My wife is letting me have a Wankle with twins

[Daston]

OK time for an update! I have had 5 months of Rotary ownership now, over this time i have covered over 2,000 miles, done 1 oil change and already been to a drag strip!

When I got the car I knew I had to get some miles on the engine before giving it some welly. Luck would have it the Mazda Rotary Club hold an annual Rotary meet and this years was in the joyful Northampton which is roughly 180 miles away from us.....perfect to get a lot of miles on the car!!

The down side was the weather, we had biblical rain the whole day and a nice big thunder storm, this did mean not many car's turned up On the plus side the RX didn't leak and we remained nice and warm and dry

Also in the Summer we planned a nice trip to Cheddar Gourge for some cream teas and photos.....stupidly I forgot to charge the SLR so had to deal with my phone lol plus the heavens opened (something that seems to happen a lot with the Mazda)







The next adventure was Santa Pod for the JapShow Finale held in October. We have not been to this event in 6 years since we last owned our Supra, it was a fantastic day and a great chance to meet up with the FDUK club and see some other cars. Sadly the racing wasn't as good as it used to be with less big tuners running on the strip and more RWYB types.

Here are some photos from the day:











The final run out we did for the year was a night photo shoot on Exmoor, now in the future I think these need to be a strictly summer even as it was Fecking cold! I will certainly do something like this again when I get a better light.







There will be more updates over Christmas as I have this to fit from my wife



And I have just ordered a load of LEDs to change the guage cluster and switches from green/amber to red.

Edited by Daston on Tuesday 8th August 23:31

Edited by Daston on Wednesday 9th August 17:18

[Daston]

Hoddy910 said:

Sounds like your ownership experience is a good one mate So no problems to note? The reason I ask is I'm looking to get one, and I have a feeling it could be the same guy that you almost bought one from initally that was speccing one up from you. Owns a caravan site in Surry, near Gatwick Airport? His name is CharleP on the MRC forums
Anyway here is the link to the car. Tell me what you think http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/m...

Yeah it was Charlie, was a real nice chap and was such a shame it didn't work out.

I have so far had no issues with the car at all Engine is still under warrentee and runs like a dream. Although the Tuscan I had was quicker the power delivery of the RX feels more raw.
The only problems I have faced have been those you would expect with a 17 year old car, things like bushes squeaking and the battery giving up the ghost.

[Daston]

Thought I would get some photos up of the Christmas plans

Currently my dash looks like this



The plan is to swap all the bulbs from the gauge cluster, heater controls and centre console buttons to red LEDs. I have done a lot of reading up on how to do this so fingers crossed won't be too hard (famous last words!). So far the steering wheel is off and all the small trim removed so I can work on it in the garage.

I will also be doing a bit of tarting up in the engine bay and around the car. First things first is to change the headlight bulbs to some higher powered ones as the current ones were a bit lacking after our exmoor midnight run. Thankfully I happened to find a pack that belonged to our old Tuscan and as luck would have it are recommended for the 7 as well!

I also need to clear the paint powder from the intake manifold and clean up the intercooler piping, thinking of spraying it satin black and changing the silicon hose to red





I have also noted a few missing bolts and rusty bolts that need changing.

Holes in the wings, need to find out what went here.





Some Rusty headlight brackets, plan on getting these out and spraying them black.



Plus some missing bolts and some more powder on the top of the crash panel.





All in all not to bad considering the age of the car, I was expecting a lot worse.

Edited by Daston on Tuesday 8th August 23:38

[Daston]

Hoddy910 said:

That's great to hear mate I'm currently waiting on a black rex to come out of the garage that Charlie uses. Strangely enough they are having issues (not with the car but other things) which is a little concerning from what you said before on a previous post :~( but once it's done it should be 400hp single turbo, which I like the sound of ;-) There is a white one which sounds really good as well. Comes with a fresh respray, engine still has the twins but kicks out 320hp with the apexi ECU, bushes renewed and has Meister R coilovers So I have to decide between power and handling :P Ooh but I like black :P

Where abouts are you from anyway? I don't know of anyone around here with one. I'm from Rotherham. Not seen one around here in easily 10 years!

Sounds like you should be sorted either way. Personally I would go for a good single set up if you want the grunt. You can change the bushes and coils yourself on a set of axle stands and they are not too expensive (when compared to a single setup).

I have managed to do a bit more work with the interior this week.

Steering wheel and gauges removed (was great fun trying to balance on my knees on the seat to reach the cables whilst head butting the windscreen).






I have started taking the heater controls apart first, changed the bulbs over to LEDs but have hit my first stumbling block. It turns out the fan dial images have a green tint.



Looking on the reverse of the plastic it looks to be patches of green film stuck over the plastic, so I should be able to either A) Remove this with adhesive remover or B) sand it off with very fine sand paper.

I have also removed the clock spring and test fitted my new boss, will need to fabricate some form of lever/metal pad for the horn so that it works on the new wheel.

