The Mid Night Club Wangan Run Touge Monster FD RX-7 RZ!
Discussion
What's the Mid Night Club?
What's the Wangan Run?
And what on Earth is a 'Touge Monster'?
First of all I'm blaming Rogue86 here and Nik da Greek here for this. I was quite happy pootling along in my E36 328i and then summer kinda started and people got to updating their RX-7 threads and all of a sudden I remembered why I started driving E36s at all in the first place - a big compromise.
Maybe (but highly unlikely) you remember this thread? I used to own an RX-7, a UK model which had a mild bit of tuning and kept me pretty happy and before that we'd tried dailying a stock import RX-7 but it ended in tears when on an unseasonally wet Thursday in August my wife (then girlfriend) spun it across three lanes of the A3 during her commute. Life happened - my daughter arrived (then my son) we moved house a bunch of times and owning an RX-7 was deprioritised in favour of family life and cheap BMWs to fill the fun car void (mostly documented here).
Roll on six years and we've got the house and few extra quid and you guys remind me of the thing I'd forgotten I was missing, but all of a sudden I REALLY missed it.
A simple bit of man maths later and I had a budget and a mission. Blimey RX-7s have got a whole lot more expensive since 2010! I sold a low mileage super clean, stage 1 tuned UK model (one of 124 I believe) for £5200 back then. You can't get nothing for that these days! But also I'm not made of money either! I looked at importers but you couldn't really get what I wanted on my budget - basically something black with a single turbo conversion and a healthy engine.
I sat in wait and _eventually_ this came up
(picture from when I went to view it)
After an *amazing* test drive a deal was struck and a deposit left. An agonising couple of weeks went by while me an the seller sorted out documents and money and finally last night I got to pick it up!
So here's the pics taken on the drive home:
And then this morning once it was safely tucked in the garage:
So what did I actually buy? Well it's a 1997 RX-7 RZ Special Edition but it's a bit extra special because once upon a time a lovely person in Japan put a lot of love into the car and the spec list is pretty exhaustive:
Original RECARO RZ carbon fibre seats
MOMO Steering Wheel
Aluminium passenger footrest
rear bins not seats
A'PEXi Power FC ECU, Commander, boost controller and upgraded MAP sensor
HKS T04r single turbo conversion
HKS Turbo Timer
HKS Coil Leads
HKS Twin Spark ignition amplifier
Knight Sports WT Controller (controls the aux. fan)
Knight Sports V-mount radiator / intercooler
Knight Sports throttle body
Knight Sports vented bonnet
Knight Sports vented headlight cover
Knight Sports side skirts
Knight Sports bolt on wide arch kit
HKS coil leads
Greddy Type R wastegate
HPI Induction Kit
Front And Rear Strut Braces
SARD Fuel Pressure Regulator
Front Mounted Oil Cooler
Quantum coilovers
Trust exhaust manifold
Custom down-pipe
Straight-through 4in exhaust
Screamer pipe
Uprated Injectors
Some kind of (tight!) LSD
ARC Magic GT Carbon Fibre Rear Wing
Continental tyres
Competition race clutch (not really much fun)
Huge Brembo brakes (look a lot like late Evo brakes?)
The last owner had the manifold re-welded (it was blowing) and also got a confidence inspiring compression test done (7.5,7.3,7.3|7.7,7.5,7.4) that points to a recent rebuild, the owner before him (the guy who bought it as a fresh import last November) got the alloys refurbed and the new tyres as well as alignment /tracking.
Currently the car is running about 0.8bar of boost and has done about 4000km since it was imported.
So that spec makes me think the original enthusiast Japanese owner was definitely into his street or mountain racing - hence the allusions in the thread title (also I've been watching far too much Keiichi Tsuchiya on Hot Version lately).
The pictures and the spec list don't really do justice to the event that this car is in metal. the first thing you notice is the noise - it's *LOUD* - I got it home last night around 10:30pm and sheepishly drove through the quiet residential area where I live. Cue my wife hanging out the window: "Is that you? I thought it was HELICOPTER??"
The other thing is the otherworldly way this thing moves. I thought I'd driven some quick things before - AMG Mercs, plenty of quick BMWs and my previous RX-7s including the 323bhp one. This thing shifts. I'm alright with 3rd gear if I short shift and chicken out but I've barely dared to tease second gear! The suspension feels absolutely planted, the wing seems to generate real high-speed stability and the brakes are painful to push. I'm guessing about 400bhp and maybe a smidge under 1200kgs. The fastest thing I've ever driven.
That's not to say it's not without its faults - it needs a bit of love. The guy I bought it from lived in the wrong place for it - up a 1/2 mile broken, hilly farm track, I think he felt sorry to put the car through that. It needs a clean for starters! The exhaust is SO LOUD (did I mention that?) there's no radio - it would be pointless, it reverberates through the entire cabin filling your senses. The exhaust smells very strongly of petrol and driving around there's definitely a petrol smell emanating from the car. I'm thinking that it's either not mapped or mapped so rich that it's basically overfuelling everywhere - maybe the original owner added fuel pump and injectors and left it on the APEXi base map? Who knows? Seeing the injector duty on the APEXi commander go to the high 90s yet all evidence pointing to overfuelling I know I'm going to have to get it mapped properly for my own peace of mind (and to see what power it's pushing). There's a big hole in the console for a double din something. There's loads of rattly trim in the boot area (including part of an old race harness), the dampers are set to HARD. The LSD jerks the rear wheels on tight maneuvers. There's some wear on the (surprisingly comfortable, RZ only) carbon fibre Recaros. The clutch is rather sensitive (I nearly had kittens trying to coax the car into my tight garage at the top of a steep driveway - stalling it twice for good measure). There's an odd noise from the clutch area too when in neutral - it might be dragging or maybe the release bearing is fussy? The body kit needs a bit of attention with some sticky fixers around that shoudn't be there as well as rusty screws that need replacing with anodised ones. The rear undertray is missing (but could maybe do with a diffuser instead). The ARC wing - despite being super rare and desirable to a certain crowd is perhaps not quite to my taste. It's LOUD.
I also did a bit of detective work and found the listing for the car when the importer had it up for sale - the wheels were white (quite like them like that) and the wing was on some ugly risers:
So my plan is to get it mapped properly, investigate the funny noises, replace some light bulbs, install a stereo (for appearances), get a boost gauge, get an AFR gauge, convert the speedo to MPH ( guide), look at the seats and say "wow" a lot, do some drag, airfield and track days and build a replacement engine and have it on the shelf (just in case).
Thanks for reading!
What's the Wangan Run?
And what on Earth is a 'Touge Monster'?
First of all I'm blaming Rogue86 here and Nik da Greek here for this. I was quite happy pootling along in my E36 328i and then summer kinda started and people got to updating their RX-7 threads and all of a sudden I remembered why I started driving E36s at all in the first place - a big compromise.
