Fuel Problems - Part 1

Almost ready for the season to start!

After a lot of headaches and tail chasing, I finally got to the bottom of this phantom menace. For those that are wondering, this is what had my season come to a sudden stop right after Nationals last year. This problem came out of the blue unfortunately and caused some stressful times trying to figure out what the cause of this was. To recap in short, it started with a sputter at around 8,000 rpm. After changing a few things (like the fuel pump), it started to behave in a way like it was hitting a wall above 6,000 rpm, with the Air/Fuel Ratios spiking to 20 (lean) at Wide Open Throttle (WOT).

Removable Steering Wheel

I picked up a 330mm Nardi Torino steering wheel in black suede, matched with the NRG short hub and the version 2.0 quick release from my sponsor Dan at Assaultech. Having an aftermarket steering wheel has a lot of benefits such as being able to have the wheel close to you without having to have your seat so close (so you don't hit your knees), being able to turn the wheel less and get a lot more turning out of the car (when switching to a smaller steering wheel), easier to get in and out of the car when it is removable, and is an added layer of security.

Since I've used the steering wheel for several weeks now, I figure now would be a good time to write up the DIY on how to do this since I haven't run into any problems thus far. This should only take between 1-2 hours.


Tools & Materials

• Phillips Screw Driver
• Electrical Tape
• 18 Gauge Electrical Wire
• Knife
• Scissors
• 2.2 Ohm 1/4th Watt Resistors
• Steering Wheel Puller
• 21mm Deep Socket
• 12mm Deep Socket
• 1/2" Ratchet

OEM Removal Process
I'm not going into detail too much on how to remove the steering wheel as there are many DIYs out there, as this is more for the removable steering wheel aspect.

1. Start by making sure your wheels are completely straight, and your steering wheel is just as straight as your wheels.
2. Disconnect the battery to the car and let it discharge. This is so you won't accidentally blow the airbag in your face
3. Go ahead and remove the steering wheel airbag and then the steering wheel
4. The black piece in front of you is the clock spring... BE CAREFUL with this as you can over rotate it and rip the wires within it. Unscrew that off and unplug the connectors to it. Maybe get a piece of tape to tape it down in place so it wont rotate on you

Horn Process

1. Here comes the fun part. Be sure to reference the pictures as they'll make this easier to understand what I'm talking about.
2. Lets start with wiring up the horn. Take the small connector as seen in the picture, and notice the holes in it
3. The very far left hole is for the horn, so you'll want to cut a piece of that wire you purchased, cut the casing of the wire, and fit the wire into that hole. Wrap with electrical tape to secure in place
4. Cut the other end of the wire casing so that the copper is exposed
5. Fan out the copper of the wire so it is like a brush as it will be brushing up against the steering boss
6. Tape it in place on the column as seen here as that seems to be the best location

Airbag Resistors Process

1. The ends of the resistors fit perfectly into the holes for the airbag connector, but can get a bit cumbersome. I bent them backwards so they looped and brought them forward so the spacing was a perfect fit
2. You will need a resistor for the first two holes, and another resistor for the other two holes
3. Once down, I made sure they were in as deep as possible, then pressed the resistor against the body of the connector, then electrical taped them down

Steering Wheel Process

1. The rest is easy from here. Take your steering boss and line it up so it is center on the steering column. NOTE be careful with the two plastic knobs that stick out. You should have two holes in the boss for those to fit into
2. Once the boss is on straight, look behind it to make sure the plastic knobs are securely in the holes, and that the frayed wire is brushing against the contact surface of the boss
3. Tighten the 21mm bolt back onto the column, making sure to hold the boss on straight when doing so
4. Connect the two wire connectors for the horn then tighten down the cover for the boss. If you have a removable steering wheel, that is what your steering wheel will attach to
5. Assemble the horn onto your wheel, and the back-end side of the wheel adapter onto the steering wheel
6. Press the wheel onto the column to ensure it secures in place
7. Double check the steering wheel is on straight and that the wheels are straight
8. Connect the battery and start up the car to see if the airbag light comes on, and if your horn works. If both are good, you can patch up the steering column plastic covers and go for a test drive!

