09-24-2018, 10:43 PM
|
#1
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
|
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
TiVo FD Rotary Build
2/2/18
MODS
Suspension
- Stance XR+ Coilovers with Swift Springs (10k/8k)
- Powerflex polyurethane bushings
- Atomic Rex pillowball race bearings
- Delrin differential bushings
Shoes
- Volk GT-P 18x8.5 / 18x9 (Future)
Engine
- Blitz FMIC (Future)
- eBay intake pipes w/K&N universal filters (previously had M2 intake)
- Power FC ECU with OLED commander
- Koyo Aluminum radiator (regular flow)
- Tri-Point Air Separation Tank
- HKS Carbon Ti exhaust
- custom Magnaflow high flow cat
Electrics
- early 2000s Sony MP3 CD player unit
- Morimoto Mini D2S retrofit in Sonar Housing by TurboII
- AGM Miata battery in rear passenger cargo bin
Misc
- B&M short shifter
- rear wiper delete hatch
I've had this FD RX7 since November 2011. Picked her up from an RX7 reseller in Raleigh and drove her back. Pretty much the same route I did from Asheville, NC this past year in my 4th gen. I figure my build is a bit subdued for the rx7club members but I'll put it here out of the way. I came close to selling the car twice already too. Once 2 years ago when I had it for sale for 2 months with barely any takers and I listed it this past weekend for about 10 hours before I decided that I didn't realize what I had til I put it on the market. I had a change of heart after people started blowing up the thread.
At first, I didn't think I had the time to wrench on her, but the past couple months showed me otherwise. Back then when I first bought her, I used to have only 5-6 hours to do any kind of work in the parking garage of my apartment or my friend's houses. Now with my own garage, I can have her on jackstands while I spend extra time making sure everything is done right. I already have quite a bit invested time and money wise. I mean, even with the parts I have lying around, I'm pretty far from getting anywhere I want to with the car. Direction of the build will probably change too, initially I wanted a track build, but now I just want a weekend / clean JDM look. Time to do this right...again
__________________
1999 2.7 5MT - SOLD // 2007 V8 4WD - Gone
2011 FJ 4WD - to new beginnings
// 4G V8 // 3G 2.7 5MT // Model 3 // IS300 5MT // FD RX7 //
Last edited by tv4184; 12-06-2018 at 07:48 AM.
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
09-24-2018, 10:47 PM
|
#2
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
|
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
Timeline
Saved for timeline
__________________
1999 2.7 5MT - SOLD // 2007 V8 4WD - Gone
2011 FJ 4WD - to new beginnings
// 4G V8 // 3G 2.7 5MT // Model 3 // IS300 5MT // FD RX7 //
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
09-24-2018, 10:49 PM
|
#3
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
|
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
Introduction - Part 1
I'm gonna try to keep this short, since this is a recounting of events from seven years ago and wouldn't want to drone too much. The white RX7 is actually not my first RX7, I bought my first one about 6 months prior to getting the current one. I spent about a better part of the year on and off looking at RX7s, even while I had owned an AP2 S2000. I sold the S2000 to get my second 3rd gen 4Runner for practicality purposes since I was moving out of town. I tried to fill the sports car void with the purchase of my B7 RS4, but that was more of a grand tourer than a light weight sports car. I debated between getting another S2000 or trying my hand a new platform, the FD RX7. The rest is history.
05/23/11
My first RX7 was silver just like the 3rd gen I got the year before. It was a 93 with a manual swap and a few issues, including the usual blown pillow ball bushings, leaking ac system, and couple wiring issues due to the manual swap. It was a great deal at the time being less than $10k. The guy delivered it to the Target down the street from my apartment (on and I had to get a co-worker to bring me back (pre-Uber days) to get the 4Runner. I cleaned her up and got a few nice photos together.
Ended up learning several lessons along the way. The 93s had weak ass paint because blue painters tape tore off the clear coat. The keys to RX7s were pretty weak, being really long and having a slim point due to the cut, are prone to breaking. The clutch master cylinder ended up giving out a month into owner ship, which I replaced with a factory fresh one. I restored the AC system and got the system to blow cold air again. I also did a few "mods" including getting the RZ strut bar and replacing the wheels with some Enkei RPF1s that I had laying around. I bought them before I knew I wasn't going to have the S2000 anymore and didn't want to lose my $600 deposit on them. Funny though because I just sold those wheels last week on craigslist to fund my garage clean up project.
Here are the brand new wheels I had laying around for almost 8 months. Gotta admit, it was fun being able to mod again because at this point it was close to the end of my residency.
5/29/11
I did get in a couple other mods because my friend over in Ft. Hood, I was in Temple at the time, was doing an LS2 swap and was parting out his 13B parts. I bought a B&M short shifter and an HKS carbon ti catback off of him.
6/24/11
I remember being glad to get rid of that heavy stock exhaust that was already missing a tip. I also put in a mid pipe deleting the catalytic converter. The RX7 sounded pretty sick afterwards and I didn't care that it droned because I had three other cars at the time I could drive if I wanted to have peace and quiet.