Edited by Daston on Tuesday 8th August 23:41

[Daston]

Hoddy910 said:

looks very good what you're doing to it there mate, giving it your own twist When are your new wheels going to arrive? They are the dogs danglies the ones you are looking at, I like your taste

Yes I think I will hold out for the black rex. I'll post up a thread once I acquire the monster :P

Sadly the Work Wheels have shot up by around 30% however Rota do a style of wheel that is the same but 1/3 of the price and is avaliable off the shelf

Plan on ordering a couple next week.

Wired the heater controls up to test the LEDs, happy with the results. Just need to add an extra LED to the fan direction panel.

Edited by Daston on Tuesday 8th August 23:42

[Daston]

Just a small update, I have had some ups and downs when it has come to the main cluster.

The replacement LEDs turned up and work perfectly. However the light spread isn't the best with the speedo and fuel gauge being the worst effected.

I plan on solving this by adding 3 - 4 extra bulbs around the cluster to even the light out. So far so good....until I got idle hands one evening and decided to attempt to take the speedo face off.

The guide I am following suggested to put the speedo to the max that it would go and then mark that position (the needle attempts to reset if you let go). I then gripped the needle and gave it a pull....all this did was snap the round plastic base (superglue time) but more annoyingly the needle now is 10mm further round than it was so I fear it may now over read

Think the plan now is to get it together and leave the cluster apart, I can then check the speed against my GPS and move the needle as nessasary, or failing that see if Mazda can calibrate it.

Anyhoo this is how its looking:

Edited by Daston on Tuesday 8th August 23:43

[Daston]

toon10 said:

Wow, the first two pics look fantastic. Not normally my sort of car but very cool. I was going to suggest not putting any rear wing or black wheels on but I suppose I'm going against modern tastes.

Hope you get many years of enjoyment out of it. The car that is, not the wife. Well her too I suppose

I am thinking a small duck tail spoiler might give the back end that little bit of interest, looks a big flat from some angles as if something is missing.

Edited by Daston on Tuesday 8th August 23:44

[Daston]

Had a busy weekend so not too much time was spent on the car, but I did test fit the cluster and even with extra LED's the speedo did not light up at all

So I decided to man up and attack it with some paint stripper as hard as tried I could not remove the needle from the gauge but I did notice that there was a 40x40mm notch cut out of the side of the clear backing. I then came up with the plan of pulling the face off and just rotating it round to the this point and using a small modeling brush remove the green tint from each number.

It took a very long time but last night I finished all the gauges, here is the finished rev counter.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/WXjpt6]
[/url]

Tonight I hope to have the extra LEDs soldered in and then I can finally see what it looks like in the car. More photos later....I hope!

Edited by Daston on Tuesday 8th August 23:46

[Daston]

Well big milestone hit today! The dash is back together and the new wheel is on!



Just got to shave down the plastic trim a bit as it fouls on the hub.

Also the gauges now look like this



All seems to be working ok, the odo is having a bit of a brain fart and is not displaying numbers. I had a poke about and I think it could be an earthing issue as it would sometimes light up ok but then go dead...

Edited by Daston on Tuesday 8th August 23:48

[Daston]

Hoddy910 said:

That wheel looks perfect mate how has the car performed in the winter months? I'm still waiting for the rex but I'm sure it will be worth the wait!

Gave it a wash today (and took the opportunity to finally get some decent photos). The rear tyres are shocking to be honest, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out they were indeed fitted in Japan! Makes going around roundabouts quite the event lol, it seems to break traction quite gently and is easy to control on the throttle. They will be changed asap along with the wheels.

Here are the shots I took today.

DSC_1076_zpsb5f46d68 by Dave & Lisa, on Flickr

Edited by Daston on Wednesday 9th August 17:25

[Daston]

Skylinecrazy said:

Where did you get the wheel from mate?

My wife ordered it through Driftworks.

Heres a link to it.

http://www.driftworks.com/nardi-deep-corn-steering...

[Daston]

Today I swapped out the squeaky old idle pulley for a cast aluminium one from DM Motorsport.

Looks much better and shouldn't sound like it has swallowed a chip monk! Just need to get a new nut for extra bling



Whilst I was there I have also started on cleaning up the intercooler hard pipes

Edited by Daston on Wednesday 9th August 17:34

[Daston]

Skylinecrazy said:

Another question. Which exhaust is that? That is a work of art!

It's an HKS Carbon - Ti.

I was going to get the Greddy Titanium system but the shipping cost was insane (as well as the original price).

The HKS was ordered from the US of A from vivid racing for a mere $700 with shipping

[Daston]

Had my first issues with the car the other weekend. Went for a blast, got home and the dash board flashed at me. After a bit of investigation the alternator is only pulling 11.9 volts and not charging the battery.

Simple job thinks me, it's only 2 bolts after all......



Have some engine work planned for the rainy months so it's all got to come apart again then, with that I will be changing the pulleys and will swap out all the tatty old bolts and give it a general tart up

Edited by Daston on Tuesday 8th August 23:49

[Daston]

Thought I would put in a quick update.