Maybe (but highly unlikely) you remember this thread? I used to own an RX-7, a UK model which had a mild bit of tuning and kept me pretty happy and before that we'd tried dailying a stock import RX-7 but it ended in tears when on an unseasonally wet Thursday in August my wife (then girlfriend) spun it across three lanes of the A3 during her commute. Life happened - my daughter arrived (then my son) we moved house a bunch of times and owning an RX-7 was deprioritised in favour of family life and cheap BMWs to fill the fun car void (mostly documented here).
Roll on six years and we've got the house and few extra quid and you guys remind me of the thing I'd forgotten I was missing, but all of a sudden I REALLY missed it.
A simple bit of man maths later and I had a budget and a mission. Blimey RX-7s have got a whole lot more expensive since 2010! I sold a low mileage super clean, stage 1 tuned UK model (one of 124 I believe) for £5200 back then. You can't get nothing for that these days! But also I'm not made of money either! I looked at importers but you couldn't really get what I wanted on my budget - basically something black with a single turbo conversion and a healthy engine.
I sat in wait and _eventually_ this came up
(picture from when I went to view it)
After an *amazing* test drive a deal was struck and a deposit left. An agonising couple of weeks went by while me an the seller sorted out documents and money and finally last night I got to pick it up!
So here's the pics taken on the drive home:
And then this morning once it was safely tucked in the garage:
So what did I actually buy? Well it's a 1997 RX-7 RZ Special Edition but it's a bit extra special because once upon a time a lovely person in Japan put a lot of love into the car and the spec list is pretty exhaustive:
Original RECARO RZ carbon fibre seats
MOMO Steering Wheel
Aluminium passenger footrest
rear bins not seats
A'PEXi Power FC ECU, Commander, boost controller and upgraded MAP sensor
HKS T04r single turbo conversion
HKS Turbo Timer
HKS Coil Leads
HKS Twin Spark ignition amplifier
Knight Sports WT Controller (controls the aux. fan)
Knight Sports V-mount radiator / intercooler
Knight Sports throttle body
Knight Sports vented bonnet
Knight Sports vented headlight cover
Knight Sports side skirts
Knight Sports bolt on wide arch kit
HKS coil leads
Greddy Type R wastegate
HPI Induction Kit
Front And Rear Strut Braces
SARD Fuel Pressure Regulator
Front Mounted Oil Cooler
Quantum coilovers
Trust exhaust manifold
Custom down-pipe
Straight-through 4in exhaust
Screamer pipe
Uprated Injectors
Some kind of (tight!) LSD
ARC Magic GT Carbon Fibre Rear Wing
Continental tyres
Competition race clutch (not really much fun)
Huge Brembo brakes (look a lot like late Evo brakes?)
The last owner had the manifold re-welded (it was blowing) and also got a confidence inspiring compression test done (7.5,7.3,7.3|7.7,7.5,7.4) that points to a recent rebuild, the owner before him (the guy who bought it as a fresh import last November) got the alloys refurbed and the new tyres as well as alignment /tracking.
Currently the car is running about 0.8bar of boost and has done about 4000km since it was imported.
So that spec makes me think the original enthusiast Japanese owner was definitely into his street or mountain racing - hence the allusions in the thread title (also I've been watching far too much Keiichi Tsuchiya on Hot Version lately).
The pictures and the spec list don't really do justice to the event that this car is in metal. the first thing you notice is the noise - it's *LOUD* - I got it home last night around 10:30pm and sheepishly drove through the quiet residential area where I live. Cue my wife hanging out the window: "Is that you? I thought it was HELICOPTER??"
The other thing is the otherworldly way this thing moves. I thought I'd driven some quick things before - AMG Mercs, plenty of quick BMWs and my previous RX-7s including the 323bhp one. This thing shifts. I'm alright with 3rd gear if I short shift and chicken out but I've barely dared to tease second gear! The suspension feels absolutely planted, the wing seems to generate real high-speed stability and the brakes are painful to push. I'm guessing about 400bhp and maybe a smidge under 1200kgs. The fastest thing I've ever driven.
That's not to say it's not without its faults - it needs a bit of love. The guy I bought it from lived in the wrong place for it - up a 1/2 mile broken, hilly farm track, I think he felt sorry to put the car through that. It needs a clean for starters! The exhaust is SO LOUD (did I mention that?) there's no radio - it would be pointless, it reverberates through the entire cabin filling your senses. The exhaust smells very strongly of petrol and driving around there's definitely a petrol smell emanating from the car. I'm thinking that it's either not mapped or mapped so rich that it's basically overfuelling everywhere - maybe the original owner added fuel pump and injectors and left it on the APEXi base map? Who knows? Seeing the injector duty on the APEXi commander go to the high 90s yet all evidence pointing to overfuelling I know I'm going to have to get it mapped properly for my own peace of mind (and to see what power it's pushing). There's a big hole in the console for a double din something. There's loads of rattly trim in the boot area (including part of an old race harness), the dampers are set to HARD. The LSD jerks the rear wheels on tight maneuvers. There's some wear on the (surprisingly comfortable, RZ only) carbon fibre Recaros. The clutch is rather sensitive (I nearly had kittens trying to coax the car into my tight garage at the top of a steep driveway - stalling it twice for good measure). There's an odd noise from the clutch area too when in neutral - it might be dragging or maybe the release bearing is fussy? The body kit needs a bit of attention with some sticky fixers around that shoudn't be there as well as rusty screws that need replacing with anodised ones. The rear undertray is missing (but could maybe do with a diffuser instead). The ARC wing - despite being super rare and desirable to a certain crowd is perhaps not quite to my taste. It's LOUD.
I also did a bit of detective work and found the listing for the car when the importer had it up for sale - the wheels were white (quite like them like that) and the wing was on some ugly risers:
So my plan is to get it mapped properly, investigate the funny noises, replace some light bulbs, install a stereo (for appearances), get a boost gauge, get an AFR gauge, convert the speedo to MPH ( guide), look at the seats and say "wow" a lot, do some drag, airfield and track days and build a replacement engine and have it on the shelf (just in case).
Thanks for reading!
Edited by declasm on Friday 23 August 17:38
themanwithnoname said:
Stunning - love an FD
Slightly disappointed with the content, only because the title promised so very much. I thought I was about to read about the rarest of things - an actual Mid Night owners car.
Still, all the very best with the car and yes, quite envious.
The car was modified in Japan by someone with some pretty serious intentions so until I'm proved otherwise I'm going to believe this car spent its previous life racing mountains and highways... Slightly disappointed with the content, only because the title promised so very much. I thought I was about to read about the rarest of things - an actual Mid Night owners car.
Still, all the very best with the car and yes, quite envious.
Wow! Thanks all for the great response - it seems that I'm not the only member of the 'Playstation Generation' to be hankering after Gran Turismo JDM royalty on Pistonheads!
