FC3S - Hayward Rotary x SJS x Team Green

Well with the demise of my job right after the close of the 2008 BDC season and bang on the start of this credit crisis gubbins I had decided not to drift 2009 as I couldn’t afford it and sell the s14.

Image courtesy of my brother:


But as I watched peoples practice videos and pictures and read peoples build threads I got more and more anxious that I had really made a mistake. I decided to do the next best thing… and buy a cheap rwd car, something I just Love and use it as a pod/lydd/street skidder.

Then the 2009 track list was released.. and the team comp.. and the banter.

I gave in.

Time to get it BDC prepped, time to get involved…

Time to get the credit card out.

Once again I went into 2009 with NO sponsors.. (HINT)!!! The 2008 car had substantial cost help from SJS for the immense livery job that made it what it was, but other than that, it was all me to cover costs and team green helping where they could to build it.

This year was no different.


SO.. enter the donor car!

The Mazda RX7 FC Turbo2
The advert Pics (Yes it’s the one from piston heads).


It was missing something important though..


After agreeing on price and a few details, off I went to collect the FC.. which was 4 hours away in Sheffield!

Not wanting to miss out I did some frantic calling and local skid hero and BDC drifting awesomeness man Dave Walbrin came to my rescue driving up there on very short notice, right after the massive snow fall we had, so a MASSIVE thank you to him.

I also arranged to meet up with Allywrx, who was selling a ton of gear just at the right time.. He agreed to travel down from kilt land and meet us at Andrews, the owner of the FC.Andrew was not the happiest of chaps when we went up there to take the FC, it was obviously a regrettable sale. The license plate and the few minor mods already done to it alone made the car worth the money and some.

Some pics of the collection trip..

Dave looking slightly tired, snow..and my finger




Previous to leaving I had been in touch with a few local garages about putting an engine in the FC.. then during discussions with Andrew, he told me the engine had been rebuilt by Tim at RX Motors in Dorset, which as it happened was about 20 minutes maximum from me! It was meant to be!

So I rang them, told Tim about my past and the project plan/scope and the direction I wanted to take it, and one of the mechanics was really into his drifting and had seen the yoshi-mobile before and knew about BDC etc so it made deeper discussions a lot easier. We struck an agreement and the FC was to be taken straight from collection to RX Motors, where Myself and Phil@RX Motors (yes two phils ) would attack it and get it moving and bolt some shiney bits to her.

I promised myself I would do as much work as I could on this car, learning as I go and not pissing off polo so much this year!!! It also meant Phil could do the more technical stuff.. like putting an engine in!

So the very next day… The saga begins:

 

Day 1
So I turned up early the next day and now that I wasn’t stupidly tired I could appreciate what I was looking at properly..

The RX Motors carpark:


Anyway, work to be done.. so I got busy taking out all the spares and all the interior and dumping it in the daily (yes yes yes it’s a micra I know!… deal with it )
It started like this:


Then this happened:


The driver seat refused to budge as it was seized solid so Phil used his specialist tool :

We relocated the main ECU due to a common RX7 issue with water & removed ABS ECU:

The ABS & Air Con was removed:

We then needed to move the car in the workshop as During my day abusing it the interior and abs/aircon, Phil had been building up the standard 13bt to go in her. No ports, nothing fancy as, well, I figured with the abuse it will probably do what the rotary stories say and go pop. So lets just get it mobile first. So I ended the day getting the interior this far:


Then we pushed it inside and all this happened:






Not bad for one day eh!

 

Day 2
Right so Day 2 consisted of me attacking the interior more:

More enging progress:

A lot of bits being installed into the bay including a shiny Koyo rad:


Some more fettling work:



And we were ready to try to start it already!!!
The unedited raw account of its first start.. (sorry its dark and my voice)
YouTube - RX7FC First start attempt pt1

Ok so it started… which is great, but clearly had a few teething issues! Haha
We messad a bit, sourced one issue (a minor leak from turbo oil feed) and the source of the smoke was infact just an exhaust gasket dead so was safe to mess about more and get more rotary time:
YouTube - RX7FC First start attempt pt2

The end result of us messing about, an exhaust leak and over a years worth of crap in the engine :


Still.. IT STARTS!!!!
We all went home to recover from the fumes.