I am currently pulling all the suspension arms off and changing the coilovers to something less uh old! I had planned to do this all in a day but well you know what they said about Rome!

I got the car in the air and gave all the nuts and bolts a good shower in plus gas, at this point I thought it was a good idea to make a brew



After an hours soak I got stuck in.

The first bolt was nice and easy to remove, I thought this was a good sign as it was apparently the hardest....I was wrong.

The nut on the anti roll bar had seized solid I tried every trick I could think of from wedging a spanner between the coilover and arm to lashing a spanner to the anti roll bar with cable ties (ok ok it wasn't the best ideas)

In the end I ordered a pair of nut splitters and did it the hard way. However this paid off and I managed to get the nut off with most of the thread still in tact (although I think I might get some rose jointed droplinks).

With the drop link removed I was able to detach the coilover from the suspension arm and pull it out of the wheel arch.




I also found out that I have enough room in my Garage to jack the car up and work on it in relative comfort, something I would have never been able to do in my old house. This means I can take my time and treat some of the rust I have found around the area

First suspension parts I have ever removed, some rather old toe link and coilover



My plan is to remove the upper arm, clean the rust off the subframe, treat it with some Bithammer stuff I have from my TVR days and then give it all a damn good coat in Epoxy Mastic 121.

The worst appears to be around the Diff and on the axle.



Plus some above the exhaust heat shield and around the exhaust hangers





I also had the opportunity to give the rear end a bit more character and ordered a duck tail spoiler which I think suits the lines of the car quite well without being in your face like some of the other aftermarket wings.

Edited by Daston on Tuesday 8th August 23:59

[Daston]

Managed to get out to the garage for a bit this evening.

The upper arm has been removed and I found out the hard way that I really should dig my gloves out. A few days of WD40 and plus gas really isn't nice on ones hands



With that out of the way I degreased the subframe.

I can also get a much better view of the surface rust around the frame.



I then thought "I wonder if I can clean these wheel arches a bit in case of rust...."







This then happened 17 years of dirt.






Will give the arch a good clean with a pressure washer tomorrow (without flooding the garage) and then I can give it a good coat of paint and some underseal.

Edited by Daston on Wednesday 9th August 17:49

[Daston]

This evenings plan was to clean the arches some more. I tried warm water a stiff brush and managed to get some headway on it. I then decided to break out the pressure washer, after all how wet can the garage get...right?









The amount of crap on the lip of the arch was crazy, felt good to get all that off and will feel even better when its painted up and protected.

Quick shot of the rear BC Shocks that are going on



plus the replacement upper suspension arm with powerflex bushes and adjustable toe arm.

Edited by Daston on Wednesday 9th August 22:32

[Daston]

Time for some updates.....

The arches were masked and sprayed and I didn't kill myself due to lack of oxygen so that was good!









Whilst this was drying I decided that I just couldn't live with the overspray and general crapness of the heatshield so gave it a bit of love with some high temp engine paint





Saturday was spent applying Epoxy Mastic to the wheel arch and the underside of the car after all the rust had been removed. This stuff was not easy to paint no matter how much thinner was added! I think I got more on my hands...arms...jeans...hoodie than I did on the car! Still wet in these photos so looks a bit tatty plus the lighting in the garage doesn't make it easy, that only having 50cm between the car and the wall!





Then finally I have managed to get the first arm onto the car (yey)



Should be pretty much plain sailing from here, as soon as the toe control arm is on I can get the new shock on and then replace the lower arm, without fking up the camber too much I hope.

Edited by Daston on Wednesday 9th August 22:38

[Daston]

Whist fitting the suspension I ran into a few issues.

The first was that the toe control arm would not fit into the hub, it turns out that the hub has metal washers pressed into it and with a threaded bar, a socket and a pair of nuts I managed to squeeze it out slightly so that it could fit.




The next issue I had was the new coilovers are a lot shorter than the factory set, so I had to adjust them in order for the anti roll bar to mate up with the drop link, not too much of an issue but I had thought the factory settings might have been OK.

This is how it all looks on the car










And the underside looks a lot better.



Now time to start on the front!

Edited by Daston on Wednesday 9th August 22:43

[Daston]

The front suspension is currently all off and I will be starting to strip the body down for a repaint as there is a few stone chips that have caused surface rust. Will get some before and after shots


Just before Christmas this little bundle of joy turned up from Japan, I had thought about not showing any of it until it was on the car.....but what the hell!

Blitz front mount intercooler and some OEM badges as the front has totally lost its colour and the rear is faded quite bad.







A set of Work Emotion CR Ultimates in Matt Bronze









Sneaked a test fit whilst I was doing the rear suspension




Also picked up a second hand Apexi ECU for a good price. Need to reset it back to its base map before I can get the car to a garage for a remap.

Edited by Daston on Wednesday 9th August 22:47