REsuper7のブログ一覧

Winter months are always super slow and super boring. I spend most of my free time playing video games. Normally it's GT6, but this winter i got caught up playing COD Black Ops 3, but i digress. Car related activities were few and far between, so what better way to fill the gap than perform a couple small mods i've been holding off on. It always feels good to be able to check things off the list.

First up, raising the wing height. Although i really liked the way my wing turned out, i couldn't help but feel it was just a tad too short. Ideally, i wanted the front middle part of the wing to be on the same level as my roof, but with my current setup, it was the back of the wing that was level with the roof. Luckily with the way i modded the wing, increasing the height of the wing was as simple as making new mounting plates, which is exactly what i did:



Here's a side angle so you can get a better idea of the wing sits with the new plates:



I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. It's just on the border of being too high but really makes the car look just that bit more aggressive.

Next up, Car Shop Glow 99 spec front combination LED lamps. Everyone knows how CSG has become a household name among JDM fans around the world, and i'm guilty of jumping on the bandwagon as well. So when Ken from CSG offered a special deal on Instagram for a set of their front 99 spec LED combi lamps, i jumped on it. The only caveat to the deal was the housing was chrome with a silver bezel:



I never expected to buy chrome 99 spec lights especially with my car being white, the lack of contrast would make it look pretty bland. Knowing i couldn't install them as is, i came up the idea to paint the silver bezel black, then use a lens film to tint the housing to make them pop. This is what i ended up with:



I know i say this a lot, but i really surprised myself with this one. They came out so much better than i imagined, so much so that if i had the opportunity to choose between the black and the chrome housing, i still would've went with the chrome.

Moving on...as much as i love my RE-Amemiya D-cut steering wheel, i still couldn't help but feel like i wanted a fully round wheel. I still have my Personal Grinta wheel, but having a different bolt pattern to my RE wheel meant i couldn't easily interchange between the two without messing up the angle of the wheel. At first i really wanted to get the R-Magic wheel, but found out later on that it was discontinued. After searching around, i finally came to the Vertex line of wheels, specifically, the deep dish wheels. Soon after, i fell in love with the design and felt like it was different enough from my RE wheel that it was worth buying, so as a birthday present to myself, i pulled the trigger on the Vertex 7 Star 330mm wheel and an R-Magic shift knob (come on, everyone knows you gotta have different shift knobs with each wheel...right??)





I loved the design of the wheel even before i installed it, but after i installed it, i fell in love with it even more...and if i'm being honest with myself, i like it even more than my RE wheel!!! The main reason is that because the steering wheel is deep dish i gain SO much leg room with the Vertex wheel. I was blown away by how nice it was to drive with the new wheel installed, and the R-Magic knob was the perfect companion to the new wheel.

The next mod was probably the most minor of all the mods i've done, but also felt so good to finally have:





As i'm sure you've seen in previous pictures, since i completed the rebuild i haven't had a proper hood prop. At one point, i bought a hood damper but found it made my hood stick up more than i liked when closed, so i ended up going back to the trusty OEM hood prop...except this time in Titanium form thanks to the great folks at Argon Bubble!

The next mod has been a long time coming. I had been meaning to do this upgrade since i installed my Brembo BBK nearly 3 years ago. I even bought the rear caliper brackets that support the larger diameter rear rotor found on +99 spec FDs, i just never got around to buying the Project Mu SCR-Pro rotors i needed to make use of the new brackets. Well back in February, the opportunity presented itself when i found a set of Project Mu SCR-Pro FD rear rotors posted on YAJ for the first time ever since i started looking 3 years ago. Luck was definitely on my side because i ended up scoring them for 50% discount off new and they looked like they had minimal wear on them.

Some pics of the Project Mu rotors next to my original crossed drilled rotors that came with the car:


I decided to go ahead and paint the calipers to clean them up and really make my rear brakes look as good as my fronts. I went with silver because they made the calipers look like new and clean.