All in all, this was a fun DIY as I had to figure out what the resistance was for the airbags (which is the same as the seats, so that makes me think the whole car must be the same then), and get creative with making the horn work. There are some cleaner kits out there from Daiki BOSS or Fujita Engineering, but I didn't know this at the time of purchase so I had to come up with my own solutions. I hope this works out for everyone, but feel free to contact me if you run into any snags or have any questions. Stay tuned!

Interior Touchup

Just wanted to give a couple of quick photos of the interior since I managed to finish it up tonight. I need to figure out how to make the horn work and block out the SRS light, so that will take me a little bit. Once I do though, I'll most likely write up a DIY on doing an aftermarket steering wheel.

Old Friend and a Pesky Airbag Light

I met up with an old friend I haven't seen in about 13 years. Good friend of mine that I grew up with when I was living in New Hampshire. It was great to spend the day with him and his girlfriend working on our cars, as it was a nice change of scenery and pace from everything lately. Tom is currently working on an awesome RX-7 FC build, looking to compete in local drift events and maybe even some autocross. Having done all the work himself on the car, from rewiring the entire harness, fixing up the engine and more, he's put a lot of time and effort into the car, so I can't wait to see the end result.
We were going to punch out two quick things on my car then work on his, but as usual with my car, those two things took a lot longer than expected. Looks like I owe him some more beer and time to help him with whatever comes his way to work on his car in the future. We took care of my slanted seat issue I was having, as my Corbeau seat wasn't cut fully flat in the rear, propping it up in one corner awkwardly so I would be sitting crocked.

Using his FC as a work table, Tom used his sawzall to cut the rear pegs of the seat down flat, smoothing it out nicely. Since the seats were out, we looked into my airbag light problem as well. I followed some instructions I found on the RX-8 club but they weren't really explain well enough, and this is how I ran into problems. So, I decided to make this into a quick DIY for all those other RX-8 drivers out there who are looking to swap in a replacement bucket seat.

Supplies:

• Electrical Tape
• Seat Position Sensor for the Driver Side
• 2.0 Ohm 1 Watt Resistor (NOT 2.2 K.. AVOID the K. This is where I went wrong.)

No need to even really put steps on this as it's very straight forward. Simply bend the prongs of the resistor a bit so you can slip it into the connectors of the airbag sensor plug. Do this for both sides. Then simply apply some electrical tape ontop of the resistors to cover any dust from getting into the plug.
For the seat position sensor, Tom was awesome enough to rivet it to the hump in the floor that is by the front of the seat (you can't miss it). Nothing special there, as long as it is connected and tied to something or located somewhere.And voila! That's it. The airbag light is gone and no more issues with that thankfully, as that light was always bothering me in the back of my mind when driving around. Big thanks again to Tom for the good times and helping me with these two things. To end the day, we had a quick photo shoot of the two cars side by side. You will be hearing more about Tom and his progress on his car, as well as his progress into the world of drifting in future posts, so until then, stay tuned.

Tune, Small Fortune Visit, And National Tour

Many people have told me of how drastically different their car can feel with a different tune. After I got my tune from MazdaManiac, I can see why. Jeff (MazdaManiac) provides tuning services to RX-8 owners by having you submit specific information and some data logs to him. He makes tunes for the Cobb Accessport, and offers tuning for 6 months per subscription.

Unfortunately I have no dyno numbers, but you can at least feel the differences. Before the tune, the car had next to no initial pickup at 1, all the way to 3.5rpm. Once it hit 4,000rpm, it suddenly had a fair amount of torque and power, and was relatively smooth to 9,300 rpm. After the tune, the car has no initial pickup only from 1-1,800 rpm. Anything after, it is constantly outputting torque and power, VERY smoothly. No sudden kick in like before, just very smooth and consistent. Big thanks to Jeff for the awesome tune, looking forward to trying it out when I get my car back.

