First modification on the list was the upgrading of the paint. The Japanese paint was in good condition but several chips & scratches from the previous 7-years meant touch ups where out of the question. I loved the deep classy colour but it reminded me of another Cosmo owner that left a bad taste in many peoples mouth. Yet, a colour change would prove an unwanted expense. The famous Aussie car show painter better known as GAS-250 restorations came to the party & gave the Cosmo the paint job it was worthy of. Not being a fan of the two-tone scheme from Mazda, the one colour was painted all over.

The result was another show winning job that would satisfy the cars prestige & stand out in the crowd as a classy machine to be reckoned with. Yes, everything is now the one colour & GAS-250 restorations again certify their "legend" status.

Next project on the cards was ditching the factory BBS 16's. Various 17" combinations where tried but as DMRH where in the business of selling cars, we would end up using them for another Cosmo. Mid 2003 & a Cosmo came in with these 17's pictured then sold with standard 16's as the older buyer actually preffered the "original" look. Whilst they aren't the perfect wheel/tyre combination. They sure do provide "value for money" at this stage. They are similar to the style I will get when the proper 19's are purchased & fitted, so suffice for the time being.

To add effect, the front of the car was lowered by 65mm & the rear by 15mm. The suspension is still standard at this stage as it suits my (mid 30's) tastes. My thinking is that the Cosmo is a "Touring car" & if I wanted a killer "sports car", I would have kept my "series-8" RX-7.

Now the 20B engine needed to breath & sucking through the standard air box simply wasn't enough. Next purchase was a K&N filter pod to clamp around the restrictive moving vane air flow meter. At least something is better than nothing & it still gave a noticeable gain in response aswell as improved top end power.

You can spot the factory intake pipe that fed the air box. There is an intricate tube system inside the guard & this will be modified soon. Without the air box now, I will also be removing the "Helmholtz resonator" seen sitting behind the headlight (white cylinder). Even if its a few hundred grams, I want to reduce weight where possible. I also intend to re-route the wiring to improve the eye-candy scene.

Now was the time to do something about the standard ECU. That 180kph speed cut was frustrating when you consider the Cosmo can charge like a bull for it. The boost cut had to go aswell. Preference was given to a "chipped" ECU as all the factory functions/outputs are retained. There are a few decent ECU upgrades available from various Rotary performance shops in Japan but none with the reputation of RE-Amemiya . They will spend hundreds of hours on a dyno developing the mapping for every engine. Plus have access to the best programmers around.

The ECU was plugged in & the gains where immediate. Throttle response was improved as well as big gains in top end power. In fact, the extra top end of the 20B has brought me to the conclusion that the factory fuel/ignition map is quite conservative as the difference was well worth the big money spent. A few test runs into the mid 250kph area brought a smile to my face too.

The ECU gets a piggy back board installed with its own processor to mate with the 8-bit main controller. A seperate eprom is installed for the ignition mapping. Redom is the marketing name for all the RE-Amemiya ECU upgrades.