In case you were ever curious, here's a pic showing the difference between the pre-99 spec and +99 spec rear caliper brackets:



And here's the finished product after putting it all together:



While not as surprising as my first few mods, i think they came out nice and clean.

And the last mod for this post was one that i've hesitated to do for a long time but knew was inevitable in the end because of the offset of my wheels. If the offsets weren't an issue, i probably would've kept the different colored wheels, but alas it was not meant to be. The worst part about having to powdercoat my wheels was losing the coveted Volk Racing engraving on the spokes, which was my main motivation for getting the RT's to begin with.

One last shot of my precious wheels before they undergo their face lift



As with all cosmetic surgery, keeping the face original and untouched is always the better route, but in this case i just have to chalk it up to being corrective surgery instead.

After going back and forth over and over again over which color to go with, i went the safe route and ended up with a Metallic Black (boring, i know!):



While it came out decent, i'm not really happy with it. Not only is the engraving not really visible, the metallic flakes which i paid an extra $100 for are also barely visible unless you look super closely under bright light. Worst part is i couldn't fit my hub-centric rings because the powdercoat was too thick. Installing the wheels became a huge headache as i tried to make the wheels fit the rings. In the end, i couldn't get the rear rings on so i left them off as i was in a rush to get the car ready for an event.



As soon as i got my wheels back i started missing my red wheels...oh well...live and learn. I ended up making the standard SL sticker to cover the engravings since there was no saving them. I added a couple extra stickers as well just to spice things up a bit since the black can be so bland.

And that's it for now. I have some additional mods coming in the near future that are a little more significant as they checking off boxes on my track prep list. Stay tuned for more updates to come....hopefully sooner than this last one! よろしくお願いします!

It's hard to believe that exactly 11 months after i wrote my most difficult post, i can now make this post to announce that REsuper7 has officially been REborn!!!! ☆ミヾ(∇≦((ヾ(≧∇≦)〃))≧∇)ノ彡☆

But before i unveil the fruit of my labor, i'd like to finish going through the final stage of the build process. Although i've been harping on and on about how i rushed through this build in order to get it done by the end of September, that doesn't mean that i didn't try to improve the car over the previous build. In fact, there are a few things that really bothered me with my last build that i've corrected this time around. One of those things was the gas cap. As good of a job i did last time with making sure the gas cap lined up perfectly with the fender flare, i couldn't get the door to open all the way, and it rubbed the fender pretty hard if you tried to push it open further. This bothered me especially because i was worried it would damage the paint (dip), so this time around i made it a point to figure out a way to get the door to open all the way without rubbing the fender.



Although you can't tell in the picture, i actually had to drill new holes to push the left side of the door where the hinge is out even further to give it the extra room it needs to swing open all the way without rubbing. Although RE雨宮 provides a bracket to bump out the hinge, no amount of adjusting will allow it to open without rubbing (trust me, i've tried every possible angle). With the new holes drilled, it now opens all the way! Woohoo!!



And magically, with some adjustments, it still closes flush. Here's a video showing the fuel door. If you can't already tell, i'm pretty proud of this feat.



With the door jambs and fuel door done, it was time to move on to paint. First, i decided to paint most of my carbon parts with anthracite grey plastidip. I did it for two reasons, 1. a lot of the carbon parts i'm reusing from the crash were scratched up. Since i didn't want to spend too much time refinishing the carbon parts, i decided to just dip them for now to cover up the scratches. When i have more time, i'll see if i can repair the cracks. 2. I wanted to protect my non-damaged carbon parts from rocks and other road hazards. Doesn't hurt to try and be consistent with the colors either.





With all the carbon bits painted, it was time to prep the car for paint. After seeing so many RE雨宮 FDs in Japan with painted AD9 hoods, i decided to give it a shot as well, but with a slight variation. I figured why not show a little bit of the carbon weave underneath, so i taped off the vents so they would remain carbon after the hood was painted. I also took the liberty of installing my Aerocatch hood pins, Ready Go Next CTA3 air ducts, and the RE雨宮 AD9 hood carbon add-ons.