Which brings me to the next part of this post! I dropped off my car at Small Fortune Racing for the next large install, along with a few other touch ups. The laundry list is as follows:

• Black Halo Racing/Small Fortune Racing collaboration full header-back exhaust
• Removing the air pump
• Fixing the seat positions so they're even (the pegs were shaved off uneven)
• Creating a radiator bracket that holds up the under-tray properly
• Creating a radiator shroud so the hood doesn't start getting jumpy at high speeds
• Checking the alignment after getting my new steering rack

I can't wait to feel out the car after all of these items get completed. Hopefully he can find some time on the dyno as well so I can finally get some numbers, and if not, I can always do a few pulls somewhere I haven't visited in a long time; DSG! Thanks again Bill, looking forward to see more of your work on my car.

Lastly, I wanted to announce that Ben Wagstaff has invited me to National Tour down in Fingerlakes, New York. I will be racing in his STS Miata, checking out the scene, helping Ben out, and taking a ton of footage when I'm out on the course. Test course is July 9th, followed by 2 days of racing after. Looking forward to it and can't wait to see how I stack up against pros in a car I have never driven before! Stay tuned.

Corbeau Purple Harnesses

I was getting tired of the red on black theme my car was naturally taking (which is a theme that I really don't like in the first place) , so I decided to change up the harnesses to my favorite color; royal purple. These things are absolutely beautiful! I'm quite happy with the quality of the belts as well, as adjusting them is surprisingly easier than my old G-Force belts. Picked up some shoulder pads as well while I was at it. Picture up top was taken without a flash to show that the text is actually silvery white, and not a darker purple like it looks in some of the flash pictures. Now lets see how they hold up at the next event!

Quick Shave

If you recall in the previous post, the Corbeau FX1 Pro seats are much too high, especially with the seat padding in. Big ups to Dan from Assaultech for contacting Corbeau for me on this trick here. Apparently you can remove the rear feet from the seats for better fitment/extra headroom. Corbeau specified to remove the rear feet only, and to remove up to 3/4'. Thing is, 3/4' is pretty much the entire rear foot, measured from the smallest point of the foot. Big ups to Shane for his lumber jacking of the feet all night. We used a six inch hack saw to cut them off, while using a filer to round off any edges if need be. If we were to do it again though... Shane says Reciprocating saw or a sawsall.

If you are doing this mod yourself to your own set of Corbeau FX1 Pro seats, take a look around the seat for the smaller bolts that allow you to side mount the seat. I used those smaller bolts for the rear pegs, as the normal bolts would protrude the bottom of the seat, and would be quite hard to sit down or even use the cushion.

Once we did this modification, the seats were a perfect height. Without the cushions, I sat a touch lower than stock, while with the cushions I sat just a touch higher than stock. I will still need to take out the seat cushions to fit my helmet perfectly, but I can have them in and be comfortable while driving on the street. honestly, I wish the seats came from Corbeau with this height difference as the seat feels much more comfortable with the slight lean, cradling the driver comfortably, along with the extra headroom is always a plus.

Some quick pictures of the cutting in action.

Corbeau FX1 Pro

Installed these the other day. Double big ups to Jordan for dealing with my mistake and making this project turn from an hour project into almost a four hour project. Remember when installing these seats to NOT bolt down the harnesses first and then thread them through the seats..it won't fit. Thread them first and then bolt. I learned the hard way.Anyways, here are the seats. They look great, feel awesome...just the fact that I can't drive them with the seat cushion. My head just barely touches the roof with the seat cushions in, I wouldn't be able to fit my helmet if I tried. It was worth it for the most part though as it was a 35~lb. savings. The other issue with swapping out to racing seats is that the airbag light on the dash is always on.

Autopower Rollbar

Looks like I finally got to install my rollbar that has been hanging out in the garage for over a month! I want to give a big thanks to Oleg and Josh for their help in this little project, and thanks to James and Expo1 on how to install, tips for sealing and undercoating, the works. As you can see, the final result came out awesome and I was really happy that I painted the rear and bar flat black, as everything came out smooth and blended perfect. One of the added benefits of doing the interior the same color as the rollbar is that when we scratched a bit of the metal to install the bar, I just sprayed it after with flat black.

