The Titanic (Thanks Dan)

[Supernaut]

Life has a way of screwing with your plans and kicking you in the nuts when you're down. Jalopy, shit sled, disaster. These are the names I have called my 2nd FD. I've seen alot of crappy FDs around but I'd say my newest one is one of the worst. When you pick up your car and on the way home, you get a call from the seller saying that they see coolant on the driveway, you know you might be in trouble. When you first see the car and the seller is standing in a way to cover up some chassis damage, you might be in trouble. When you take a look in the engine bay and it looks like a hobo has been sleeping there, you might be in trouble. When the rocker panel has a dent larger than your head, you might be in trouble. When the chassis looks more "experienced" than the heartiest geriatric prostitute, you might be in trouble.

When your FD has wheels like this...
http://i.imgur.com/aBpCL.jpg
You might be fucked.

This is my journey. This is my rolling pile of disaster, sorrow, heartache and bad luck. This is the story of shit box. Saddle up and prepare to cry (or laugh you smug bastard).

http://i.imgur.com/k0OlZ.jpg

Thank you Dan for the perfect name for my car. Hahahahaha.

[Supernaut]

So the original plan was to make this a non-seq car and drive it around as a beater for a while until I decide to go all out and go single. Well turns out the motor had other plans for me. A coolant seal definitely went and it was time for a new motor.

http://i.imgur.com/S3XHu.jpg

So at this point I was sort of at a cross road. Is this car worth spending money on? Of course not. Common sense would dictate that I try to sell the car to some unsuspecting newb buyer but I couldn't. If there is one thing I lack, it's common sense.

Here is my busted fender!
http://i.imgur.com/1UZWB.jpg

It's a bit hard to see in pictures but the car came with a good amount of rust on both doors and it looks as if it has been side swiped or it tried to squeeze into some area that was just to small to fully accomodate the car.

Sorta like this maybe...
http://i.imgur.com/w4XHx.jpg

As for the huge dent in the rocker panel, maybe during a car chase, jalopy made a quick left turn to escape the cops and jumped a curb in the process like this!
http://i.imgur.com/vjdqI.jpg
This would explain why the car was so extremely misaligned! I steering wheel had to be turned almost at a 45 degree angle to drive straight!

Maybe the car then proceeded to head first into the back of an SUV to cause this wonderful damage to the bumper!
http://i.imgur.com/QEntK.jpg

[Supernaut]

Well, maybe things aren't so bad inside the car. I've got to admit, the interior pieces looked pretty good. They seem to have a protective layer of dirt everywhere. Dirt was in all the cracks to protect the wiring from the elements. I think this car was actually used as some sort of a trailer to transport dirt around!

Besides all the dirt that was on and inside the dash, I found these gems when removing some pieces around.

http://i.imgur.com/kw4hx.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/UpagF.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RYULq.jpg

Notice that one of the tabs for the taillight seems to be on incorrectly and for all intents and purposes, my antenna will remain impotent forever.

I'm afraid to rip into the interior some more. I wouldn't be surprised if I found dead animals or even babies in there.

Besides that, I discovered that pretty much all the switches don't work. Sweeeeeeet. Most of the switches seem to look out of places and hacked up to indicate that repairs were attempted and I was provided with a set of exterior door handles to fix the alarm blaring everytime I try to get into my car. This car and I seem to be getting off on the wrong foot.

Soooo where was I going with this...

O right. What to do. What to dooo. Finding a new motor to put into the car would be to expensive. I better do the next best thing and... Go v8!!!! No seriously, this was my line of thinking. So began the restoration of my fecal chariot. I'll finally be able to answer the question many of us have.

Can you put lipstick on a pig...

All signs point to NO.

[Supernaut]

So now we know some of what's wrong with the car. Let us look at what is right with it.