Starting to think maybe I should have prefixed the title of the thread with 'Wannabe' to avoid some of the disappointment over genuine Mid Night Club-ness too :| sorry guys (you never know...)!
Anyway - here's my more thought through list of to-do items that hopefully I'll tick off over the coming weeks/months/years:
Convert speedo to MPH
Fix tachometer bouncy needle
Fix interior passenger door pull (gotta be the support behind the door card - had to do the same on my last Rex)
Get an FC commander mount
Replace sidelight bulb
Replace headlight bulb
Sort headlight angle
Patch Recaro drivers seat hole
Fit a double din stereo
Check and replace brakes as necessary
Pad garage walls with foam!
Investigate clutch drag (input shaft play?)
Source quieter midpipe or fit the spare 3" system?
Replace cigarette lighter
Vacuum the whole interior with seats out
Replace rusted screws on bodykit with anodised ones
Wash, polish, wax many times
Fit a boost gauge
Investigate Power FC settings (injectors, single turbo setting, boost control etc etc.)
Fit a Wideband O2 sensor and AFR gauge
Fit battery cut-off switch
Investigate coilovers and damper settings
Fix rattles from bootlid and boot area
Check boot and spare wheel area for rust
Get a proper map made and rolling road setup
Check brake pads and disks (and work out where they are from)
Anyone have more suggestions for my list?
Who's my best bet for mapping near Exeter? Do Dragon do rolling road mapping? Any other suggestions?
Starting to think maybe I should have prefixed the title of the thread with 'Wannabe' to avoid some of the disappointment over genuine Mid Night Club-ness too :| sorry guys (you never know...)!
Anyway - here's my more thought through list of to-do items that hopefully I'll tick off over the coming weeks/months/years:
Convert speedo to MPH
Fix tachometer bouncy needle
Fix interior passenger door pull (gotta be the support behind the door card - had to do the same on my last Rex)
Get an FC commander mount
Replace sidelight bulb
Replace headlight bulb
Sort headlight angle
Patch Recaro drivers seat hole
Fit a double din stereo
Check and replace brakes as necessary
Pad garage walls with foam!
Investigate clutch drag (input shaft play?)
Source quieter midpipe or fit the spare 3" system?
Replace cigarette lighter
Vacuum the whole interior with seats out
Replace rusted screws on bodykit with anodised ones
Wash, polish, wax many times
Fit a boost gauge
Investigate Power FC settings (injectors, single turbo setting, boost control etc etc.)
Fit a Wideband O2 sensor and AFR gauge
Fit battery cut-off switch
Investigate coilovers and damper settings
Fix rattles from bootlid and boot area
Check boot and spare wheel area for rust
Get a proper map made and rolling road setup
Check brake pads and disks (and work out where they are from)
Anyone have more suggestions for my list?
Who's my best bet for mapping near Exeter? Do Dragon do rolling road mapping? Any other suggestions?
Yesterday I had the opportunity to give the RX-7 a more thorough test drive, 300 miles Exeter to Portsmouth and back. I filled up with £50 worth of Tesco 99 and expected the worst but by the time I got home I was back to where I started with about 1/4 tank left so the fuel economy really isn't that bad on a run. The trip literally was a shakedown though - on anything other than a smooth flat road there's a lot of crashing and banging and a fair bit of squeaking and rattling as the incredibly hard quantum coilovers refuse to yield. On a good road though those coilovers do something magical and the car feels total stuck to the floor.
Back in Exeter after 300 miles driving
The gearbox has probably seen better days though - although the gate is smooth and reassuringly positive it's sometimes a bit noisy in 4th gear and it definitely does not like shifting from 3rd to 5th without screaming at me. Also the clutch is my worst enemy still. I can either pull away at a snail's pace and keep it reasonably smooth but if I try to get it off the line at a medium kind of pace (as you would many times at roundabouts along the A303 on your way to Portsmouth) I'm kangarooing around and nearly stalling the thing. The previous owner said something about it being a 'Stage 5 competition clutch' which I looked up and found a description for: "Stage 5 - This clutch is for racing only. It is of a 3 puck ceramic design and offers optimum performance for the drag strip." So I'm just going to have to take it onto Santa Pod, rev to 5K and sidestep the clutch if i'm going to use it properly.
The brakes are scary good though, in its day the RX-7 had the best stopping distance of virtually any car on its stock brakes. This thing has been upgraded with huge Brembos at the front and they're amazing. I think the rears (which I'm yet to identify) will need new pads soon and I have no idea what the disks are or where to buy them (I've sent the previous owner a message to see if he has any info for me)
Before I took the car out all day yesterday I decided to investigate the boost settings. The last thing I want is for the car to boost too high on the available fuel, run lean and blow the engine. When I first took a test drive in the car before buying I noted that injector duty (measured on the A'PEXi power fc commander) hit 100% at high revs during a 3rd gear pull this is not good at all. The commander also measured .87 bar (12.6 psi) during that pull. I turned the boost down to about .65 bar (9.4psi) for yesterday's drive and saw 96% duty max across many pulls which is still not great but it was safer and the way the car pulled was still quite ferocious!
boost settings
However I'm not entirely sure I trust everything the A'PEXi is telling me about fuel injector duty since there's definitely been some work done on the fuel system - if anything most signs point to overfuelling:
That's the SARD fuel pressure regulator. I really need to know what injectors I'm running too but can't see them since they're under the upper inlet manifold. The A'PEXi thinks that the two primaries are 660cc and the secondaries are 850cc - this would only really be a tiny change from the stock 550cc primaries though and looking at the way the rest of the car is setup I doubt this bit would be ignored?
The other reason for wanting to pull the injectors is the strong smell of petrol when boosting. A few threads like this one suggest that boost is blowing the vapourised petrol and air past the rubber injector o-ring seals so I will look into that soon and really really have to get it mapped properly.
In other news, during six hours of driving the sound from the exhaust and screamer pipe pretty much dominates your senses, I think I might just keep it that way for the drama of it all. I'm also starting the appreciate the rear wing too:
It definitely helps me with judging the edges of the car when I reverse up the drive into the garage!
My mate Rich also sorted me out with a double-din head unit to fill the void in the centre console - not that i will be able to hear it!
Anyway - some more glamour shots from yesterday's road trip:
The tacho not working and the speedo lying - even in km/h!
Getting rained on in Salisbury (just what you need with a vented bonnet)
gaping hole in the console
And a few under bonnet shots too:
Big HKS turbo
A'PEXi boost controller
Knight Sports enlarged throttle body
HKS TwinPower ignition amplifier
Lots going on!
Also got lots of these stickers in a whole bunch of places - I have no idea who this company is or what they do and googling has given me nothing ?!