Below is my guide on how I did the install. I was recommended to do it one way, and read somewhere else to do it another, but so I'm glad to hear suggestions for other viewers but this way is how we approached it and it came out great!

Tools to have should be

1. Power Drill
2. Lubricant for the Drill Bit (we used PB Blast)
3. 3/8 Drill Bit
4. 14 Open End Wrench
5. 14 Socket with Wrench
6. Rustolium Underbody Rubberized Spray
7. Black RTV Silicone Sealant
8. Touch up paint (if you care about scrapes inside your car)
9. Phillips Screw Driver
10. Normal Tools to remove your wheels (socket, jackstands and jack, etc)
11. Trusty and "overly willing to help" friend
12. Patience and food

Now, we started off with the car already gutted (if you had read the previous post you'll see that my carpet has been removed from front chairs to the back and the rest of the rear is gone) so we had little to no prep work other than pushing the seats forward as much as possible. Once you're done prepping the rear by removing the rear seats, the side plastic coverings, and pushing the carpet out of the way, follow the steps below.

1. Bring the rollbar into the car with your friend. Be sure to have one of you follow the bar into the car, climbing over the powerplant frame and out the other side. Just guide the feet through, and aim the top of the bar towards the rear of the car.
2. Once the bar is in, position it so that the feet of the rollbar is on the floor and against the back of the rear seat molding? Not sure what you call it, but basically put the feet back as far as you can. That is where you'll want the rollbar in the end.
3. Place in the legs into the rollbar. Line up the holes in the legs with the holes on the rollbar piping. Be sure that the feet of the back legs are set so the 2 holes are faced down and not up. (look at the backing picture below)
4. Bolt in the the legs onto the rollbar. Be sure to use the neoprene nuts for the bolts on the legs.
5. Once the legs are prepared properly, slide the rollbar back in the car as much as possible so that the feet of the hoop are against the frame where you saw before.
6. We started drilling the feet of the hoop with the drill, doing one hole at a time. We drilled one hole on the right side, then one hole on the left.
7. After the drill, we bolted those holes so it would help keep the rollbar in place during the drilling of the other holes.
8. From here, we drilled so that it was a cross pattern like putting on a wheel. So if you do do the bottom right hole, you want to do the upper left hole. Be sure to bolt the holes after you make them.
9. Once the hoop legs are done and bolted in decently enough to hold it in place, it's time to jack the car up to do the rear.
10. Once the car is jacked up at the rear, be sure to remove the rear wheels, and rear wheel well lining.
11. Go into the car and do the same as you did with the hoop feet..one at a time on each side, with a bolt right after to keep it firmly in.
12. Once all holes are drilled, we took the nuts off the bottom of the feet to the hoop to prepare the backing plate. Spread RTV Silicone sealant all over the plate so that it will seal once you place it up against the bottom of the car. Place some nuts under the plates to hold the plates in place for the hoop.
13. Do the same for the wheel well bolts now.
14. Once plates are on all feet, under the car, its time to start really bolting in the bar. We started tightening the hoop first, getting one side a decent amount, then making the opposite side identically tight.
15. After the two hoop feet are decently tight (not full), do the same for the rear feet in the wheel well.
16. From here start tightening all of the bolts until you no longer can, evenly throughout the car. A final step we did to ensure the bolts were on as tight as possible was took the impact gun to the top of the feet (in the car) while another person used the wrench to keep the nut from moving under the car.
17. After a couple of quick jolts, the bolts are as tight as possible. From here put on the remaining nuts onto the bolt so that the end result is two nuts per bolt (see picture of finished bottom)
18. Once done and ensuring that everything is torqued nicely, spread RTV Silicone along the edges of the plating under the car. You'll notice that RTV has come out since you compressed the plate against the car, creating a smoosh effect. Just be sure to spread enough around the plating so that it's as sealed as possible.
19. Once done with the sealant, the last step will be to spray the rustolium undercoating rubber spray all over the plating and bolts under the car, and inside the wheel well. This will ensure that everything is protected and sealed so you won't run into any rusting issues in the near future.
20. Once done, patch the car back up and you should be done! Be sure to touch up any scrapes or scratches that may have happened while installing the bar.

