Matt's White 97

[Mpls24]

18 inch I take it? Car looked well with them mate!

Yeah 18 mate. Cheers, when I get a chance I'll upload more and you can see the current ones ?

 

[Mpls24]

So on a side note, wit the RX7 out of action and another trip to the Nurburgring looming I decide that I would buy a car to take to have some fun in that I could then sell when I came home to finance the RX7 build. This will be known now as "RX7 build error of judgement 1".....

The car I got was this:

BTW apologies for picture quality, a lot are from Instagram because I've gone through a few phones since the time this started.

For anyone who does not know Honda's this is an EK4 Civic Jordan fitted with the B18C engine from a DC2 Integra Type R. I picked the car up from Cardiff (about 30 miles away) on the Monday afternoon, all very good, due to leave for the ring on the following Sunday night. Didn't get too much chance with the car the next couple of days due to work but was driving it on the Thursday afternoon and on the way home started to get what felt like hesitation when in VTEC, wasn't sure whether it was the road being uneven and causing a struggle for grip or not, it wasn't this. I went into VTEC again for the last time about 15 mins from my house, under acceleration I got a loud clunk and lost drive, looked in the rear view mirror to see plumes of grey smoke and debris flying out the exhaust, got the car recovered but knew straight away it was dead.

Ended up having to take the daily diesel to the ring and rent a Suzuki Swift out there for some laps but decided to strip the Civic down on the drive when I got back and knew just how bad it was when we found a considerable lump of Piston in the Inlet manifold, turns out somehow a spark plug had broken up and dropped into the cylinder, don't know how that could've happened really but we found half a plug still screwed in and a piston smashed better than I've ever seen, literally looks like I've gone 5th to 1st lol.

Shook this out the sump!

So anyway that was that, ended up selling the rolling shell and the gearbox so got some money back but still lost out which was a set back but nvm. Also built a high comp b16a EG Civic to take as well as a forged SR22 S14 so the garage was busy back then with finishing the Civic in particular in the early hours of Sunday morning with 24hrs to go.

with ghetto cup holders for the drive:

 

[Mpls24]

Anyway, back to the RX7, here's a couple of pictures I took before taking it apart again to start working on it:

 

[Mpls24]

So as you can see from the previous pictures the new overfenders meant that the old wheels were far too small now, I knew what I wanted to do with the wheels and my original intentions were to use the rears on the front and buy new wider ones for the rear. When I looked into this it seems although SSR Professor SP1's seem to have a huge scene tax on them when you try and buy used, they are actually not that bad brand new in comparison, to the point that by the time I refurbished and did what I wanted to do with the existing ones like de-chroming the spokes it worked out more viable to sell the existing 4 wheels and buy 4 new.

So off same the wheels and so did the front bumper to allow better access to the work on the engine bay:

My initial intentions were to but the car back together on the twins and off we go, however I always intended to go single eventually and I managed to pick this up...("RX7 build error of judgement 2")

Garrett GT35R with a 1.06A/R hot side.

That's when I started stripping unnecessary parts out of the bay:

Air pump out

Air con out

Downpipe and Twins out

Heater matrix pipe out as this would foul on the new Turbo.

Rat's nest out

And that left something looking like this:

So now to start putting it back together...

 

[Mpls24]

Back to the wheels...

So as I said, I decided to replace rather than refurbish the wheels due to cost effectiveness, it did also mean of course that I could get exactly the sizes I wanted.

Got the old wheels cleaned up and sold:

I used Matt at Limitless Imports for the wheels and could not recommend him enough, I as well as friends of mine have bought a few parts over through him and the service is excellent.

I decided on 9.5J ET10 fronts and 12J ET16 rears to fill out the arches.

Here are the rears:

And Fronts:

I opted for the standard silver finish for the spokes as it was cheapest and as they're going a custom colour also easiest.

I spent a fair bit of time dicking about trying them on and they are as big as they look off the car but I was confident that once the suspension was under proper load they'd fit how I wanted.

 

[Mpls24]

To paint the wheels I went to a friend of mine, Jaz at Endless Road, for any of the Welsh guys or even further afield if you want a proper good job doing on your car this is one of the places I'd recommend, just be prepared for his waiting list...

