Oppai

Hi all, Joey (Oppai) here.
I've just passed 4 years of ownership this year of my one-of-a-kind Pink RHD FD. After the latest round of upgrades, I've decided it's time for a build thread of my cherry blossom pink FD that I've affectionately nicknamed 'Sakura' which means cherry blossom. This will be like a diary account of my past 4 years of ownership with lots of pictures so please stick around and enjoy! The complete parts/modlist will be at the end along with pictures of the current state of the car.

The first thing I wanted to mention in my build thread is the immense gratitude I have for all of the fantastic members of the Rx7/FD community that have helped me on this journey.
Those people include forum regulars as well as many people in the Tri-state rx7 community that have been nothing but kind, welcoming, and helpful to an utterly inexperienced and incompetent rotorhead.
In particular, DaleClark, Howard Coleman, DaveW, GoodfellaFD3S, Testrun, Billy7, and Ray Crowe have been vitally helpful and if not for every single one of you being so charitable as to help me with the countless issues I've run into; I'd certainly have given up on this car and sold it by now.
Instead, my pink FD has become a beloved asset, working on it has become an immensely fulfilling hobby, and it's now something I plan on taking with me to the grave.

Here's the car on its first day under my ownership in for post-purchase inspection during the peak of covid -- Circa April 2020. In some ways, I miss this stock, pre-molested state of my engine bay, but looking at it longer, all I can think about are all the failure points which I have since removed. Since I've committed to keeping this car for life, keeping everything OEM was never going to be an option.




First order of business was the shift lever bushing which had disintegrated into many little plastic shards. New bushing and new replica B&M short throw shifter went in.



Next up I got this spiffy triple gauge speaker pod from Drakes. He makes some awesome stuff for FD's. Sadly the gauges to go in it are glowshift gauges as they were the only ones i could afford at the time. They work better than people give them credit for.


Then came the dreaded rats nest renewal. The various threads by forum members, especially DaleClarks well-known thread on the vacuum system was invaluable to me completing this successfully.


Then came the day every owner fears, I blew my engine. Complete loss of compression. I was quite devastated. I had only driven the car 50 miles or so since buying it. Now I was looking at a full engine replacement. It was the height of covid, I was weighing selling it. Fortunately, after much consideration, I chose to keep it and fix it. Frankly I had flashbacks to prior traumatic experiences with a past car..... These photos are 3 years apart. I guess some things never change...

Oppai

Working through any weather. I was determined to get this thing running again in my tiny driveway. Neighbors would often drop by to cheer me on which was unexpected.



There we have it. A junked motor. The rotors and housings were unusable. As were the turbos.



At the time, the ECU was a prime suspect for cause of engine failure. I thought the ECU may have been on an unsafe tune that caused detonation. It in fact wasn't the ECU, it was phase separated gas which was caused by a completely broken o-ring on the gas cap. The car sat through an entire winter parked outdoors with the leaky gas cap which caused the gas to go totally bad (even with fuel stabilizer)

Finally, after a few long months, the engine was back in the car, along with a new ACT HDSS clutch. Very gingerly, I started breaking it in while also fixing other little odds and ends such as the dashpot, the ISCV, the AC. The picture on the right was the fruit of my labors. Perfect compression after break-in.


Then came time to address the wheels, tires, and suspension. The car had been "stanced" by the previous japanese owner. Not my thing, I like functional cars. There is beauty in function. Also NYC roads make it impossible to drive a stanced car.
The car had taken quite a beating from driving on these stretched tires and the slammed and overly stiff suspension. I decided it was time to fix that.
On the left was the old setup - some unknown enkei 6-spoke wheels with stretched tires on 326power chakuriki coilovers. So stiff I jumped the car a few times just hitting mild bumps on the highway. The tires were cheap chinese off-brand tires.
On the right is the new/current setup. Enkei NT03RR's 18x9+45 F and 18x9.5 +40 R with Falken FK510 255/35-18 sitting on Ohlins DFV coilovers.
Also put on pink valve stems and pink lug nuts to match the car.


The interior also needed a little bit of refreshing. Out comes everything for some restoration.

Oppai

The dashboard was cracked and lifting so I had a try at reupholstering it which went pretty poorly. I documented the learning process here.

I ended up opting to buy a good used dashboard and restoring it from the inside out. Many of the clips and screwholes were damaged, cracked, split, etc. The plastics needed tons of epoxying. Every single self tapping screw went in a vinegar bath to remove rust, then went back in with anti-seize. Clips were replaced. Old foam was removed. Everything got a few coats of plastic moisturizer. It was about a month long project.
At the same time I also refreshed the electronics in my gauge cluster and replaced the gauge faces for a MPH/KPH (canadian) OEM set and replaced the gauge housing which had some broken tabs.
Additionally also installed new OEM gauge shroud and hood, and new OEM shifter panel. Christ those were expensive...

