Alright, it was a busy weekend. The Mariah WB goes in next. Meanwhile here is my fun and frustration:

A stripped interior with the "curse of the 80's" color. This is the last picture of that.



Ahh, goodies waiting to go in



Some more



Seats are gone



New door seals from Black dragon



New FD alternator to replace my FC



BNR stage "X" turbo. I upgraded my stage 4 to a full T04. Thanks Brian for your excellent customer support




HKS used manifold and wastegate



New black carpet from OEM carpets



Water pump replacement. BD sent me the wrong one. On closer inspection, mine was fine, just had a reused gasket in it that was leaking. Replaced that and painted everything.

 

Beautiful new alternator. Bought the FD to FC pulley on this forum.




Turbo mounted, still waiting for some SS lines to complete installation.

 

Looking good man, keep it up.

 

What is that?



Mustang parts!



The Re-Speed kit!



Billet aluminum parts that are pretty



Starting to disassemble everything



Old and new cross members



Gave up on the steering kit as I learned that I needed a manual steering shaft and mine is power. Billy is hooking me up

Seat fitting and install time

Test fitting the platform on the sliders



Mounting the Kirkey brackets




Finally the seat. That was harder than it looks!

 

Test fitting the harness



Well, that is all I accomplished over the weekend. Still need to mount the other seat, harness, turbo lines, and finish the steering kit installation when I get those parts in. I have not even started on the Mariah install yet!

Busy weekend and more busy weekends ahead. I'll keep you posted. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

 

When you put on your widebody, are you going to keep your car black, or go with another color?

 

My car is currently an 80's black/brown with some metal flake. I'm probably going to go with some version of black or really dark grey. My 06 M3 that I sold last fall (to free up money for this baby) was carbon black. Everyone would swear that the car was a dark blue in certain lights. I kinda liked that color but it is not period correct. I was debating some painted in ghost racing stripes but I may just go simple.

If I do stripes, they will be descrete like this:



But possibly in an OEM color like tornado silver such as this car with the car black and just the stripes this color:



This is how she sits now:

 

Ghost stripes look really good on some cars such as an '08 mustang, but I'm not sure about a wide RX7, I think a dark black would look good, or a dark grey, like this,
would look good with black wheels. Either way though, it sounds like your going in the right direction.

 

which kirkey seats are those?

 

Intermediate Road Race seat with the air mesh cover.

 

How comfortable are those seats? Would they be any good for a daily driver?

 

Seats are very surprisingly comfortable. When I bought them, I was in a store that sold everything from $5000 Porsche race seats down to the humble Kirkeys that run about $400 a piece plus mounts and IMO they were just as comfortable (or more) as the high-dollar seat.

I learned about them in the race section of this forum as it seems a lot of guys use them. Some people do not buy the covers, but just make their own custom molded foam pads. I find that with the covers they are extremely comfortable and the mounting angle and height can be adjusted till you get it right. If you are not the kind of person that constantly needs to adjust your seat, I would say they work fine for a DD.

Disadvantage: They are a little heavy compared to some of the high-dollar seats out there.

Advantage: They are inexpenisve and the best part is--they never expire like the expensive FB and CF seats do (damn $350 each harnesses do though but only in 2015). You do need to use a back brace for NASA and SCCA, but you need to do that now with all seats. These back braces are $100 each while the Sparcos are $300.

 

Can't view the pics, but I'll check this thread again when I get home. I'm sure everything is beautiful though.

You really need to bring this baby down to Deals Gap. You can have it done in three weeks, right? lol





.

 

Done? I do not understand this concept. Most of it should be completed by then. I will try to make it. let me see if I can get off work. It is an 11.5 hour drive for me and I would be debating trailering it or just driving it.

So far, no one noticed the random single malt among the car parts...

 

Looks like a nice project... cant wait to see that mode 1 kit on it.

 

The project and pics look awesome man!

 

Thanks guys got the kind words. I'm really happy with the alternator for some reason as something brand new just looks bad *** and somehow those belts just remind me of old muscle cars.

The Mariah kit is supposed to ship out this week. The kit its self was ready, but the Hella driving lights that I ordered from Mariah were on back order, so I save a little on shipping by getting them together. Besides, I have plenty of other work to keep me busy as I can only work on this on the weekend. I still need to mount the other seat which hopefully will be easier with the lassons learned from the first one. I'm waiting for the sliders to come in. I also need to cut holes in the platform that I built for the seat in order to mount the six-point harness through the floor.

Billy shipped out the parts that I need today so I should get them by this weekend which will be awesome as getting four wheels back underneath the car and taking the engine off the jack would be great. That way I can actually test drive this thing and ensure that the sets are mounted in a good position.

Once the Mariah kit comes in, I will probably mount the front fenders and bumper, but I may leave the back fenders to professionals.

 

what engine is that?

 

im going to go ahead and guess S5 13b-t out of a TII rx7

 

What do you mean? That is the stock engine.




JK, it is a TII S4 with a large street port and some other modifications. Engine and turbo setup should be getting about 400 rwhp once tuned.

 

Where can I get belts like that? I'd love some for my 12A, can they work with the FB alternator?

 

Looking good man.

 

Pep Boys--it is their premium belt and runs about $11 each with a two-year warranty, and yes they will work. Or I can sell you my S4 Alternator with a dual belt pulley. The S4 pulug right in to the SE harness, I don't know about earlier configerations.

This weekend (I can only work on my car on the weekend as I work for a living), I was only able to finally mount the seat, hook of most of the turbo lines, remount the efan, and complete some more of the Re-Speed installation.

The platform I built in the previous picture had to be cut and filed smooth for the six-point to pass through it. Then measurements and drilling through the floor. Then mounting the harness and mounting the seats. With the new carpet I went with the upgraded rubber backing which is nice, but it makes the carpet even thicker and much harder to mount the seat. Once the harness and seat were mounted, I focused my attention on the rack kit.

Now, I did not know the rack kit was designed for a manual car when I ordered it. Thankfully, Billy hooked me up with a manual steering inner shaft and housing. I still had to do some "field engineering" on it. For example, I had to buy a pipe clamp and a piece of PVC pipe (both then had to be modified) for the shaft housing to run through. Also, the "cone" than runs to the firewall had to be cut (twice) in order to have the steering shaft sit low enough to fit properly in the aluminum clamp. If you are considering this kit, be aware that you will have to do some modifications. The manual shaft housing was slightly damaged and the new shaft had to be hammered in. An additonal comment is that the drawings for the LCAB and the instructions show the bolts sitting on the wheel-well side and the studs protruding into the wheel-well. I found this to look strange and was afraid that the stud may damage a wider tire on a turn. So, I ininstalled these and reversed these.

Finally, I got the engine off the jack and sitting on its new engine mount. I am in no way finished and being that I did not reuse mysteering shaft, aligning the wheel is going to be a PIA.

I will post some pictures of what I am talking about as soon as I can download them from my camera.

Still waiting on the WB kit as it has not arrived yet

Also, ordered my 5-lug conversion (as I needed to complete my Re-Speed collection) so someone buy my 4-lug wheels!

 

Mariah told me today that the WB is finally shipping today!

I have picked up some wheels BBS RS 16x9 +33 offset (I know, I will need 14mm spacers). Good price. Pictures are without centercaps, but they come with centercaps. Also, I'm not using those silly small tires.











I'll take more pictures when they arrive.

 

How much did the wheels run you?