Condor's Black 95 Type R - An abusive and often estranged relationship...

MightyCondor

Well-known member
Location
UK
Time to bring my FD:UK thread over here...

5th Jan 2015 (and updated since with a list of mods)

I’ve been delaying my introduction for a while now, because although I’ve owned my FD for nearly a month, I don’t really feel like it’s mine yet. This may have something to do with it eating its engine on the drive home and currently sitting at Hayward’s being rebuilt.

I’ll put the full story of my misfortune up later, but until then here she is: My 1995 black Type R.

Here’s some more detail on the car as I bought it:
  • Apexi FC + commander mapped to about 300bhp
  • Refurbished Twin Turbos (fitted by Hayward’s in 2013)
  • Racing Beat single exit exhaust n
  • HKS downpipe -
  • ARC SMIC
  • HKS induction kit
  • Short Shifter and Momo gearknob
  • Momo steering wheel
  • Turbo timer (which isn’t the best thing to have when you’re desperately trying to turn off a broken engine)
  • Koni lowering springs (actually Tein Street Flex coilovers :))
  • 99 Spec rear spoiler
Much of the above has been changed since....
 
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5th Jan 2015

So after my irrational need to own an FD grew to an uncontainable level it was only a matter of time until one came along that I wouldn't be able to refuse.

This happened early in December when the listing for my soon to be car came up. I’m not new to rotaries (I still have my 2nd RX-8) and I bought with my eyes open, and on paper the car looked good. It had been previously rebuilt, although this had been done in Japan before it was imported, so it wasn't the freshest (and sadly I was wrong to put any faith in this). Compression was good though, plus it had newly refurbished turbo packs, and a file full of invoices proving that it had been well looked after by many of the well-known rotary specialists. It did nothing unusual during the test drive and I was happy enough to buy it.

Given that I’m a bit too tall to drive it comfortably I invited a more vertically challenged friend to drive it back from Croydon to Reading for me (I intended to spend the afternoon attempting to drill out the seat rails to gain more space before the inevitable switch to bucket seats). The roads were pretty busy which meant no spirited driving, but the car was cruising well and there were no signs of trouble. We finally hit an open dual carriageway after Bracknell and I encouraged my friend to use all the Revs. Just below the redline a warning light monetarily flashed and after that the car had no power and was vibrating badly.

I got it recovered to Haywards. Carl surprised me by promptly calling me up the following day (a Sunday) and breaking the bad news; it was running on one rotor and would be needing a rebuild.

Obviously I was gutted. I bought the car privately, so I’m a bit stuffed. The guy I bought it from is claiming to be genuinely surprised and I have no evidence to suggest otherwise.

It’s hard to take any positives, but I guess even though I’ll have paid over the odds, in the near future I’ll be getting a freshly rebuilt RX-7 with added porting, which will hopefully set me up for a number of years of comparatively incident free driving. I'm currently doing all sorts of research to get the car set up the way I want it.
 
5th Jan 2015,

I’m currently trying to decide what mods I should do at the same time as the rebuild. As the engine failed so early in to my ownership I don’t really have the money to do much, but there a few things that tempt me that would be good to do now as they would save labour or having to remap again in the future. The car will be remapped during the rebuild as I’m getting it ported.

I’m not chasing massive bhp figures (I’m staying on twins after all), but cost effective gains will still be appreciated. I want the car to be as reliable as possible when I finally get the chance to enjoy it.

My wish list may be reassessed once Carl has had a look at my car, and offers his own recommendations, but at the moment I’m currently considering:

A Koyo radiator (top of my list)

A lightweight flywheel (makes sense to do it while the engine’s out)

HKS twin power (would I need to have the car remapped again if I got one of these at a later date).

Lightweight pulleys
 
25th Jan 2015,

Today I successfully drove my car without it spitting out an apex seal!

After a winter hiatus, and with the horror of my first day with my FD now being a distant yet painful memory, I collected my car today to begin my rebuild miles.

Here she is in all her rebuild glory:

Of course I had to opt for a few upgrades:

  • Some rather large street porting
  • A Koyo N-Flow radiator
  • An Ultra lightweight flywheel
  • The clutch was also knackered and has been replaced.

Having got the car home I also installed this:

18281915506_a61e0dec3f_c.jpg
_DSC5660 by alz_me, on Flickr

As you can all see, I still don’t have much in the way of legroom even with a 320mm wheel, but it helps a bit. I really need some more legroom though, so a seat hunt will be expedited.

