Thanks! Started out a whole different color. Was a flaking, hail dents, rust, champagne colored Limited Edition RX-7! Gave it to a paint & body guy to work on. He stripped it all the way down to bare metal & then painted the entire car ice white. In the sun, you almost have to put on Raybans to look at it. Pretty bright. Re-did the entire interior too. New carpet, door panels, rear panels, trim & seats. The only thing I couldn`t get was a new dash. It has a large crack in it over the instrument cluster. I sure would like to find one somewhere in good shape but I might as well throw out that notion. The cars when found have sat in a junkyard so long that they fade in the sun & crack from the heat & cold. Mazda can`t get them anymore either. Oh well. Just have to live with it. After all of the ins & outs were done, put in the street ported engine, Cartech turbo kit & Haltech fuel injection system. Changed out the rear end to disc brakes & put in new shocks, struts, springs & front end components. The steering column had about 2" of freeplay to it when I bought it so put in a new column as well. That was soooo nice after feeling like I was driving the car on a rail car ride at Six Flags amusement park for so long!



Well anyway, won`t be doing another one to that extent. I think once was it for me. Big money pit. Learned a bunch though!

 

No experience with them, but any chance one of those vinyl repair kits would help? Just thinking you could look for a replacement dash and maybe practice with it when it's not in the car...and if it turned out OK, repaint it outside too.

 

I had thought about it & saw another dash someone had repaired by a vinyl repair guy in town. Looked alright but color didn`t match too well. At least the repaired crack area didn`t anyway. I could repair it anyhow & repaint the dash but getting it to match the rest of the interior color would be difficult I think. Almost like trying to get the paint to match on a repaired car after a fender has been hit or something. Hard to do & some come real close but they have the luxury of high tech equipment to mix their color formulas before putting the paint on the car. The dash is the only thing that has bugged me about the 83 the whole time I have had it. Too bad I can`t get them anymore. Would be nice to have it replaced. I don`t know. Maybe one of these days I`ll stumble upon something to fix that area with. Until then, I`ll have to keep telling my eyes to quit looking at that area when I am walking up to the car!

 

Well I advanced into another new chapter in the manual tonight. The silly thing says to put the engine into the engine bay. No way. No how. There has got to be another bazillion more things to put on that motor!! After almost a grand in parts, enough vacuum line to go from here to the Milky Way, long nights wondering if I am EVER going to finish & enough oil on my jeans to supply OPEC with for awhile, disbelief has gotten the best of me.

I think I am going to sit down & rethink all of this. Better yet, I think I am going to sit down with a cold beer & a couple of large hamburgers.

 

Looks great. Funny how you can work on these things so hard and they end up looking like a piece of modern art sitting on the engine stand. Stepping back and giving it the once over with a beer or two sounds entirely appropriate.



Felt the same way... it was always all that long-block stuff that made me nervous.

I mean... screw "waterboarding"....that's for sissys. They should just stick some bearded al qaeda's johnson in a lamp socket and tell him he's got 10 minutes to check hose routing against the FSM diagram or they'll flip the switch. He'll talk.

 

"Looks great. Funny how you can work on these things so hard and they end up looking like a piece of modern art sitting on the engine stand. Stepping back and giving it the once over with a beer or two sounds entirely appropriate."



Thank you Sir! Ya know, it kinda does look like a piece of modern art doesn`t it? It is shame in a small way that I am going to be putting it back into an environment where it will be picking up dirt & crap & later in life will get dingy & filthy. Almost has me tempted to roll the hoist & engine into my living room & park it in front of the coffee table to admire & show off to guests when they come over!





"I mean... screw "waterboarding"....that's for sissys. They should just stick some bearded al qaeda's johnson in a lamp socket and tell him he's got 10 minutes to check hose routing against the FSM diagram or they'll flip the switch. He'll talk."



Perhaps someone in one of those covert, non existent alphabet soup agencies is already doing this? You never know!





Well, after 2 months of work, I sure hope this thing will run right. I don`t even want to have to get back under the hood to do anything else except to change the oil after all of this is completed. Trying to stay positive here but after working in that mess for so long, there exists the remote possibility that something may not work correctly.......Uh boy.

 

Ahhhh, but it's so DAMN nice when you hit the key for the first time and it comes to life. Burning off all the assembly lube, smoking so bad the neighborhood mosquitos move to Mexico. THAT's when you sit back with a whole bunch of "cold ones", eat some pizza with greasy hands and listen to what (to you) sounds like the best stereo, playing the best oldie in the world.

I'll be gone for a week or so and off the net. So good luck and stay positive.

 

Yeah I know. I am feeling the anticipation of turning that key again. Do need to "relocate" a few skeeters from my area! As long as it is a temporary thing with the smoke that is!



The beer & pizza thing sure sounds good! Would be a fitting celebratory meal for a project reaching a successful end. Think I will have to put that on the agenda.



Leaving town for a few days eh? Driving the FD on the road trip or doing the modern thing & stepping on a plane to go where you need to?

 

Well, this seems like familiar ground once again! Had about forgotten how much they had shoe-horned under the hood in such a small space. Stuck for a couple days until a clutch hose gets here. Had a hole in it & was leaking fluid. Replaced the clutch Master & Slave cylinder also. Wished I had seen the hose first. Would have saved me about $200! Oh well. Have a spare of each laying around now!

 

Look Ma! No hoist!

Got the transmission & motor mounts on today. Also got the clutch master+slave cylinder & clutch hose installed too. Took some work to get the trans lined up but wasn`t too bad. On to the next stuff.