Well...
The car did have a hood and wipers. The wipers seem to have a case of metal herpes. The hood also has a cool mark from the UIM. That's pretty sweet. It's sort of like a reminder that once, the car had a motor in it.
http://i.imgur.com/ybs0M.jpg

The car was fairly safe to drive around. The lights worked. The car also had an aftermarket koyo rad which is great and it even had a Blitz Nur spec exhaust that has a bit of surface rust. It did give the car a distinctive drone which made the ride home pretty pleasant. Ahh it doens't matter, I could just listen to tunes to drown out the noise but unfortunately, every CD I gave to the headunit was rejected. The head unit was sort of like the Manute Bol of headunits, never skipping a beat. Constantly rejecting everything I threw at it. It felt like prom all over again but at least prom ended or I could leave early to go cry myself to sleep. No my friends, there is no escape. I'll have hours of listening to BWAAAAAAAAAAH. I wouldn't have minded this so much if the car felt faster but it pulled like a Geo Metro. Besides the radiator and the exhaust, the car also had another awesome upgrade. The car was turned into a manual from an automatic! The best mod any auto FD can have (j/k hahaha, but no really it's true, come on fellas man up a little). Some things were left over from the swap though. The most notable, the 3.9 diff which made the car very awkward to drive at first. The tranny did shift great though and I forgot how wonderful the stock bus steering wheel was. Unfortunately, the car had a water temp gauge and no way for me to tell if the car was overheating. This combined with the voracious coolant thirst the car had developed made for a poor driving experience. I did not enjoy the ride home. The car shat coolant. It came out like diarrhea after you've eaten at Denny's or maybe even a white castle milk shake back when they used potatoes as a thickening agent. I got a bit worried during the trip and decided to get help from some rx7 buddies. I ended up going to Dan's place and have him top off my coolant. Thanks Dan! You rock!

[Supernaut]

Well, the first upgrade I did was to change the hideous wheels. I felt like an asshole driving around with them on. I couldn't let people see the car with these wheels on even if the car did suck. It was still an Rx7 after all and it deserved better...Right? RIGHT???

Let me remind you of what they looked like...
http://i.imgur.com/ET9lv.jpg
See that guy on the top left? That's my friend Gary. I bet he wishes he doesn't exist anymore. I'd feel the same way if someone posted a pic of me next to this car.

Jesus man. I thought I was riding around on ninja stars. This was the type of wheel that a 5 year old would put on his drawing.
http://i.imgur.com/IrgWR.jpg
Usually a kid grows up and realizes how lame his tastes were and goes with something better when he grows up but apparently the guy that bought these wheels did not come to this realization. Neither did the guy that designed the wheels. I feel very sorry for both of them. These wheels should not exist. It's just wrong. These wheels have a right to be on an FD like Gallagher has a right to be on stage doing his stand up. I don't understand. I really don't.

Sooo, I did what any other member on the forum would do. I bought stock wheels and put up a for sale thread for the ninja wheels.

As some of you already know, this was not a success. Here is my FS thread.
http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_forum/showthread.php?t=13629
In that thread, you will see the weakest description of wheels you have ever read. In retrospect, I wish I spiced up the description. I should have mentioned that they were round and maybe that they were made in the USA (maybe). These wheels quite literally had value to no one. Sort of like AIDs. I got more hits on the other forum but the gist was the same. It seems like you guys have less assholes...which is sad because assholes are funny and everyone loves a good fart. Here are some quotes.

Those really look like ninja sword slices
Kinda reminds me of fruit ninja lol glws

I didn't know we had local Ninjas here in Virginia.

:ninja:

Bump for rare wheels! (well...it's the only set I've ever seen.) haha.

Good luck with sale!

whoa those things will probably cut you just trying to take them off the car lol.g/l with sale never seen anything like those before.

Diiicks hahahaha.

This one was my favorite.

if you starting a pool. I will donate $25 toward their destruction

$100 goal
$25 87GTR
---------------
$75 left who is next?

I really wish this could have panned out. It would have been hilarious.

Looking back at the thread, I was wrong about the weight. They were 50lbs per corner.