Back in Exeter after 300 miles driving
The gearbox has probably seen better days though - although the gate is smooth and reassuringly positive it's sometimes a bit noisy in 4th gear and it definitely does not like shifting from 3rd to 5th without screaming at me. Also the clutch is my worst enemy still. I can either pull away at a snail's pace and keep it reasonably smooth but if I try to get it off the line at a medium kind of pace (as you would many times at roundabouts along the A303 on your way to Portsmouth) I'm kangarooing around and nearly stalling the thing. The previous owner said something about it being a 'Stage 5 competition clutch' which I looked up and found a description for: "Stage 5 - This clutch is for racing only. It is of a 3 puck ceramic design and offers optimum performance for the drag strip." So I'm just going to have to take it onto Santa Pod, rev to 5K and sidestep the clutch if i'm going to use it properly.
The brakes are scary good though, in its day the RX-7 had the best stopping distance of virtually any car on its stock brakes. This thing has been upgraded with huge Brembos at the front and they're amazing. I think the rears (which I'm yet to identify) will need new pads soon and I have no idea what the disks are or where to buy them (I've sent the previous owner a message to see if he has any info for me)
Before I took the car out all day yesterday I decided to investigate the boost settings. The last thing I want is for the car to boost too high on the available fuel, run lean and blow the engine. When I first took a test drive in the car before buying I noted that injector duty (measured on the A'PEXi power fc commander) hit 100% at high revs during a 3rd gear pull this is not good at all. The commander also measured .87 bar (12.6 psi) during that pull. I turned the boost down to about .65 bar (9.4psi) for yesterday's drive and saw 96% duty max across many pulls which is still not great but it was safer and the way the car pulled was still quite ferocious!
boost settings
However I'm not entirely sure I trust everything the A'PEXi is telling me about fuel injector duty since there's definitely been some work done on the fuel system - if anything most signs point to overfuelling:
That's the SARD fuel pressure regulator. I really need to know what injectors I'm running too but can't see them since they're under the upper inlet manifold. The A'PEXi thinks that the two primaries are 660cc and the secondaries are 850cc - this would only really be a tiny change from the stock 550cc primaries though and looking at the way the rest of the car is setup I doubt this bit would be ignored?
The other reason for wanting to pull the injectors is the strong smell of petrol when boosting. A few threads like this one suggest that boost is blowing the vapourised petrol and air past the rubber injector o-ring seals so I will look into that soon and really really have to get it mapped properly.
In other news, during six hours of driving the sound from the exhaust and screamer pipe pretty much dominates your senses, I think I might just keep it that way for the drama of it all. I'm also starting the appreciate the rear wing too:
It definitely helps me with judging the edges of the car when I reverse up the drive into the garage!
My mate Rich also sorted me out with a double-din head unit to fill the void in the centre console - not that i will be able to hear it!
Anyway - some more glamour shots from yesterday's road trip:
The tacho not working and the speedo lying - even in km/h!
Getting rained on in Salisbury (just what you need with a vented bonnet)
gaping hole in the console
And a few under bonnet shots too:
Big HKS turbo
A'PEXi boost controller
Knight Sports enlarged throttle body
HKS TwinPower ignition amplifier
Lots going on!
Also got lots of these stickers in a whole bunch of places - I have no idea who this company is or what they do and googling has given me nothing ?!
Samjeev said:
Looks good sounds like fun
Is it just me or are the wheels quite tucked in under the body despite the fact its got arch flares? you would think that you'd have those fitted if you were going to fit some crazy wide wheels that were going to stick out past the body.
Also I personally like the rear wing
Yep definitely looks underwheeled. The current tyres are only 245s on a 17. I might get some spacers and eventually go shopping for new wheels but not currently a priority since I want to make sure that everything under the hood is sorted before I do much to the appearance. sounds like funIs it just me or are the wheels quite tucked in under the body despite the fact its got arch flares? you would think that you'd have those fitted if you were going to fit some crazy wide wheels that were going to stick out past the body.
Also I personally like the rear wing
Incidentally though, having previously had an RX-7 on 265 18s I think the sweetspot for handling and ride quality is a 17" wheel on these.
The rack is very quick but it doesn't feel overly heavy.I did the "poor man's speedo conversion" last night - basically taking advantage of the fact that Mazda made the speedos for all markets the same, with a tiny little variation that can be changed for free with a soldering iron and some time One day I might buy a new MPH speedo but for now this will do for me.
First remove the binnacle and cluster
Take it in and plonk it on the kitchen table
Turn it over and unscrew the cluster
Take out a few more screws and clips to take the perspex cover off
Undo clips to get the black surround off
Expose all of your lovely clocks
Take out the tacho (3 bolts) and then the speedo (4 bolts, a screw then a ribbon cable) the speedo can't get clear without the tacho coming out.
Turn over your speedo and place it into its place in the black surround so that you have somewhere stable to work on it without the face getting bashed around
Locate resistor R14
Remove resistor R14 with a soldering iron, a solder sucker and a craft knife and don't lose it!
Solder the resistor back in to position R15
Turn your speedo over
Make a new sticker that says MPH instead of km/h
Put it all back together and back into the car
Before:
After:
Even the stored mileage has been converted and the trip value says miles I also have a speedo now that will measure up to 180MPH!
One day I might buy a new MPH speedo but for now this will do for me.First remove the binnacle and cluster
Take it in and plonk it on the kitchen table
Turn it over and unscrew the cluster
Take out a few more screws and clips to take the perspex cover off
Undo clips to get the black surround off
Expose all of your lovely clocks
Take out the tacho (3 bolts) and then the speedo (4 bolts, a screw then a ribbon cable) the speedo can't get clear without the tacho coming out.
Turn over your speedo and place it into its place in the black surround so that you have somewhere stable to work on it without the face getting bashed around
Locate resistor R14
Remove resistor R14 with a soldering iron, a solder sucker and a craft knife and don't lose it!
Solder the resistor back in to position R15
Turn your speedo over
Make a new sticker that says MPH instead of km/h
Put it all back together and back into the car
Before:
After:
Even the stored mileage has been converted and the trip value says miles
I also have a speedo now that will measure up to 180MPH!The Poor Man's Speedo Conversion part II...
So having made my speedo look like it reads MPH and the stored distance show miles I needed to calibrate it so that it actually reads in MPH. I thought I wouldn't have to do this and the soldering job would automagically re-scale the speedo gauge but nope. So I follows this guide here to do the re-calibration.
First of all remove your cluster again and take the clocks out but don't take them apart. Make a small hole next to the speedo:
You can actually see the potentiometer in there which controls the scaling of the clock
Fashion yourself a mini screwdriver knob thing out of a wedged-off match and some gaffer tape:
Put a little glue on the end of the wedge and stick it into the potentiometer, I also glued a little locator ring in placed because the whole assembly was pretty fragile. In the end the stick stayed in place fine and the ring fell off!
While the cluster is out remember to pull the airbag bulb which for some reason started flashing since I last took the gauge out. They car doesn't have an airbag anymore with the aftermarket steering wheel anyway so no harm done.
