All good things take time (and money) and so, for those who might be interested, I'll endeavour to update the info here when I make new changes to the car.

Last Update: August 2006

Last Edit: Oct 2005

G'day, after becoming the proud owner of a 1989 HC 929 Sedan it was in need of a bit of TLC. The body had a fairly recent respray and is pretty straight. The interior was in good shape too, but mechanically it needed a little bit of work.

The main offending mechanical problem was a nasty vibration that would prove to be a costly job to get to the bottom of. Shortly after purchase after taking it for an eight hour drive the gearbox also showed signs of needing a service, it began slipping between 2nd and 3rd.

The previous owner said he had the vehicle for about 18 months and admitted that he had not had any work done on it, it certainly showed. I don't think the original owner did much to it either. Straight to the mechanic for a major service and to fix a minor oil leak.

Next to the auto specialist, the service on this revealed the aforementioned lack of care too. There were signs that a service hadn't been done for quite some time. The torque converter was also found to be out of balance... Aha! There's the vibration problem - unfortunately not to be so :/

That was only a small part of it - back to the mechanic. A sagged rear engine mount and partly seized unis on the tail shaft were also found to be in dire need of replacement and hopefully this would sort out the vibration. As is typical with Mazda they didn't have the foresight to think of future repairs or ease of future repairs. The unis on the HC are sealed units and are non-repairable, so that only leaves one option, build a new tail shaft! The car was expensive when new and is still proving to be so for repairs :( Before replacing the tailshaft tho' (the unis were managed to be freed up) a new set of wheels were in order to eliminate an issue with the originals causing part of the vibration - good excuse ;)

As it turned out the unis didn't last long before they needed replacing anyway. So after replacing the engine mount and having a new tail shaft made, of which it was decided to leave the centre bearing as is because it was still spinning quite freely, a test drive proved that this hadn't fixed the vibration. Out came the centre bearing and in goes a new, the rubber casing had collapsed. Holy snapping duck poop those things are expensive!

Yet again another test drive and, you beaudy! [Aussie for yeehaa! ;)] the vibration had disappeared. Now the car is as it's supposed to be - Smmoooooth. For good measure tho' a carbon clean of the engine and a thorough cleaning of the PCV Valve should prove to get the engine really purring :)

UPDATE: I've had the carbon clean and PCV cleaned and it now starts easier (it was good before) and does feel a bit smoother :)

Mods I have made so far include:
17" Chrome Alloys shod with 225/45x17s, full metal window tint, Alpine audio system with Kenwood speakers, leather bound steering wheel (pinched from my own '84 HB limited 929 Sedan - A Silver Anniversary release), after market cruise control fitted to the wheel (the model I have didn't have cruise), Immobilser, Keyless entry and a custom exhaust, which consists of; 2.5" pipe, performance free-flow cat, free-flow resonator and custom stainless steel 'straight thru' muffler. And it sounds pretty sweet :) I was considering having custom headers made for it too, but that proved to be a bit costly.

Next in line is a Cold Air Intake and colour coding the bumpers and lowering the front end slightly. I'm also toying with the idea of a mild body kit, but we'll see ;)

UPDATE: Sep 2005
Haven't got to colour coding the bumpers yet, but it'll happen soon enough, same goes for lowering and the cold air intake. As for the body kit, well, that'll be a while yet I think. I know the style, I just need dollars :P

Anyway, everytime I looked at the chrome wheels I was sick of looking at the dodgy-looking brakes and calipers behind them, so I decided to pretty them up a bit. And after a couple of days work I think the result was definitely worth the effort :) (See pics on following pages)

I had to replace the rear shockies as one of them crapped itself. I don't know about the northern hemisphere, but here downunder trying to get a matching set of shocks is not that easy. Monroe only make Sensatrac for front and rear, KYB (which were fitted to my old 929) don't make anything for the HC and just about any others only made them to fit either the front or rear not both. What a pain, that is until I got onto Pedders Suspension (an Australian company) who make shocks for both the front and rear. I didn't opt for the Monroe's because I am intending to lower the car and these shocks are controlled by valves and whatnot and designed to be used at the standard ride height. So lowering them would bugger up the valving and they wouldn't handle as they were designed.

Pedders make the "Comfort Gas" to suit the HC, I opted for these for the reason stated above, these are a simple gas strut and won't be affected by lowering. And they ride extremely well too, I'm very happy with them. Pedders also make springs and all sorts of suspension components for the HC, so for me, that's good news :)

With regards to the springs tho' I won't be using the Pedders ones, they are actually lower than standard, only 15mm tho', big deal I hear you say, I agree, the original ones on my car have probably sagged that much anyway and they're still good :P The springs I'm after are B & G Springs from Corksport, they're 1.25 inches lower than standard, not huge, but just perfect I think to still maintain a decent ride and increase handling at the same time. These springs are a progressive type and are actually made in Sweden. Unfortunately tho' I'll have to buy them from the US as they're not available in Australia. Bugger!