So I did end up getting stockers on the car. Much better. I now have a roller with stock wheels. Now that the car isn't offensive anymore, it's time to actually get it on the road ASAP. It's time for v8.

[Supernaut]

So now that it was time to get the car running again, I had to pick a shop to do the work. I had to pick a shop that would be able to do the job quickly. I needed a shop that had experience doing v8 swaps. I hunted around and eventually I picked speed1. Dave is surprisingly knowledgeable about the swap. Everything I researched he already knew. There was NO surprising him. Apparently, speed1 does ALOT of v8 swaps fellas. I ended up going with a Samberg kit and even Justin knew about speed1 because he ships so many of his kits there. I was drowning and finally, a hand reached down to save me. At first I was a little hesitant because I didn't know any of the people that worked at Dave's shop and I like to know who is going to work on the car but Brian was there and he's good people and certainly knows his shit. Plus he looks like Ethan Hawke and celebrities don't lie.
http://i.imgur.com/byskx.jpg

Well, time passes. Swap parts were gathered. Work began. Of course, me being me, I had to complicate things so I ended up buying stuff like an oil baffle, Pez headers, custom exhaust, trailing arms, toe links, projector HIDs and Ohlins. Also, some swap parts were needed so I had to hit up Justin (awesome guy btw). Things were delayed, checks were sent, Brian was hassled (hahaha sorry buddy) and finally, the swap was complete.
http://i.imgur.com/Dbh0K.jpg
Not fucking bad huh? Yordan did a great job. Look how well the motor fits!! Everything looks O E FUCKING M!! I even put on the poseur vette fuel covers. I now owned an LS2 FD. The car still felt like a huge turd but at least it was a quick turd. I have some improved racing parts in there as well. They were pretty great to deal with!

http://i.imgur.com/iS4Gf.jpg
Apparently the work done on the exhaust is top rate! I have no idea about what constitutes good work when it comes to exhausts so I'll just leave you with that picture. With the new exhaust setup, the car was LOUD. I still had the Nur spec on there and it was raspy as hell. The car was super obnoxious and I hated it. I even hated it when it backfired. When the car backfires, it makes these weird noise like metal rattling in a can or something. I thought something was wrong with the tranny. All of the obnoxiousness eventually grew on me and I learned to love the car. It shook like armageddon at around 2000rpm but man did the car feel raw. I see the appeal of v8. The T56 was another story. It felt like shit. I thought I was driving a truck. This may be due to the short shifter that was installed though. Apparently, a mounting plate was missing (or lost) so the install had to be a bit improvised. This was like, NY taco sloppy. I'm not talking about in terms of food (in case some of you didn't get the reference). When I first got into the car, the shifter had so much movement in 1st gear, I thought it was in neutral. I was trying to shift into diffent gears while I was in 1st. It was very confusing. Each throw of the shifter was so long. I felt like I was literally rowing a boat. The side to side was so long that the shifter actually hit the ebrake handle when it was up. I'll be adding a new short shifter to the list. In the end, the car ended up doing around 350/350 on a base tune that was running super rich (real tune coming up) and had enough torque to take off at 3rd gear, which was great because sometimes 1st and 2nd gear were hard to hit. The clutch was surprisingly supple for the power it held and the response of NA felt great.

[Supernaut]

Ahh crap, I'm late for my delivery. I better speed the fuck up. WTH? This small piece of shit sportscar is in the way of my exit. I should just slow down, get behind him and take the exit...

Hahahaha noooo. I'll just leave my turn signal off, merge into his lane and give him a quick honk as I merge into him. He should be able to read my mind and get out of the way in time. This seems like the better idea.

[Supernaut]

Aftermath of the accident.
http://i.imgur.com/0pUTI.jpg

This actually happened on the way to the bodyshop. Hilarious.

