I've got a good handle on what to swap on the rear of the car, but how much can I reuse in terms of 12A ground control springs, struts, and sway bars? With the SE swap, do you only swap spindles and brake lines?

 

u dont even need the break lines...

-greg

 

Pull the whole rear end unless you have an 84 or 85 rear end already, and unless I'm mistaken, then you can just pull the axles, brake stuff. If you already have rear disk, then you don't need to swap out the brake lines. Otherwise, yes, swap over the brake lines as well.

 

What do you have now?

 

I currently have a GSL but figured the calipers would be different, so do I swap backing plates and axles or the whole rear axle assembly? I'd think the whole LSD-axle-hub assembly would be easier to swap. My main concern is the front, though. I want the SE hubs, so how much needs to be swapped? Can I reuse my springs, struts (tokico illuminas) and sway bar?

 

You are in luck... since you have an '85 disc rearend already. you only need to change the rear axles themselves along with the backing plates and obviously calipers and rotors. You should already have an LSD however you have 3.91 gears instead of the 4.08 that come with the GSL-SE. You might want to install the whole axle assembly just to make life easier, since you are probably going thos so you can fit big slow wheels to your car.

In the front you only *need* to swap the rotors and backing plates/calipers. Again, because you are starting with an '85 in the first place.

 

Is the different SE offset because of spindles or rotors? Would i still get the different offset by just swapping rotors and calipers?

 

Yeah, just put your feet though the floor boards when you wanna stop .

~T.J.

 

How much trouble to switch to 5lug 2nd gen brakes?

 

It's due to the rotors in the front, and the axles in the rear.

The rear axlehousings are the same, and in the front... people put -SE rotors on 12A strut housings with no problem. I've heard some people whining that they can't put 12A rotors on -SE housings... the -SE spindle is allegedly *slightly* longer. I never bothered to measure the difference.

The increased track width IMO is one of the disadvantages of -SE brakes, since it requires weird-offset wheels.

 

weird as in the same offset that every accord in the word runs?

 

But then you have to use Accord wheels, and who would want that?

BTW - My mom's Accord had 4x100 lugs IIRC, most new ones aren't even 4 lug anymore...

 

As to your springs and struts and swaybars, your car should be able to mount springs exactly as on the SE without any modification. On the struts, however, the SE had different front struts, IIRC, and a quick look through Mazdatrix or Racing Beat should point this out for you. The swaybars use the same mounts front and rear and there are not differences between SE and non-SE models, other than size of the bars.

I moved RB springs from my 80LS to my 84SE without any problems at all, and then installed Tokico blues all around - SE specific on the front (could be 81-85 specific, however), and swapped out the Koni front bar and rear adjustable bar without any problems at all.

Be advised that if you change out the whole SE rear end, including the diff that the brake hose fittings will be different on your frame than the standard SE hoses. I read about this in Mazda Performance Handbook, and the author stated that you'd need to have a hose shop put your old fitting on the SE hose that goes to the frame brake line to get this to work - either that, or retap threads, but given the critical nature of brakes, I'd just get the right hose built up. HTH,

 

The bars are the same size, too.

The strut cartridges are physically the same for all '81-up stuff.

All '81-up have the same hose pitch. You're remember back when you were trying to fit FB parts onto your SA... SA's had the weird thread pitch, all '81-up cars have "normal" pitch.

 

The rear axle seems pretty straightforward, but I'm stil unclear about the front. I've got a junk SE donating to my GSL - how much of the front suspension needs to go? I remember hearing in another thread (v8killr) that there was a control arm that needs to be transplanted, but the pictures are dead links. I want to keep my sway bar, springs and struts, so how much else do I need to pull from the SE? Sorry if I'm repeating myself, I'm just unclear.

 

There is no control arm that needs transplanted. SE stuff is the same stuff as '84-85 12A stuff except for the brakes and the strut cartridge.

 

Since the front rotors are all one-piece with the hub, will I need to pull everything out of the spindle and repack the bearings, or just swap spindles or what?

 

You don't *have* to swap spindles. Read above again. The 12A spindle is (allegedly, I never bothered to measure) slightly shorter than the 13B spindle but the GSL-SE rotors will work on the 12A spindle OK.

IMO you're making this seem far too difficult. Just get out there with wrenches flying, and it will make sense when you have the parts out in front of you.

 

Okay, just don't want to miss anything. The car's gotta get scrapped ASAP and I don't want to be slapping myself in the face later. Thanks.

 

what kinda work is involved in doing the se swap into a 83 gs?

 

IN a nutshell, you unbolt your nice light rearend and your front strut assemblies and you bolt in the GSL-SE stuff. You can even reuse your '83 driveshaft, since '83 was the first year for the different driveshaft flange bolt pattern.