I still have a pretty long list of (mostly minor) things to fix, but it’s good to be finally doing some miles in the car even if it’s performance free pootling about. At least it sounds like a sports car!
 
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30th Mar 2015

I think an update is due. I’ve had the car back for 2 months now and will shortly be having remap with Carl as my 1,000 mile run in is finally done and the obligatory oil change was completed by me yesterday. My next update will hopefully involve a gleeful ramble about my new-found power, but before that here’s what I’ve been up since my rebuild:

Having got the car home, I got started on trying to address some interior trim and electrical problems.

My outside drivers door handle, which had been repaired (badly I guess) just before I bought the car, failed and I had to reach across from the passenger side for nearly a month. After a few unsuccessful attempts at fixing the existing one (Including briefly not being able to open the door entirely, when part of my old handle mechanism jammed in the door actuator), I was able to source a replacement and also have the benefit of a working keyhole light now.

My drivers door window controls were knackered, and the mirror controls only partially worked. AlexSavv answered my wtb advert on here (much appreciated dude), and these now work nicely.

The biggest car dismantling job so far, has been trying to establish why my rear speakers didn’t work. Having got the panels of I found these shiny aftermarket bad boys crammed in.

18352195465_898358176f_c.jpg
IMG_20150314_153403 by alz_me, on Flickr

It seems whoever fitted them had no idea what they were doing, because they weren’t connected. The passenger side had bare speaker wires dangling, while the drivers side had connectors that were a completely different type and size to those on the speakers. This was fixed with a trip to Maplin and some subsequent crimping (a word probably not in the vocabulary of whoever bought the speakers). With that done, I’ve treated myself to a new headunit with Bluetooth, ipod, DAB etc. It comes with a separate DAB antenna, which means that I actually have some radio reception. My FM/AM is terrible and I haven’t yet worked out why.

I’m still working on trying to fit a bucket seat. I now have a Cobra Suzuka waiting to go in. Despite doing as much research as I could, I ultimately had to bite the bullet, choose some mounts and hope I’d get a decent seating position. Sadly it hasn’t worked out and my base mount that was supposed to be super low, leaves me with less headroom than the stock seats, with no real improvement in leg room. So I’m going to have to sort out something custom there. In the meantime I’ve fitted a D1 spec snap off boss, which has moved the steering wheel out of the way of my legs.

I’ll also be looking to get my hands on various parts soon including a parcel shelf (non-Bose), a heater knob (The connector on mine is broken so I can only use it to turn the heat up) and maybe new centre console and instrument trim. I totally have a project mentality about this car now, which I guess was always going to happen.

Despite the current 4k rev limit, I’m increasingly enjoying driving the car. The lightweight flywheel hasn’t affected drivability. The steering is heavier than anything I’ve owned before and I quite like it that way. Some of the gear changes can be a bit tough, but this tends to improve as the car warms up. It backfires like a machinegun on random occasions after lifting off the throttle, which must raise a few eyebrows. I’ve sorned my RX-8 while I run the FD in, so I’m really starting to miss revving out a rotary. I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait.

TLDR version: Engine run in done. Big powers soon! Been keeping myself busy by fixing minor things.
 
1st May 2015,

Sorry to keep you all waiting. The good news is that I've just been told I can have my car back :)

My car clearly likes Carl more than me as it makes excuses to live at his. He encountered ignition breakup while mapping it, which slowed things down. However after beefing up the ignition wiring there was still an intermittent problem (or several as it transpires) that were a pain for him to diagnose.

I dread to think what the bill is going to be, but at least a happy reunion is on the cards. I've been informed that it now goes like stink :D

Hopefully the time has come to stop fighting fires and finally enjoy owning a FD!
 
3rd May 2015,

As mentioned previously, my car decided to be difficult while Carl had it for remapping. He eventually managed to get it working to his satisfaction, which involved installing beefed up ignition wiring, replacement coils and leads (one of the old ones managed to blow up!), fuel filter, spark plugs, oil change. His view was that the various problems he encountered and overcame, probably contributed to the demise of my engine. The amount of time required to solve this has been substantial, and I’m grateful to Carl for everything he’s done, which includes taking time out of his weekend to meet with me today.

