Ladies and Gentleman, although it isnt the biggest project in the club, i am swapping out my blown 86 N/A for an 88. Engine, tranny, and ECU will be used. Feel free to follow my epic adventure if your planning on a swap. Ill keep you guys updated on the progress, with pics i might add . BTW, anyone want an 86 blown motor, ECU, and tranny?? IT ALL STARTS THURSDAY!!

**Veterans dont laugh, the way i see this, its RX-7 meets Discovery channel .

 

Good luck with teh swap. You might want to consult my writeup on www.rotaryresurrection.com for help and pics.

In many cases it is closer to the truth to say "junkyward wars".

In others, "american hot rod".

There usually isn't much in between, sadly.

 

SO true... but my car is an interesting combination I think... more on the hot rod side (powdercoated everything, mostly stainless fasteners, sandblasted/repainted engine bay / trans tunnel / rear underbody, upgraded everything in the process, etc...) but with enough unreplacable stuff from junkyards and my old engine (like oil cooler mounts.. try finding those from Mazda) to make it too ghetto to be a show car. I didn't deem it worth the additional $5k to make pristine.

Best advice: get a Metrinch set. Perfect for getting those slightly stripped nuts off that a 12-point won't grab. My metrinch set saved my *** so many times during the (still ongoing) TII swap into my 'vert.

Second best advice: TAKE THE TIME TO BAG AND LABEL ALL FASTENERS AND BRACKETS YOU REMOVE!!! E.g. put the fasteners from the engine mounts into a bag and label it "engine mount". Trust me... its very very very much worth the time to do this later. I did it on the engine bay and did NOT do it on the suspension and wasted a lot of money and probably a full day or more finding and buying fasteners I had lost by not labeling them, jumbling them up with other fasteners, and not being able to tell which went where later. Plus I prefer to be overly cautious (basically none of that "oh it fits here so I think its the right part" bit) with my suspension and brakes...

Third best advice: buy a parts washer. You'll thank me later when you can install clean parts on your car instead of dirty crappy old ones. A sand or bead blasting booth is also very useful... I am a self-proclaimed expert at sandblasting now.

Well.. that's my $0.02. I hope my car is good enough and has enough personality and hard work in it to make an RX Tuner featured car sometime this summer when I get it all finished. We'll see.