Hello Rx7 club. I am a new forum member. I have a 1980 1st gen with a bad radio. I can't figure out what radio to stick in there to replace it. I'm sure somebody has tackled this issue before. I am trying to spend a small amount of money in order to get some kind of sounds going in there. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

Welcome to the forum and the Darkside. In my sig line is a link to the online FSMs, carb manual and other rotary related reading. Download what ever you need and read read read.

As far as replacing the head unit in your stereo system, that choice is up to you. If you plan on doing the install yourself, many members pick up the adapter kits from Crutchfields.
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You can use pretty much anything you want. You just need to get a mounting bracket and harness. Take a look at www.crutchfield.com. They send those with any deck you order specifically for your car.

 

For quality and price, I would recommend a Pioneer.

Good luck, and welcome to the Forum.

 

Just be aware that ANY non-stock radio you mount will require you to chop out the brakets on the console frame, behind the plastic console cover panel, as well as the cover itself
So there's no easy way to go back to stock. Its a one-way street. You could mount a deck in the area BELOW the radio (square cut out for optional cassette deck). There "should" be sufficient room to mount there and there is no metal in the way to have to chop. But again you will have to cut up the radio console cover panel. FWIW I do see the 79-80 radios pop up on ebay a few times a year for $15-30 range. 99% of the time these are working just fine - for me (with my working radio) I just got an iPod adapter and upgraded the speakers, so great tunes and no chopping. 'Course, its playing thru the radio
Only mention all this if you have a nice 80 RX as the trim bits are getting harder to come by and i always hate to see someone do an irreversable chop-job where something more elegant might be done w/out cutting...
Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

 

Is there a picture of the 1980 radio? I can't seem to find one. I took out a non-working Yamaha radio today. The face plate was not cut up. I think I'd like to go the factory radio route.
Tony Hansen

 

Do other Mazda or other makes and models use the same radio as the 1980 RX7?

 

Excuse me, but I don't know the proper name of the little cubby hole below the radio.

I see it has what looks like a three prong electrical connector on the back. Mazda went to extra expense and effort to put it there. What does it do, why is there?

Tony Hansen

 

When I did the head unit on my '80 I just went to the junkyard and found an extra panel. I then cut that panel with a dremel enough to get a din sized head unit mount in there. All of the wiring had been previously spliced (my dad years ago took it to a shop to install a tape deck) so I just had to splice on the wiring harness. Not very hard but takes a little time to find all of the correct wires. It is relatively easy thing to do and will give you a good stereo in these old cars. Good luck and welcome to the forum.

 

I noticed that too years ago. My only guess is that mazda had the optional tape deck there so when the connector hung down they didn't want to leave it just hanging there if the tape deck was not installed, this way they could just plug it into there and leave it and it wouldn't be swinging around behind there. That is just a guess though.

 

Yeah, the radio in my 84 doesn't tune. I can only tune by finagling the preset buttons.

I need to pull my radio, but it's not a high priority.