RX7Club.com - Mazda RX7 Forum - My $600T2 project.

Because I have an incredibly understanding and wonderful fiancee' who loves 7s (and because I'm restoring her 'vert :)), I've been given the go-ahead on modding the T2.

Since AaronCake started the "links to members projects" thread, I figured I'd start my own.

Here she is... I have yet to name her:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...2/PC060002.jpg

She's originally a Canadian car, so when I bought her, she had 177k KMs on her.

Other than the carpets being dirty, the interior is perfect:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...2/PC060005.jpg

I bought her from a car dealer near where we got Lynn's Expedition. I drove her truck up one day to get the CD changer fixed, and saw S4 taillights. (At least I know my vision is still good.) Pulled in strictly to see if it was a T2. Saw the hood, and went inside. Luckily for me, the dealer had taken it in on trade, didn't want to put a dime into it, and sold it to me for $600.

Drove it home, no real problems, except the factory radio didn't work, and it has an irritating, surging idle. (You know, idle, idle, idle, vroooom, idle, idle, idle, vroooom)

I inspected it at the dealer. Took the bins out, no rust. Put it on the lift, no rust. There are, however, rust spots on both rear fenders, around the wheel well. Took it to my local body shop, he told me that it was repairable, but, I told Lynn it wasn't. Why? :D Widebody! :D Only other problems, the brakes look worn, and the suspension and exhaust have got to be original. It has that lovely ass-end sag we all know and adore, and it won't boost more than 3 pounds or so.

So, then I debated the way to get more power out of it.

LS1. T-04. LS1. T-04. After a lot of internal debate, shopping around for prices on various things, and checking availability of LS1s in Rhode Island (hint: there are none), and finding a nice priced T-04 kit in the FS section which came with an HKS turbo manifold, big front mount IC, turbo timer, blow off valve and some other stuff, I decided to go with the turbo.

Of course, you can't just buy a turbo and that's the end of it.

Since the car was in such great shape, I decided that I'd just bite the bullet and do it right. I started with how to get the ass up off the ground. I looked at springs, shocks, struts... Racingbeat, RX7store, whatever... Then, I saw some KSport coilovers on Ebay that would be about $150 more than new springs, shocks and struts, so I went ahead and bought 'em. I found a group buy on here for them later, and it was nice to see the Ebay price was less than the group buy price.

Also through Ebay, I bought a 2.5" intercooler plumbing kit for the NPR front mount that was included with the turbo kit I bought here. I also bought strut tower bars for both front and rear, and a Suspension Techniques bushing kit for the whole car. So, I figure the suspension is handled. Ebay is also where I bought a Walbro 255lph fuel pump.

Next up were brakes. Again, I searched Ebay and the other sites, and found a group buy here on the Club for slotted, drilled, and vented rotors. Does it need to be slotted and vented? Probably not, but what the hell. I haven't found pads to go with them yet, because I haven't looked.

I found a barely used Racing Beat full turbo-back on Ebay to handle the exhaust needs. According to UPS, it should be here tomorrow.

Then, thanks to somebody nailing snowball's car, I was able to buy a Microtech LT-8s, a Koyo rad, two 1000cc secondary injectors, HKS air filter, and an ACT street/strip clutch, thereby handling a lot of other items. I also bought an FD alternator from wonner, so I'm upgrading where ever I can.

In-car entertainment was also sourced through Ebay. I love Ebay. I bought a Ford Mustang 6 disc in-dash MP3 changer, a set of component speakers, a pair of Fosgate subs, and am currently hunting down an amp for all of it. Subs will be mounted where the bins were, and will be completely hidden so as to avoid attention. Battery will also be relocated to the back.

So, that's pretty much my project at this point. I have so many boxes of parts right now that I'm sure I left something off the list. We were having a nice, mild winter with temps in the 50's up until last week. Unfortunately, as soon as parts started arriving, Mother Nature flipped me the bird and dropped things down to the 20s, so until weather permits, no work will be done to the car. I'll post more pics of all the parts and stuff tomorrow or the next day, and hope to have everything but the big turbo and Microtech up and running by late March/early April. I have to research how to get the Microtech working and all that before I swap on the T-04.

Only other thing I can think to add is that I ordered the 30 mm ventless fenders from Shine, and that the car will no longer be red when the fenders and all that are installed. Probably going blue, black, or a super dark metallic burgundy. Wheels will be 18 x 9 up front, 18 x 10 in the back.

That's about it.