Took a while to get to this point. The black chassis paint needs to be redone, already flaking off the self etching primer. At least it’s not rusty. Still need to cut down the 10.9 13mm head m8’s for the driveshaft.





edit, def recommend bel-metric for odd ball onesie and twosie things. Other than the super wide flange Mazda spec m6’s they have a large variety of stuff. Just picked up some high pressure 8mm fuel hose and high pressure clamps.

 

Great tip on Bel-Metric for bolts and fasteners. Looks like a handy site.

 

Fixed my turn signal. A broken wire from the housing made it work randomly when driving over bumps.
Not only is the rapid click annoying, it's the only thing that makes me worry about passing inspection.

I thought I'd have to cut out the bulb socket, but the contacts pop out of the housing.
A pack of 25 crimp-on terminals cost $10, but since this is the only time I've had to do this, I went for a $4 Dorman kit.
I only used the wires in the kit and soldered them to the factory wiring. hopefully it's a permanent fix.

 

I was losing clutch fluid. New slave cylinder installed. That should be that!

 

Did you clean and flush the master/lines too? Generally when one of these cylinders fails the other is on its way out too. Cleaning/flushing can extend it but the master and the flex hose are cheap so folks tend to do a full "refresh".

 

Harris hill?

 

Harris hill?

 

yep, bumpy-bumpy Harris Hill Raceway

 

We stacked the plates and housings today

 

I made door cards for under $60 not including tools

 

I wanted to see if ChatGPT was really scouring the web, so I asked it "What would it take to swap a 13B into a 1981 RX-7?"
Nothing about swapping 84-85 front cover, oil pan, and crossmember that's been answered for decades, just generic garbage about measuring the engine and the engine bay, and needing custom mounts.
I also asked "What's the thickness of a 12A engine apex seal?" and it couldn't answer that.
I don't see what's the big deal. Perhaps LMGTFY needs to be combined with it.

 

Not too much. Reassembly.

 

Track day at Circuit of the Americas.
Might as well have been my first day all over again because that was 5 years ago.
Slowest car there by far but was popular in pit lane.
To get better feel out of the brakes I choked down vacuum to the booster but I think it needs more because trail braking wasn't easy to feel out. Or I should switch in a single diaphragm booster.

 

I replaced the front speakers with NVKs bought on ebay for a good price. The rears were done last fall NVKs same size as OEMs. The 40 year old sound system is working very well and pumps out gorgeous sound with the clarion amp, equalizer combo. I tried replacing the belt in the cassette deck but chose wrong size and it plays in ff. I have other sizes, (if i knew the stock size length), but don't have time to chase that issue. I replaced the rubber trim around my drivers side tail light with OEM 9mm gasket and am looking for new tail light for passenger side. Mine is OK, but "crizzling" micro cracks are showing on the inside surface. Last major expense was last fall when i had to replace the front struts because the tower tops split out. I used OEM instead of going for coilovers.

 

Had to make these damn rear spats work by cutting, shaping, etc. The next pair I make will be better. Put the louvers back on with better mounting hardware as well.... I know I'm missing some small things but overall she's running great.

 

After twenty-seven years my racing Beat strut bar was starting to show it's age (wasn't a fan of the white as it doesn't age well.) So had it powder-coated gloss black as it goes well with the color of my car, and it turned out rather well.


New Color for the strut bar

Installed

 

While I didn't actually do anything on the SA, I did acquire something quite exciting - new paint! Goal is to hopefully paint the car early this summer, but we'll see if plans change or not. Sticking with the factory Stardust Blue Metallic (U2) and I'm extremely excited to finally do some cosmetic things on the SA.

I've also been fortunate to find some U2 body panels from a local junkyard, including a rust-free hood, top bumper cowl, and more. Even got a new passenger seat and dome light! I'll save more detail for the build thread (because there's a lot more) but just wanted to share something since it's been a while.







Cheers and happy rotoring! Looking forward to this warmer weather.

 

put on this cool IMSA style banner. Needs to be shaped different IMO but not bad I suppose.

 

A bit ago I found out someone had self tapped the fuel level sender to the fuel tank, and gas was wicking up the threads and out of the screw holes that were now drilled. Motoseal slowed it down but it still seeped gas.

I picked up some 4mm bolts and nuts. Going from inside the tank, I placed the bolts sticking out, luckily without dropping any of them inside. Rubber bands helped to keep them from falling in as I put the sender back on. Then I used a vice grip to hold the bolt threads still as I tightened the nuts with a tiny 7mm wrench in a criss-cross pattern.

Bolting it that way seems to have sealed it up so far.

 

Replace all shift boots. Since I've had the car they've all been torn, lower boot had separated from the shifter.
It feels different, more resistant and rubbery but still precise.

 

Swapped over to a manual ECU (n249) on my manual swapped 84 GSL. I was surprised that is made big difference in driveability and performance. Glad to figure out some things on this manual swapped car.

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Painted the bumper strips for that base model JDM look.
I didn't do it when the paint was fresh years and years ago because I was afraid I'd mess up on the masking, which did happen a little.

 

I narrowed my cruise control problem down to the speed sensor. I took the gauge cluster out, also hoping to fix the tach that suddenly stopped working in the summer heat.

The board and screws were very corroded and many of the screw connections failed continuity testing with a multimeter.

I went 1 by 1 removing the screws, nuts, bulbs,lightly sanded the pcb contacts with a piece of sos pad until shiny, then swabed with rubbing alcohol. Then I used a battery brush to clean up the screws and washers. I did that until each connection had continuity.

Lastly the headlight reminder/coolant low warning buzzer is dead but the redline buzzer still works, so my free quick fix was to just wire that circuit to the redline buzzer, I tested it with a 9v battery and it seems to work fine.

 

I pissed off half of Reddit by lowering the RX7 even further. More suspension pieces coming later to rectify the less-than-fun ride characteristics, but still not all that bad.

 

I got the cluster back in, the cruise control now works perfectly for the first time since I've owned the car. So in my case it was the speed sensor in the cluster that had no continuity until the corrosion was cleaned away.

Please disregard the above wiring I did for cluster buzzer, it's not a good way to do it I figured out.

The Tach still doesn't work, I applied a 9v battery directly to the needle wiring and it would bounce but in the car nothing. I don't think it's the trailing coil as the fuel pump still works perfectly, I also tried hooking it up to the the leading coil, didn't make a difference. I used a multimeter in ac mode as most sites indicated to probe the tach signal wire. The voltage seemed to correlate with rpm changes but it was averaging around .130 volts at idle, I'm not sure if that's a normal reading for ac mode or if that indicates a weak output. I didn't see anything obvious on visual/continuity inspection of the tach's circuit board, so it's hard to say what's wrong.