Yes. Slacker

 

I'll copy/paste my posts from Rx7Club....

When I bought my FD from the previous owner, he showed me a current carfax that justified the clean California title. I did notice some slight damage to the core support and I noticed the BN sports rear bumper being "molded" to the quarter panels.

It wasn't a big deal (or so I thought) since I knew I was going to be restoring the car and making it how I wanted it.

As I dug deeper and deeper in to the car, I started to notice more significant damage...



There was so much bondo on that quarter panel, they had to pile up bondo on the door to make it line up. (the door is straight)

I'm thinking, "Ok not that big of a deal. I'll just replace the quarter panel and move on". However, the amount of labor involved is too expensive for me. And I have yet to find a clean quarter panel to replace it.

I put that on the back burner to keep working on an electrical problem I'm trying to hunt down. Wound up taking a break from that and took the car to get it aligned.

The front end won't align.

The caster is so far off between the left and right sides up front, it's an obvious difference as to where the wheels sit in the fender. The shop tried to get it right and it just would not work. To get the wheels even remotely close to where they sit even in the fenders would have meant going all the way positive with caster on one side and all the way negative with caster on the other side.

When I had the core support replaced, I paid the shop to put the car on a frame machine and they said it was straight. So why would I have such a problem aligning the car?

Of course, the car has been crashed. But, how bad? So I checked carfax AGAIN to see the same thing I saw when I bought the car. Then I was advised by a friend to look at autocheck.

boom. "Salvaged/Damaged" in Maryland back in 2003. With no history up until it was titled in California in 2009. But, the weird **** is that it titled clean in California. How in the hell is that possible? This state is so strict on sh*t like that and how did this car slip through the cracks?

This car has been nothing but a nightmare for me and I don't know what to do other than trying to find a cheap, clean titled roller.

Does anyone know how the title transferred as clean to CA?

 

I did get the car running and was driving it around my community to kinda street tune the new motor build and get it ready for break-in.

Here's a little clip of the car driving down the street.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10202343434091033

I also had an electrical problem I was trying to hunt down as well.

 

I managed to find another shell for a really good price and picked it up...

 

Don't mind me...I'm reposting crap I've already just said lol

Finally the updates.

I got the car running and was slowly trying to make it relatively driveable. I came across the damage on the quarter panel first and didn't care right away since I still wanted to get the car running right.

Over that time, I got a set of Speedhut gauges, FFE crank trigger, and a few other odds and ends. (nothing worth noting). The gauges I bought were boost, oil temp, water temp, and oil pressure. I have had friends ask me why I was going with analog gauges for a primarily track driven car. While I understand that having digital readouts to easily glance at to monitor things, I still prefer the classic look of analog gauges...especially since they almost match the stock gauges perfectly. That being said, I will position the gauges to where the needles are pointing straight up at normal ranges. That way I can glance at them and know that everything is normal.

On to the rest.

I was trying to hunt down an electrical problem that was extremely frustrating, so I decided to switch it up a little bit and drive the car down to my local alignment shop. That's when I realized the car was damaged more than I thought.

Now I'm back at square one. With two incomplete cars in my garage. lol.

The new shell has had the entire electrical system simplified and there are no more fuses or relays in the engine bay. I'm not too excited about how the previous owner decided to relocate the engine harness, but it won't be hard to make it the way I want it.

I spent most of yesterday (12/21/13) cleaning the inside of the new car since it's been sitting for 3 years. It's a tight squeeze in my garage right now and it's limiting what I can do. So, I will be buying a big tarp and some bungee cords to be able to keep one of the cars outside while I'm working on the other. I'll do my best to take more pictures and keep this thread more up to date.

 

Now we're current...

I haven't been able to get much done due to the holidays and I managed to get pretty bad food poisoning. But, I picked up a set of Xcessive motor mounts. They're for an FC but should still work. The FC mounts are a little shorter and it should compensate for the added material from my banzai oil pan brace.



I also got an HKS cast turbo manifold. I liked the Doc-Race manifold, but I like the compactness of the HKS. With that, I picked up a replica HKS 50mm wastegate from ebay. I'll rebuild it with HKS internals and use it for the time being. Until I either find a used authentic HKS 50mm or I suck it up and use the banzai adapter with a nice TiAL or Turbosmart WG.



I also installed my FFE Trigger Wheel that's been sitting around for months. lol

 

 

Damn, so did u ever figure why u couldn't align the car if the frame is straight??

 

There is a crease in the firewall that I never noticed. The passenger side strut tower is also bent inward towards the motor.

It's funny how I paid Auto Explosion to straighten the front end of the car when they replaced the core support, yet they didn't.

 

Small update.

I continued stripping down the old shell and I'm almost ready to start moving everything to the new shell.



On a bad note, a stupid cat got in to the new shell and pissed all over the inside. Thankfully, the interior is completely stripped and it shouldn't be too difficult to get the smell out.

Anyone have any good tips on getting cat **** smell out of cars? lol

 

Damn, that is one disrespectful cat.. lol

 

You bought a Nintendo 3DS?

 

two of them

 

Really though, did you ever figure out the engine harness issue?

 

No. I stopped trying to figure that out when I found out my chassis was trash.

But, I'm leaning towards it being bad grounds or a short somewhere.