Today I finally got to drive the car as it’s meant to be driven. I met Carl at Newbury train station and he took me out for a spin to show me what the car could do. He put his foot down on a stretch of dual carriageway and the car shot down the road impressively. After a necessary top up of dino juice it was my turn to enjoy the boost. Carl directed me to a quiet stretch of road and told me to boot it. Needless to say, I’m impressed. :D It’s a shame the roads were wet this morning, because there was more fun to be had.

After 5 months of ownership, I’m finally able to appreciate the experience of driving a turbo rotary. Now to get it all nice and shiny in time for Japfest! :cool:
 
30th May 2015,

This month I’ve finally been able to enjoy the car. Trips to Japfest and just general trips out and about have been great. Boost is addictive and having some real power on tap is a whole load of fun. :D

Despite that, I find myself constantly paranoid about the cars health. This isn’t without reason. Every time I get in the car I seem to discover something else that requires fixing as well as some odd running symptoms. This includes:

  1. An over active heat warning light that often goes a bit mad when on boost
  2. Evidence of liquid leaking out of the under tray (although no signs of any fluid levels dropping)
  3. A real stench of fuel every time I get into boost.
  4. My front left tyre has a cracked sidewall and is slowly leaking air, so despite having loads of tread left it’s time for new fronts.
  5. I discovered that my left door speaker isn’t secured to anything.
  6. One of front sidelights is cracked. As I have clear ones, it’ll be hard to replace like for like.
  7. My Commander is knackered. I can only toggle between the normal 8 readings display and recorded peaks and pause, so it’s nothing more than a gauge really.
  8. Pop up headlights not working properly, with one often refusing to rise. They both light up and I can get round this problem by using the button to on the instrument cluster, which still causes them to pop up fine. On one day they momentarily went mad with both rising and falling continuously (although not in tandem with each other).

The electronics and general wiring in my car seems to have been in a terrible state since I bought it and I discovered another issue while fitting a set of Laeeq's rather fetching LED rear lights today.

When I turn on the headlights (full or dipped, not side), my right side indicator bulb also illuminates. In the past I had noticed that the right side arrow on the dash partially illuminates occasionally, but didn’t realise that the rear was also lighting up a bit as well. With the switch to LEDS this is really noticeable on the rear lights and the dash now lights up brighter than it did before also.

I’ll state for a fact that I HATE anything to do with electronics and have no idea where the fault is likely to be or how to troubleshoot this, so any suggestions would be appreciated.

Here’s the latest picture evidence:


18348760972_769fceb05d_c.jpg
IMG_20150530_181607 by alz_me, on Flickr

What looks like a wet underside after a drive on a dry day:

18353957161_c8805472a6_c.jpg
IMG_20150522_192509 by alz_me, on Flickr

Anyone know where I can get another one of these lights from?:

17729778704_047588c5e5_c.jpg
IMG_20150518_200626 by alz_me, on Flickr

The true quality of my previous owners speaker installations continue to be revealed:

18164662690_b8036094e1_c.jpg
IMG_20150518_194040 by alz_me, on Flickr
 
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31st May 2015,

I've now had a closer look at all the lights, although I haven't opened any up to check bulbs yet. The only one's I haven't tested are the reversing ones.

With the exception of my centre brake light (see below) every single bulb seems to work including the plate lights and side lights. Visually none of them look like leds, but that doesn't rule out incorrect bulbs in use I guess.

The problems all seems to be one the drivers/off side of the car:
  1. When I turn off the headlights it's the drivers side one that doesn't raise.
  2. The light output from the drivers side headlight and front sidelight is a lot lower than the passenger/near side (While I wouldn't rule out different bulbs, it seems odd that it's the same across 2 different types of light)
  3. The 2 indicator lights (rear cluster led and dash) come on permanently with the headlights. If I activate the right indicator they flash on and off as normal, with normal timing. EDIT: last time I tried the timing was rapid and all indicator lights were flashing but very dimly. This returned to normal timing and brightness when I turned the headlights off. No consistency!

These problems all pre-date me fitting leds, although I wasn't really aware of the indicator problem as the effect was less with the standard tail lights in place (this unwanted current can fully illuminate the leds, while it could only partially illuminate the old bulb. I don't know if these problems are independent of each other or linked.

Although I hadn't reattached my centre brake light after fitting the leds, I spotted that wires coming out of it have been butchered, disconnected and taped off, so it has never worked for me anyway. With a quick test I can confirm that it still works, but oddly there seems to be connector types that don't match, so I'll have to change that (I discovered the same problem when investigating why my rear speakers didn't work).
 