[Supernaut]

Well, insurance ended up taking care of my damages which is nice. Of course I will get screwed with an increased premium even though I was found to not be at fault. An alignment was included with the repairs so I thought this would be a good opportunity to straighten everything out and replace my stock wheels with something a bit more suitable. I figured I do this ASAP since something seems to be rubbing against my stock wheels when I turn the steering wheel lock to lock.
http://i.imgur.com/uvdh5.jpg

The changing of the wheels fixed the odd rubbing problem I had but the tires were as bald as it gets and SURPRISE! The wheels now rub against the damaged fender.

So if you'll permit me to repost an old pic...
http://i.imgur.com/0pUTI.jpg
You'll notice how the edge of the fender sort of protrudes towards the tire acting like a steak knife getting ready to rip open my delicious tire steak. This is not good. Couple that with a larger diameter wheel that is about 1 finger from the sharp fender and it's pretty obvious that this car has now become a death trap. Out of the fire and into...the fire. I've actually made the car worse and so the suffering continues. The good thing is that the danger of blowing out the tire now distracted me from the constant droning of my exhaust and the heat coming from my transmission tunnel because I don't have a proper cover for where the shifter is. This is scary stuff. Everytime I hear the tire rub a little piece of me died inside and a little bit of poop would come out of me. None of my passengers noticed because this is NJ and anything can smell like poop at any random moment and I live next to two sanitation plants. This must be remedied immediately. It was time to make a trip to bubble tech to get my recaros back and to ask Benny for help.

[speedjunkie]

It's good that you're finding humor in all this...keeps you from crying lol.

So you got spacers for the rear wheels...oh wait, you crushed the fender back. Nice mod! lol

[Supernaut]

No I cry. Alone.

I did kind of like the crushed rear fender a little. Hyper flush.

[RETed]

Well, insurance ended up taking care of my damages which is nice. Of course I will get screwed with an increased premium even though I was found to not be at fault.

If you were not at fault, then they were at fault?
If they were at fault, then their insurance should pay for the repair?
If their insurance paid for the repair, then that should not affect your insurance premiums?
Did I miss something?


-Ted

[Supernaut]

If you were not at fault, then they were at fault?
If they were at fault, then their insurance should pay for the repair?
If their insurance paid for the repair, then that should not affect your insurance premiums?
Did I miss something?

Yes you did. While my insurance company takes my side, it's still the truck driver's word against mine. Even though I had a passenger with me, the account of anyone in the cars of the accident don't count. I needed a 3rd party witness and since the truck pulled over far away from the scene of the accident I was screwed.

[RETed]

Typically, the police report would find fault...
It's the police's job to take the information (and find out who is lying) and come up with a conclusion on what exactly happened.
The insurance companies then bases the liability on the police report.

If the insurance took your side, then it is their job to go track down the other yahoo and get them to pay.
This is also your insurance company's responsibility.
This is why you pay your insurance premiums every month.
They not doing their job?

Was police contacted and report filed?


-Ted

[Supernaut]

Typically, the police report would find fault...
It's the police's job to take the information (and find out who is lying) and come up with a conclusion on what exactly happened.
The insurance companies then bases the liability on the police report.


Nope. The police report does not find fault. It just took accounts of both parties. Unfortunately, since there were no 3rd parties, nothing could be done. The police report actually ended up missing some of what I said. The cop told me it wasn't his job to find fault just write down our own accounts. It's a good thing to. I actually had 2 cops come. The first one immedately took the side of the trucker without even speaking to me. This was in a neighborhood notorious for ricers. Thank goodness that the accident happened out of his precinct.

If the insurance took your side, then it is their job to go track down the other yahoo and get them to pay.
This is also your insurance company's responsibility.
This is why you pay your insurance premiums every month.
They not doing their job?


I agree. It is their job. Unfortunately, geico didn't think they could gather enough evidence to prove to the other insurance company that the trucker was at fault. The assessor saw my car in person. The liability guy REFUSED to see the car in person and only went by photographs from the assessor. I had a good talking to with the liability guy and he says this is standard fare. He also told me that cases like mine are hard to prove. Are they not doing their job? I didn't think so. If the liability guy actually came to see my car in person and told me he couldn't gather enough evidence then I'd be ok with everything but he did not. We'll see how long I'll be staying with geico for.

