Hey people well here I am in little old NZ building up my second FD and you can help with some suggestions along the way.
Firstly I have started with a 1992 FD3S, it is an ex-stolen recovered car and it has been a looooong process so far. When I got the car it turned up on space savers without brakes, seats, engine and a whole bunch of other stuff and the guys that stole it went over the car with a ball point hammer denting every panel and smashing the front windscreen.
The work I have done so far is fairly substantial and I have owned the car 5 months now. I have done all of the work myself except putting the top coat of paint in the engine bay.

I was lucky enough to stumble across a car that was getting the Veilside Fortune kit put on it so he no longer required all of his 1999 Series 8 panels so naturally I grabbed them at a really good price!!

parts include:

front bumper and park lights
front fenders
bonnet
headlights complete
rear bumper
adjustable rear wing
front and rear struts and springs
Series 8 alloy wheels and tires
radiator

I managed to get all of these for a very good price and have progressed my car from a beaten up wreck into something kind of resembling a car.
When I purchased it, it was an auto and in a sad state and since owning it I have converted the complete car to manual by changing the car loom, engine loom installing manual pedal box, gearbox and this weekend I will be putting the manual diff in also. The engine bay is painted now and the engine is back in and running but the Power FC needs a tune. The colour I have chosen is mazda code 20P which is the 1999 RX7 innocent blue mica. I chose this because I have all of the series 8 panels so why not make the rest of the car look like one. I have also obtained rear bins to replace the rear seats and I will be doing other mods aswell.

This weekend I have alot to do, I am going to be painting the door shuts and underside of the bonnet and hatch. I have shaved my door locks and removed all locking mechinisms in the doors as keyless entry will be used.

So that is enough dribble from me for now if you have any cool suggestions as to what little things I could do to it it would be great to have your input.

First question for you is:

Should I paint the lower lip on my front bumper or leave it standard black???
Here are some pics of it earlier on and one of my last RX7 so you can get a feel for what my work is like.

 

Man, why does everyone hate the rear seats so much? I think that they are kind of cool, keep em!

That's some crazy work you did there btw! I cant imagine how the ride looked like with all that stuff missing, and having to find it all and put it in again. I give you props for restoring one of our rare rides back from the dead, otherwise... it would have been such a waste of perfectly good metal if it went to the crusher.

As for the keyless entry and painting the lip... DONT DO IT!!!!:smiley_12

It will be/ look stupid and you will regret it. Is the last pic your car? Get rid of those crazy/huge/ugly/heavy rims and getsomething decent, yo!

Oh, and I think it looked better white... I dont like the gay blue color...

 

I dont hate the rear seats but what I do hate is when mates come for a ride in the back and put cigarette burns in my upholstery or leave thier rubbish and drop chips on my carpet so they find a permanent home under my seats. By replacing the seats with bins I can just say "sorry but its only a 2 seater, tuff luck".

I dont think I will be taking on a project of this level again as it has been far too difficult finding small replacement parts like metal brake lines, random bolts and fittings etc, mainly just small stupid **** really but none the less.
Has anyone ever tried to find a second hand black hood lining for an fd with a sunroof??? I havnt been able to find one yet, and its starting to really annoy me!!

These cars in New Zealand are pretty common now and are reasonably cheap and this one all up including buying it will only cost me NZD $9000 on the road and I should be able to get between NZD $16,000 and $20,000 as it has been a full ground up rebuild. I guess if I counter in the amount of hours that I have put into it then it would be easily up around the 20k mark or more if I had paid someone to do it all.
The only parts that havent felt the touch of my tools at the end of it will be the front and rear sub-frames and the fuel tank (but I did have to put a new fuel pump in it as it was missing).

Here are some more pics...... oh and check out my ROTOR tail lights in my old 7!! If you want some I can do them!

 

Wait .. What are you trying to do? coles notes mannnnnn

 

What do you mean???

 

Nevermind.. Dont paint the front lip

 

Well the engine is in so I took a pic, I will be pulling the manifold off again to clean and paint but thought I should put in an update of the progress.

Dropped the car down on the ground too with my new suspension and damn its going to be low!! The front tyre is 10mm away from the guard and the springs havent even settled yet!!!!

I am also taking off all the underseal that runs along the doors and sills as the new doors i have dont line up with the old underseal. i think it will look much nicer having a smooth finish. Lets just hope I dont get any stone chips.

 

looking nice! Good job dude! Keep going, and dont give up on it! FD's gonna be schweeT!

 

Don't paint it.

 

Ok so I thought I should give a bit of an update.

I have just finished re-shaping the rear fenders as they were pretty beat up. I was contemplating putting wide rear fenders on but have decided to reserve that for my next FD as that will be the one I keep.

I have aso decided not to paint my front lip and leave it stock as the opinions of you people have said to leave it.

My new diff still hasnt turned up but will hopefully this week as I need to test drive it to make sure engine runs ok etc.

I will hopefully be getting my door shuts all painted up in the next week so I can start piecing the car back together. I still have so much to do, the doors need paneling but at least I have the bonnet (hood) and hatch done. The front fenders are pretty straight but one was blown over in the wind the other day so has a few scratches on it now, a bit annoyed but it happens.

My C-West side skirts are turning up on monday so I will trial fit them up and get thw sills painted before final fitment and I will hopefully get my newly recoverd hood lining back this week.

I have so much fun ahead of me still, I just want it finished so I can get it registered and go on a road trip over the summer!!!

 

Woo go NZ!