Some more interior cosmetics. I bought some alcantara boots and hand stitched them in pink. I also gave a shot at stitching the shifter **** but I didn't love the look of the OEM **** anyway so I bought a custom epoxy **** that matched the theme of the car more.


On goes all the hand stitched boots and the ****.

While I was at it, I also hand stitched some floormats. Couldn't find it in me to pay $300+ for oem or aftermarket floormats. This cost $50 and a few hours of my time.

The end result. I was quite pleased. I also went ahead and changed the interior map lights to pink. The gauge cluster bulbs were also made pink, but the faces have an orange/red tint so the color doesn't show.

Finally, the finishing touch was a nardi torino with a rare pink nardi horn button. Unfortunately I could never find a torino with pink stitching so it's red. Maybe someday I'll work up the motivation to restitch it pink myself.
The OEM efini wheel makes for a really nice decoration in my mancave.

Many things have changed in my life in the 4 years I've owned this car. I bought my first house, and the FD promptly got snowed on in the new driveway.
The one constant in my life has been that this goddamn car always has something left to fix. In a weird way, It's almost a comforting. Having to constantly fix/improve this car grounds me.



Next up some performance upgrades. My BOV was a little worse for wear so I decided to swap it for an HKS SQV. The sqv noises never fail to make me smile, well worth the price tag. Around this time I also had the original alternator go bad on me and had to swap it for a reman.

Oppai

Next came new pads, new rotors, stainless steel brake lines, new brake fluid, and some spiffy caliper paint. This was quite a fun brake job to do. Another thing I added was a brake booster brace off ebay. After these upgrades the pedal feel was considerably better under hard braking.

Next up took my zenki taillights and modified them with a drakes 99 spec template. Also tried hand cutting these cherry blossom vinyl shades but I ended up not liking the look and just sticking with the 99 spec look.

Of course after taillights comes headlights. Rx-lights just happened to have the perfect set for me. Matched the black + pink theme of the car. Makes her look like a proper villain. I'd be lying if I said it turned out exactly as I envisioned, but the look has grown on me.

Then I decided I couldn't let the car weather another winter without at least a roof over it. As my house doesn't have a garage, and building one would be prohibitively expensive, I went with an inexpensive 20ft gazebo from costco with 2ft deep concrete footers and extended it lengthwise. Another thing that changed for the better in my life, I bought a brand new car for the first time! 2024 cx-5 turbo Signature. Welcome to the family little sister! Her name is 'Akane' which in Japanese means "deep red".

All tucked in for winter. Also in frame, 1983 Datsun 280zx Turbo and 1978 Mustang II Cobra II

After a few long years finally have everything nicely organized with the help of my father in law.

Now I can finally get the ball rolling with some performance upgrades! An HKS v-mount which I managed to snag for $1100 shipped! Steal! Also lots of other goodies, cusco strut bar, cusco CDI unit + pnp harness, SARD fuel rails, SARD FPR. Got some bosch 2000cc ev14 secondaries. Not pictured but also installed is an AEM 0300 X series wideband O2 sensor & gauge, power FC ECU, and fc-tweak + dl-340xb module.

Oppai

Gave the engine bay a quick mask and a coat of black enamel paint. The before/after difference is remarkable even having hardly removed anything from the engine bay.


I also added some braided nylon sheathing onto my harness. This stuff is amazing!! no need to take your harness off to install it! Don't even need to take the connectors off!! Also I fabbed up some oil cooler ducting with the leftover aluminum from the battery relocation kit.


It might be obvious to you now that I'm a sucker for a good deal. This was perhaps one of the best value buys in the entire car. Wireless android auto & apple carplay, touchscreen, wifi screen mirroring & bluetooth capable, reverse cam included, head unit which cost me $70 and took 30 MINUTES TO INSTALL!!! (My car already had an aftermarket radio and all of the wires happened to be neatly labeled for me already) SIMPLY PHENOMENAL!

I also bought titanium hardware and andozied it myself to match the car. Then, I figured I might as well buy a titanium rod and bend my own titanium hood prop to get it to match the car too. Getting it the same pink was finnicky, I settled for the result seen. I may revisit it someday.
DIYing all of it was much cheaper than buying "kits" out there. Total cost for all the hardware and stuff to anodize with was about $270. A titanium hood prop alone runs $200 after shipping & I'd still have to anodize it for the colors to match.


