The Zero7Four FD Rx7 - Pic Heavy

[Randy]

Hi, folks. Have been hearing about this site for a while, but only getting around to signing up now and starting a build thread.
Some of you might recognise the title of the topic, as there are a few cars up here in Donegal that are falling under the Zero7Four banner. They're nothing but a sound bunch of lads, and this car probably wouldn't be making any progress at all if it wasn't for their help.
I would say a lot of you might of seen this from other forums (best not mention them, as I'm not sure if that's okay to do), and as it's been going on for more than a year, I'll try and keep it as short as I can :

The day I got it:




I picked it up for relatively cheap enough, but there was plenty that needed to be done to it. A friend of mine (magingle) had a look at it when I got it, and his eyes are keener than mine. He pointed out how much it needed a respray, but I couldn't afford to fork out the circa €2000 it would cost to get it professionally done. He put the idea of going matt black in my head, and after a bit of consideration, I thought f*ck it. Why not.

A few pics of the days we consider to be the longest ever:







This car was cared for so well that we found this in the body of the car:














And the finished result:















We couldn't really believe how nice it turned out. Sadly though, it wasn't before I ran into other issues..
About a month after this was done I ran into some engine issues, and it turns out that whoever had rebuilt it didn't seal it right before. It was actually amazing that it drove to the mechanic.
At this point I should probably mention that Paul Wray Motorsport in Strabane is the best person to go to up here for anything performance related ( http://www.facebook.com/pages/Paul-W...827524?fref=ts ). He told me straight out what was wrong, and that it would need a new engine to be put into it.
I thought about it for a week, whether to sr20 it or stick with rotary, but I decided to stick with the 13B. I sourced an engine from Dublin that was rebuilt 2 years ago, but hadn't been put into a car. Got it for a real nice price too. Paul stuck the engine in it for me last June, and since I got it mapped last August, it's been running extremely well.
I got it back more or less just in time for Rally weekend up here, which is always a bit event for us enthusiasts. At this point, I hadn't really gotten much done, as money was tight, but I did get a decent blow off valve and had this little mod done to the bumper:


This was done so that, if I was to crash it, the bumper wouldn't be bolted on. Therefore, it wouldn't shatter the wings; only the bumper itself.

Me getting a bit artsy..:


So after the Summer, everything was running fine until I had a little accident which ruined the bumper on me, and busted my radiator. Considering I had also started a steady job, this provided the opportunity I wanted to start stripping the front end and prepare it for a V mount set up (Not that I'm saying crashing is a good way to create opportunities..):



V mount arrived back in December, but it wouldn't be until mid January when I'd actually get it fitted and back on the road:





Since I have gotten it back on the road, I've been flat out buying new/used parts for it, mainly from sites in England, as they seem to be the best source: