user 72081209812

I got my RX7 GXL 89 on December 26, 2007 (last time I drive her in the winter ). She was clean except for the rusted weatherstripping on the window and rust on the sunroof. One random day I was driving down Lake Shore Drive (I live in Chicago BTW) and I happened to lose control and crashed the front end on the concrete barriers causing driver side damage. Then another day I was driving through my street I happened to crash into a car at around 10mph, causing passenger side damage. So my whole front end is jacked up. I also broke my driver side mirror driving into my driveway when I was in an emergency (which really was not that much of an emergency I found later).

Anyways, feast some pictures (sorry no engine bay pics yet, I'll grab some when I randomly can) I never had any pictures of when she didn't have damage



Lake Shore Drive damage...


I found it funny how the other car that caused this was a Mazda 626 but got no damage whatsoever.


Notice one missing tailpipe... time to replace with racing beat...


I didn't notice that when I bought it she had a rusted exhaust up until I got home...


Rusted sunroof, I'm thinking of replacing with a glass sunroof


Rusted weatherstripping and dingly mirror, easy fix.


I already bought new fenders to slap onto my car, I just need a bumper. I was thinking of going body lights and spray painting the acryllic see through smoke black to give it that "closed flip up" look but when I turn my lights on it'll go through the black headlights. I thought of that interesting idea and if anyone has pictures please share some .

My plans for now:
Fix the front end damage
Get a professional paint job, possibly black or dark blue
New weatherstripping
Fix dangly side mirror
New Sunroof
New exhaust system, I was thinking of full racing beat exhaust
Remove A/C system
Put OMP blockoff plate
17" mesh wheels
Needs new clutch/flywheel

Right now its hard for me to get all these fixes done, but I'll post progress although don't expect too much progress right now. I'm working 6 days a week about 8 hours a day and this is my daily drive until I get my motorcycle in the next few weeks. I want to hopefully get as much done before the end of fall because I'll be living in Japan for a year around November.

Oh yeah, her name is NanaPSI (pronounced NanaSai for the people that could read Japanese I want to put 七さい stickers on it) because in Japanese that means 7 years but I plan to push 7 PSI so I wanted to play around with Japanese (me being Japanese) and how you pronounce PSI in English would be "sai" right? haha... I also plan to push 7PSI of boost through her in the future through supercharger. Hopefully before 7 years haha.

Anyways, have ideas, suggestions, flames/insults, or just want to freely talk about my car and/or plans? Go right ahead~

Hidehiro

namelesspenguin

iTrader: (1)

in regards to the glass sunroof...
you should just stick to a new/stock sunroof. the glass sunroofs weigh more and they dont make any kind of sunshade for it. unless you wanna mock one up yourself.
besides that,
fix the front bumper
lower it
get the meshies
get exhaust
your car looks good though
besides the hideous burgundy interior

NJGreenBudd

iTrader: (1)

Poor 7. My old GXL had a muffler tip fall right off too, they look funny like that.

user 72081209812

Wow, I figured that the glass sunroof would weigh less because in my head metal is lighter than glass. When it comes to weight, I'd rather have a lighter car than a glass sunroof . You practically said my plan for the next half year ... and you were spot on with the hideous burgundy interior .

Yep... she went through a lot but I promised her it'd be the worst and the last she'll ever have to go through. FC's do look funny with only one muffler tip . First saw it I was confused and lol'd. To that same reason I want a racing beat road race exhaust over a corksport exhaust.

user 72081209812

Its been a while since I have been able to start doing things to my car but I am finally getting somewhere. I ordered a straight pipe as part of my exhaust setup and headlights for the body lights I planned. Within July I hope to have a full exhaust setup done, the front fenders with a new bumper, and a new paintjob done. I have good fenders here waiting in my room since Feb. Hopefully I can do that much with my limited funding...

user 72081209812

Here it is, photo shots of my corksport exhaust.








I am now in the process of fixing the front of my car . See the lights in the first two pictures? Those are going to be for my "body lights" project. Anyways, I still need to "properly" fix my exhaust mounts since one was so old it snapped. The corksport 2.5" sounds BEAUTIFUL. Nice low end rumble at low RPM and at high RPM or WOT it has a nice roar. It might be a little too loud, since I am setting off car alarms and I can't hear the music in my car at low volumes, but that's an easy fix. (Turn up the music and don't give a damn about car alarms ) If anyone wants a sample of the exhaust, if I have some free time I'll put up a video of one.

blimp

iTrader: (2)

bump for another chicago fc.

blackedoutFC3S

iTrader: (7)

any updates on this build? i wanna see what happens to the front end!

user 72081209812

Oh, I had to slow down the project since I received a semi-hefty medical bill and my garage was left open last month causing me to lose all my tools by some thief. Although I'm almost done collecting parts for the front end so I can start working on it, hopefully soon.

user 72081209812

I just ordered the bumper and I'm waiting for it to arrive! I could then start working on the car. I'll have to buy my tools one by one for each tool I need to start working again. The bumper I ordered sadly isn't the body lights I had planned since the company I am ordering from ran out of stock... so I instead went with the 300zx z31 style front bumper.

Since I am having a little money problems, what was the easiest and cheapest upgrade? Stripping the interior! I so far, stripped the interior of the middle to the back of the car. So storage compartments, gone. Trunk lining, gone. I am now debating what color to paint the car.

