well after acquiring this fb from a kid who when i asked him how is fb drove replied, "whats an fb i have a mazda." he also said he and his grandpa replaced plug wires and plugs and alt and all kinds of stuff so i knew something was up. the car drove ok but stumbled a lot especially at low rpm, it seemed mildly decent at upper rpm.

so i get it home and check out the ignition setup. msd box and 3 coils but one stock coil is not in use. all plug wires are coming off the dist at this point. so after lots of reading and investigating i find that he had run the spark plug wires not only to the wrong plugs but also to the wrong housings! it was ultra backwards and i have no idea how it ran like this and im sure damage was done already due to his and my own ignorance on rotary ignitions. so i decide to go back and hook up the coils to the plugs in a std msd direct fire setup and fix the trailing so its at stock spec and see what happens.

all i can say is WOW! the car used to die at idle when choke would release and sometimes at intersections, the tach was off and it had no power below 2500rpm. now it has soooo much more power down low, more power to 7k, never dies, starts way better in the mid 30* temperatures we've been having and is now a rocket ship when accelerating out of turns. i couldnt be more pleased at how large the improvement was... it doesn't misfire or have any flat spots, power band and throttle response is almost comparable to fuel injection. although this scares me because i cant stand to think what damage was being done to the engine with the previous ignition setup.

so today i acquired a relay and wired in the electric fan correctly, which the PO had wired directly to hot wire off the ignition.
now i need to get a thermostat and do a coolant flush. she just wont warm up at all in these temps even around town, I'm guessing the car doesn't have a thermostat in it or its stuck open. the temp gauge moves a tiny bit, only to the very bottom notch and won't go any higher.
all in all, i love this car. Its a rewarding experience every drive.

 

We put a new clutch in the red one, put one of the "new" spare transmissions in, swapped the good wheels and tires from the white one onto it, stripped more interior, and prepped little stuff for autox in the morning..... Oh wait you were supposed to register on Friday. Well we won't be racing it but it sure ran good and was a lot of fun around the shop.

 

nobody nothing today??? I find that hard to beleive

 

Gave mine a wax.

 

I replaced my motor mounts on the EV RX-7. I had thought I had broken the left one but that turned out to not be the case. But it was good to change them anyway. It looks like they had been changed once before with non OEM mounts. I put the correct OEM mounts back in. The ones that were in the car were rock hard and the new ones are quite compliant.

Also have been replacing the bulbs with LED's and I had what I thought were the correct bulbs for the License Plate but they were not. The ones I had obtained were 89LL compatible and the one I took out is about 1/4 the size. That bulb is labeled only Stanley 12V 6W. So does anyone know what this bulb designation really is? The owners manual doesn't say. The lookups online say it should be an 89LL but that is not true on my 85 GSL or 85 GSL-SE.

All was not lost because the bulbs I got turned out to be a great fit for the backup lights. They are a slightly brighter cool white light. Original 1156 bulbs pull 2.1 amps each and the LED replacements pull 0.039 amps. An additional 50 watts for your car stereo to use when backing up <grin>.

 

I saw a 280z on the road... I reved up and burned some rubber but he didn't chase... I was all dissapointed.

Just another ***** that "baby's there car"

 

I got snow tires and had an alignment done today. I also picked up an 83 yesterday as a parts car - so all kinds of stuff will be going on soon

 

Went down to Texas Imports Today meet with a friend of mine and his '79 280zx.
Got more looks that the Z and a couple stupid questions like always.
-_- some people........

 

Rolled over 123,000 today :-)

 

Identified my clutch leak to the master cylinder and at least part of it is inside the passenger compartment. I figured I would be able to smell it. DOT 3 has a distinctive odor. But the previous owner smoked and I cant smell it over that.

Time to order a master cylinder.

 

haha I just bought a master/slave clutch cylinder today.

I love my parts guy... in stock $60 out the door

 

finished my ASE tests and am now master certified... not directly related to my FB per say, but the bonus check from my work will be goin towards new parts

 

The nice thing about a 60+lb skidplate is that I just plow right over downed branches in the road without slowing down

Ha ha, tree chunks! You won't get my oil cooler this time! *WHAM* Sayonara, sucker!

 

had a bit of fun with an FD on the way into work this morning, thing was a mint stocker. also trying to figure out what on earth the rattling is inside the car that's driving me insane.... :P

 

car was under water last I heard (yesterday). Today is payday and the day I was sposd to take it through inspection. I'll go see it today as soon as my check arrives here at work. If it is still driveable, Ill run it through inspection real quick so i will be allowed to park it at home (where it woulda been safe from sandy, so **** you neighbors).

Ill post more later.