One other thing probably worth mentioning, I got rid of the original drivers seat in favour of one from a '90 model. The later HCs had firmer foam, which made them much more comfortable. I just had the trim swapped over so it still looks the same. Some time in the near future (hopefully) I'll be replacing the front seats with Stratos Sports seats, which came out of another car I had a while ago. The Stratos seats are awesome, they're extremely comfortable and hold you in place as sports seats are supposed to. I've already attempted to mount them on the original seat racks, together with the height adjuster, but they're just a bit too high, so I'll have to chuck out the height adjuster and try again. Once sorted then it'll just be a matter of retrimming them. Looking forward to getting them in the car.

EDIT: Oct 2005
I mentioned in a previous paragraph about getting B+G Springs, well that has since changed. I found out that K-Mac, another local (Australian) company, can make custom lowered springs for my car, you beauty! They're progressive too and they can make them to suit whatever ride height I want (within legal limits of course) and it'll be cheaper getting these instead of having to source the others from overseas. They can make them and fit them within the same day. They also make camber kits and anit-roll bars for the HC 929. Brilliant! Hopefully it won't be long before they're on the car now :)

UPDATE Jan 06:
As mentioned above I've finally managed to replace the original seats with a pair of Stratos Sport seats. They've been in storage for a good number of years, they came out of another Mazda I had that was stolen and trashed (that's another story). From the extra seats out of the '90 model I removed the seat racks and then removed the mounts so I could make new ones for the Stratos seats.

I had to get it worked out right so I spent quite a bit of time drawing up templates and making sure all the measurements were spot on. I started on the driver's seat and after working out how it was all going to fit together I fitted the newly modified racks to the seat, not welded yet, but bolted as a dry run. Amazingly they slotted straight in first go, the seat though wasn't quite in the right spot, I had to move it a further 10mm to the centre of the car. Once I had made the changes, I fitted it again and this time it was perfect. So now onto the passenger seat. This was quite a bit easier as it was basically a mirror image of the driver's seat, albeit for a millimetre or two in a couple of spots.

Once that was sorted, the next thing was to have them welded and get an engineers certificate, which passed without having to make any changes at all, thankfully. I then painted them up and took the seats to the upholsterer to recover them and at the same time the door inserts, front and rear. Unfortunately the original fabric is no longer available so I chose a similar overall colour and the same quality fabric, which is almost as expensive as leather :P

After getting the seats back from the upholsterer I fitted them in the car, but there was still one more thing to do. The seat racks looked neat enough, but really stood out like dogs balls. Before the seats got recovered I made up a plug for a fibreglass cover that would fit over the seat racks where they were visible. Once the fibreglassing had been done I took them to the same upholsterer and got him to cover them in vinyl and they look pretty damn schmick if I do say so myself :) Once I get a few more dollars together the back seat will get a recover, obviously in the same fabric as the front.

I almost forgot to mention how damn comfortable these seats are... extremely. And roundabouts, what roundabouts? You hardly even notice the body roll sitting in these seats, they fit real well :) Still can't wait to lower the springs tho', the car will be totally transformed then :)

UPDATE April 06:

Installed a Momo steering wheel over the weekend (see pics). Together with the wheel I also installed a lockable quick release device, which serves two purposes, thwarts the theft of the steering wheel and the car :)

I had to remove the cruise control controls from the original wheel and fit them to the new one, which was a bit fiddly, but once I worked out the position of where everything needed to go, I got to machining, drilling and soldering and it came together quite nicely, far better than the mob who fitted it before I might add :\ I had to have the bottom flange of the boss kit (a SAAS unit) trimmed a bit so it wouldn't drag on the plastic surround, but it's all good. It feels great to drive with and it's easier to whip the car around corners now :)

UPDATE August 06:

Well, finally managed to sort out the lowered springs for the car. As mentioned previously K-mac had the honours and I'm as happy as Larry with the result, although, it actually took a couple of goes to get the front to the desired height. They made the springs on the spot and fitted them the same day. I also had them fit a camber kit as the 929 doesn't have adjustable camber and with lowered suspension that could be a problem with tyre wear.

I haven't gone to the dramatic drop coz I still like to be able to drive the car without rattling the teeth from my head. And still want to be able to load up the boot if need be without dragging it's arse like a dog with an itchy bum. Basically the rear has been dropped by 1" and the front by 1.75", not huge, but defnitely a huge improvement. The ride quality was a bit of a surprise too, I expected it to be much worse than it actually turned out to be, thankfully that wasn't the case.

The issue with the front was simply a miscalculation, but easily fixed with a reset. It had to come down a further 5/8" to get it to 1.75" lower. The difference between 1 1/8" and 1.75" was quite noticeable in ride quality. I'd say at the first attempt it was only about 20% stiffer than standard, the end result would be closer to 30% stiffer. Sharp edged bumps and sharp dips are the only worry, everything else is handled fine. I'll be up for new front struts soon tho', coz the ones on the car are still from when I bought it and they're getting a bit soft. So with new struts I'm hoping the worrying bumps might not be a worry anymore.

Anyway on with the pics... starting on the next page.

Cheers.

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