It's good to have a non-set amount of time to do things with.

When I started my project, the car had already been sitting for years, so nobody expected the car to move except me. There were no dependencies or expectations, just a car in a driveway, and if it ever gets running again, great.

It took me 4 years and more than $4k but I got it back on the road It's been very rewarding to drive a car that I put so much time and effort into. Especially considering that when I started I knew absolutely nothing about cars, and even less about this unique "rotary" thing. Now I could practically rebuild the car blindfolded!

Jon

 

Here's an update of where I am now.



I started on the passenger side, just because. I'm leaving the driver side intact so that if I have a problem with re-assembly, I can compare.



Using a couple DeWalt twisted wire wheels, a drill, angle grinder, and the POR-15 Marine Clean stuff, I took off 23 years of road grime, as well as whatever finish the factory put under it. I'm taking it down to bare metal for the POR-15 treatment. Depending on the finish of the POR-15, I will either paint over it or leave it be. I'm hoping to have all the grime and grease completely off by tomorrow evening, and hopefully will apply the POR-15 on Tuesday afternoon. Here's a bit of a close-up:

 

Originally a PM, but had some much good info I wanted to post it on the forum.
I'll try to answer your questions.

I think when you say front plate, you're really talking about the front cover. Am I right?

Why don't I tell you the way I would do this project. I think that would be easier for me to think my way through it so it doesn't come out sounding random and incoherent.

I'd get a GSL-SE pan because it fits. Also the RB front cover mount for 13B into 12A chassis. A GSL-SE front mount won't work because it's the same as the 12A. Mazda actually changed the motor mount location on the chassis for the GSL-SE cars. Not an easy thing for most mechanics to do correctly as their are alignment and level issues to deal with.

For the front cover, everyone always recomends the GSL-SE front cover and OMP ad naseum. Why? Because it's the only 1st gen front cover that has an OMP with four oil lines. It makes sense since the S4 and S5 have two sets of oil injectors; one set in the rotor housings and the other set in the manifold intake runners.

That's all beginner's stuff/entry level thinking. I can turn you on to some info that may make life a whole lot easier for you. There are basically two types of oil injectors. Ones with large holes and ones with small holes. The large hole type can be found on FDs, 13BREs and 20Bs because they only had one oil injector per rotor housing and nothing in the manifold. This will allow you to use the whatever 1st gen front cover you may have lying around with the 12A OMP and its two oil lines!! This will save tons of search time/money/head scratching etc. What's more, since you're using an aftermarket ECU, there is none of the complicated wiring for the stepper motor in the electronic S5 OMP to worry about, which you won't even need anyway.

Steve84TII had to graft an entire S5 ECU+wiring+this and that to get his red 1st gen to pass CA emissions. I don't envy what he had to do in certain areas (like a 3" exhaust into a 2.25" Primaflow muffler = horrible restriction!). Other parts turned out nice or unique like his reverse hood scoop etc. I assume you won't need to deal with emissions.

The next thing on the list is the turbo oil return. Some say to use an '84-'85 12A front cover because it already has the undrilled casting for the 12A turbo oil return fitting right near the OMP. I say don't bother, unless you have one lying around. Atkins recommends their SC oil return fitting location to be down below the OMP near where the heat shield L bent bracket sits where it's kinda level. I've posted pics of some of my engines where I drilled and tapped that location for a future SC install, and just plug it with an NPT plug for the time being. Have you seen any of those pictures? My most recent one was the 4 port 13B that's going into my red REPU.

You need to keep the 12A tranny in the car while fitting the engine to make sure the engine and tranny are located properly. Then and only then should you do the tranny swap. If you don't do it in this order, you'll wonder why some things don't align correctly. I recently corrected this problem in my white REPU where the person who originally installed the 5 speed botched the tranny mount and the engine was too far back causing the drive shaft to crash into the tranny killing two sets of u-joints in only a few thousand miles. After it was corrected I rewelded the exhaust. It's time consuming - you don't want to do your exhaust twice.

Again you only need to keep the OMP from the S5 on there if using the stock S5 ECU. You could also run it without the wires connected and maybe manually open it to like half way or something. It would have too much oil at idle and not enough at WOT, but at least it would inject some. However the casting and mount points are different on S5 front covers, so it's moot.

Maybe there is a way to graft an S4 OMP rod onto your S5 TB? Hmm, actually the S5 TB faces the other direction, doesn't it? There's still probably a way, if it's important to you. Atkins recommends just jacking the OMP open to the 9 or 11 o'clock position and leaving it with their SCs. It's not ideal but it saves having to use premix.

There is a procedure for swapping front covers. Others on the forum might be a little better at explaining it to you than me since I tear them all the way down and build them back up.

 

Glad you put that up Jeff. Anybody else care to expand on it?

 

Its going around this year, I pulled three 12as and sold them so far, two of the cars will return with new powerplants, good luck on the build, do something every day and the project will not sit around and die