 

Day 3

I don’t have many pics from Day three as I was busy doing the mundane task of MORE SOUND DEADENING REMOVAL! Theres more in an FC than an S14 I SWEAR down!


While that was done Phil sorted the exhaust leak and a few other engine based bits, we both then threw on some uprated bushes on the ARB’s and fitted some new Lower Control Arms again with uprated bushes which Ally had supplied:

I Then went about fitting this quick shift kit (also not braided brake hoses):

We also did a basic fit of the Hydro unit that turned up at RX Motors:


Doesn’t seem like much but it was time consuming..

 

Day 4
Now with the engine running nicely.. we began to add some shiney bits!!
Had a care package arrive courtesy of Driftworks!

So off I went to RXM with a smile..
HSD’s went on, braided brake lines went on:

Rear hubs came off to get rid of the EVIL rear stearing (dtss) with eliminator bushes):

Removal of standard bushes using tried and tested methods! :

The eliminators:

Standard Diff out and In goes a shiney Mazdaspeed 2way! Ooh er:

Blurry ‘shoes off’ shot.. Note the FD front calipers, a common upgrade for FCs:

And who says red is common :

 

Day 5
Now we were starting to see some nice progress…
More bits arrive, I was having a nightmare finding seatrails so ordered some FD ones we decided we would attempt to modify:

I continued to gut the interior and added the Momo boss:

And then transferred my sparco wheel from Yoshi to the FC, note the quick shift:

While this was going on Phil had found a few issues and when about sorting them. Firstly he found a leak in the power steering piping so we shortened it, bypassing the leaking section, and then removing the defunct piping. He also found a patch of rust in the driver side front arch so grinded it back:

And welded on a new piece:

Lock mod: I’m gonna highlight all lock mods as most FC owners will be interested in this due to their renown pants lock as standard. I then attacked the tie rods and steering rack with ‘ye olde spacer trick’:

I went for a 7mm spacer each side which resulted in this:


Finally we sat it back down on the ground and laughed at the ride height/epic offset/fitment!

 

Day 6 (end of week 1)
OK so Saturday was spent doing a lot of checks, tidying up the car and prepping it for MOT. I had got the insurance sorted and had the paperwork so we spent time checking over electrics, sorting interior and tidying engine bay, refitting driver seat (left out passenger one for now).

Small color tester from a mazda rx7 mk1.. just a thought.. who knows

That’s the last picture before the VERY NERVOUS drive to the MOT station.. Just hoping for no scary noises, smoke or issues.. of course like every drift car.. it make noises.. and lots of them BUT it made it there in one piece and wasn’t smoking.

I sat there watching it being tested like a nervous student waiting for exam results..
IT PASSED WOOOOO!!

Straight to the post office for tax then home:

I then Gutted the crap outa the car in prep for its trip on monday to Nickson Motorsport

Then loosely refitted dash as I had to drive the Rex there. My reasoning being I could then arrive, remove the dash fast knowing how it all fixes and avoid any scary delays:

 

Week 2 (Nickson Motorsport Cage)[SIZE]
No words can describe the AWESOMETOWN-NESS of Nicks work. His meticulous eye for detail and the finish is second to none… worth EVERY penny and more. A massive thanks to him.

You will be seeing more of his work on this car in the future. Trust me.
Pics do the talking (thers A LOT and probably in wrong order.. sorry ):

 

E-P-I-C

 

Also note he found a ton of rush that somehow had not been spotted up until then, yet survived me beating the crap outa it removing sound deadening..

Nick did a load of strengthening from the top, noting that RX Motors would need to clear up and strengthen/repair bottom too. It ran along most of the driver side sill…

Oddly, the Passenger side was fine!?