Here you can see the cutout i made for the RGN CTA3 air ducts. I didn't cut the hole as big as the air duct itself because i didn't want to cut into the skeleton of the hood. Despite that, i still think the added vent will improve underhood cooling. And here's the hood taped off ready for paint.



And here's the rest of the car ready for it's final transformation.



The new dip spray that i got was supposed to be a new formula that had better coverage than the previous one and didn't require a base coat, but after having used it, i feel like i got better coverage with the grey basecoat that i sprayed the first time around. This white still came out pretty thin. I ended up using all three white gallons that i had just on the car and didn't even have enough to spray the headlight buckets and the wing. As a result, i had to order another white gallon just to paint the wing...



And it's a good thing i did too, because for some reason i had to use about 2/3 of the white gallon just to paint the wing!! I don't quite understand why it took that much dip, but it did, so i'm grateful i had the extra gallon. Here you can see one of the main benefits of dip. Since it's peelable, i didn't need to tape off the wing mounts to paint, i just had to peel the paint off the mounts after i was done.



I had originally thought that once the paint was done, putting everything else back together would be a piece of cake...boy was i wrong. I spent a good two days and countless hours just getting everything back onto the car. With every little thing i did i felt like i was fighting fires because the dip was peeling from rubbing against parts as i installed them. The worst were the two doors. Despite working perfectly before paint, once they were painted, they started rubbing and peeling some of the paint away. I didn't take that many pictures during this last stage as i was just focused on getting it done ASAP. I did want to share a close up of the wing stand and the new carbon cover i made though. It actually came out better than i expected.



And without further ado, i present to you Phoenix 7 aka REsuper7 REborn!!



Before i could take it out for it's maiden voyage i had to do a couple of things, 1. clean the windows, and 2. make a bracket for the front license plate (I got tired of being scared of getting pulled over for putting the license plate in the windshield).

The windows were filthy having not been cleaned in the years before i took ownership, plus all the dust and overspray from the work i did in my garage. Here's a quick look at what i was dealing with.



To tackle this problem i bought a Griot's Garage random orbital polisher and some Driven Extreme window cleaner. I gotta say, i am quite pleased with how it came out. I didn't think it would be possible to clean all the gunk off the windows, but it worked as advertised!



Since before the crash i've been procrastinating making a front license plate bracket. I even got pulled over once last year specifically for having my license plate in my windshield. Luckily the cop let me go because it was just down the street from my house. Not wanting to deal with that again, I went ahead a made bracket. While i was at it, i created a steel bracket for the Takata x Speedhunters tow strap that i've had for almost 2 years now but never installed. Although i hope to never use it, i think it should hold if i ever do.



The only reason this set up is possible right now is because i don't have dual oil coolers. If i ever go that route, i'll need to rethink my setup. Oh well, i'll cross that bridge when i get there.

For it's maiden voyage, i took a trip down the street to fill up the gas tank. Perfect opportunity to snap the obligatory gas station pics.







And here's a quick shot of the interior and the engine bay.





I LOVE the fact that when i pop the hood and open the doors i no longer see RED, but just nice plain white...what a relief. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the trunk, but at least i open the trunk regularly so it's something i can live with for now.

So after 11 months (technically only 9 months of build time since the first 2 months were for mourning), REsuper7 is finally back. It's still kind of surreal to open the garage and see my car put together again. I thought i'd never see the day i actually got my car back, but now it's here, and i can't be any more happy with it than i am, despite all its flaws. The only thing left to do now is slap some stickers on and enjoy! ☆*:.｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆

As i mentioned in my last post, i'm in the process of transitioning to a new job at a new company. Luckily, i was able to get some time off in between so i made a vow to myself that i would finish the car before i started my new job so i don't have to worry about the car once i do. So without any further delays, i'm going to jump right into it because i have A LOT to cover.

