RX7 FC finding out what it wants to become

Got to work on the far for a bit today after the rain. I lost a light cover in the front bumper during the drift. They are not cheap and a bit hard to find so I just pulled the other one out and painted the inside black so it would look a bit more correct.

I also got paint for the side skirts~!

I couldn't find anywhere local that could do a spray can so I went through a online shop. I got the base coat on today and the match is pretty good not perfect but the car is far from perfect anyway!

Here is the color code. Took about to weeks to get it to my door. I also got a can of clear coat from them.

Iam going to wait to clear coat them because I have another part coming for the car. I ordered a mustang front lip for the front. They fit the car with some work and look good and not out of place. Best part is they are $50 new shipped. Got to love mustangs for cheap parts.

When I got done painting a pop up hail storm came out of nowhere.. Cars should be fine but I was not happy. Anyway it made for good photos.

Good to get some work done for the mazda that's not just fixing little things have gone wrong for a change! Got some work in this weekend on the body.

As seen above I got the side skirts painted with the base coat but wanted to wait for front lip to come in so I could spray clear on all the parts at the same time. Also took a afternoon road trip with the wife. Kinda nice out finally, but now the pollen has started..

So for the fun part of this post was paint! This is the best paint iv used and the best paint job iv done. Im really looking forward to doing a full paint job on a car, which is on the list of things to do for my next project. Along with rebuilding a motor with more then one cylinder (rebuilt a briggs a while back, Had to start somewhere!).

Ordered a lip off amazon, its for a 01-04 mustang but they fit with some work. It was only $50 so im very pumped that I was able to get something that cheap that fit.

So I had to order the paint from an online store, no local shop could help me out. It was about $35 all in with clear coat.

Here is the lip before clear. Please note that im not using those huge screws into the plastic on the mazda bumper. The Mazda must have had a lip on it before because there is metal clips already installed along the bottom lip of the bumper. I was going to use bolts through the plastic with large washers. But these work so much better!

Im really happy with the end result! It is not perfect I needed to do one more coat of base color, there are some spots where the dark primer is shown with some tiger striping from the spray can. So with the lip I used a white primer so the base would coat better. Also the base color would drip after a few sprays so I had to wipe the tip so it wouldn't shoot the drop onto the price I was painting.

Also I can't believe that that is a hunk of $5 plastic gutter from lows and it's now a sweet side skirt that looks right at home on a V8 mazda RX7! I might start a new thread just showing the side skirts in a how to. I think there are a lot of young guys with no budget that would give these a try.

Sorry for no photos of them on the car, I am letting the paint set in good before I install them. Trying to take my time and do them the right way. Then I still have to wait 30 days to add some wax. I might just cover the lip with clear plasti dip to try and keep the paint on there. Also I have to find a way get the car off jack stands after I install the lip...

Stay tuned for photos of them on the car!

Loving the progress man! The skirts look great, and I love the wheels on there!

I will just leave these here...

With the lights a little cocked like that it looks drunk haha

Sideskirts look good though

In reply to simon_C:

Haha ya that motor is faster then the driver side so its always a bit lower when I do the sleepy eye look.

Im very happy with the car! Very happy that I did the lip and side skirts, but I have one more piece to go! I am going to run a rear defuser in the back to complete the look. I am going to make it out of coroplast, the stuff they use for campaign signs and yard-sale ect. A local sign shop sells it in 4'x8' sheets for 12$ and its black. I have made templates in CAD (cardboard aided design) and im waiting on a buddy at work to draw them up in solid works so we can cut them out on a laser. Hope he can get it soon because im ready for it!

Here is a look of someone that has already done it.

Wish I had more to update on but the car has been amazing so nothing to commit about! Drove it the two hour trip to my dads shop to do an oil change and tire rotation. Car ran well and stayed cool, handled well, but is still a bit loud for that long of a trip so ear plugs did go in for a bit of the drive because I want to hear later in life.

Anyway been daily driving it and getting a lot more looks with the lip and skirts installed. A few thumbs up and some kid yelled "Ricer" at me today. All in good fun just glad people get to see something that isn't 4 doors and silver.

Photos -

5.0 rx7

v8 rx7

Just picked up parts for the rear splitter!

She let me down today, pulled out to head to work and I knew something felt funny. Amazing enough I made it through about 5 stoplights before I hit a red one. Went to pull it out of gear and nothing. I had lost the clutch. Thankfully I was able to get into a parking lot and call SOS to the wife.

After work and running errands I packing up some tools and headed back to fix the car. I already knew what was wrong and how to fix it. That is one plus of building a car yourself!

So what I thought had messed up was the culprit but not in the way I thought it had. It broke the whole bolt that I was using as a push rod.

Was never happy with the system I used but still looking for a better solution. So I replaced it with another bolt and happy days she was fixed.

So its fixed but need to find another set up for the push rod. Wish I still had a hard lathe that I could use.

Two spots of good news. Headed to hyperfest this Saturday and im driving the mazda. I have a long lens that I rented to take should show up at my work today. It should help me get some good shots of the guys on track.

