i know your pain. Slow and steady wins the race.

September 24, 2005 - Car gets rolled into paint booth

So, the car gets ready for paint and we bring it down to his shop with the downdraft booth for a better finish.

The color choice is IBM - '99 FD Innocent Blue Mica.

On the exterior, I'm going to use some gold pearl as well, but we voted against it in the engine bay as it doesn't do justice w/out sunlight.

I went with a base coat/clear coat combo and three coats of clear for added protection against oils/fuels/etc. All PPG products.

Did throw a little airbrush of 1320 on the firewall in gold pearl as thats the group of guys I used to/still do hang out with and this car is something that'll be around forever. Just one of those personal things I guess.


We also cut the Intercooler pipe holes larger, smoothed it all out, etc. Really anything I could think of to make this easier later on.

October 9th, 2005 - Car makes its way home after all the front end work and paint

So this is where the story gets slow and boring.

Basically, I ended up moving around, changing jobs and getting held up in other projects (FBs, RX8s, etc) and really lost sight of this project. I knew I'd get back to it when I was more stable, but I did keep the car around and added parts when I could.

February and April 2006 - Start collecting suspension parts

I decided I'm basically working the car from the "front to back" restoring things as I go.

I picked up a new RB front sway and end links, along with a mazdaspeed lower control brace. My plan is to also refurbish the control arms, all the bushings, steering rack, struts/springs, etc as well.

Its depressing, but I lost my job in 2006 and the project took a big back seat for a while.

This is basically where I am now with the car and I'm starting the project up again.

I got the garage all cleaned up and here is where I currently am with the car.

I'm working on customizing some black interior I got from my friends parts car as I do want to swap over to black interior completely including new carpet, etc. I just need to go back and get the dash out.

Basically, after I get the black interior cleaned up, I'm going to redye it in some areas, replace a lot of it with custom CF replacements and then get the cage installed. I am still holding off on the seats for now as I need to see how much funds I'll have left after all this but the interior thus far will be:

-S5 black dash, misc parts
-S5 carbon fiber door panels
-Carbon Fiber gauge center console / idiot lights gauge pod
-RE Amemiya boost gauge / misc defi monitoring gauges
-autopower 6pt cage welded in place and door bars added
-RE Amemiya steering wheel
-SPARCO quick detach steering wheel hub

Should be good. I'm just looking for clean and functional.

Can't wait for you to be up and running. We'll have to head to Summit or Shelor or even that one track close by.

I went back through and updated/edited all the past posts to bring this build thread up to date btw. So sorry if the comments seem out of order. From here forward it should all be current :)



I am expecting the new dye kits for the interior peices, my sparco hub and new fenders this week. Here's hoping they show up soon so I can keep moving. I want to get the fenders in place so I can start measuring everything up.

Also, I'm going to grab the steering rack from the parts car as my SE rack is 15.4:1, which sucks when not running the pump with it. I plan to depower the 17.4:1 rack from the GXL parts car and dropping that in along with new tie rods, bushings and steering angle adjusters.

What did you mean when you said "cleaned up the wireing harness?" What did you do to it? Replace wires? Repair/Replace connectors?

Ah - just that I removed it all so it could be ready for paint.

I still have the factory T2 harness for now. I'm replacing the entire dash harness (again) and the engine harness though when I put the new engine in. I'm using Painless interior harnesses built just for racing.

Were you able to get the dash out without breaking any of the plastic mounts? I've been thinking about doing a ground up restore like you, but don't have the guts - so far. I'm afraid if I take mine apart I will never get it all back together.

The dash actually isnt hard.

The black dash out of the parts car is broke on some of the tabs, but not from removal, looks like prior damage. The plastic grills on the top of the dash (both demister and front vents) will crack - they always do. Its not bad though, most of what might crack can be glued back and is never seen as its all under the dash.

You dont need to remove the dash though to do the rewire. I did the first rewire w/ the dash still in the car..

September 8th, 2008 - New front fenders arrive

Low and behold, arrived home today from work and the new fenders are here.

SA - Foresight +30mm. Stock "looking" but give the car the needed width to fit the bigger meats up front this car will need when I'm done w/ it. Also, the arch is cut 20 degrees lower as well for a little extra style and coverage.

They weigh 3.8 pounds too!

Before I actually install them, I'm going to POR15 and clean the fender areas, get new hardware and paint the door jam area, etc.

For now, here's some shots.

Its been since November 2005 that this car has had fenders, so it was a big step in the right direction for me :) Made my month!

Sweet!! Cant wait to see them in person

Now would be a great time to get some TII brakes and rear end. Toss that 4 lug setup in the trash!!!

lol - Nope... believe it or not, I'm keeping the 4 lug.

I am swapping over to new brakes though, but you'll have to wait to see :)

Already have the T2 rear (my car was completely swapped to a GTX years ago, see the earlier pics in the thread).

I've been trying to talk him out of the 4-lugs ever since this project began... but he never listens. Since he lowered his power goal a bit it might work if he does the brake system that he is planning on.

Nice to see you finally starting to work on this thing again Bill.