Put the cluster back in the binnacle and connect it back up to the car but don't jam it all the way back in because you'll need to contort your right hand around the back of it to twist the knob as you drive along as part of the recalibration. Setup your GPS speedo or phone app and go for a steady drive along a quiet stretch of NSL dual carraigeway.
Drive at a constant 70mph by the GPS and twist the knob until the needle sits perfectly at 70mph on the speedo.
You're done! Go fill up with Tesco 99 and take more pretty pictures of your car
So having made my speedo look like it reads MPH and the stored distance show miles I needed to calibrate it so that it actually reads in MPH. I thought I wouldn't have to do this and the soldering job would automagically re-scale the speedo gauge but nope. So I follows this guide here to do the re-calibration.
First of all remove your cluster again and take the clocks out but don't take them apart. Make a small hole next to the speedo:
You can actually see the potentiometer in there which controls the scaling of the clock
Fashion yourself a mini screwdriver knob thing out of a wedged-off match and some gaffer tape:
Put a little glue on the end of the wedge and stick it into the potentiometer, I also glued a little locator ring in placed because the whole assembly was pretty fragile. In the end the stick stayed in place fine and the ring fell off!
While the cluster is out remember to pull the airbag bulb which for some reason started flashing since I last took the gauge out. They car doesn't have an airbag anymore with the aftermarket steering wheel anyway so no harm done.
Put the cluster back in the binnacle and connect it back up to the car but don't jam it all the way back in because you'll need to contort your right hand around the back of it to twist the knob as you drive along as part of the recalibration. Setup your GPS speedo or phone app and go for a steady drive along a quiet stretch of NSL dual carraigeway.
Drive at a constant 70mph by the GPS and twist the knob until the needle sits perfectly at 70mph on the speedo.
You're done! Go fill up with Tesco 99 and take more pretty pictures of your car
No updates in a little while, the car has mostly been tucked up in the garage after I'd done another 300 mile trip a few weeks back (Aldershot - exciting!) then I was out in Australia and then Spain but back in the UK for a couple of weeks so I thought I'd do a few jobs.
First on the list was the rear pads - I knew one side was looking a bit low so it was a definite priority.
First off back of the car up in air and a quick look to see what we're dealing with; the passenger side actually doesn't look too bad plenty of meat on the pads but gonna change them anyway.
Drivers side though was pretty terrible - one pad down to the wire whilst the other one still with life in it - the worn pad appeared to have jammed and was a bugger to extricate.
My phone (LG G5) has a snazzy wide-angle camera so I can take some odd pictures - here you can see the rare Quantum coilovers and some of the other linkages.
FD RX-7s have handbrakes that work on the rear brake pistons so this necessitates a wind in piston for replacing the pads. The passenger side wound in easy enough using some needle-nosed pliers
The driver's side though was a right bugger and I couldn't budge it until I bought the cool looking tool and re-mounted the caliper on the bracket (with the disc out of the way) so I could get some leverage.
It looks like some kind of sci-fi / fantasy artifact!
Some new Brembo pads just mounted on the passenger side before the caliper went back on.
All buttoned back up and on the driver's side too, copper slip added where required.
I took the floating disc off the driver's side so I could push the piston in but thought I'd check out the disc because it's bigger than I remember.
It turns out that the RX-7 RZ runs 314mm discs as standard on the back which is up 20mm from Base R model and is the same as the Spirit-R.
I pumped the brake and the handbrake a bit to get some pressure back into the pistons and took the car out for a shakedown (and to buy more petrol)
Seemed to work as it should but those calipers could do with a spruce up at some point!
Whilst I was out with the car I remembered I needed a new key cut - only having one is a bit of a worry. The chap in Timpson's asked me what car it was and we had a good chat - turns out he has an MX-5 of similar vintage and he made my key for free
I had been planning to fit my boost gauge but didn't really have the time so I settled for another cosmetic job.
(old photo) The gear gaiter had come detached and was annoying me (more than the missing stereo (lol)
I unclipped the console and it pretty much lifted straight off. The gaiter was pretty easy to reattach with some glue and thoughtful knife work and ended up looking like this:
Much better!
I'll do the boost gauge next time
I expect it'll go here
RX-7 meeting E30 325i Touring
Ever helpful Jasmine Cat watching on:
Jasmine getting in on the action!
And back into the garage - really needs a clean inside and out - starting the car is so dramatic though that I'm very reluctant to pull just pull it out onto the driveway since leaving it running long enough to know it's not going to flood etc. will upset the neighbours - a quieter exhaust is a definitely on the list asap.
Lastly here's a couple of scale models I spotted out in Sydney!
First on the list was the rear pads - I knew one side was looking a bit low so it was a definite priority.
First off back of the car up in air and a quick look to see what we're dealing with; the passenger side actually doesn't look too bad plenty of meat on the pads but gonna change them anyway.
Drivers side though was pretty terrible - one pad down to the wire whilst the other one still with life in it - the worn pad appeared to have jammed and was a bugger to extricate.
My phone (LG G5) has a snazzy wide-angle camera so I can take some odd pictures - here you can see the rare Quantum coilovers and some of the other linkages.
FD RX-7s have handbrakes that work on the rear brake pistons so this necessitates a wind in piston for replacing the pads. The passenger side wound in easy enough using some needle-nosed pliers
The driver's side though was a right bugger and I couldn't budge it until I bought the cool looking tool and re-mounted the caliper on the bracket (with the disc out of the way) so I could get some leverage.
It looks like some kind of sci-fi / fantasy artifact!
Some new Brembo pads just mounted on the passenger side before the caliper went back on.
All buttoned back up and on the driver's side too, copper slip added where required.
I took the floating disc off the driver's side so I could push the piston in but thought I'd check out the disc because it's bigger than I remember.
It turns out that the RX-7 RZ runs 314mm discs as standard on the back which is up 20mm from Base R model and is the same as the Spirit-R.
I pumped the brake and the handbrake a bit to get some pressure back into the pistons and took the car out for a shakedown (and to buy more petrol)
Seemed to work as it should but those calipers could do with a spruce up at some point!
Whilst I was out with the car I remembered I needed a new key cut - only having one is a bit of a worry. The chap in Timpson's asked me what car it was and we had a good chat - turns out he has an MX-5 of similar vintage and he made my key for free
I had been planning to fit my boost gauge but didn't really have the time so I settled for another cosmetic job.
(old photo) The gear gaiter had come detached and was annoying me (more than the missing stereo (lol)
I unclipped the console and it pretty much lifted straight off. The gaiter was pretty easy to reattach with some glue and thoughtful knife work and ended up looking like this:
Much better!
I'll do the boost gauge next time
I expect it'll go here
RX-7 meeting E30 325i Touring
Ever helpful Jasmine Cat watching on:
Jasmine getting in on the action!
