I think I just hit the car guy lottery!

In reply to BoxheadTim:

Sounds great. You've got a PM.

Are they trash, or just not what you want?

Mostly I want decent coilovers on mine, to max out the suspension's abilities.

I'm with the other guys. berkeley you. Lol

In reply to SVreX: First let me check if I still have them. In other words, find them. If so, they're yours for shipping.

In reply to wlkelley3:

Cool, but BoxheadTim has already made me the same offer.

Thanks!

In reply to SVreX: No problem. I found them, just let me know if you need them.

Dang, what a deal. That thing looks great.

SVreX wrote:

Well played sir! Looking forward to epic Doritos adventures...

In reply to 84FSP:

I will probably not offer many great stories of spinning triangles.

I will drive it for a while, and fix its issues. It will make it to the $20XX Challenge. After that, it is pretty likely it will later make another Challenge trip, with LS goodness under the hood.

Boo... I've been wathcing these and doing my homework to LS swap one for a daily. Tried to buy a couple already built but they've all be trainwrecks..

In reply to 84FSP:

Boo, because LS is a bad idea, or because you are jealous?

I've seen some train wrecks too. I'm not building a train wreck.

Well done...well done. That is some straight-up "Yoda" car buying right there

'nuther bit of Yodaism...

When I went to pay the kid the balance, I met his Mom. Turns out, she's a co-worker of my wife's. I know her, and trust her. Shared an office across the hall from her for a couple of years.

I've got a RX-8 K&N intake that I'd be willing to sell for fairly cheap.

In reply to scardeal:

Sure. As long as folks are checking into this thread and offering me cheap stuff, why not?

Maybe I can enter the under $1000 class...

Come to think of it I think I have a K&N stock filter as well as another set of S1 wheels with Kumho XS tires (very used and not too much stick left) and some stock coils, PM me if there is anything you might want.

I have a set of 17x8 Enki wheels that would work on that. Cheaper tires.

In reply to Brett_Murphy:

What offset?

We're all waiting for updates

SVreX wrote: <

Well played sir! Looking forward to epic Doritos adventures...

You can even eat nacho cheese ones and wipe your hands on the car and nobody could tell.

great find!

carknut wrote:

SVreX wrote: <

Well played sir! Looking forward to epic Doritos adventures... You can even eat nacho cheese ones and wipe your hands on the car and nobody could tell. great find!

I don't know what the actual Mazda name for that paint color is, but henceforth it is Spicy Dorito Metallic.

In reply to Scooter:

No updates yet. I will pick it up this weekend, but it's still gonna sit on the trailer for a while. Gotta finish my wife's van first.

OK, a little update...

The car has been abused. No rust, but a bad body kit, and the previous owner thought he would try 4-wheeling with it, in spite of the lowered stance (the struts were blown out and the springs were weak). So, there was plenty of evidence of it bottoming out- bumpers ripped off and attached with zip ties, scraped frame rails, mud caked in weird places, missing belly pan, etc.

I've decided to fix what's broken and take it back close to stock, then consider modifying it.

I started with the back. It's kind of a weird place to start, but that wing and ground effects bumper HAD to go.

I've been working on weight reduction, detailing, and repairing.

BoxheadTim was kind enough to hook me up with his old stock coilovers after he upgraded for the cost of shipping. I swapped in the rears, and cleaned and detailed every inch as I went. I put it on the lift, pulled off the wing and rear bumper, detailed and painted everything, then started putting things back together.

I bought a pair of spats off Ebay- they cleaned up the rear, and are reasonably subtle.

Still not knowing about the trans, I decided to check for overheating and compression. The battery was dead, and the Canbus is thoroughly uncooperative without a full charge. After charging her up, the car started well, but was unhappy restarting when hot. It also shifted cleanly through all gears (on the lift- no load) Yeah!

I realized the car had the old style lower amperage starter (a known weak spot). I snagged a high amp starter off Amazon for $60. After swapping it in, the car starts without hesitation, even when hot.

I did a full rear brake job while I was at it, just because.

I had a set of 5 spoke wheels off a Mustang laying around with the right bolt pattern and some old Hoosiers. They are staggered sizes, which is not my preference, but I sure like the look of the big 315's on the rear. After some serious scrubbing, they looked pretty good!

So, this is how she looks at this moment. I haven't done the front struts yet. Today I turned the car around and put her back on the lift to get started on the front half.

I never showed the horror shots of the rear as I bought it. Too embarrassed.

Here's where I began:

I'm pretty happy with the progress.

In reply to SVreX:

Wow, major improvement!