On the side note: Try mixing 3/4 a cup of milk, 1/4 Bailey's Irish Cream with a hint of caramel, stir with a spoon, and drop a few cubes of ice. I don't know if it is a real mix yet, but it taste like chocolate milk. Having fun experimenting left over liquor to get rid of it.

KhanArtisT

iTrader: (2)

Nice! that totally reminds me of my car when it was all stock since its a rare color. I had the loose mirror too lol. I would keep the sunroof and just get a relatively cheap paint job, paint the door seals/weather stripping and get S5 TII wheels. It looks great though the Corksport exhaust is very nice looking.

user 72081209812

Last week, I did some inspections on my brakes because something felt wrong. I found out I had stuck calipers and needed to replace the brake pads. So I was a week out of driving my car around, but while she was waiting for her brakes to ship to the local auto parts store, her bumper arrived! (Coincidentally while driving around my motorcycle my clutch cable snapped... leaving me out of a vehicle so I had to ask for one of my parent's car)



I could not do the body lights that I was so eager to do due to funding issues and the bumper being out of stock. Since the 7 was on jack stands waiting for her brake calipers to arrive, I thought "why not install the bumper?"

This is the product.







This is the second time I've done body work in my life. First time was on my 240sx. It's my first time for installing an aftermarket bumper, so that was a blast. I have a few things off aligned, like the headlights and the hood. To say though, there was light frame rail damage, which was saddening. Looks kind of like a z31 300zx's sister. I like where I located the front license plate...

Anyways, give me some ideas on what color to paint the car! Painting the car will happen really soon now~ After the paint job... I'm going to throw some meshies.

RotorBalls

iTrader: (1)

Shame about the damage the thing looked clean. I feel your pain though and went the same route you did after wrecking my front end. Might as well throw something on it since it's already wrecked

ecko

iTrader: (57)

its coming along nice got the same car you have i hope to start doing some mods too.

user 72081209812

I was out and about late at night, so I decided to take a picture right before parking my car. It's drivable again since I got the brake calipers in. Eye candy time!



I'm not sure when I will get it painted since it severely needs a paint job. I'll get it painted as soon as I can, at max a month from now and 2 weeks minimum.

blackedoutFC3S

iTrader: (7)

nice man! what color are you thinking? and whats on the way for it next?

user 72081209812

I am thinking of painting it this very specific color of blue. It is hard to describe, but its a blue that has a feeling reminiscent of gray. At least, that is what I'm thinking right now. Other options are black or a dark dark gray. After a paint job, I need new wheels and tires. I'm thinking of mesh tires, anything affordable. I might go with TII wheels or these;



They look nice IMO, but they way 20lbs After getting the wheels done, I need to do a clutch job since the clutch slips like there is no tomorrow. The rest is all really basic; remove a/c, strip interior, etc

Then next spring, if everything is all right, I'm going to start planning for boost. Either go turbo or supercharger.

user 72081209812

It's been a while since I've done much to my car, especially since the weather here in Chicago is really starting to drop.

I fixed both my mirrors, which are colored red. I still haven't gotten my car painted since I decided to first replace the clutch and resurface the flywheel, almost done. I decided to go OEM instead of a street/strip clutch because I figured that an OEM will hold well even after I go turbo.

I haven't gotten new wheels yet since I'm in a money crunch due to college. I had a few hospital bills to pay off, but the state sent me a letter telling me they would compensate since I was a victim of a violent crime. So hopefully the money I already paid off will come back and I get to have the car painted, possibly wheels and tires as well.

ecko

iTrader: (57)

nice keep it going keep us all posted.

Alex Rodriguez

iTrader: (137)

nice you are putting some type of side skirts right?

and did the damge go toward the front quarter panels or just the fenders

Hypertek

iTrader: (3)

haha let us know when ur ready for wheels, would hate to see you pick the wrong wheels *stay away from 17x7 frontwheeldrivecivic sizes*

g14novak

iTrader: (1)

Very much agreed.

Don't know if you've seen the other thread, but if your getting the car kit'd, I'd recommend some of these. Great priced and look amazing.

http://www.cruizinconcepts.com/godsp...ls_mustang.asp

http://www.cruizinconcepts.com/saleensscwheels.asp

user 72081209812

The damage mainly was sent through the fenders and bumpers, but there was slightly front quarter panel damage and on the drivers side the frame was bent a few inches.

I'll let everyone know and show some options. I'm wanting to know why I should stay away from 17x7's?

I do like the pricing and sizing, but I really dislike the style. I'm looking for meshies

johnnyt

what front bumper is that, i need a new one and kinda digging it?

Hypertek

iTrader: (3)

2 good examples of cars where people put crap wheels on, ford mustangs and 350z

heres a quick example of crappy wheels


The original wheels would have looked better because the size they chose is not suitable sizing for RWD. The wheels sit far inside the body. If i bought that car, the wheels would be the first things id change, probably go back to stock over those.

Be careful, do some homework, Wheel shops will not teach you about good wheel selection, they will be happy to sell you any wheels lol.
Wheels will be a long term investment, not a temporary fix because you wanted rims. lol

Oh yeah, your rocking a BN Sports front, that whole kit relies on some baller rims otherwise overal it wont look good.

p.s. your Japanese right? it should be natural that you would rock some sweet rims lol