When I got there to pick it up and attempt to reinstall the dash, I brought some new toys I had picked up during my running around while it was away:

Due to time, the fact the cage was SO damn close we (I mainly) had a NIGHTMARE getting the dash in.. so I went for extreme measures! :

DON’T PANIC! It’s under control, the metal base and mounting and strengthening is all intact it just allowed the aesthetics to go in easier. I then fabbed up a joiner plate and made it meet as close as I could. The plan to cover the gap is to get some shexey flocking done.. if that still doesn’t do it.. maybe Ill get another and use my first one as a template, or I’ll ditch the passenger side all together..

 

Day 7 at RX Motors (week 3 Thursday)
Due to work commitments and picking the car up Tuesday, I could only get to RX Motors on Thursday. SO, two days left to squeeze in as MUCH as we can before I have to Move house up to surrey for a new job ( the coming Sunday) and before the FC’s planed first outing at Santa Pod on the coming Saturday. Yes my life is that hectic.

However more bits arrive:


Some custom pipework is needed to get the bugger to fit so I plan on leaving this with RX Motors and collect it at a later date, before round 1 BDC though.

We had noticed the HSD’s fouled against the rear hub slightly:

so I spaced them out, job done:

I also Pickup some Uras Rods from Matt (mph_saab) during my London parts mission so they went on:

As well as some uprated rear discs and new pads:

The FD seat rails I had purchased just were NOT going to fit without huge modification.. We did get them on and my sparco Pro2000 fitted but it sat at a slight angle due to the inner rail being mounted on the transmission tunnel. Sooooooooo I picked up a base mount Bride subframe. Again during my London parts run.. Job done you’d think.. wrong. Apparently although the Pro2000 is supposed to be base AND sidemountable.. its not compatible with a bride frame.. so we mocked up what level of brackets and spacing it would need:

Sure enough it fitted and is solid as a rock. It only needed about 5mm spacer to level it out, clear the rail handle and an inch bracket to line up mounting.

While this was going on.. we went about removing both ARB’s.. yes that’s right.. removing them both, I had some insider info and guidance so I was not going to argue, apparently doing this helps with the classic ‘snappyness’ of the car:

 

Day 8

Lock mod: In PERFECT timing, some shiny bits turned up from USA:

These beauties are basically tie rod ends and spacers from Mazdatrix called their ‘steering angle/bumpsteer kit’ and when added to the Uras rods with their inbuilt spacers.. you SHOULD get some pretty shexay lockuu:



..Weak…

Then we noticed some uber foulage on the chassis and other bits n bobs so this happened:

And then we attacked a shit load of plastics, Resulting in:



Which meant:



Ahhhh better! It STILL hit the chassis, but without proper testing we didn’t know really where to attack or how. It was also hitting the LCA already. Still, with some spacers on the wheels I might hit the bump stops! We decided to deal with it until proper wheels I wanted were on with correct spacing/fitment and THEN see where it rubs.

Added some ghetto livery :


All fluids were changed as I had put approx 500 miles on it and it was about to be abused:


I also convinced tim to allow me to rob some JDM rear lights before I left:


Said my goodbyes and thank you’s and then headed off for alignment. The drive there was.. ‘interesting’ with the alignment now way out and the front toe somewhat… ‘out’ shall we say.

 

SANTA POD – VIRGIN SKID DAY
Well… the driver there was spirited enough that if there HAD been an issue we would have found it! But that didn’t make me any less nervous! I changed my wheels, putting on some high pressured 16” running Conti’s (thank you Ceffy Mike for tyre loan , although they shoulda been off ages ago so ner! ) and headed off after briefing to the donut area..

I lined up next to the cone.. I put it in gear, and I clenched the wheel tight, my butt clenched twice as hard.. my mind thinking over and over “pleasedontblowup !pleasedontblowup! pleasedontblowup!.. I drop it.. and bam its off and to my surprise, pretty damn predictable and controllable.. Result!!!