Here's some pictures of the process:

Obviously not to everyone's tastes but it was the colour I had always intended to do them and I think with a white car you can get away with something a little more garish for the wheels.

 

[Mpls24]

I then needed to get them home and with nerves of steel apply the decals using a ruler and chalk to get them spot on, I then gave them a couple of coats each of Carbon Collective Platinum Wheels sealant.

For tyres I opted for Yokohama Advan Neova AD08R, I know tyres are such a personal thing and everybody has an opinion about what the best tyre is but I can honestly say from all the tyres I have tried I have found these to be the best overall.

Size wise I've got 235 fronts and 295 rears, I may look at trying something else when it comes to replacement time because the price for them in these sizes was eye watering and far more than I want to pay in reality.

Tyres on:

That is a normal sized fridge for reference lol

 

[Spendyrx]

Haha I've not been to endless road, have you met Shane from big perm? They seem to do alot for each other! Big perms down the road from me, I've spoken to Shane a few times, he loves the fd, he has some cool cars that come in from time to time! He has an old 300zx there atm the z31 shape! Also I used to go round with greggs the mechanic before we had cars, he used to be pretty good on a mountain bike ? them rear wheels look bloody tremendous! Don't fancy paying for 295s though ?

 

[cib24]

My phone and connection is not letting me see all of the pictures but I saw one with the tires on the rims. How wide are the rims if a 295 looks stretched!?

 

[Mpls24]

Haha I've not been to endless road, have you met Shane from big perm? They seem to do alot for each other! Big perms down the road from me, I've spoken to Shane a few times, he loves the fd, he has some cool cars that come in from time to time! He has an old 300zx there atm the z31 shape! Also I used to go round with greggs the mechanic before we had cars, he used to be pretty good on a mountain bike ? them rear wheels look bloody tremendous! Don't fancy paying for 295s though ?

I know of Shane yeah but I've never met him myself

 

[Mpls24]

My phone and connection is not letting me see all of the pictures but I saw one with the tires on the rims. How wide are the rims if a 295 looks stretched!?

12 inch rears

 

[JoeLanger]

Weird, pics aren't working for me

 

[Mpls24]

Weird, pics aren't working for me

Yeah they work on my phone but not computer for some reason?

 

[deanflowers]

I know of Shane yeah but I've never met him myself

I know Shane quite well. All i will say is be very careful and make sure you know what you are getting for your money and when you will get it.

 

[Mpls24]

I know Shane quite well. All i will say is be very careful and make sure you know what you are getting for your money and when you will get it.

I have heard this said by others as well

 

[Mpls24]

Meanwhile I started to stockpile the parts that I would need for the car.

Delivery from DM Motorsports:

New shiny pulleys and belts
All necessary blanking plates to remove the Air pump, OMP and ICV etc.
Walbro GTS450 fuel pump
ASNU 750cc Primaries and 1680cc Secondaries
DM Motorsport Primary and Secondary Fuel Rails
Fuelab FPR
Necessary AN lines to replace all in bay hoses

One of Ed's manifolds

Tial 60mm Wastegate

RyWire engine loom as I did not trust the crusty harness after looking through it.

Another package from DM Motorsports, AEM smart coils and their adaptor loom and mounting kit.

One of Craig's AST delete filler necks from TGS.

 

[cib24]

Images aren't showing up again.

Maybe try it the old fashion way and host the images on imgur and then do the usual image linking

.

 

[Simaroon]

Pics not working for me either, shame as I enjoyed reading what you’d done to the car, love it! Great choices.

I need to get down endless at some point again, I want my wheels done a diff colour so would have been good to see the pics. I Really need the whole car done!

Also love those profs!!! Always the wheel I wanted when I had the s13

 

[Spendyrx]

I know Shane quite well. All i will say is be very careful and make sure you know what you are getting for your money and when you will get it.

Haha not sure what exactly you are getting at as I've not heard rumours but I have always said knowing greg and his cowboy antics when we were younger I wouldn't send any of my cars there ? mind you, I wouldn't get up the ramp ? they're nice enough lads though ?

 

[Mpls24]

Images aren't showing up again.

Maybe try it the old fashion way and host the images on imgur and then do the usual image linking

.

Yeah, not sure what's going on?

I may have to it seems