This all started when a blog post teaser of the RB FD kit showed up on my facebook. The kit is way cool to me, very aggressive with a vintage racer feel to it, it made the boy racer in me go all giddy and just screamed over and over BUY ME NOW! But alas, the kit wasnt in the country and only a projected date of arrival. Bah. Humbug.
Since the paint is (like all VR FD's) faded and there are a couple of dents- driver door and fender from prior owner, and the front bumper is a bit worn, it needed a bit of paint and bodywork anyway. On the phone with my Greddy vendor one day he affirmed that they did indeed carry the Greddy Aero and would gladly pre-order a kit for me and let me know when it was in the country.
Last week he called and told me it was in country and on the way to the warehouse and and soon as it could be packaged and shipping scheduled it was on its way to me. SWEET! Got the tracking number today- even better- with delivery by FEDEX on Monday the 8th.
Sooo over the weekend the motor will get pulled out and rebuilt. I have all the bits on hand, including a new in box RX-8 eshaft etc. It will have to make do with the stock twins a bit longer, at least until it passes emissions and gets its plates! The gt3582R sitting on my counter is very tempting, especially since I have so many goodies stashed away to make the car really fun to drive, for now there must be some restraint.
So the motor comes out this weekend, the kit arrives monday and I will fit it to the car, then its off to the bodyshop to get sprayed. Normally this is something that would just be done by myself, but the shop isnt really set up to spray a car and time is an issue.
Hopefully it will come out of the bodyshop by the following Monday or Tuesday and the motor can be put back into it. I am thinking about building a new exhaust since it is pretty much entirely stock now, something along the lines of 3" turbo back with a metallic core cat and resonator, then splitting into a Y leading to a pair of smaller mufflers, one on each side. Yeah, its not a simple or as light as a single exhaust with a muffler on the end, but hopefully this gives a deeper, more muscle car tone to the exhaust while maintaining the rotary BRAP! we all know and love.
To really complete the car I would love to change the interior colour from tan to black, find a set of Alcantara JDM seats in decent shape for decent money, and change the steering wheel out. However that would mean replacing the headliner which I'm not likely to find in the first place, finding a decent black carpet, and of course finding a set of of those Alcantara seats that arent in crappy condition. More likely than all that is to have the tan carpets super cleaned, do a new set of Leather seat covers, and throw on a sweet Sparco wheel.
Lastly, wheels! I want to do 17x9 F and 17x10 R RPF-1's in white or classic gold. Since I only have 17x9's on hand, its more than likely I will start with 17x9's all around and order in the 17x10's later. RPF1's dont come in white or gold, so obviously will have to paint them. I considered going to 18's, since I currently have 18's, but there is no real reason to and I dont want the extra weight. In an ideal world I would simply pick up a set of 17x10F and 17x12R BBS modulars, but they are about 1200 each these days and that seems excessive for street car wheels.
I will post pics as I have them