Everything in the HKS kit gets a coat of black or pink enamel.

Oppai

Next up,a new Antigravity ATX-30 restart lithium battery relocated to the rear. I drilled a couple holes and reused the factory battery bracket but in a horizontal position. This battery is only about 5lbs so it should hold.
While I was here I also rewired the fuel pump on a new circuit with a new relay, and upgraded the fuel pump to a walbro 450. The battery cable also got a battery cutoff switch which I placed where the jack & tire iron used to go
In this day and age, a donut wheel probably isn't gonna do anything for me, especially not in NYC. Not to mention the tire on the spare is 30 years old and completely dry rotted. I opted for some weight reduction. The old donut wheel will make for some nice decoration once I get that rotted tire off. Don't worry, I cleaned up that dirty spare wheel well before putting everything back together. 100% stealth battery relocation.



Next up I redid the AC loop forward of the firewall apart from the pump. My pump is in good working order, and so was my condenser and drier, but the HKS kit was only made to fit Denso AC's and my mana system was hopelessly impossible to adapt to fit the denso fittings.
Instead, I opted to simply replace all the mana crap except for the pump. I ended up needing 1 specialized brass adapter fitting for the high pressure side but everything else used standard size crimp fittings which I bought as a kit from Vintage Air. I reused a portion of the low pressure hose to the compressor to retain the mana fitting and added a splice fitting to my new condenser fitting. It took quite a few weeks of planning things out but in the end it all worked out perfectly. Total cost including the hose crimper tool came out to $450, which is still well below the cost of the JP3 custom AC hose kits. Jp3 Makes fantastic stuff, but sadly a lot of it is out of my tax bracket. If there is interest I may do a separate thread dedicated to this AC "restomod"



Catless midpipe from petit racing. Unfortunately for whatever reason the exhaust hanger rod wasn't long enough so I busted out the mig welder and extended it a bit after this photo was taken.


Just to cover all bases on the bling, I went and got this vintage pink R-magic oil cap. Thanks to RX7parts.com for this rare find!

Of course the stenciled HKS logo on the intercooler also had to be in pink. I also made an effort to get nice heat anodized t-bolt couplers for the intercooler and radiator pipes.

Upon installing the hks v-mount with the koyo n-flow rad, I learned just how low to the ground this setup is. The fan cage hangs below my lower control arms with the car on jack stands!! This was unacceptable so I did some trimming of the cage and epoxied back on some 3mm steel rod in place of where the plastic used to be on the lowest points.

Also made my own heat shield for the hood with a black welding blanket made of carbon wool. Could not swallow the $380 cost for the OEM heat shields. At least it matches the colors nicely and was very affordable ($50). Here you can also see some new K&N air filters for the stock twins. Less obvious are the 90c thermoswitch for the fans, and 90c thermostat.

Some glamour shots of the current finished setup. The only thing missing is the cusco strut bar which I have since installed. On the list to address is the unsightly reservoirs for the power steering & wiper fluid bottle which will be taken care of in due time.

Oppai

Full Modlist

Engine & Drivetrain

1. FGK catback exhaust*
2. K&N filters with generic ebay intake pipes for stock twins
3. HKS v-mount
4. Restomodded Mana AC system - generic fittings, condenser, and drier
5. Koyo n-flow radiator
6. Air pump & ACV emissions delete
7. FPD delete
8. Vacuum system simplifciation
9. Walbro 450 fuel pump
10. petit midpipe
11. 90c thermostat
12. 90c thermoswitch
13. AST delete
14. Silicone vacuum hoses
15. LRB speed aluminum undertray with v-mount cutouts & custom mesh screen
16. Custom aluminum oil cooler ducts
17. fast idle cam delete
18. double throttle delete
19. Sard top feed secondary fuel rail
20. Sard FPR
21. bosch 2000cc ev14 secondary injectors
22. new fuel hoses & clamps
23. B&M short throw shifter
24. ACT HDSS clutch
25. FFE pulley

Electrical

1. Pink DRL bulbs*
2. Apexi Power-FC ECU
3. Fc-Tweak & DL-340XB module
4. RX-lights black housing & square projector LED headlights 1-of-1
5. Pink map light bulbs
6. Pink cluster bulbs & renewed cluster electronics
7. Antigravity ATX-30 Restart
8. Generic Battery quick disconnect switch
9. Battery relocation to spare wheel well
10. Cusco CDI ignition booster
11. Rewired fuel pump & fuel pump relay
12. All new relays & fuses
13. Injectors cleaned & flow tested
14. ISCV cleaned
15. 99 spec tail light conversion
16. $70 amazon generic head unit
17. aem 0300 x-series wideband o2 sensor & gauge
18. braided nylon wire sheath