7/5/11
I bought a full polyurethane bushing set along with "new & improved" bearings to replace the stock "pillow ball" bushings. More to come on this, but I was planning on it being a track build so I was moving towards a more solid suspension setup prior to fuel / power upgrades and ultimately exterior cosmetic upgrades.
7/30/11
This was one of the last things I did besides the AC, which I'll leave it out of the introductory post, was the clutch MC. I completely forgot I did this until I reviewed my build thread from back in 2011. Looked like at the time the car badly needed a full hydraulic system bleed, the RX7 shares its brake fluid reservoir with the clutch system. The clutch MC was weeping and caused the clutch pedal to not come back up after trying to clutch the car.
After restoring the clutch hydraulic system and ultimately AC system, I was able to daily drive the FD for the next four months. Until I found the white one with 50k less miles and a fresh engine swap. I jumped on it and flew out to Raleigh, NC to pick up the car in November of 2011. Stay tuned for part 2.
__________________
1999 2.7 5MT - SOLD // 2007 V8 4WD - Gone
2011 FJ 4WD - to new beginnings
// 4G V8 // 3G 2.7 5MT // Model 3 // IS300 5MT // FD RX7 //
Last edited by tv4184; 09-27-2018 at 04:12 AM.
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
09-25-2018, 09:44 AM
|
#4
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Nov 2015
Location: 2003 v8 Toronto
Posts: 474
|
|
Member
Join Date: Nov 2015
Location: 2003 v8 Toronto
Posts: 474
|
Helluva "get home drive" through Asheville/Blueridge Parkway!
Still drooling from my romp earlier this month in the v8.. I cannot fathom how amazing it would be at 9,000+ rpm
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
09-27-2018, 04:11 AM
|
#5
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
|
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
11/05/11-11/07/11 - Introduction Part 2
In a decision I sort of regret later on and frequently curse myself for, I picked up a second FD RX7 because of my obsession with white cars. If you can't tell by now, I mostly shop for white cars, sometimes settling for other colors depending on the situation. One of these days, I'll learn me some patience and wait for the right car to show up, like my low mileage 5 speed IS300. Shortly after picking up my V8 4th gen, another one popped up with 35k miles at the cost of roughly twice what I paid for mine.
While still at the seller's garage
So I flew out to Raleigh, where the seller picked me up and we went to the bank for me to get him a cashiers check for the car. Short backstory, this guy buys shells / complete cars, rebuilds the engine, gives it a 1 year "warranty", and resells them on the forum. Unexpectly, we had to fish a key piece out of the passenger key cylinder since that was the only side I could lock the car from. I loaded up my tool box (checked a bag full of tools including my torque bar and wrench), along with my other luggage. Before leaving Raleigh, I promptly made 2 more copies of the keys in case mine broke at any point on the way back. I made the same journey to Asheville like I did with my 4th gen to visit my friends. This was before my friend picked up his own 4th gen.
Broken key that was fished out
Spent some time around town visiting local joints that my friend, who had just barely moved there a few months prior to my visit. I also had to dial back in some height because the previous owner had it pretty much slammed. This not only made the ride terrible but it also messed up the front fenders a bit. I'll need to get a shop to fix this in the future, but at least they didn't ultimately become bacon fenders. After a short day and a half trip, I started to make my solo 2 day journey back to Houston.
12 Bones Smokehouse for lunch
Thirsty Monk for dinner and a flight
I stopped in Meridian, MS after the first night of driving and stopped at a Holiday Inn Express. It was pretty rough because I ended up doing the Tail of the Dragon three times, which ate 3 hours total. I lost cell signal, this was back when 3G was all the rage, so I had to retrace some steps back to the beginning of the trail to figure out the quickest way back. I ended up having to go back the way I came, hence the third time. Spent only 6 hours on the road because of this slight delay and also trouble shooting a vacuum leak, which was a simple line falling off of a sensor. I did the fix on the side of the road with a flash light and re-installing the spring clip that wasn't in place before.
Fuel stop before hitting the Tail of the Dragon
Tennessee border
Alabama border
Mississippi border
On day 2, I left early in the morning and made a stop in Louisiana at a hole in the wall for some boudin. This was where the lack of AC in the car started getting to me because of the swampy heat and being mid day. Besides the heat, it was mostly uneventful except for a giant engine on the back of an 18 wheeler. I had the old Minnesota plates on the car the whole time since the car was insured but not registered in Texas yet.
Holiday Inn Express continental breakfast
Louisiana border
Hole in the wall boudin lunch
Texas border
One of the few pictures I have of the car with the elusive silver FD and the other cars in the fleet minus the CB7 Accord
My souvenir from my trip to the Tail of the Dragon. Each car always gets some kind of unique piece to them. I was glad to be home after 2 days on the road and was pretty stoked at the time to swap over all the parts from the old to the "new" RX7. I did note that the car felt loads better, might partly be due to the mileage (85k at the time) and also the freshly built engine. The engine might be questionable because, although it was rebuilt like the previous FD's transmission swap, it was cobbled together with new and old parts. Remember to also note the Minnesota plates, that will come into play later on in my build.
