome. Body colour could also look very cool if done right.

if you find wheels let me know were. cuz geting mine custom made is expensive

That works.


Yep, I noticed that there was a second shaft-style stereo up on higher on the dash than the stock radio's location. I hate that kind of work.

Auto-dimming rear-view mirror with HomeLink (very handy, no need to worry about batteries or lost or stolen remotes), compass and thermometer and seat heaters. You could also (possibly, as there's the question of wiring) convert the exterior mirrors to heat using stick-on heating elements, and a Tire-Pressure Monitoring System. Although some of that could be silly, it would fit into the luxury nature of the car and could be integrated into the interior without standing out.

Chrome just looks so bad. Black chrome wouldn't be too bad. I personally like the look of stock Honda rims. http://www.civichatch.com/registry/92hatchy/01.jpg the shade of silver is nice.

If it becomes an issue I will just have the machine shop modify the hubs to any bolt pattern I want. A friend just had a set of 2nd gen 5 lug hubs converted to 4 lug 1st gen to match his wheels. It was less then $100 for the machine shop to do the work.

There is also a cheesy amp in the trunk with a tangle of wires around it. All of that stuff is going away.

This is the first time I have heard of HomeLink so I had to look it up. Looks neat, but I don't have any devices which feature it or could be controlled by it. An auto dimming mirror is a good idea because I hate being blinded. I did already consider seat heaters but they fall under the category of what I consider "silly". Certainly I should be able to find an auto-dimming mirror with a compass. I wonder why anyone actually needs a TPMS though. I guess I'll have to see what is involved with setting one up before give it a yay or nay.