[Raksj04]

Is NJ a no fault state??

[RETed]

Is NJ a no fault state??

According to this page, it is:
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/No+Fault


NJ has been the ONLY state consistently MORE expensive for car insurance than here in Hawaii.
NOW I KNOW WHY.
That's just FUCKED.
At least here in Hawaii, the cops are trained to analyze all statements from witnesses and then assess liability of the accident; they can also assess partial liability to both parties - i.e. 25% one driver, 75% other driver.
This makes the insurance company's jobs EASIER and FASTER.

I feel for you, man...
You did get bent over.
Not much can beat knowing it wasn't your fault and then getting stuck with the repair bill cause people lie out their asses.


-Ted

[Raksj04]

FL is also a No fault state and the rates here are almost 3 times as much as WI. My fiance's 2000 Cavailer with Full coverage insuranced for WI is about half for my FC with just the basics for FL. Mainly because of FL being a no fault state.

[Supernaut]

Not much can beat knowing it wasn't your fault and then getting stuck with the repair bill cause people lie out their asses.


Honestly, it sucked that the driver lied but I understand why. His profession is at stake and there is 0 incentive to actually tell the truth. Not saying what he did was right. The guy was a total dick and it drives me insane that he has no real incentive to stop driving like an asshole. Fuuuuuck

[Supernaut]

So I got my seats and some bodywork done at bubbletech.

http://i.imgur.com/8xvVT.jpg
My rear fenders aren't as knifey as before.

Recaros are back!
http://i.imgur.com/kZaI6.jpg

Swapping the seats gave me a good opportunity to rip up the front carpet and check for mold or mildew (which there was) from some water that spilled from the AC drain hose that wasn't secured correctly before. Hence the ripped up carpet and paper towels.

Next step was to remove some interior panels for the installation of a new rear 1/4 panel or save some labor and to save broken tabs!
http://i.imgur.com/0B5q0.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/aE7kT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/VqH7x.jpg

By now it wasn't to late and the FD dissecting party was coming to a close. Everyone felt pretty damn good about themselves and the night was young. I also just happened to have a new 3rd party carpet that accidently came to my address (was going to install it in the future). Well, I guess you can guess what happened next and you can guess that it took longer than anyone thought.

What are friends for if not to exploit and use as slaves and cheap labor!
http://i.imgur.com/cIJiN.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/k8XS8.jpg

Vroom vrooom
http://i.imgur.com/zhsUw.jpg

99 spec bumper. Shhhhh.
http://i.imgur.com/23xwc.jpg

Check out all this dirt! I also managed to find almost a buck worth of change down here. Better than finding used condoms (right duls?).
http://i.imgur.com/SjkUc.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/eVLQW.jpg

Thank you Polak Graphics (buy stuff!), Andy X and David.

[Supernaut]

I'm starting to realize that having so many interior parts in my room is having consequences for the environment. Check out what the cat just barfed up!

http://i.imgur.com/SZRhd.jpg

[need RX7]

Great thread! It's genuinely entertaining to read.

I admire your willingness to bring back such a mistreated car, even knowing that it will cost you more money and some (all?) of your sanity.

[Supernaut]

Great thread! It's genuinely entertaining to read.

I admire your willingness to bring back such a mistreated car, even knowing that it will cost you more money and some (all?) of your sanity.

Thanks for the encouraging words man. I'm trying to make lemonade here but but it's hard to do when you're making it out of turd.

[Supernaut]

So a bunch of people asked me to update this thread for a while but honestly, nothing has been happening with the car. I finally decided to post when I started watching my backlog of movies and realized I'd rather revel in my automotive misery than watch Resident Evil: Retribution, which is terrible btw. I don't know why I'm surprised because all the other ones were just so bad. Zombies shouldn't be able to run. It's total bullshit. O shit now Michelle Rodriguez is fucked. Anyway, as usual for a NJ bodyshop, a 2 - 3 week project (max) has so far taken more than 3 months which is just fantastic. I visisted the shop once in a while to check for progress. After about a month and a half, the shop finally started doing some work.
http://i.imgur.com/kowJD.jpg

Hey not bad right??