To wrap harnesses around the rollbar, I followed this video from Schroth on youtube. I'm not sure if this is the completely correct way to wrap it, but I'm sure they know their stuff.
Video

Interior Decorating - Part 3

The final step to this whole project was very time consuming, and not in the fun way like with the dry ice. I thought over the best way to really get everything painted that I wanted to, with the least amount of hassle. I originally thought of foam brushes and flat black Rustolium paint from a can, but decided that taping up the car with painters tape and spraying it down seemed the easiest way to go. I'm not really looking for immaculate quality in the first place, just something to change the 5 color scheme I had going on in the back and trunk. If you are looking to make the rear and trunk pretty and very well detailed, I'm not sure what it would entail in terms of maybe needing primer, or a better sanding then just the scuff pad I used, but for what I'm looking for it is probably above and beyond what I'm looking to do for just a simple touch up.With the help of my friend Lou, we took a couple of hours taping up half the car with the blue painters tape. We made sure that the wires, carpet edge, power plant frame cover, strut bar, seatbelts, seatbelt bar, door sils, and the plastic speaker covers were taped up nicely while taping around the edges of the trunk to focus on just the inside compartment and around it (not the trunk walls) and along the side of where the wheel well meets the rear quarter panels (which is usually hidden by the interior plastic that is the arm rest for passengers). The last thing before painting that was done was the removal of the OEM body braces (the two bright silver shiney braces that sit behind the passenger seats) so it would not be in the way and I could paint it separately.

Once that was all completed, I took some professional grade Rustolium flat black spray cans and went to town on the car. Didn't take too long of consistent slow motions along the areas that needed paint, and only took me 2 full cans. Just be weary of the fumes as even having everything open for ventilation and a mask, it still was very strong.

After letting the car sit in the garage for over 24 hours with everything open and the garage door half open, the paint was dry. Still a bit of a smell (that I used frebreeze on, silly as it sounds) but it should be okay enough that you can take away all of the painters tape. Becareful removing the tape from wires as I noticed it got pretty sticky and I thought I was almost going to yank the wire off if I kept pulling like I was. The end result was just what I wanted. Simple and clean. Not perfect as I noticed some small spots that were covered by a wire or something else, but as I mentioned, all I really wanted was to make it one color and make it cleaner. Time consuming, but this was a fun project with a good turnout. Looks like the car is now ready for the rollbar install! Stay tuned.

Interior Decorating - Part 1

I was feeling a little better today so I decided to move forth with one of my other projects; preparing the rear of the car for the rollbar. I wanted to modify the carpet so that there was no longer carpet in the rear, as it really looked half done and not appealing. Then, I wanted to remove the sound deadening tar for weight savings, as well as having it so that the rollbar bolts down to metal directly and not metal – to tar – to metal.
Big ups to Lou for helping me out with this project as I got to see some of his handy blade work. We removed the carpeting first with careful cuts due to the wires under the carpet around that area. After that, we removed the foam that was under the carpet. Then we went over the cuts to make sure it looked as clean as possible. Once done there, we were ready to remove the tar, so we went on over to Brookline Ice & Coal for some dry ice.