Cosmetic

1. BNSport Gen 1 body kit *
2. Bedazzled pink gauges*
3. Pink seat covers*
4. Rear wiper delete*
5. Full dashboard restoration
6. LRB speed defrost vents
7. Nardi torino steering wheel with pink nardi horn button
8. VHT pink & black engine enamel throughout
9. Pink hand stitched alcantara shifter & ebrake boot
10. pink hand stitched floormats
11. custom floral pink epoxy shift ****
12. Pink lug nuts & valve stem caps
13. Pink anodized titanium hardware throughout
14. Pink anodized titanium hood prop (custom bent)
15. SS heat anodized T-bolt clamps
16. R-magic Pro Staff Pink oil cap
17. Welding blanket hood insulation
18. pink silicone coolant hoses
19. new door handle actuator rod retainer clips
20. new OEM meter hood & shifter panel
21. Drakes 3-gauge speaker pod

Suspension & Handling

1. Cusco 1.5-way LSD*
2. Enkei NT03RR's 18x9+45 F and 18x9.5 +40 R
3. Falken FK510 255/35-18
4. Ohlins DFV coilovers
5. Cusco ALC OS strut bar
6. EBC Yellow stuff pads
7. generic china SS braided brake lines
8. stoptech drilled & slotted steel rotors
9. generic China brake booster brace

* = not installed by me

Future Plans
I want to add a panel to isolate my intake from the hot air coming out the back of the intercooler.
My door locks are sticky and turning the key doesn't activate the power locks most of the time. Will need to take apart the doors and get this addressed.
I have some issues with my DRL and brake lights randomly turning on with the car fully off. I also have some other weird electrical gremlins flashing the dash seatbelt light intermittently. I suspect a failing CPU2 and will be restoring my CPU2 soon with new capacitors.
I picked up some new old stock gen 1 BNR stage 3 turbos for what I thought was a good deal. The hot side housings were shot beyond repair so I took the core from my old twins and sent them out to have the cracks repaired with Ni-99 rod.
I'm planning to upgrade my PC and WG control solenoids to MAC solenoids, as well as install a GReddy downpipe to go on the new BNR twins.
After reading Howard Coleman's thread on spark plugs I went and bought 12 denso s3a1's which I've yet to swap in.
Additionally, the paint is a bit worse for wear in quite a few spots, so the car will be fully repainted the same color at some point in the future.



This took a long time to write. Hope you enjoyed reading. Let me know your thoughts on my build. I'd love to have some discourse on my modlist and what could be done better or further improved.
Thanks for reading,
Joey

Valkyrie

With an intercooler that big, I think the need to isolate the intakes from heat is completely overblown. What are your IATs during pulls?
You do need to seal up the edges, though.

Those stock fans are hilariously low... lol
It almost looks like the kit was designed for low-profile aftermarket fans.

fireindc

I'm digging the build! Nice work on the motor rebuild, that's some good and even compression. I agree about the fans, needs some low pro aftermarket. Spal fans are amazing.

Keep up the good work!

R-R-Rx7

iTrader: (24)

if you decide to go with aftermarket fans, you will need to make a shroud. Otherwise they wont work properly. I am using the same kit and i went through different setups to solve the low hanging fans situation. Definitely a bad idea from HKS.
Bare in mind, especially in the terrible NY streets, you will eventually destroy the fans and probably the radiator

Oppai

so far ive had no issues going over speed bumps and bad roads. Also the fans are protected by the lrb speed undertray. It's because have my ohlins coilovers set to almost their max ride height.

Oppai

iats were ~35c at 10lbs of boost when the ambient was about 18c. I havent really wrung the car out yet though because it still needs dialing in.

Valkyrie

A vented hood would go a long way…

But you need a cooling plate on top ASAP.

Oppai

Forgive my ignorance...
What's a cooling plate?

Valkyrie

A piece of sheet metal that keeps air from escaping over the top of the radiator/intercooler.

I just used tape... lol

Oppai

Ohhh cooling panels. I have one but it wouldn't fit under my hood with the HKS intercooler.
Most of them are meant to fit intercoolers that don't stick up as high as the HKS one. I tried bending it to fit but couldn't get it to work. Will have to fab something up.

Not sure why when I heard cooling plate I thought of like a big steel heatsink

EREBUS

LOVE the pink!
That sakura shift **** is beautiful!

Oppai

If you're interested this is where I got it from. They make awesome stuff!
https://mr-grip-store.com/