Page 1. Introduction
Page 2. Engine Removal
Page 3. The Swap kit
Page 4. Engine/Tranny Purchase
Page 5. Engine Install
Page 6. The Paintjob
Page 7. Cooling & Exhaust
Page 8. Wiring, Clutch Hydraulics, Misc.
Page 9. Start-up, first drive
Page 10. Photoshoot
Page 11. Performance Results & Videos
Page 12. Conclusion

Paint work started on March 1. I was quoted $3000 for a full color change and to fix the damage shown below. I also requested to have the antenna hole deleted. As you can see in the picture, the current paint was very pale! There were quite a few yellow's to chose from, shown in the picture left to right are ferarri yellow, ford screamin' yellow, mazdaspeed's sunburst/vivid yellow, and 2007 corvette yellow. I immediately fell in love with Mazda's sunburst yellow, and was pleased to find that this was actually a color used on 2002 special edition "bathurst" RX7's in Japan.

Some damage that will need to be fixed when it gets painted. The drilled holes are courtesy of the previous owner... he thought a body kit would be cool, great way to ruin such a beautiful car... I will be going back to stock bumpers.

The scope of the paint work changed drastically when we realized the last paint job was a very poor job... the paint had not adhered at all! 3 hours of razorblading took care of that...

The old body kit holes were properly fixed with small tach welds. The primer coat was done in my shop, but the actual paint job was done at a local body shop. The paint was done in 3 sessions, the first was engine bay and door/trunk jambs, the second was the body, and the 3rd all of the additional exterior parts. The engine bay was done first, so that I could re-install the engine and interior while the rest of the body work was being done. I worked side by side with my paint guy through the whole month of March. I set a goal to attend the apple Blossum Festival RX7 meet on May 2; at this point in time, it looked impossible to meet...

The yellow I ended up choosing was absolutely perfect... It was exactly what I had in mind when I thought of what my dream car would look like. The paint job was absolutely flawless, and I was very thankful that Tyler put so much effort into the car. It was such a great feeling to finally have the paint out of the way... it was something that I was dreading since the beginning. I had the shop all to myself now, and things began to start moving quickly again.

Next Page: Cooling & Exhaust