WARNING For those of you who don’t know, dry ice can be fatal. Try to avoid breathing in the fumes of the dry ice, especially from the core as those fumes are the most poisonous. Don’t touch it with your skin as it will be instant freezer burn. If you’re handling it with gloves and you feel a hot sensation, not the typical cold feeling, immediately drop it as whatever protection you are using is not thick enough. For the project you’ll need

• We Bought 10 lb of dry ice slabs (above) for the entire trunk, and a bit of the rear floor with some left to spare.
• Hammer or Rubber Mallet
• Chisel
• Thick Leathery Gloves
• Painting Mask

1. Break up the ice into decent sized pieces and settle it on top of the tar
2. Try and cover as much tar as possible with the dry ice, and if you need more just break it into smaller pieces. NOT too small as it will evaporate faster and be less effective
3. After 15 minutes you’ll notice the tar start to turn light in color, meaning it has become brittle. Here is where you want to remove the ice and place it on another piece of tar, and grab your trusty hammer
4. Beat on the tar with the hammer in various spots until you notice it to start cracking and shatter
5. From there, I used the hammer to loosen the tar from the metal if I had to, but the rest of the way I used the chisel or back of the hammer to pull at the tar
6. Repeat this process for all the various tar patches in the car
7. For the tar patch that goes from the trunk and ends at a slant behind where the passenger seats would be, set as much dry ice as possible near the edge. The fumes will do a waterfall effect over the edge and slowly work into the tar, making it brittle enough to remove with a chisel after. Will take longer than the usual 15 minutes (took us 30- give or take)
8. For the floor tar, you want to save this one for when you have other things to do right after. I say that because this one took the longest for us, as we needed roughly an hour or more of thick blocks to stay on the floor tar, allowing you to do other things meantime. We’re not sure why it took so much longer, and even then it was still a bit of a pain to remove. It had all sort of extra adhesive to it that I had to chisel out which took me some extra time.

Once you’re done you’ll notice there is a bit of residue left over from the tar patches all around the car. I’m saving that for part 2, but I think a wire sponge and some adhesive remover (maybe industrial googone?) should be able to do the trick here.

After the project though, we weighed how much the bag of tar was along with the feeling of how much heavier the shop vacuum became after taking all the little pieces. Give or take, we shaved off 15-20lb, and there is still plenty under the front seats that run along to the front of the car! Stay tuned for Part 2 of this project, that I'm hoping to start tomorrow.

Strapped In!

Installed these new belts before the last event, but I wanted to make sure I had some good pictures before posting on the blog. These are the 6 Point (only 4 for now, 5 and 6 go in on track days) CamLock Pro Harnesses from G-FORCE Racing Gear in red, pull down type.

Quick review of the belts, they feel absolutely amazing. I get even more feedback from the car, while not having to worry about applying more pressure of my left foot down onto the dead pedal to keep myself steady. I'm strapped in comfortably, and can just focus on driving and the course, so it's a really good advantage to have. Can't wait to mount these to the roll bar I have coming soon..so stay tuned for that!
Installing is a breeze, just becareful with the bolts as I learned the hard way in the middle of the tech line at the event (big thanks again to Bob for the save). The way I did it, is to bolt the lap belts at the mounting point for the seat rails in the rear, UNDER the rail. Don't do the seatbelt rail that holds the OEM belts, nor bolt OVER the seat rail. For the shoulder belts, I bolted to the rear seatbelt lock locations (NOT good for the track, thus why I'm getting a roll bar). I've seen some buy the latch for the shoulder straps and latch it to the child safety bars in the rear, as well as get anchor bolts for the seat mounts and latch the lap belts to those. I personally prefer to have a firm, solid mount for the safety equipment to ensure it's not moving anywhere.

Just a heads up, for anyone who thinks these look completely baller or JDM... They do, but they're not for the street at all. So please, don't think I got this for looks on the street. These are purely for track/autocross events and should not be used on the street. The reason is because you are completely limiting your turning radius of your head and body to look at any oncoming cars. If you get hit hard you're probably going to get whiplash. The worse of them all is if you have it a bit too loose, or improperly installed, you can easily submarine and snap your spine. I don't usually emphasize on what you should and shouldn't do, but I'm pretty firm about this as this can be very safe on the course, yet very very dangerous elsewhere.

