A friend and I are building an 84 RX7 for road racing (SCCA ITA). Time is running short before our first race of the season and we're getting a little nervous about the drivetrain, or lack thereof.

We've located a donor 83-85 GSL with complete motor and 5 speed and a disk brake rear for $400.

First... is that a decent price for the whole car?

What should we check as far as the motor and tranny to tell if they are in usable shape? Any tricks that you can help out a couple of boinger converts on???? Would turning the motor over by hand with the plugs out to hear the compression give us a clue on whether the seals are good?


Thanks guys!

Scott

 

if you turn by hand and listen, you should hear a repeating rhythm that has the same sound--if so then your seals are ok

 

see if this helps,http://mrmazda.members.atlantic.net/cfaqtext.html

 

Try and talk em down. I got 2 running parts cars before for $200 and $250. But $400 is not too much for all that. I have seen the disc rear by itself go for that used.

Just my $.02

 

One of the best running 12a's I ever owned was sitting there carbon locked when I found it. The guy at the junk yard said "$100 and take your chances son". I got it home and ATF'd it, spun it backward then foward then backward and fowards about 10 more times until it made a complete cycle.
To hear the compression I always listen for 6 in a row compression pulses coming from the leading spark plug holes. It should go ChuChuChuChuChuChu while spinning. If it goes Chu---ChuChu----C-h-u -------Chu or any thing like that then its probably not healthy

 

This is all sound advice. I would follow it. I used this same advice and i know have my 85 cutting donuts again thanks to it.

dan

 

that's not too bad, you're DEFINITELY going to want the GSL LSD and disc brake rear end for ITA racing. And as for the motor, if you have a compression tester, pull the schroeder valve (so that the pressure is automatically released) and look to make sure that all THREE faces of the rotor check out ok with compression (relatively equal, and above a certain value) for both the front and rear rotor. If the car is totalled (like huge front end collision, then you can be reasonably sure the motor WAS fine when they brought it there.

One more thing, I've got a TON of parts for 1st gen RX-7's. If you've got a need for any of 'em let me know, I've got trannies and spare parts all over the place (no running engines though). Matter of fact, I'm looking to buy a TurboII from Missouri soon, and if you guys would be interested in driving it up here to Michigan for me, I could give you some spare parts, a tranny or what not.. whatever you might want.

 

Wow! Thanks for the replys guys! We ended up getting a different 85 GSL automatic (swapped with the yard for a 5 speed) because the motor we had looked at had the front 2 spark plugs removed for who knows how long!

Anyway, the yard guy said that it didn't run. We got the car home, poured a little ATF in the plug holes (which was harder than it sounded! ), turned the motor by hand and it sounded good. We decided to crank it over and the seals sounded like you guys described. We then had to figure out the spark plug wires (had none with the car) using a set of Chevy small block wires. Had spark but no gas.... Hotwired the fuel pump and the ole junkyard 12a fired right off!!!! After about 15 minutes the smoke from the atf went away and it idled and reved fine with 40-60lbs of oil pressure.

Looks like we're going racing once we get a manual flywheel, clutch and driveshaft!

 

If you can use a lightweight flywheel in ITA, the auto counterweight you have will save you a good litte bit of money, plus the hassle of impacting the nut off. I don't know the SCCA rules though.

 

So the two flywheels are the same just the auto one is lighter? I'll have to check the rules out, but that might get me through the drivers school and the first race....

It's only cheating if your fast enough to win isn't it?

 

Nah, the auto uses a flexplate, but all the aftermarket flywheels bolt up to the auto counterweight with the 6 bolts like the auto's flexplate, intead of the big 54mm nut like the factory flywheels do.

<--RB flywheel

 

Get a very short length of 1/4 or 1/2 ID hose and a small turkey baster. (US$1.98 from Wal*Mart )

Easy now, isn't it.

 

That's close to what I did, but a little less messy I'm sure

I took the only funnel we had (with a 1" exit), cut a McDonalds cup in half, curled it into the funnel to make the opening smaller, then shoved a piece of fuel line through it.

Rather "junkyard tech," but hey, it was a junkyard car!

 

The funny part was, the engine probably DIDN'T run when it got to the yard, and the ATF'ing revived it.