need some advice on preferably plug and play replacement bumpers options for the car. Will R3 bumper fit without any mods? What are the aftermarket options?

I also need driver side halogen headlight. dealer has them but they want 800 for it - ouch..slim pickings on the ebay, mostly S1 headlights.

any advice how to straighten bend on the aluminum without cracking the hood?

here is the pic of the damage

 

An R3 bumper will fit. The hood from an S2 will fit, I doubt yours is repairable. Yes, a new oem 09-11 headlight is about $800.00 for a non HID. Try paul@mazmart.com, he may have one off of a wrecked 8.

 

Paper work is sent to Richmond DMV, hopefully they will not drag their feet to long.

Before:





After:



It turned out pretty good for my beginner body repair "expertise" and painting with spray cans. Red paint is $$, especially tri-coat like on mine. She will be weekend fun car and not the garage queen so I wasn't after perfection (Hi Justin!).

In the end I didn't need to replace any body panels (I plastic welded the bumper), just the headlight, wheel and some trim plastic pieces for bumper and wheel-liner. It also needed new rear control arm link but that was only $35 from mazda and took 30 min to replace. Will probably need to align it since it took pretty big hit to the front left wheel(one I replaced).

I also managed to get the repair assessment report from the insurance company that totaled the car. They listed all new parts for the repair(hood,bumper,fender,oil cooler,headlight, 2 wheels, radiator support, etc.) to the tune of $10,000 which pushed the car over threshold. They paid out $16,500 for it so I think I got pretty good deal :-).

I also gave it a proper tune up. Only few things left to take care of before the track: alignment, transmission fluid, flush the brakes and put the track pads on it.

One question regarding the track tires. Still have set of NT01s from my previous rx8. They have several track weekends on them and have been sitting in my basement for the past 2 years, maybe 4-5 years old(will check the mfg date). What is their usable life time wise?