After doing an initial test fit of the body kit, i wanted to paint the doors and the door jambs, so on my first two days off from work, that's what i did. I had a friend of mine from church come over to help me tape up the doors.





The paint came out OK for the most part, but i had a few runs in the clear coat. Unfortunately i didn't have the luxury of time to fix all the mistakes if i wanted to reach my goal so i had to move on. The doors came out a little better then the jambs, but also not perfect. After installing the door cards, i realized i taped up more than needed so there was still some red showing on the very inside of the door by the hinges. Again, i didn't have the time to fix my mistake so i ended up using vinyl to cover it up so i don't see any red. But other than that, the paint came out decent.





My replacement midpipe also came in so i took out the pipe that was rubbing the driveshaft and installed the new one. Nothing special really, but looks decent enough.





The muffler itself is a little bigger as well, so hopefully it helps keep the noise level bearable so that if/when i decide to take the car out at 5am, i don't disturb my neighbors.

Next up were the lights. Since my last set got destroyed in the crash, i had to order a new set. Not wanting to mess with the housings, i decided against reinstalling my HIDs from the previous kit. After searching Amazon.com for new bulbs, i settled on a pair of LED headlights that look similar to HIDs. They weren't much more than a new set of Halogen bulbs so i figured why not give it a shot. I haven't really had a chance to drive with them so i don't know how well they perform, so i'll provide some feedback on them later on.



Here's a picture of the bulb. It's plug and play so modifications to the housing or wiring harness, not too many additional wires. Nice and clean, just like changing out the light bulb.



Remember back in April i started working on the GT2.5 wing but never finished? Well it was finally time to complete that project. I started by finishing the mounting bracket to secure the stand to the trunk. I dug up my third and last prototype bracket that i made and decided to just run with that design, so i went ahead and made another one for the left stand.



I painted them black but never took a picture of them. I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out. Not too big, yet more supportive than the GT2 wing stand (IMO). I also made a backing plate for the wing stand out of a thin carbon fiber sheet. I think it came out quite nice.





I used a spray-on adhesive to secure the carbon backing to the stand, but since the top and bottom of the stand are secured with bolts, even without adhesive the backing wouldn't fly off.

In my next post i'll be covering the last and final stage of the build...the paint and putting everything back together. Stay tuned.

After i got the engine running, i had to sort out a couple of things before i could attempt to drive the car down the driveway. First was the leaking oil cooler lines. Luckily, the only thing i needed to do was tighten the fittings a little bit more and the leak went away. The other thing i needed to do was fix the the midpipe that was rubbing against the driveshaft. Knowing that no solution i concocted would give me the confidence i needed to drive the car long distances, i decided to just order a new midpipe from RX7store.net. In the meantime, to be able to test drive the car, i made a makeshift bracket to push the midpipe down enough so it doesn't rub when the driveshaft starts spinning. Once those two things were fixed, i took it out for it's maiden voyage which Isaac helped me capture with my phone:



And here are some pictures from the same day to commemorate this special day:







After a couple drives up and down my street, the car went straight back into the garage in preparation for the exterior transformation. To be honest, i didn't feel quite ready to move on to the next phase of the rebuild. It almost felt too sudden to be on the last phase of the build, but since i wasn't planning to drive the car in it's current condition, i had to move on.

First up was fitting the widebody kit. I pretty much followed the same procedure i did the last time i did the install, although there are a couple of small differences this time around. For one, this time i decided to cut more off the rear quarter panels. The last time i did it, i didn't cut enough and ended up with some rubbing issues, so not wanting to make the same mistake, i made a much larger cut this time around. After reading multiple build articles on Speedhunters and seeing them use an air saw to cut the fenders, i decided to buy one as well since i didn't have a great experience last time with the Dremel Saw Max. The main benefit of the air saw is a much cleaner cut, and the added benefit is you're putting much less heat into the material you're cutting. Here's the air saw i picked up:



In the end, i'm really glad i bought the tool because it was a joy to use in comparison to the Dremel and it really made the cut SO much cleaner! This is probably my new favorite tool. Here's a picture of the cut:



Like last time, i'm still not quite sure how to seal the two pieces together. Ideally, i should be welding the two parts together, but i don't have a welder, so for now, i decided to just push the inner fender up and leave some material for sealing up later on down the road. I might do what Speedhunters did and cut an opening then weld in a new piece to fill the gap.



