Getting a personalized license plate has always been like a lingering itch over the years. I finally decided to pull the trigger on one. For the plate idea, I wanted to avoid the conventional car related play-on-words (i.e., ZYAL8R, 1SIKRX7, and so on) for fear of being too cliché. Although I did think “XPRMNTL” would […]

Another year has passed and 2015 is already in the books. I know the cadence with the car has dramatically slowed down after the LS3 swap was buttoned up. In the past year, the RX-7 mostly spent its life sitting in the garage either in a partially torn apart state or remaining idle while I […]

Way back when the car was repainted, I decided to spare the retractable power antenna instead of taking the opportunity to shave it. This was always something that I second guessed myself on, but now I’m glad I chose to leave it alone. A member named HalfSpec on the NoRotors forum has designed an adapter […]

With the interior mostly settled, I turned my attention to maintenance work. Over the past few years, I noticed that the rear hatch struts were gradually weakening. They eventually gave out a few months ago and could no longer hold the hatch up. I called my favorite parts guru at Malloy Mazda and learned that […]

I am so fond of the RX-7 because it harks back to the heyday of proper, driver-oriented motoring. It is modern enough to capture refinements in certain technological methods, but old enough to escape to the clench of restrictions and dummy aids. However, the fact remains that this is now a 20+ year old car, […]

After sacrificing entire weekends back-to-back with long and grueling hours on all days, I was eventually able to heat shrink the last splice, pull the final zip tie, and complete the packaging and wiring work. Yes, my garage attire consists of oversized Fila waterproof pants and bright green Crocs. Go ahead. Judge. With so many […]

I knew from the beginning that the AiM MXG dash would be the exemplary choice for my needs. However, as I started formulating through all the different demands to ensure a feature-rich final product, I realized that buying just the dash was a piece to a larger puzzle. In the end, the list grew to […]

After nearly half a year of planning and waiting, I found myself switching roles from a behind-the-scenes bystander to the active participant. At long last, the trim panels were complete and all the AiM components were in my hands. One would assume that remaining idle for so long would render me into slow form. Quite […]

With the new AiM dash poised and ready to go into the car, the factory cluster invariably must be removed. To preserve one of the enduring qualities of the car – its low mileage – I took the extra step of documenting the original odometer prior. This was performed on 10/10/2015 and shows where the […]

With the new shade of grey chosen, all of the existing pieces were resprayed. Toby finished the gauge fascia by mounting the dash with brackets and installing the momentary buttons. The pictures below were taken in his white balanced photo booth again. The change of color can be compared to this, previously. Up close of […]

My immediate impression was that the chosen grey color was on the lighter side. In order to match well with the otherwise black interior, the trim pieces needed to be quite dark, but still distinguishably grey. Jumping on any doubt, I referred back to the SEM color chart and picked out 2 more shades that […]

It may be noteworthy to share that I moved places to San Jose at the beginning of the year. I’ve been spending much of my attention towards settling in and bringing my condo up to speed, on top of everything else around me getting busier. The paralleling decline in cadence with the RX-7 really puts […]