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16th Jun 2015,

I've been on holiday in Dorset for a week so haven't had a chance to play with my electrical issues any further.

Interestingly though, I took the FD to work and back today and when I got home I tested the lights again. The pop ups are working properly again today and the light output of the drivers side light is again equal with the near side.

Although not proven, I suspect my pop up issues are moisture related, but I have no idea what the cause of the voltage leak into the indicator lights circuits is.

My indicators are still FDUK'd. Even more so now as I managed to snap a lead to the front side marker indicator while removing the front sidelights, resulting in the expected rapid blinking of the remaining bulbs.

Need to get this all sorted urgently as I have the MOT looming!

Edit: Additionally thanks to everyone who's made suggestions. I have a lot of things to check. My main problem is that I'm fairly hopeless with such matters and am struggling to find all the places to look. The electrical manuals I've consulted - other than being for the US model - are somewhat crudely drawn and serve as nothing more than a rough guide. For starters I'd like to disconnect the headlights and identify a few more of the grounding points. I may just give up and let a professional sort it.
 
20th Jun 2015,

I’ve made some progress with troubleshooting the lights. Without even driving my car, the offending headlight went dim again, so I decided to test it.

Today I took the headlight cover off and whipped together a piece of wire to act as an alternative ground connected straight to the battery negative terminal. This gave me maximum headlight output and for the first time stopped my indicator lights coming on with the headlight.

So now I know that the problem is a bad headlight ground connection; how do I fix it?

I guess the problem could potentially be anywhere between the headlight connector and the chassis grounding point, which follows the front harness in areas that are completely inaccessible without any dissembling of the bumper/engine bay area.

I’d like to try cleaning the chassis ground if I can get to it. My rough understanding is that the chassis ground for this circuit is behind the bumper under the relay box. What’s the easiest way to get to that? Is taking the bumper off sufficient to gain access, or is there more to it than that?

18365161773_fff14e2b5d_c.jpg
IMG_20150620_142403 by alz_me, on Flickr
 
21st Jun 2015,

Today my attempt to remove the front bumper ended in failure as the top of the 3 side bolts on the drivers side proved impossible to work with. The nut is totally rusted on and to make matters worse the whole bolt rotates when I get a socket or spanner on it. Amongst various approaches, I tried clamping the bolt but it still managed to find a way to rotate with the nut. In the end I was forced to give up. Total waste of a Sunday :mad:
 
25th Jun 2015

While the above issues remain ongoing, I now have a new one to add to this list.

Last night at about 2am I woke up to the sound of a car horn. Rather than an ongoing constant noise like a drunk passed out on the steering wheel, this sounded like a horn trying to emulate a car alarm. A constant perfectly timed series of rapid honks.

Despite being half unconscious I immediately knew it was the FD in the garage, and expecting all hell to break loose with a baby and an unsympathetic girlfriend asleep, I quickly rushed down and disconnected the battery. It helped that the car was already unlocked and the bonnet open. Amazingly they all slept through it (Well not the mother in law, but I'll take that ;) ).

I already have enough electrical problems with this car and really don’t need another. I haven’t had a chance to look in to it yet, but does anyone have any experience with these kind of problems?

EDIT: I've now looked up the electrical manual. The horn system uses the same grounding point as the headlights, which I already suspect is in need of some attention. Given the position of the driver's side horn is near where I've been messing around with trying to remove the bumper it's also possible that I've brought this on myself in some way.
 
4th Jul 2015,

I appreciate the suggestion Wolfi, and I had considered it, but it kinda felt like cheating. Also I didn’t know if the issue could potentially end up affecting the other systems that share that ground, so I wanted to get to it.

Today I finally fixed the headlight grounding problem! It took me some time to saw through by offending bumper bolt given it’s awkward location, but today I finally took it off and gained access to the ground. Having cleaned it up my problem was solved. For about 10 minutes. Then it reverted to the previous symptoms. The plastic block was cracked, so I didn’t feel particularly guilty about breaking it apart to find that a couple of the spade connectors were quite loosely connected. All I’ve done is clean them up a bit and squeeze them on a bit better, which seems to have done the trick.

This being my car, and me attempting to fix it, things could never go smoothly. Indeed my indicator lights on the passenger side decided not to work once reconnected. Also, the bumper is not fitting as before which is resulting in the pop-ups rubbing against it and a big gap to the wing in the drivers wheel arch, despite me being able to fully do up the retaining screw there, and reattach all the other remaining bumper fixing bolts without any difficulty!