Usual progression,, multiple donuts, then oval’d the two cones… moved to wider ‘dual roundabout pen’ nailed that for a while.. then I let it sit for a while and went and sat in with Phil (the Mechanic from RX Motors) in his 450brake Porshe blue FD Rx7 who I had treated to a pod day. I gave him some advice for a bit while the FC cooled and then hit the big track.. as the day proceeded I got more and more confident in the car and the engine and but the afternoon I was giving it as much beans (if not more so) than the S14 and REALLY pushing its boundaries as far as power and lock, spinning several times as I entered the concreted section, trying to find its limit .. and listening to the EPIC noise it makes as the wheels hit the chassis! :roll:

Pics from the day:


Thx to all togs that day.

The drive home was great.. It had survived and personally I thought I did ok for my first day in a rex ever.. especially as I had not skidded ONCE since round 6 2008. But none the less there was still a lot of work to be done. But a great shakedown and base to work from. It was also a great result for RX Motors who had taken it from engineless to skidder in a week and a half (a week at nickson and 3 days off due to my commitments). Top stuff.

 

Day 9 onwards

From this point.. the days kinda blur into one and frankly I gave up trying to keep them in order… so now its just updates as they come. I have 1 week left before I start my new job and loose my weekdays so…

Sunday was spent moving house.. with a slight detour for some more bits!


Monday, once I had sorted my garage into some general order and made some space I began to add some exterior styling..
Bits off:

Bits test fitted:


Clearly the gaps need to be looked at a bit, but poorly fitting, zip tied, battered is the kinda look I like so I’m actually not that bothered!

Next I rolled it out to get a bit more space and found a few rubbage issues!!


Made me laugh oddly.. lol. Go go FC lock!

Now, just before I moved a had another care package arrive….
This time from the guys at REPLIKIT

This pic is awesome… How to really confuse a cat:


Once I had unpackaged it all I noticed something strange, perhaps Tim and the guys at Replikit are running another business at the same time but I had to ask… Care to explain this:


Anyway we continued and then mocked up a few shots:


Then an ‘Artists Impression’ of the finished results :

 

Also got some rimmage same day:

Yes.. its ‘those’ rims.. don’t start ok.

Anyway back to the car.. Once the bonnet was test fitted I ripped off all the original removable panels.. sideskirts, front and rear bumper, front wings and all bits of plastic trimming.. no pics mind.. its boring ok!

So started with wings first as basically ran out of light:



So next day I ran some chores and some work and collected a few supplies and boring bits etc..

Also went round to check out how Dylan (Wideboy s14a) was doing after his ‘off’ at santapod, same days the FC had its first day out.. Happily I can say he had MASSIVE progress so was a bit more chirpy.

Thursday was spend up with Team Green stripping down poor Yoshi for parts. L I took a few for the FC and a Micra load back to the house to sell.. which if I’m honest isn’t a house and more of a car parts storage facility. Lol
Pics of the deed being done and the vultures robbing parts:






Then it rained, but by then end of the night I had all the wheels and the Driftworks CS1’s in the micra. BIG BIG thank you to Matt/Mike/Brad and Alan who helped. Especially Mike who took the day off work. legend.

 

So Friday was spent doing some More fettling with bodykits and body panels and then messing with some more non-car work.

Saturday, Danny of red auto s14a fame and BDC Pro offered his services, helping me attack and line up (ish) bits as I wasn’t too bothered about fitment, I just wanted it ON.. we got to work around mid day and got a fair amount of the front re-adjusted to match better and we were both relatively pleased with the outcome..

and then realized we were cutting time short to get ready for the Touge Heros Premiere party in Soho!!!!!

The rest of that night is another thread entirely!

So Sunday is when it really started to come together. Danny came round once again and Elli and red (their puppy) joined later on in the afternoon. Danny also brought along his camera and took some Awesome Shots..

So once again I’ll let the pics do the talking!






Big thanks to Elli freezing her butt off holding a light for us and to Danny for his help and pics so far. Thank you both. <3


And that’s where she is so far!!!

So much left to do.. only now I’m totally skint, with a new house to sort and bills to pay. Beans for dinner for a while. Any sponsors wanting to get involved don’t hesitate to PM/call/email!!


Hope you all like it.