Project FD RX-7

[WRXtranceformed]

Me every time I see an update is waiting in this thread:

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Continuing with the restoration goals, I've been wanting to sort out the bottom side of the hood.  After 25 years of rotary heat, there's definitely some attention to be paid under there.  I plan to have the hood dismounted to be painted top and bottom, so I'm not entirely sure what'll be done about the labels (I won't be too broken up if they need to be removed, but if they can be masked off or even replaced, I may go that route.)

Evan wasn't wrong when he said I was anal retentive.  But I am 100% positive David takes the AR Crown in this club 

[Senor_Taylor]

You can't lie to us and say that you won't care about buying new labels for the hood.

[JPolen01]

You should look into having those under hood stickers recreated. If you can find clean images it shouldn't be major work to have a graphic designer match the fonts and type it all up and format it.

[ScottyB]

If you can find clean images it shouldn't be major work to have a graphic designer match the fonts and type it all up and format it.

i'd do it for free on principal alone.

seriously Goodspeed, happy to help if you need it.  i build out product labels all the time.

[JPolen01]

^it's happening!

[D_Eclipse9916]

Can you please let me drive this before it gets restored. I have never driven an FD and won’t want to touch this thing once restored!

[Goodspeed]

Evan wasn't wrong when he said I was anal retentive.  But I am 100% positive David takes the AR Crown in this club 

Haha, why thank you, it's a blessing and a curse (cries on stage).  It can be an awkward middle-ground existence with cars for sure...I'm going to be boomeranging between wanting to drive the wheels off it and being Cameron's dad with the diaper wipe in hand, I just know it. Though, I was just thinking about doing a hyperdrive with it when it's done.  I should.  I won't.  I probably won't.  I might.

I know I was fap̶ ntasizing over a garage-sister Supra earlier, but lately I was thinking how cool it'd be to maybe, one day, after I've had a kid and sold them for profit, to play with a SM car or something entirely track focused.  Kind of a release-the-beast outlet car to go with the d'ONT TOUCH IT car.  A manchild can dream.

You can't lie to us and say that you won't care about buying new labels for the hood.

Im sorry bb i kno u take care of me i never lie again pls dont hit

If you can find clean images it shouldn't be major work to have a graphic designer match the fonts and type it all up and format it.

i'd do it for free on principal alone.

seriously Goodspeed, happy to help if you need it.  i build out product labels all the time.

Awwwwwwwwwwshit.  Thank you!  I will definitely keep you in mind (more than I already do (ᵔᴥᵔ) ) if I go that route.  That would be pretty rad, I need to do some research on what's available.  Aw shucks man.

Can you please let me drive this before it gets restored. I have never driven an FD and won’t want to touch this thing once restored!

So real talk, I would love for you to drive it once it's all finished, in the hopefully not-too-distant future.  My biggest kick out of the car lyfe is honestly the kinship made and felt with other nerds, both established and budding, and getting to put a smile on someone else's face with what you choose to drive and express your automotive passion with.  I have sad that so many cars are never experienced by (or even maybe seen) by so many that have loved them since childhood, and I'll always be that guy that'll let someone sit in their car or talk about it at a gas station for a half hour.  For my great friends in MM?  You get the KEYS!

[Goodspeed]

I know you guys like the stories about some of the parts finds I've either stumbled across or hunted down for this project, so I wanted to share the latest, and perhaps my most cherished (I never thought I'd find this).  I know this whole thread has 99% been a not-terribly-exciting "Project David buys stuff for his FD" and while there will be a day this all gets put together, going on the hunt for these parts has its own kind of thrill to be honest.  

So, '93 & '94/'95 USDM RX-7's have different finishes for their interior plastics - a softer touch rubberized finish in the former, and a hard, grained finish in the latter.  I wrote about this a bit earlier in this thread, but I actually prefer the look of the earlier, smooth 1993 finish.

You can actually still buy one or two '94/'95 finish panels new from the dealer, but theres a larger selection of new OEM panels in a "1993" finish you can buy given that they sold many more of that model year.  Some of the first parts I bought where these new 1993 finish panels that were available:

But, sometime in the late 90's or early 00's (probably), Mazda reformulated the panel finish, and what you get for a "1993" panel today is now totally unique and unlike anything that ever came in an original USDM FD. If anything, it looks more like what came on later-year JDM FDs - it's kind of a soft-ish, gray-ish black that's a little different to what you'd see in a museum-piece original 1993 FD today. So, unfortunately, because Mazda doesn't reproduce every single panel new in this unique finish today, you have to do some paint-matching to the parts they don't offer new if you want all of your interior panels to match - namely, the driver and passenger door panel plastics.

These door panel plastics have long since been discontinued for all USDM model years for some time, apparently...the driver-side plastic is known by all sources to be totally dead and gone, though curiously it seems like the 1993 passenger-side plastic is sometimes maybe available...or not.  It shows up now & then on parts websites even though most discussions online about FD interior parts leads one to believe it's no longer available.  Maybe Mazda makes a batch one day a year, who knows.  I was meaning to check with Ray (the Mazda parts god I mentioned earlier here) to get the whole truth and nothing but, though I was still leery of picking one up if I wasn't sure that the finish was this new "1993" finish (maybe they were new old-stock black rubber pieces from the early 90's, and it'd suck to have to strip & re-paint a new part out of the box).