And back into the garage - really needs a clean inside and out - starting the car is so dramatic though that I'm very reluctant to pull just pull it out onto the driveway since leaving it running long enough to know it's not going to flood etc. will upset the neighbours - a quieter exhaust is a definitely on the list asap.
Lastly here's a couple of scale models I spotted out in Sydney!
I decided to get a couple of interior jobs done since I was off to a local meet yesterday. The hole in the centre console finally became too much for me so I needed to get that filled. Sound quality from the stereo is never going to be a top priority alongside the ever present exhaust but it would be nice to have something to listen to.
I picked up one of these for £15.45 delivered from Amazon:
Thinking that it's so cheap it really doesn't matter what it sounds like!
I also bought a single DIN cubby hole space filler adapter since the hole is double DIN.
The install didn't look too bad for £20 all in!
I spent a little while soldering together an ISO harness and then it was plug and play. I powered up the stereo and yep it worked all bluetooth etc. and working fine except only coming out of the one dash centre tweeter! Now I had a sneaking suspicion that the previous owners in Japan didn't care much for music and they may have modified the car with a view to weight loss in that regard and after peeling back the trim in the a few places I confirmed that there were no speakers in the car!
I scratched my head for a bit and decided what to do next. I thought I could take out all the interior trim and put speakers back in or I could keep thinking "racecar" and come up with a more dynamic solution.
For my previous RX-7 I'd built a removable amp/speaker box since the factory speakers were rubbish anyway and had gaps all over the range. I still had the box so I reassembled it and strapped it into the Touge Monster. Then came a gruelling hour or two where I failed repeatedly to force a thick power cable from the battery through a grommet in the firewall. I'm a pretty big guy and kneeling on the ground with my head in the driver's footwell wasn't fun but eventually I got it through. While I was there I passed through the tubing for the boost gauge too.
Once the wires were routed I could then connect up my amp and speakers and I had sound!
speaker box connected up and held in place with a couple of bungees since I don't want this thing flying around if my driving gets enthusiastic but obviously easy enough to remove should I go on track etc.
To fit the boost gauge I ran tubing from the upper inlet manifold to the foot well and up into the pillar trim. I ran ignition power from the lighter socket behind the instrument binnacle to the pillar. I drilled a 2cm hole in the pillar trim and passed the wires and tubing through then shaped the gauge pod by cutting and sanding down the edges until its shape followed the pillar trim and mounted it with a couple of screws then I connected the wire and tubing to the gauge and pushed it into the pod and it all worked first time - it's a job i'd done on my previous RX-7 so it all was pretty straightforward.
All done
I picked up one of these for £15.45 delivered from Amazon:
Thinking that it's so cheap it really doesn't matter what it sounds like!
I also bought a single DIN cubby hole space filler adapter since the hole is double DIN.
The install didn't look too bad for £20 all in!
I spent a little while soldering together an ISO harness and then it was plug and play. I powered up the stereo and yep it worked all bluetooth etc. and working fine except only coming out of the one dash centre tweeter! Now I had a sneaking suspicion that the previous owners in Japan didn't care much for music and they may have modified the car with a view to weight loss in that regard and after peeling back the trim in the a few places I confirmed that there were no speakers in the car!
I scratched my head for a bit and decided what to do next. I thought I could take out all the interior trim and put speakers back in or I could keep thinking "racecar" and come up with a more dynamic solution.
For my previous RX-7 I'd built a removable amp/speaker box since the factory speakers were rubbish anyway and had gaps all over the range. I still had the box so I reassembled it and strapped it into the Touge Monster. Then came a gruelling hour or two where I failed repeatedly to force a thick power cable from the battery through a grommet in the firewall. I'm a pretty big guy and kneeling on the ground with my head in the driver's footwell wasn't fun but eventually I got it through. While I was there I passed through the tubing for the boost gauge too.
Once the wires were routed I could then connect up my amp and speakers and I had sound!
speaker box connected up and held in place with a couple of bungees since I don't want this thing flying around if my driving gets enthusiastic but obviously easy enough to remove should I go on track etc.
To fit the boost gauge I ran tubing from the upper inlet manifold to the foot well and up into the pillar trim. I ran ignition power from the lighter socket behind the instrument binnacle to the pillar. I drilled a 2cm hole in the pillar trim and passed the wires and tubing through then shaped the gauge pod by cutting and sanding down the edges until its shape followed the pillar trim and mounted it with a couple of screws then I connected the wire and tubing to the gauge and pushed it into the pod and it all worked first time - it's a job i'd done on my previous RX-7 so it all was pretty straightforward.
All done
C70R said:
Looking good. However, that rear pad wear suggests that your caliper may be sticking or otherwise malfunctioning. You might end up replacing the pads again in a few months for the sake of having spent a few quid on a seal refurb kit.
Thanks! It was the pad on outside not next to the piston that had worn unevenly and was quite firmly wedged in the carrier so I don't think the piston was sticking. I made sure to lube the places where the pad meets the carrier so hopefully won't happen again.rampageturke said:
Very nice, I should keep up with this thread as it might help when I eventually start an FD project, hope to replicate the Abflug Pink Spider to a degree, loved the car even since I set eyes on it a while ago, huge interest in the high velocity antics that went down in Japan until its demise.
Wow the Pink Spider is pretty special - my car seems quite subtle by comparison I've been thinking more about brakes, specifically the fronts. I researched getting new discs and the best deal appeared to be Reyland who would sell me rotors to sit on the bells I already have for about £300 http://www.reyland.co.uk/discs/
I did a bit more research looking for people who had done the same brake caliper upgrade (Evo Brembos) to find what discs they were using. I read through this thread http://www.rx7club.com/suspension-wheels-tires-bra... and the guy basically went down a blind alley with Infiniti G37 discs and couldn't get a setup to work. Over on FDUK someone had appeared to have struck upon the ideal solution using Subaru Imprexa STI WRX 326mm discs with the centres bored out to 72mm Mazda fitment. Since a pair of vented / grooved discs for the Subaru can be had for ~£100 this has got to be the way to go. Here's some pics from FDUK user Julian's thread on the subject:
boring out to 72mm
And on the car
I like this idea a lot - I've contacted the guy to try to get some more information on how they're holding up.
Other thoughts I'm having - I find myself missing the Trust gear nob I used to have on my last RX-7 so I might source one of those - like this one:
And I'm going to patch my driver's seat bolster with some of this 'tenacious tape fabric repair tape' for the time being until I can do something more permanent
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0045CQELI
I've got the car booked in for MOT next Tuesday up the road at a garage in Cullompton, I've made a contact there through a local FB group who is an RX-7 owner himself which is quite reassuring. While I'm there I'm going to talk exhaust options.
Bosshogg76 said:
I love the mentalism of this car, must be a riot to drive. Was just looking at your gauge pod on the A pillar, can you see it from where you sit as it looks like it's point upwards or is that just the angle of the pic?