As with a lot of things i passed over, i will come back and deal with this later one. To make that possible, i decided to forgo riveting the rear fenders like i did last time and picked up some stainless steel security torx sheet metal screws.



And here's the widebody bolted up.



There's a still a few brackets i need to put in, but i've gotten most of the big cutting parts done, including the fuel door section. Next up was lining up and fitting the front bumper to the fenders. The initial fitment was a little disappointing. If i'm honest, i felt like the first bumper i got was much better fitting than this one. At first i thought i wouldn't be able to get it to line up without a lot of modification. Luckily, after i started working on it, it didn't take too much effort to line it up and in the end the fitment is pretty much the same as my first bumper.







Quite possibly one of the most exciting parts of the rebuild was the radiator/bumper fitment. The first time around, one of the things i liked least about the build was how the radiator fitted in the front bumper. Not only did i have to spend a good amount of time cutting the bumper/undersweep to fit the radiator, the radiator actually sat much higher up.

BEFORE


AFTER


You can see now the bottom of the radiator sits underneath the lip of the bumper/undersweep which means i didn't need to do any cutting to fit it. One of the things i was worried about was bolting the bottom of the undersweep to the car. Luckily, the undersweep was flexible enough that i could get it to bolt up without doing anything additional cutting like i did last time.

And here's the front of the car with the hood thrown on for a quick photo:



It's hard to believe that after 255 days, i'm finally approaching the light at the end of the tunnel. Although i'm close, i still have a lot of work to do, including fitting the headlights, install the rear wing, paint the door jambs, and paint the kit. It just so happens to i'm changing jobs for the first time in 8 years, so i'll have 2 weeks in between jobs which i'm hoping to dedicate a portion to completing the car. I really want to have the car done before i start my new job so i can focus on work rather than trying to finish my rebuild. Gotta keep my head down and keep chipping away.

The past two weeks have slowed down quite a bit in terms of finishing the car. Unfortunately, i still haven't gotten the car running yet. The main obstacle standing in the way is installing the new radiator. Unfortunately, my previous radiator got destroyed in the crash, and since it was a custom set up for my vmount kit, the new radiator wasn't a simple bolt on replacement. In order to get it to fit properly, i need to make new mounts for it. Luckily, my RE雨宮 parts arrived from Japan, so i was able to use the front bumper to help me figure out the ideal mounting location for the radiator so that i wouldn't have to cut too much of the front bumper to get it to fit.

Getting my RE雨宮 parts was like deja vu, especially since my order was almost identical to the first time i ordered.


The main difference was this time i didn't need to order a wing and the rear super canards, but i did order new sleek lights.


And here's a shot of the front bumper temporarily mounted so i could adjust the angle of the radiator.



I hope to finish installing the radiator this coming weekend. If that happens, all i need to do is swap the fuel pump, get oil into engine, transmission, and differential, and i'll be ready to fire up the car. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Besides the radiator, i've hooked up most of the wiring harnesses, including the power harness, and the engine harness to the ECU. While i've been working on the radiator, i've also been test fitting my intercooler. Luckily, the intercooler didn't get damaged in the crash. The mounting brackets were bent up, but a few minutes on the vice and everything was in good working order again.



Oh, i forgot to mention, since my last post, i also finished installing my driveshaft, differential, power plant frame, rear axles, and rear suspension.



I'm so close to getting the car running, but unfortunately, i've been having some issues with some of my other cars so i've been having to use some of my precious weekend time to address those issues as well. Gotta keep pressing on. I hope my next post will contain some good news, like the fact that my car is running. **fingers crossed**