Man hope all goes well with your build lol.. I guess I will see it on TradeMe soon, eh? :P

 

Well it's been awhile since an update and a few things have progressed. I have purchased a set of C-West side skirts, mock fitted them and primed ready for paint. The body is getting its final coat next weekend and I am primering/undercoating and sanding down the body this weekend ready for the nice new blue!!
The side skirts were hard to fit and I had to manipulate them a fair bit for them to fit properly and the body has been a real challenge thanks to the guys that worked the car over with a hammer when it was stolen!!!!
I have also stripped off all the textured finish from the bottom of the doors/lower panels etc and its loking pretty good but it wasnt easy to get the panels feeling right after they were stripped back.

On the downside, I hae been having trouble statring my engine, just didnt sound right when turning over and when it was running it wouldnt like revving over 4500rpm, I took it for a short drive down the street and it barely got to 50kph (30mph) oh and getting up my driveway, well that took 4 attempts and needed to get a run up from the other side of the road!!!
I had a friend come over last night and after replacing the plugs, new leads, coils and igniter he turned up, we got it running and he said it was only running on one rotor!!!!! We pulled off the front leading HT lead and sure enough it didnt make any difference so once the car is painted next weekend I will be making yet another trip up north with my dud motor to exchange it for a running one.

This engine is a second hand jobby from a good friend of mine and it had been sitting for a year out of a car with no auxileries on it but with all the holes blocked off with alloy tape and I thought it would be a runner. Good thing he has another one that I can start/drive myself and pull out of the car over a weekend.

At this stage I have nearly had enough of working on the car, I have done so much sanding it would drive most people mad but I know that the end result will be worth it and all my hard work will have paid off!!!

So i better go and finish off the body work before I primer today, I have been held up by 2 weeks due to bad weather but hey, **** happens and it's best not to rush these things!

 

more pics mate looks great

 

IMO... painting the lip cheapens the look of the car compare to nice color/quality of the original material whether its plastic or CF.

+1 to more pics.

 

Ok so here it is I got it painted in the weekend and I have got it about 80 percent back together now. Most of the extrior panels/parts have been put back on and its looking pretty good so far!!

I am not totally happy with the paint job as there are a few flat spots in the clear but hopefully they will buff out when it has its cut and polish after christmas.

the door handles have come up better than I expected too, I did the same to my last car but you could see where the holes used to be, this time you cant even tell that they even had holes.

I have managed to find out what was wrong with the engine, originally I had thought that it had dropped a seal as it was only running on 1 rotor but I have since discovered (after spending about NZ$500 buying new parts for it) I found that it had a sticky injector so I pulled both primary and secondary injector rails out last night to get cleaned and flow tested so I should be able to take it around the block on Friday (fingers crossed).

This has been a monumental effort for me as I have done every bit of work myself apart from the top coat of paint. I have had almost every part of the car in pieces apart from the fuel tank and front and rear sub frames so in essence it has been a full ground up rebuild. I have learnt alot along the way and I can't wait to take it for it's first road trip.

Let me know what you think. I will be getting more pics up when I have put more parts on the car.

Oh and the first picture is what it looked like the day I got the car!!!! Man what a change it is to see it like it is now!!!!!!!

 

Wow man thats looking really good..

Is that car in your avatar yours? I saw it on trademe a while ago. :P

 

Nah thats my mate Dave's car its the ex R-Magic Car from Japan, real mean, real fast and handles like it's on rails!!!!

Oh and thanks!

 

BADSVN2000, mad props to you for that restoration.

it's super clean, that's all i have to say.

keep up the good work dude!

 

hey thanks, I really appreciate it!!! I will put more pics up in the weekend after I take it for its first drive!!

 

the door handles have come up better than I expected too, I did the same to my last car but you could see where the holes used to be, this time you cant even tell that they even had holes.
I don't know what I'm looking for with the door handles...can't really see them in the pix. Can you give us a better shot and tell us what/ how you did it?
Great job. I'm curious are you a mechanic or engineer by trade? Very inspiring to see a ground up such as this. Makes me want to learn how to do it all!

Cheers!

 

Kudos to you for bringing it back from the dead, looking very good

 

I will get some pics up sometime this weekend when I get my laptop back.

What I have done is remove the door locks from the door handles and filled up the holes, I have also taken out the rod that goes from the handle to the lock mechanism itself, this will eliminate anyone being able to get into the car without either the alarm or smashing a window. I am not a mechanic or an engineer, I am just a kiwi with a bit of know how and a can do attitude.



Oh and I had a slight set back yesterday. I started her up after having the injectors cleaned and flow tested, warmed her up and revved her a bit and to my shock horror, black smoke started bellowing up from under the car, then I saw flames!!!!!!!!!
I shut the car down and grabbed the hose and managed to put the fire out luckily as I could just see in my head the car going up in flames!!
Basically what happened was that there was 2 stroke oil and CRC on the ground under the car (which I had forgotten to clean up) from when I was having trouble getting it going, a spark or a flame from the exhaust managed to ignite the cocktail and set it all alight. This time I was VERY lucky with only minimal damage. I will have to re-wire the all of the wires to the gearbox and may have to replace one or two of the sensors but apart from that I am glad that I still have a car!

 

congrats on keeping the 7 alive and I'm glad you kept the lip back. more pics!!!

 

Ok so here are a few more pics, I had to use my phone and the is a fair bit of glare from the sun. Check out the shaved door locks on the handles and waht do you think of the c-west side skirts with the veilside end caps? I think they look pretty good.

I took it for its first drive today, just up the street but it was really quick. I installed my ARC intercooler and put one of my exhausts on, it has a really nice note but I really want my 3" system on instead of the 2.5" one that i chucked on for the test drive.

Anyway check out the pics and enjoy

 

looks clean, have you thought about an RE-Amemiya rear diffuser to go with the veilside caps? The doors look better color matched too.