Joel's Kyusha inspired Laguna Blue na8

[—atank—]

Oh now your talkin' looking very good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Joelioooo]

Oh now your talkin' looking very good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks a lot, atank!

I have some parts I'm very excited about coming in the next couple weeks.

[Joelioooo]

Today was spent stripping the interior of the ol' girl, I've been dreaming of a tan interior since discovering the Blue Potato last year and I've found someone to do a whole tan interior swap with. I hadn't done a whole deal of work like this on the car so it was exciting to go ahead and take it apart.

Here is the dash before hand. It's in really good condition with no cracks or marks anywhere at all.




A couple hours later I'm left with this.



I originally only planned to remove the dash and deal with the carpets when I go see the guy to swap but with the sun shining I decided to go ahead and take out the carpets too



seats were cake, so was carpet.
Then I realized that there is a chance I won't be able to get a new dash in for a couple days so the skeleton went back in, essentials plugged back in and everything zip tied out of the way I was left with this.




This is going to be fun

[—atank—]

Keep it going Joel!!!!!!!

[Joelioooo]

I'm just about to go leave to go strip another dash but before I go I installed a piece that came in the mail this morning.
I've always wanted one of these after seeing it on so many different roadsters online I spoke to Takashi Koga (Zoom's 'Shop Security Manager') through facebook and ordered one through him with paypal (ends up being a wee bit cheaper)









Only thing a bit off his the fitment with the lid and the release, it's quite tough to release, will have to fix that after the dashboard is back in.

[Joelioooo]

I am so happy with the outcome, it isn't quite finished yet, I forgot the glovebox, eyeball vents and plastic steering box(?) surround at the guy's house so those need to be reinstalled and I also need the tan seats so those will be coming soon hopefully.

I didn't want to spend money doing this swap so I found someone willing to do a swap for my black dash. Great news for me until I went to his place to remove the interior, it's pretty rough and I definitely got the short end of the stick. Really dirty overall but some paint and a lot of interior cleaner got it looking less like 20 year old pieces and more like 5 year old ones

[Joelioooo]

Another few parts acquired to complete my interior swap, passenger seat, double ups of the glove box, parcel tray carpets, door cards and various other bits. All I'm missing at the moment is a tan roof (undecided to follow through), main carpet (planning on not using either way) and the ever elusive tan driver's seat in good condition; I don't know how long it'll take me to find a decently priced one so I'm looking into getting a second passenger seat and swapping the fabric over.

So happy to have this so close to completion because it completely changes the feel of the car, feels classier and expensive and I love it.

I had planned to have no use none of the interior carpet at all, inspired by TiG's red NA that was completely stripped out but I found that dailying this became too loud and too impractical, not only that but my parcel tray is really not pretty so I found that putting the rear carpets in was a nice middle ground.

Bare..



A little more..



Perfect!



Something else came in the mail for me, another car part to my girlfriend's dismay and after being told that I spend too much on the car I quickly scurried off to snap some pictures and install whatever had come



Invoice came in a little UpGarage envelope. Cool!



K.G. Works sticker! Unexpected as this is a second hand product.



Here it is! K.G. Works Rear View mirror. Retail is 16,200Y and I managed to snag it off UpGarage for under half of that.





The part is beautifully made, the arm is very weighty and sturdy with dummy screws to make the base symmetrical. I can't help but envision revlimiter vent rings to add a bit more polished aluminum to the interior. Maybe next on the 'to buy' list?

[— Madaboutmx5s —]

Car is looking good. Nice work. Had a Laguna blue mk1 myself years ago.

[Nyaa]

Your car is really making me want to pick up some vintage touches for my own. It's so rad

[— Dandy —]

Man son, you got skillz. The angles you choose for your photos are really quite interesting . . . in addition to your very cool car.

[Joelioooo]

Car is looking good. Nice work. Had a Laguna blue mk1 myself years ago.

I'd be more surprised if you didnt have one, you sure go through a lot of cars ;)

Your car is really making me want to pick up some vintage touches for my own. It's so rad

I find these cars are made for the vintage parts, i wouldn't go any other route with an NA

Man son, you got skillz. The angles you choose for your photos are really quite interesting . . . in addition to your very cool car.

I generally have no idea what I'm doing when taking photos and I'd love to learn, but thanks

[Pantsoffstanceoff]

Love the way the stripped carpet looks with the tan interior, the blue just compliments it so well. Maybe my yellow car will share a common style... O.o

[Joelioooo]

Love the way the stripped carpet looks with the tan interior, the blue just compliments it so well. Maybe my yellow car will share a common style... O.o

Thanks! It was completely by accident that it worked, i had put the dash back in before i had the carpets so i had the intent to reinstall it but i don't have the drive to oull out the dash again.

In the quest to improve shifter feel i changed the transmission and turret fluids and also the engine mounts with Mazdaspeed Competitions.
The nylon shifter bits werein good shape and only the passenger side mount was split anywhere which tells me that this car (with 220k kms)8 had been maintained well prior to my ownership.
Shifting feel is improving but i would like to replace the clutch eventually too.

I also mocked up the extra bars and bolted them down on my cusco/saito/generic jdm roll bar. The rear bars will have to be taken off to be polished but I'm loving the look. Does anyone know if these kinds of roll bars came with mounting brackets or are they supposed to ve bolted to the floor?





So finally i have the measurements to give into Project G for my bikini top, the final piece to my summer deadline.
I have another pair of wheels on the way from Japan, excited to work on restoring them.

[Pantsoffstanceoff]

Send some of the wheels you aren't using over my way lol

[Joelioooo]

The parcel shelf and seat carpets are back in along with the sound deadening, personally i prefer it without, it feels more lively and looks tougher but doesn't suit the vintage kind of look im hoping for.