Finally, my random horn issue seems to be continuing. It hasn't woken me up in the middle of the night again, but the horn does have a habit of going off like a car alarm when I open the door on occasion (usually the first time after been sitting for a while), and the only way to shut it off is to turn the key in the ignition. I'm guessing it’s Toad alarm related.

Hopefully I can get the lights sorted tomorrow. MOT next week!
 
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28th Jul 2015,

I’m certainly warming to the gold wheels. Shame that they aren’t going to get much use as my track set.

Fixing my grounding issue wasn’t quite enough to get my car through the MOT, but following a spell at its second home (Haywards), my car is good to go for another year. There was an additional grounding problem affecting the rear lights which I hadn't picked up on.

The mystery button that has been shoddily fitted to my centre console turned out to be an inactive rear fog lamp switch, which has now been made functional.

Other than that I got some advisories for my rear wheel bearings.

I also have had a few issues resolved:

  • After a few attempts, my headlights are no longer catching on the body work.

  • My knock sensor is no longer going mad when the car is on boost.
 
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13th Sep 2015,

I’ve booked my first track day with the car, which will be at Silverstone in November. Before then I have a silenced midpipe to be fitted, as I won’t meet the noise regs with my current setup. I’ve also bought some Fedoro DS2500s, braided brake lines and some decent fluid, so along with my track wheels, I should be as prepared as I can be. I will also book an alignment with Wheels-in-motion in the near future.

2015-09-13 15.27.29 by alz_me, on Flickr

35655323852_22697712a0_z.jpg
midpipe by alz_me, on Flickr
 
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25th Sep 2015,

Few more things accomplished in the last week in preparation for my first track day in the car. No pictures this time as I didn’t take any…

Last weekend I made use of the steel monstrosity 10ft ramps that I won on eBay recently. These effectively level out my sloped driveway, and allow me to use jacks/stands without fear of everything toppling over.

79BeiYy.jpg


Anyway, I fitted new Fedoro DS2500 pads front and rear. My plan to install braided hoses and bleed the brakes with ATE typ200 was put on hold when I over tightened a new speed-bleeder and it broke in the rear calliper. :mad:

On the plus side, I discovered that I have Tein Street Flex Coilovers and Racing Beat arbs fitted, which was a nice surprise.

I had been meaning to visit Haywards anyway for the purpose of tweaking the tune to go with the silenced midpipe that I’d bought, so I got them to fix the calliper and complete the brake work for me.

So now my track day prep is almost complete. The silenced midpipe is awesome! It’s made such a difference and makes the FD so much easier to live with, which will be handy as it may become my only car in the near future. It should pass a static noise test easily enough now. :)
 
26th Sep 2015, 13:16

This morning I took a trip to Wheels-in-motion and had a wheel and steering alignment. I can certainly feel the difference.

I also had them rebalance my front wheels as I'd been noticing vibrations at motorways speeds. All good now.

That's my track preparations completed. Bring on Silverstone in November!
 
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19th Nov 2015,

My more recent updates have been focused around getting the FD ready for my first ever track day. That happened on Monday at Silverstone.

Being my first track day, I was well off the pace and spent the day slowly gaining confidence in the track day environment. An hour of tuition in the afternoon did me a world of good and allowed me to start appreciating just how balanced an RX-7 is. Using Harry’s lap timer I noted that my lap times dropped by 20 seconds between lunch time and the end of the day!

On the straights (where my noob skills didn’t matter) the car had more than enough power to hold its own with a lot of quick cars. Again using Harry’s I was able to compare against a mate with a stripped out E46 M3 and the FD had a slight edge on acceleration.

The car was superb. It’s the first time I’ve really pushed the car and it took a full day of abuse without much complaint. Apparently I was shooting some mighty flames too! I could hear something rattling above 120mph, which was probably a bit of plastic next to the undertray that is currently attached with cable ties. That’s not much to complain about.

My recent brake work paid off and I didn’t experience any fade over the course of the day. I did manage to warp my rotors at the end of my tuition session though, which was the most number of consecutive laps that I’d done all day.

Does anyone have any experience with skimming brake discs, or shall I just splash out on some nice new Stoptechs?

I’ve just renewed my insurance and have 5 track days included, so I’ll have to do a few more!
 
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