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Some Pictures of the Setup

Eric — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 03:38:06 +0000

I wanted some more “proper” pictures, persay, of the car but things didn’t fall into place too well. I was supposed to go to the body shop in the morning and have the bumper sanded and buffed, but as luck would have it, when I got there everything was closed due to a religious holiday.

With that, I said whatever and didn’t bother cleaning the car. There’s still many months worth of dust and grime on the car from all the work that went down. I also was lazy and didn’t find anyone with a fancy camera to do the pictures for me, so I went at it with a random point and shoot I had. Here they are:

Quick Driveway Pics

Eric — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 06:20:20 +0000

I took the FD on a short drive today… after a week of driving the Miata, the FD feels like something on a completely different level. I almost forgot how nice boost felt when I got stuck with 133hp for so long, hehe.

Since I’m also leaving to go back to school in a day, the FD is covered with 4 jacks on the pinch weld to alleviate some suspension and wheel strain. Before it’s hibernation, I snapped a few pics.

Forgot to close the driver door all the way, oh well…

Red anodized aluminum lug nuts are the way to go

Small Detail and Night Time Pics

Eric — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:25:22 +0000

By this time, everything was settled in and good to go. So I decided to spend some “quality” time with the car and give it a thorough detail. Overall the car was in really good shape, but it was pretty clear that all the dirt and dust during transportation hadn’t been taken care of yet.

For the engine bay, I used degreaser for a couple spots and wiped everything down as best I could.

For the interior, I vaccuumed everything, wiped down everything, used q-tips for the smaller spots, and so on. I’m not afraid to say I’m a bit paranoid when it comes to keeping things clean. For the general cleaning solution, I used a 1:6 part woolite and water mixture. For the dash and plastic peices, I used 303 Aerospace Protectant. Great product, not too glossy and has high UV protection.

As for the exterior, I did the usual wash and followed it with a claybar. I applied some rubbing compound and polish by hand, and topped it off with some wax. Without a doubt nothing close to a professional level. The car had some light swirl marks and paint chips, but overall the paint still had a very nice shine to it. The Montego Blue color is pretty weird, it looks blue under the shade, but under light it turns green. Also, Mazda apparently used a soft clear coat on it, which is probably a reason why it chips so easily.

Probably should have masked the moldings, but luckily most of their exteriors are not made out rubber.

Later, after coming back from some general car meet, I snapped a few night time pics in my neighborhood. They didn’t come out that well and I had to use the concrete as a tripod…