Cheers - I love it! It epitomises everything I could want in a car I can see the gauge fine but I'm pretty sure they sent me the pod for a passenger pillar because it does seem to have a tilt in the wrong direction, kinda exaggerated in the wide angle shot - i'll probably replace it at some point. Good spot!
Big news! The RX-7 now has a shiny fresh 12 month MOT ticket on it with only minimal pain involved
In actual fact I was very worried about finding a local garage who understand the particular peculiarities of an imported FD RX-7 when it comes to passing an MOT. I joined a couple of local car groups insearch of one and lucked out a bit. A few miles up the road from Exeter in Cullompton is a new garage - "Franky's Speedshop" where they do a lot of custom car work (like those US TV shows) and one of the co-owners, Jay, is a Rotary enthusiast, they have a steady flow of RX-7s and RX-8s coming through the doors and Jay is currently rebuilding and repainting his own RX-7 as well as another shop RX-7 project.
Thankfully my car had no major issues but I was still at Franky's for the better part of the day while Jay and I fiddled around doing the little bits that needed doing - a few bulbs here and there, a new battery clamp, headlight alignment, topping up the washer fluid and by far the most time consuming was adding a rear fog light since there wasn't a loom present to wire it in despite there being a bracket to hang it off at the back (I expect the previous owner only had one plumbed in temporarily) and we had to work something out, initially by trying to wire into the foglight switch on the console but without a relay this circuit didn't like the voltage and kept blowing fuses so we used the live feed i'd plumbed in for the stereo amp in the boot which passed through the centre console, tapped a switch off that and ran a wire down through the gear stick boot past the gearbox and around the heat shields under the car missing all the hot bits and mechanicals and around to the very back of the car, under the number plate. Not quite sure how my car passed emissions but Jay confirmed as I already knew that car is running on the extremely rich side!
Once the MOT work was sorted we were able to get on with something a little more fun and constructive. I also got to spend some quality time looking at the underside of my car. I've mentioned before that the car is LOUD - basically straight-piped end to end. great for 5 minutes, terrible to live with and makes my neighbours hate me. When I bought my car I got handed a free exhaust including a couple of silencers (imagine!) with it and I took the opportunity while the car was in the air at Franky's to get Jay, (with a little help from me) to fit it. I had been fretting that the new exhaust would be a bad fit or the bore sizes wouldn't match (my downpipe looked to be 3.5"-4" but was actually only 3" at the flange) but it all bolted up with no leaks in about 20 minutes and sounds so much more civilised especially with the removable bung in the back box.
Interestingly with the new exhaust (and most probably the restriction due to the bung - rather than the pipes themselves) having set the wastegate duty for 0.6bar with the old exhaust it's now only good enough for 0.4bar so I will experiment with the wastegate duty percentage and testing with the bung in and out to see the effects on boost.
With the exhaust noise much reduced I can now hear that the gearbox is pretty noisy itself! No doubt this is partly due to the fact that (as I discovered by looking under the car) there is a heavy duty brace bolted on the back of the gearbox transmitting all sorts of noise back into the cabin but something to keep an eye on.
Anyway - here's the pictures!
Driving into Franky's
Replacing bulbs and adjusting headlights
Nice view of the old exhaust system, zero rust
Wastegate controller viewed from underneath
Another view of the old exhaust
Jay fitting the new system - very easy to see the gearbox brace here
Final adjustments
Gearbox brace up close
New exhaust just about there
Flanges lining up perfectly
Exhaust done!
New rear foglight
Franky's Speedshop
All MOT'd up!
In actual fact I was very worried about finding a local garage who understand the particular peculiarities of an imported FD RX-7 when it comes to passing an MOT. I joined a couple of local car groups insearch of one and lucked out a bit. A few miles up the road from Exeter in Cullompton is a new garage - "Franky's Speedshop" where they do a lot of custom car work (like those US TV shows) and one of the co-owners, Jay, is a Rotary enthusiast, they have a steady flow of RX-7s and RX-8s coming through the doors and Jay is currently rebuilding and repainting his own RX-7 as well as another shop RX-7 project.
Thankfully my car had no major issues but I was still at Franky's for the better part of the day while Jay and I fiddled around doing the little bits that needed doing - a few bulbs here and there, a new battery clamp, headlight alignment, topping up the washer fluid and by far the most time consuming was adding a rear fog light since there wasn't a loom present to wire it in despite there being a bracket to hang it off at the back (I expect the previous owner only had one plumbed in temporarily) and we had to work something out, initially by trying to wire into the foglight switch on the console but without a relay this circuit didn't like the voltage and kept blowing fuses so we used the live feed i'd plumbed in for the stereo amp in the boot which passed through the centre console, tapped a switch off that and ran a wire down through the gear stick boot past the gearbox and around the heat shields under the car missing all the hot bits and mechanicals and around to the very back of the car, under the number plate. Not quite sure how my car passed emissions but Jay confirmed as I already knew that car is running on the extremely rich side!
Once the MOT work was sorted we were able to get on with something a little more fun and constructive. I also got to spend some quality time looking at the underside of my car. I've mentioned before that the car is LOUD - basically straight-piped end to end. great for 5 minutes, terrible to live with and makes my neighbours hate me. When I bought my car I got handed a free exhaust including a couple of silencers (imagine!) with it and I took the opportunity while the car was in the air at Franky's to get Jay, (with a little help from me) to fit it. I had been fretting that the new exhaust would be a bad fit or the bore sizes wouldn't match (my downpipe looked to be 3.5"-4" but was actually only 3" at the flange) but it all bolted up with no leaks in about 20 minutes and sounds so much more civilised especially with the removable bung in the back box.
Interestingly with the new exhaust (and most probably the restriction due to the bung - rather than the pipes themselves) having set the wastegate duty for 0.6bar with the old exhaust it's now only good enough for 0.4bar so I will experiment with the wastegate duty percentage and testing with the bung in and out to see the effects on boost.
With the exhaust noise much reduced I can now hear that the gearbox is pretty noisy itself! No doubt this is partly due to the fact that (as I discovered by looking under the car) there is a heavy duty brace bolted on the back of the gearbox transmitting all sorts of noise back into the cabin but something to keep an eye on.
Anyway - here's the pictures!
Driving into Franky's
Replacing bulbs and adjusting headlights
Nice view of the old exhaust system, zero rust
Wastegate controller viewed from underneath
Another view of the old exhaust
Jay fitting the new system - very easy to see the gearbox brace here
Final adjustments
Gearbox brace up close
New exhaust just about there
Flanges lining up perfectly
Exhaust done!
New rear foglight
Franky's Speedshop
All MOT'd up!