 

Hope everything is ok!! Been watching you build since joining this forum, love the car, hope she's alright!

I took mine out for its second to last drive of the year. Sad, sad trip. But it will all be ok coming out of storage in a few short months with a few necessary upgrades

 

thanks! just got paid, so I am leaving work (thanks to a ride lol) going to survey the damage. she should be alright, my son said the water line was near the bottom of the door. Im hoping it means below the floor pan but we will see. if it got into the floor then my ECU is probably toast, but its all irrelevant till I get to see her. Like I said, if she starts then Ill take her through the inspection lane. once I got blue and gold on her *** end then I can finish teh damn thing without random fines and fees associated with neighbors calling the cops every day for it being untagged

 

^^^ hopefully the electronics are ok, I'd hold the neighbors solely responsible for all water damage!

Did a little routine fuel filter replacement today. I was getting a bit of fuel cut at wot in 3rd around 75mph, can't be having that... The fuel that came out of the old filter was brown and gross. Guess for now I have to keep the tank above 1/8th or the filter is gonna get some debris to work with.
Gonna go take her out for a nice drive in the twisties

 

Home from work and stuck the suckers in.

 

no issues with the water. I seen the line on the wheels but it never hit the bottom of the car except my torquearm and some exhaust.

so the drama happened after I got to the DMV. I waited for 90 minutes and had to shut down every time we moved so it wouldnt overheat. Anyhway, since I was next in line I left the motor running. then as he waves me into the inspection bay I smell something electrical and look down to a small fire on my center console. so I shut the car down against the guys wishes. thenhe said well I guess you failed the tailpipe test. I said yeah Im not starting it again till I leave. so he says lets try your lights and nothing.,all the wires in the center console are toasted.

Anway, I found the source of that fire and fixed all the wires and connectors so it wont happen again once I got home.

So looks the vin onthe car and says, "this is an illegal vin" of course my loud mouth tried to explain why the vin is wrong according to their computer. he says no,the vin is wrong becuase the car is stolen,which it is not and I know that for a fact. Then they site me for not having a catalytic convertor. I then explain to him the car never came with one. his response was "yes it did, i been doing this when you werent born yet, it even says so in the computer" I simply tell him his computer is wrong because my RX7 came with a thermal reactor. he also states that every american car after 1975 has cats, well this isnt even an american car.

then after all that he says well it doesnt matter because you have performed and illegal after market engine swap.Uh,NO MR IDIOT! DE Law states that the engine swap laws do not exist prior to 1980 hence the reason I bought this damn SA22C.

So I was assigned a date with the county sheriff at the DMV bright and early tomorrow morning. they are going to discuss whether or not my car is illegal or not. I mean really it blows cleaner than the 12a ever dreamed of so whats the ******* problem. even his partner was like"dude,let it go man,look a tit this took a ton of work to do"

He also got me for not having a carboncanistor installed. oops, I nevergot around tothat part. sotruely my bad.

so the bad news if the sheriff says its a clean car than I can get a 15 day pass, but will require a 12a swap to pass. and on top of that the T-tag wont keep the county away from trying to scrap the car.

Im just gonna sell it. open to offers guys.

 

Installed the energy suspension sway bar end links from racingbeat. Big improvement, considering that before they werent hooked up. Tommorow change some gaskets and fine tune.

 

Holy **** man this is one of the worst things I have ever heard.
You're too far away :'(

 

Went over the car again.
Bled brakes.
Found issue with master/booster/somewhere.
Threw stuff and cussed a lot.
Ordered parts.
Removed master cylinder and capped off booster.

 

Does the pedal go all the way down and still not stop the car? If so itd be either the brake booster or the vacuum line from the brake booster.

 

ok, got the electricdal situation completed. I now have a legitimate light switch so that wont blow bulbs no mo. I found out it was the head light switch combo setup I was using that melted into fire. so, that had to go. Still need to figure out the horn on wheel thing so I will simply weld bar stock over the outer case of the steering shaft. it'll have a hole in it with a floating copper piece simlar to the original except all will be steel and welded instead of plastic. This also

I also came up with a plan to fix the other two issues the addressed. I will rig up a charcoal canster setup so they will be happy, and in reality it is a good thing I just wasnt aware that it was needed or important till I read up on it. (small things you forget when building from scratch). I am also going to have an exhaust shop weld in some high flow cats. they should help quiet the car some and maybe even make it mild on the streets.

All this just pushed back my goal of getting a heater installed in this thing. honestly Im hoping the sheriff just gives me a get it fixed notice so I can have the timeto do it. my neighbors will be pissed when they see the paper in the window saying its allowed in my driveway (dicks)