A month after that passes by and bam we have more updates.

Hmmm weird I don't like that the car is left outside after primering but hey what do I know.
http://i.imgur.com/9MWsv.jpg

Check out this rear. Primer overspray?
http://i.imgur.com/0efDb.jpg

Wow this movie is bad. Anyway, so that's pretty much the update. Sorry that kind of sucked. Well I guess I can post up some other interesting pics.

This is my FD when I picked up my 99 spec bumper from my man Dennis.
http://i.imgur.com/gpvx6.jpg

This is from Hurrican Sandy. Our underground garage downstairs was in danger of being flooded so this poor Lambo owner had to park upstairs. THE HUMANITY...
http://i.imgur.com/WQp0U.jpg
He had to get the car jump started. Haaaa.

This was some weird Hitler statue I found while somewhere in NJ. It scared the crap out of me.
http://i.imgur.com/fDbyd.jpg

This is a terrible movie. I think I'm going to go to bed. I enjoyed Twilight much more. In case you haven't seen it, here is a review that helped some people out.

Soooo I just saw Twilight. I recommend it to everyone. Movies like this don't come out ever. I'm going to change tenses now because the movie still lives in me and will live on forever. It is truly a tour de crap. It is hilariously bad and over serious. Please watch it. I felt terrible for all the actors. It looked like they were high in all the scenes to forget the pain of being in the movie. Taylor Lautner gave the best performance in the movie and I think it's because he has no shame. The movie also featured the most awkward looking CG character I have ever seen. It wasn't uncanny valley awkward. I can't describe it. It's what would happen if you asked a 5 year old to draw a girl and then paid millions for the best CG artists to bring it to life. A great parallel to the movie series. Wow how deep. I've never seen a movie that combined the worst parts of so many other lesser movies to truly become larger than the sum of its terrible parts, sort of like mixing Coke and Mentos.

For people who haven't seen...
We fell in love so fast (ultra slow motion coke-mentos experiment) on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/12612129)


This was the Usain Bolt of terrible movies. Every minute of the movie that passed by was like a long, effortless stride of crap. It was almost as if the creators of the Twilight series made the movie to make fun of all the fans. Even though I never liked the Twilight series I felt really bad for the fans that waited so long for the end.

No joke fellas, watch the movie.

[BrettLinton7]

Have they finished the paint by now? The car seems to really be coming along nicely.

[Supernaut]

Have they finished the paint by now? The car seems to really be coming along nicely.

NOOOOOOPE hahaha

[RedR1]

Your thread reminds me of my own car. . . i will soon have a beginning to somewhat now build thread for it too. . .

love that you too, cry alone and keep the smiles for the masses. I know that feels, bro :cuddle:

[Supernaut]

My only solace is that one day this will all be over...but probably not.

Progress!
http://i.imgur.com/akkMK0V.jpg

[theorie]

Lookin' good Andy.

[Supernaut]

So, it's been a good summer. Busy as hell so I haven't been able to post many updates (there were many recently) so I figured I would do it all in one go. I finally got my v8 back. The car looks great.

Before
http://i.imgur.com/BV8CIPj.jpg

After
http://i.imgur.com/8kSBd6S.jpg

The car finally feels like it's back home.
http://i.imgur.com/vu29LPh.jpg?1

I'm not going to go crazy with it like my other car. I'm done with replicas. All that's left is a check up of electrical stuff, new short shifter at speed1. Some work at IRP. New tires (dear GOD the ones on there are terrible) and to put back the interior of the car. Ahh and a final tune. Exterior work will be done over time finally. It feels good to finally be at the final stretch after all of the crap.