Project FD RX-7

[balactm]

CAN. NOT. WAIT. TO. SEE. THIS.

[Goodspeed]

CAN. NOT. WAIT. TO. SEE. THIS.

  You and me both - I can see the car finished in my head, can't wait to actually have it done in real life.  It's going to be kinda surreal to see it in the metal, since I've never had a project fully sketched out before the first real wrenches get turned - the Miata evolved piece by piece and I had no real "vision" of it when it deviated from near-stock.  I always thought it was cool to see someone like Chip Foose sketch a car out on paper and then go out and build it, so yeah - I'm excited!

I've spent a lot of time recently researching LED lighting for the interior, and thankfully found lots of helpful forum posts with write-ups and part numbers to go forth and modernize the gauge cluster and HVAC controls for night driving.  The plan now is to go with white LED's for the gauge cluster (from dim 90's amber) and white/red for the HVAC controls, like so:





Going this route necessitated a change to the boost gauge I'll be using, as the VDO I have on the shelf matches the dim 90's amber look originally intentioned.  So instead, I'm having Speedhut Gauges build a custom boost gauge with FD-gauge matching font and trim that will match the white LED background at night of the main cluster.  Should look overall pretty OEM with a restomod angle when done!

[Jake]

I like 90s amber. It's easy on the eyes.

[RawrImAMonster]

There's a scientific reason for all of that red/amber in most cars too. The red wavelengths don't negatively affect your night vision like other colors.

I'll agree white does look a lot better though.

[Jake]

I want to bask in the amber glow of this interior while bumping Eiffel 65 and Third Eye Blind as we go down the highway at night.

[ViPER1313]

I love the orange / amber lighting in older cars vs the crazy reverse lighting on modern car dashboards. The E34 and Talon are far superior to the CX9 and (especially) the Mustang in the gauges cause eye fatigue department. I never touch the dimmer on the old ones but drive the Mustang and CX9 with the gauges fully dimmed at night.

[Goodspeed]

You guys are right, I do love the soft amber glow of the IS300 gauges at night - I was very much taken with the look of white LEDs, but that would be pretty harsh to have at night. The stock amber bulbs are so terrible that I think I was swept off my feet by the polar, white LED opposite in pics.

As pimpy as they are I'm going to switch to amber - it's actually a simpler install as other colors require some film to be removed off the back of the gauge faces, and you then have to deal with some steps to avert light bleeding over into other parts of the cluster. Amber all around is more plug and play. Speedhut doesn't offer amber on their site, but a quick call to them later and they're going to be doing amber backlighting as a special order for the boost gauge.

[.RJ]

I love the red/dark amber in BMW's and Audis. No question.

[GTBrandon]

Wow. Just wow. The attention to detail and almost frightening level of OCD in this build and even your accounts of everything with each post is insane. I love this build and can’t wait to see it in person or even help if you need some extra hands, by that of course I mean sit back and watch as you spend an hour clipping in a piece of interior trim.

Just curious, if I remember correctly, wasn’t this originally going to be a car for your dad? Call me crazy but this level of detail normally isn’t associated with gifts for others versus gifts for yourself.

You mentioned Rich, does that mean you won’t be anything in the garage with some fellow MMers or is he only doing parts of it?

[SlimKlim]

For what it's worth I don't notice an appreciable difference on eye strain between the BMW with amber lighting and the VW with bright white lighting, although I tend to keep my dash lights pretty dim.

I think the amber would look more classic but I wouldn't blame you for going white.

And yeah, I think Goodspeed wins the cookie of the first MMer to tackle an honest to god restoration of a car. We should get him a trophy, along with one for DJ for "first MMer to build a full blown track car"

[.RJ]

Ahem.

[SlimKlim]

What?

[.RJ]

I think that distinction probably goes to Evan.

[SlimKlim]

No trophies for ancient forum ghosts.

What did he build?

[CaptainHenreh]

No trophies for ancient forum ghosts.

What did he build?

Evan was easily the first "real race car" member. He was good at it, too. He was running SM before DJ was even a freshman.

[SlimKlim]

Neat, what did he build tho?

[CaptainHenreh]

Neat, what did he build tho?

His SM racekar?

[ViPER1313]

A spec Miata race car.

RJ also built a pretty competitive H4 Integra if I recall correctly.

[.RJ]

Yeah, we both won races. Was good times.

Then we got old.

[CaptainHenreh]

A spec Miata race car.

RJ also built a pretty competitive H4 Integra if I recall correctly.

I remember the weeping and gnashing of teeth when they would bumpdraft each other. Being totally different race classes they weren't competing with each other, but both would go faster. Hilarious.