Then, I stumbled on a FS ad from a fellow named Jim Thompson from Tennessee.  Jim campaigns some SSM FD's in national-level autocross & keeps the forum buzzing with lots of parts sales and partouts of from FDs - at least, whatever he doesn't use to also build his cherry FD street car project that's currently underway:

Jim in the center













I've gotten several parts from Jim in the past, and this post of his mentioned having a nice, as-new passenger door trim piece.  The pictures weren't terribly clear, and he listed it as a '94/'95 piece - but I could just make out that something looked a little different about it.  I asked him for more pics, and lo and behold, it was some kind of unicorn "new 1993" finish passenger door panel plastic that matches exactly with the other panels!  I couldn't believe my luck and snapped it up immediately.  You can see how its just ever so slightly different from an original 1993 panel in the below pics (shifter panel):







This is such a delicate piece but it arrived safely and I still couldn't believe my luck.  It's in mint shape & the idea that I can have an almost brand-new interior using OEM parts for a 25 year old car just warps my mind.  I know it's just a simple trim panel, but I'm just counting my lucky stars that at least in this stage of the project, finding this panel is yet another example of how it's been a very fortunate trip.

As if to put the cherry on top, someone in the RX7 FB group found that a certain can of Krylon spray paint is a dead-on match in color & texture for the new-finish 1993 panels, so I can count on that route to restore my spare driver-side door plastic to match as close as possible everything else:





I'm certainly glad (and again, stupid lucky) that I happened to scroll through FB that day & see this guy's post before it was lost in a never-ending newsfeed.  I had no idea how I was going to refinish that final panel to match, so I bought a couple cans and will be refinishing that panel when the weather is nice. 

There's been some other bits in the past few weeks...some clips & fasteners, a new old stock "RX-7" plaque for the strut bar that I found at a dealer in Canada...a new ashtray (it's weird, but it's one of my favorite quirky design parts of the interior)....some new seat belt guides etc.  Also a new gas tank from Japan, from the revised '97+ design with more internal baffling.  I really don't want to mess around with anything to do with the fuel system in this car and while it might be overkill, the tank was the last stop & now I don't need to worry about a 25 year old fuel tank in the future.

[ScottyB]

everytime i open this thread after a lengthy quiet spell


you are the JDM Indiana Jones of our time.  i love the dedication to this vision.

one thing with the spray - color match or not as you probably know, the application is everything.  this is coming from someone who has attempted for years to not be inept at spray painting but still is.  do yourself a favor and build a little area that won't be open to too much of a breeze, there's so much pollen and garbage in the air right now its almost a guarantee you'll get flak in the coat and i can't handle the emotional toll that would put on me if i heard it happened to you

[Goodspeed]

^ best GIF I've seen in a long time, thank you for that

Yeah, I'm definitely going to be super cautious about doing this job - little paint booth, lots of careful prep work and some test pieces will def be used if I take it on myself. I've reached out to an interior restoration shop that does lots of JDM cars to see if they might be of any assistance, or if I wouldn't get laughed away maybe a high end auto paint shop in my area would do it too. After many models and other paint projects I still sweat like a bomb-disposal tech anytime I grasp a spray paint can.

[Ryan T]

You're going to build this mint condition brand new FD, put it on bringatrailer, and sell it for like 130k aren't you?

[JPolen01]

You're going to build this mint condition brand new FD, put it on bringatrailer, and sell it for like 130k aren't you?

If it was anyone other than Goodspeed I would say you found out the master plan.

[Senor_Taylor]

I would agree with Polen... Except the thrill seems to be in the history and the build. Selling this for profit would let him be able to start this all over with a 6 speed Turbo Supra.

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[WRXtranceformed]

Sometimes the chase is more fun than the finished product

[Apoc]

For me, the chase is always more fun than the finished product

FTFY

[.RJ]

I'm with stupid

[Goodspeed]

I would agree with Polen... Except the thrill seems to be in the history and the build. Selling this for profit would let him be able to start this all over with a 6 speed Turbo Supra.

I LOVE the history of cars (90's Japanese cars in particular) & car culture, and as I'm learning, the parts hunting can have its own thrill...but as much as I like trolling through BaT auctions, I'm no flipper.  I absolutely intend to enjoy the hell out of this car when its done!

I definitely wouldn't mind getting a Supra one day, I still watch them like a hawk but one just set the record at $173k at RM Sotheby's/Amelia Island over the weekend. Prices are still strong & showing no signs if letting up.  I've got some of those Supra parts but would be so much harder & expensive to do this with a MKIV I wouldn't even try.  I'd just buy the best one I could & enjoy.

[Sully]

In 10 years, we'll see Goodspeed on either a pickers show where they show up and it's just nothing but 90's Japanese car parts and the hosts have no idea what to do with them or on a Hoarders rehab show but it's because a stack of mint Supra dashes fell over and injured him and he needs help

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[Goodspeed]

In 10 years, we'll see Goodspeed on either a pickers show where they show up and it's just nothing but 90's Japanese car parts and the hosts have no idea what to do with them or on a Hoarders rehab show but it's because a stack of mint Supra dashes fell over and injured him and he needs help

This....this isn't not probably accurate.  



But since we're on the subject, everything that's been collected for the eventual build has been sorted into boxes, broken down by section of the car, in original packaging w/ part #'s and each having a parts list copied from a master spreadsheet, down to the bolt & washer.  At least if the shelving tips over & they crush me, whoever finds me will know exactly what's on top of me and where it goes.

[JPolen01]

The photos may be borked. It could well be my work computer restrictions though.