Then Sunday im going to the "wanna go fast 1/2 miles shootout" I found a guy with a twin turbo lambo and some other cars that wants me to do some video so I am am going out there to shoot.

Well one more plus is my boss gave me the OK to cut the coroplast on the laser so now I just need to sit down and draw the design up in CAD.

Where are you at Skervey? I am camping this weekend with the family or I would be at Hyperfest also. Take some sweet shots!

In reply to Jaynen:

Yep took a ton of photos over 2,000... so ya I will have plenty to post but it will take a while to go through them. I spent most of the day watching the drifting and show cars, iv already been to a road racing event a at vir so I wanted to watch the drifting this time.

It's looking good and sounds even better. Personally I'm not a big fan of the alumalite (corrugated aluminum) sheeting. To me it just looks half assed and like cardboard. I'd much rather take the time to make it out of aluminum or carbon fiber somehow.

Man this week has sucked! After a killer weekend it done nothing but rain... Haven't driven the car all week because of the rain, even had some issues with traction in my daily (ford fusion) I kept slipping when taking off from red lights.

Anyway a brake in the weather came this afternoon and I needed to take a box to the post office. Selling off spare parts from the build to start the next build. So im going to do a full crown vic swap on my grandpas f100.

Anyway I drove the mazda and when I jumped in the rx7 there was water in the passenger side floor board... Checked the door and didn't find that it was cracked or the window down. So ya I know its not coolant so im thinking it is the sun roof.

Cool build. I really like your photography.

So ya I went out to the car in the rain and and found the rain coming in from under the dash...

So there is that and here is more of the car!

So here we go finally got around to throwing an edit up with my side skirts. It took me a few months to get them finished and on the car so the video jumps around a bit. Hope someone else tries to make a set or helps someone with a car where aftermarket skirts are unavailable. Or they are just cheap like me!

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/78pLVfJ1NwE

Well im not sure where to go from here since Photobucket killed all of my photos kinda making this build thread useless..

Man I spent a lot of time getting the photos changed and uploaded then added to the page. I was thinking this would be up for a long time and help some people who are doing the same kind of builds. Iv had some people hit me up on YouTube and Instagram saying they read this and it really helped them with there builds.

Hope they turn the photos back on there is no way I can go back and fix them all.

Try imgur.

In reply to simon_C:

Ya im going to spend a lot of time looking when I stop pouting and get back to it. Im sure there is going to be a lot of people asking what website to use so ill jump on the next bandwagon.

There are a lot of build threads across the interwebs that are now dystopian hellscapes of broken image links.

Photobucket can die in a fire.

In reply to Sky_Render:

Well said.

You have been a tremendous help man! And are well appreciated. This build thread has been awsome. I hope the pictures can get sorted out. Thank you again

Well I have more photos that I need to add up but been busy with some awesome stuff that has been going on in my world! More photos will come some day but for today I just have another video I shot a while back kinda talking over what all has been done to the car. Might be more useful in this thread now that my photos are gone.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/htfciMEL_4o

Well back on the road with this thread. I am using flicker now for photos, so much faster and easier to use. I uploaded some old photos to try and rebuild the thread, not much but im working to make it useful again. Hope its not a lost cause.

Anyway car has been running good, the belt has been a bit of a pain lately by I worked on it a little bit more but so it seems to be good for now. Its been to hot to drive it to much, above 90° its just hot in the car. No fun but started to cool off a bit so I drove it all week!

Been keeping this on the down low but I did pick up a EFI system for the car! Its one of the new throttle body self learning systems from FiTech. Its there 400hp systems I found a truck for sale on Cl for about $1300 for the whole truck. It was an old f150 that needed a trans. Sent the guy a msg and asked if he would let go of the efi by itself. He didn't want to but a month latter he sent me an email said he sold the truck still had the efi and he wanted $500 for it.

So the system goes for $800 normally, he also had a fuel pump and all of the fuel lines so it was a bit of a steel. These units were back ordered for about a year because they couldn't keep up with demand.

So these are the wires are all that needed to wired into the car. 12v constant, 12v switched, tach signal, fuel pump, fans, ground. Everything else (O2 sensor, water temp) Just clip in with connectors.

Also the guy I got it from was very cool, a lot of help! He even went out of his way and printed out notes for me so I could get it up and running fast!

A few weeks ago I went ahead and welded in a o2 bung and ordered a 255lph fuel pump because the new system needs 58psi. I tested the stock fuel pump and it only made 40psi so it needs to be upgraded.

So ya looking to install this today in a parking lot! Should be easy... Famus last words right!

I will be sure to take tons of photos!

The RX7 is now EFI!!

So the efi went on really easy only took me two afternoons. Could have been done easily in one but apartment and three flights of stairs makes for a long job. I also added some extra grounds as suggested by other people and it fired right up.

No really turned the key and after cranking for a few sec then it started right up and then idled up and down until it was happy!

Iv been driving it sound for over a week now but im going to wait to give my review until I get it set up.