__________________
1999 2.7 5MT - SOLD // 2007 V8 4WD - Gone
2011 FJ 4WD - to new beginnings
// 4G V8 // 3G 2.7 5MT // Model 3 // IS300 5MT // FD RX7 //
Last edited by tv4184; 09-27-2018 at 06:57 AM.
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
09-29-2018, 06:04 PM
|
#6
|
Junior Member
|
|
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: Dayton, OH
Posts: 11
|
|
Junior Member
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: Dayton, OH
Posts: 11
|
Awesome thread. I'm a big FD fan, always been a bucket list car for me. I have an AP1 S2000 now, but would rather sell it for an FD. I just don't have the time or appetite for a 13B right now. Some day.
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
10-03-2018, 01:25 AM
|
#7
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
|
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
11/18/11
__________________
1999 2.7 5MT - SOLD // 2007 V8 4WD - Gone
2011 FJ 4WD - to new beginnings
// 4G V8 // 3G 2.7 5MT // Model 3 // IS300 5MT // FD RX7 //
Last edited by tv4184; 10-03-2018 at 02:59 AM.
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
10-03-2018, 07:33 AM
|
#8
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
|
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
11/19/11 - B&M short shifter greasing
__________________
1999 2.7 5MT - SOLD // 2007 V8 4WD - Gone
2011 FJ 4WD - to new beginnings
// 4G V8 // 3G 2.7 5MT // Model 3 // IS300 5MT // FD RX7 //
Last edited by tv4184; 10-03-2018 at 07:45 AM.
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
10-03-2018, 11:17 PM
|
#9
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
|
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
11/20, 11/30, 12/1/11 - Steering rack bushings
__________________
1999 2.7 5MT - SOLD // 2007 V8 4WD - Gone
2011 FJ 4WD - to new beginnings
// 4G V8 // 3G 2.7 5MT // Model 3 // IS300 5MT // FD RX7 //
Last edited by tv4184; 10-04-2018 at 03:57 AM.
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
10-03-2018, 11:40 PM
|
#10
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
|
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
12/2/11 - headlight shrouds & shifter boot
__________________
1999 2.7 5MT - SOLD // 2007 V8 4WD - Gone
2011 FJ 4WD - to new beginnings
// 4G V8 // 3G 2.7 5MT // Model 3 // IS300 5MT // FD RX7 //
Last edited by tv4184; 10-03-2018 at 11:52 PM.
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
10-04-2018, 01:30 AM
|
#11
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
|
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
12/9/11 - rear toe links & lower control arm part 1
__________________
1999 2.7 5MT - SOLD // 2007 V8 4WD - Gone
2011 FJ 4WD - to new beginnings
// 4G V8 // 3G 2.7 5MT // Model 3 // IS300 5MT // FD RX7 //
Last edited by tv4184; 10-04-2018 at 01:44 AM.
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
10-04-2018, 04:15 AM
|
#12
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
|
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
12/14/11 - toe links part 1
__________________
1999 2.7 5MT - SOLD // 2007 V8 4WD - Gone
2011 FJ 4WD - to new beginnings
// 4G V8 // 3G 2.7 5MT // Model 3 // IS300 5MT // FD RX7 //
Last edited by tv4184; 10-04-2018 at 04:25 AM.
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
10-04-2018, 05:41 AM
|
#13
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
|
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
12/16/11 - toe link bushings part 2
__________________
1999 2.7 5MT - SOLD // 2007 V8 4WD - Gone
2011 FJ 4WD - to new beginnings
// 4G V8 // 3G 2.7 5MT // Model 3 // IS300 5MT // FD RX7 //
Last edited by tv4184; 10-04-2018 at 05:57 AM.
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
10-04-2018, 06:04 AM
|
#14
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
|
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
12/22/11 - Depo "JDM" bumper signals
__________________
1999 2.7 5MT - SOLD // 2007 V8 4WD - Gone
2011 FJ 4WD - to new beginnings
// 4G V8 // 3G 2.7 5MT // Model 3 // IS300 5MT // FD RX7 //
Last edited by tv4184; 10-04-2018 at 07:29 AM.
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
10-04-2018, 07:24 AM
|
#15
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
|
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Woodlands, TX
Age: 40
Posts: 891
|
12/23/11 - rx7club retrofit kit
__________________
1999 2.7 5MT - SOLD // 2007 V8 4WD - Gone
2011 FJ 4WD - to new beginnings
// 4G V8 // 3G 2.7 5MT // Model 3 // IS300 5MT // FD RX7 //
Last edited by tv4184; 10-04-2018 at 07:27 AM.
|
|
Reply With Quote
|
Thread Tools |
|
Display Modes |
Rate This Thread |
Linear Mode
|
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is On
|
|
|
|