More Interior Decorating

Decided to finish what we had started at Josh's not that long ago and really paint the center console trim. If you remember from my old post, we had simply sprayed piano black colored paint and were done with it. Came out nice, but still had some nicks and bubbles. Today, we sanded it down to make it extra smooth and get rid of the nicks, then decided to paint it flat black to try and match the interior. The results were nothing less then amazing. It looked stock and looked great as you can see from the pictures.

Since we had the center console off, I needed to adjust my side brake as well, so that as I pull it up, I'm not pulling to a 90 degree angle. Also patched up two small rust spots where the doors meet at the bottom sill, I guess that is common with 04.

Lastly, we took off my rear appearance package. Was not really feeling the look, it's a different approach, plus I noticed a lot of Japanese tuners leave the rear alone and just use side skirts and a front bumper or something. In my opinion, it looks GREAT. It really helps accent my wider tires and my camber in the rear, while showing off more of the appearence package on the side and front, as taking it off gives the car more shape. No pictures of that now, but check back soon for pictures of it on other posts!

Interior...Downgrade?

Tonight was a nice get together with Josh, James, and Oleg, along with some new faces (Scott and his brother Tony). I had decided to swap out the black and tan leather for either all black leather or the dark gray and black cloth. I really preferred getting cloth because the racing seats I'll be getting at some point are cloth, and the interior not only feels more comfertable then leather, it all also has a nice color to it I think. Got someone who was interested in trading black leather, but when I got a message from someone I met at a car meet not long ago, ready to do cloth ASAP, I was on the scene.
Got to Scott's brother's house a little after six where Scott's car was ripped apart in the garage already with Josh there. They started working at it at around five apparently, but were stuck at the steering wheel, in which we needed a steering wheel claw tool (the RX8club DIY said we didn't need it originally). I'm going to list the steps of everything we went through so incase someone runs into this you can follow the steps. The only things I can't provide is socket sizes but I'm sure you can figure that out.. It can't be that hard.

1. Roll up one of the cars to the garage and disconnect the negative on the battery. Let it stand for 30 min (At least that's what we did) so that when you're playing with the front seats and steering wheel, the airbag won't blow up in your face.

2. Meanwhile, waiting for the front seats and all, you can start with the rear seats. Pull up at the bottom cushion and literally pull out towards you. Then unbolt the two bolts holding down the backrest cushion at the bottom. After doing so, lift up on the cushion and push upward to "unhook" then pull away.

3. The front seats are held in by four bolts on the ground that are covered by plastic coverings. Just pull away the coverings to get to the bolts. First though, you want to disconnect the connectors under the seats to make sure the Airbag's are unplugged and heated seats (If you have leather). Then unbolt the seats one by one and lift out.

4. The steering wheel is relatively easy, just be careful. There are screws under the steering wheel that hold the horn/airbag into place. Unscrew those, then carefully pull out the horn assembly. You will then need to unclip the orange and yellow clip that power off the airbag. Once that is done, you can use the steering wheel claw tool to pull out the steering wheel. James knew how to do it, and even watching him I was still a bit confused, but I'm sure if you have time and play with it, you can figure it out!

5. The body panels themselves are held on very easily. The back one you just pry off, just be sure to lift the scuff guard at the bottom up enough and the rubber seal about the door. The rear door is held on by 3 screws. one is behind the door opener handle (lift the small circular guard) and the other behind the grasping handle, just need to take the top off of the handle. After that, lift and pull hard because of the body clips. Lastly, the front, you need to unscrew the door opener handle, then pull back on the panel. Be careful, you have a lot of connectors behind it for the windows, the door lights and all. So do this with your partner and unhook everything before lifting up on the panel and removing it the rest of the way.

6. Lastly, if you are swapping for heated leather seats (Like Scott did), you will need to remove the small center console where the shift boot and heater buttons lie. Simply turn the shift knob until it comes it, then grasp the shift boot and pull up hard. This will remove that panel and reveal the two small black and white connectors for the heated seat buttons.

There you have it! Now just go backwards and swap everything out. The whole process took us a little over 5 hours...including pizza, good laughs, and cold weather. Well worth it in the end! All pics are taken from Josh and posted at Mazda's 247, right here.