Small update - I got to test out the car on a longer run with the new 'quieter' exhaust, leaving the house at 5:30am on Monday to drive 150+ miles to Heathrow for a short trip to Dusseldorf, verdict is that it's definitely easier to live with and makes me less scared of the 'loud' pedal, also I don't think I woke the neighbours this time. Conversely the restriction in the new exhaust with the bung/baffle thing still means only 0.4bar of boost and without me having had the time to set the boost controller wastegate duty appropriately I'm missing a bunch of horsepower - feels on the bum dyno only about 250bhp at 0.4bar. I've also read that people warn not to boost too high anyway with an exhaust bung since the back pressure can wear the turbo quicker. I might take the bung out to see how the new exhaust sounds without it - it still won't be as loud as the old straight-through job.
I also had a go at better patching the lovely Carbon-Kevlar RZ Recaro driver's seat, there had been an unsightly rip in the cover since it's impossible to get in and out of the car without scraping past the bolster. My earlier rush job was with copious amounts of gaffer tape that never stuck too well. I did a bit of research and found that there's a hardcore fabric repair tape made by 'Gear Aid'. Eventually I will get the driver's seat re-covered but that would be quite an extravagant outlay for something so prone to wearing and I want my pennies for performance and reliability mods first and foremost.
Gear Aid Tenacious Tape Fabric repair tape - about 7 quid from Amazon. Meant for repairing camping gear and outdoor clothing.
Terrible gaffer tape bodge job
'Battle' scar:
A slightly more pleasing patch:
Parking at Heathrow Rx-7 made a 'friend' with an RS5 which looks enormous in comparison!
One black coupe meets another
Aaaand it was still there a day and a half later when I got back - phew!
I also had a go at better patching the lovely Carbon-Kevlar RZ Recaro driver's seat, there had been an unsightly rip in the cover since it's impossible to get in and out of the car without scraping past the bolster. My earlier rush job was with copious amounts of gaffer tape that never stuck too well. I did a bit of research and found that there's a hardcore fabric repair tape made by 'Gear Aid'. Eventually I will get the driver's seat re-covered but that would be quite an extravagant outlay for something so prone to wearing and I want my pennies for performance and reliability mods first and foremost.
Gear Aid Tenacious Tape Fabric repair tape - about 7 quid from Amazon. Meant for repairing camping gear and outdoor clothing.
Terrible gaffer tape bodge job
'Battle' scar:
A slightly more pleasing patch:
Parking at Heathrow Rx-7 made a 'friend' with an RS5 which looks enormous in comparison!
One black coupe meets another
Aaaand it was still there a day and a half later when I got back - phew!
T9JVG said:
Cracking car OP, loved these since first getting Gran Turismo on a Playstation 1 at the tender age of about 12/13. Would love either one of these or an R34, absolutely timeless designs.
Looks like you're pretty handy with the spanners too, good effort
T9
Thanks! The car is just what I always wanted and certainly evokes a lot of Gran Turismo nostalgia for me too. I like to try and do as much work as possible myself - I feel like I know the car better that way and always learn something new along the way - there's some stuff I can't do without a ramp but now I have my own compressor and air tools I reckon I can manage a fair bit!Looks like you're pretty handy with the spanners too, good effort
T9
Robbins said:
Lovely car, they do look good in black. Must be a lot more pleasant to live with with proper silencers! Shame about the ugly fog light IMO, most people either convert one of the reversing lights or rewire a couple of the rear lights as fogs. I went for the latter option, a lot cleaner looking and serves the same purpose.
Thanks, it's so much easier to live with now! Eventually I'll get around to improving aesthetics and that will almost certainly mean a more attractive fog light modification.Here's a slightly better quality picture of the seat patching - it held up fine the other day to Heathrow and back:
The drive back from Heathrow in the dark and going out to a local meet last night did highlight one particular downside to the RX-7 - the terrible, woeful and completely inadequate headlights. On an unlit road, even a dual carriageway I can barely see 10 metres ahead and I think it's pretty dangerous. I did a bit of research and although you can fit aftermarket HID kits they just won't give a good safe beam pattern behind stock lenses. There are a number of aftermarket headlight conversions that remove the pop-ups but I think losing the pop-ups takes away some of the charm of the design. First and foremost then I am going to replace the old yellow bulbs with something more modern. I settled on 'Osram Night Breaker Unlimited' since they seem from online reviews to be the brightest legal bulbs you can buy. I ordered them this morning at 11am and they were delivered free by ECP around 1:30pm not bad for £15.
I'll chuck them in later when it gets dark and see if there's any improvement.
Here's a gratuitous engine bay shot from earlier today:
And this was the local meet from yesterday snapped just before it got too dark - can you name all the makes and models?
The drive back from Heathrow in the dark and going out to a local meet last night did highlight one particular downside to the RX-7 - the terrible, woeful and completely inadequate headlights. On an unlit road, even a dual carriageway I can barely see 10 metres ahead and I think it's pretty dangerous. I did a bit of research and although you can fit aftermarket HID kits they just won't give a good safe beam pattern behind stock lenses. There are a number of aftermarket headlight conversions that remove the pop-ups but I think losing the pop-ups takes away some of the charm of the design. First and foremost then I am going to replace the old yellow bulbs with something more modern. I settled on 'Osram Night Breaker Unlimited' since they seem from online reviews to be the brightest legal bulbs you can buy. I ordered them this morning at 11am and they were delivered free by ECP around 1:30pm not bad for £15.
I'll chuck them in later when it gets dark and see if there's any improvement.
Here's a gratuitous engine bay shot from earlier today:
And this was the local meet from yesterday snapped just before it got too dark - can you name all the makes and models?
rampageturke said:
Just curious, how much is tax on an FD and is it registered as a 2.6 or 1.3?
Currently paying £235 p/a I think, although when the car was registered in the UK it was actually registered as an 1800cc since the DVLA misread the form where it said 1300cc 
I need to send the V5 back to the DVLA with a letter from a garage saying the car has a 1308cc displacement then they should be able to amend it.Blayney said:
declasm said:
And this was the local meet from yesterday snapped just before it got too dark - can you name all the makes and models?
BMW E36 3 Serieslooks like a mk1 Focus
EP3 Civic
Mazda RX8
Your FD RX7
S14 Silvia
Honda S2000
I think the red one in the background is a Fiesta ST
Next to that looks like it might be a mkV Golf
Next to that appears to be a Citroen DS3
Next to that I can't make it out because of the people
Next to that I think might be another E36, possibly with those little badboy headlight type things... either that or a Calibra... Yeah I know.
Next to that no idea
Red car at the front I think might be a new Clio.
How wrong am I?
I think it's this :
E36 318is
mk6 Fiesta
EP3 Civic Type R
RX-8
Integra Type R
S14 Silvia (Zenki)
S2000
Fiesta ST
EP3 Civic Type S
DS3
RX-7
BMW Z4
E36 328i Saloon
E46 328i Saloon
Mk6 Golf GTI
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