dont forget the camera dude

damn battery was dead. bought the (somewhat pricey) camera 2y ago & charged it like 2w ago.. heh. will try & get some shots after a bit. she needs a touch of TLC interior wise & I gotta figure out the door-handle thing ASAP, but seems tight otherwise & is straight as an arrow, not to mention fast, even with the tranny in limp-mode.. buddy said it's got his previous '09 Rustang beat & it was a manual GT with a few bolt-ons. :biggrin: Oh yeah, (for those who showed concern, previously in the thread), FD's are DEFINITELY easier for a wheeled gimp to get in & out of than Miata's!! :icon_tup: (let's just hope she's as mechanically sound as the two piles of rx7.com receipts have me hoping :fingersx:)

get er' going dude.....upload pics!

Congrats...but useless without pix! :D

ohh, almost forgot.............dont fucking kill yourself:rolleyes:

Thanks man, I'll try not to!! Below are some crappy pics of my brand "new", dirty, stock looking FD. No interior shots since the damn handle's froze already & I'm too gimpy to feel like going through the passenger side again atm, lol. (hopefully a little lube does the trick) I definitely plan to polish/replace the front signals ASAP & am considering RB's front lip. Love the sound of the HKS/GReddy exhaust but wish it had a smaller tip. Oh, and never mind the bag of trash on my front step that the lovely trash guys drove right on past this morning. That was aalmost an Ok pic too. :p:

soo clean (the condition i mean). Have you seen my exhaust...now thats big. Congrats again dude. I cant wait till you get the controls in there so you can feel the car.

Thanks! :) Yeah, the previous owner wasn't kidding when he said NO dings/dents & given the dirt I can't tell, but he said no scratches either.. :icon_tup::icon_tup: (original paint to boot) Yep, seen your exhaust, hehe. My buddy's a great welder/works @ an exhaust shop. We're considering removing the tip & putting something a touch smaller in it's place, (as the exit's probably an inch or so smaller). Hate to hack up a quality system, but I doubt I'd manage to re-sell it anywho..

you got that FD for $4k total ??? and it runs ok??? thats a major steal!!!

oh and my door handle (outside one) stuck too .. sprayed some graphite lube all in it and that worked great, opens np now.

Naaa, haha.. the 4k was a '94 a year+ ago from a Moneygram-scammer, who was shortly kicked from fleebay. This is a '93 with all reliability mods & more, found on Autotrader. Listed for 12, got it for 10.5.

Thanks for the graphite lube tip. :icon_tup:

BEAUTIFUL! Congrats, Mason. Now drive down to Jacksonville for the 7 meet on July 9th!

Thanks & ya caught me a few years late, haha.. (lived in the Tampa Bay/Clearwater area, once upon a time)

Very clean -- congrats!

Mason, this just popped up on the Mazdaspeed page on Facebook. Check out his control set-up:
http://www.michaeljohnsonracing.com/

It appears he's in a lil better shape than I, but that's frikkin pimp! thanks. :icon_tup: If I had deep enough pockets I'd try & follow his path.. sounds like those cars only need a clutch to get into 1st though/like it'd be tricky to operate that every time you shifted gears. There's a gimptastic, professional BMW driver that also drives manuals. His setup's waay outta my league, $$$ wise - sweet tho.

Still haven't got my controls installed as my friend's had to work major overtime lately, though maaybe before the weekend & he's got Saturday off, so it's coming. Like a wetawd I did take it for a spin yesterday evening though, out a back road.. using a metal rod to access the pedals. :lol: (no insurance, registration & outta state plate, lol) Not something I'll do again, but glad I got to drive her a lil bit while I wait!! :biggrin: Interior's rattly/needs a bit of work & I've got what appears to be a minor coolant leak, plus the regular speedo issue, but otherwise seems as tight as it looks.

EDIT - oh yea.. if I could get somebody to build it, his throttle setup does look like something that could be adapted to a road car for both gas/brake, so that's definitely cool! (it's possible I don't have the strength to operate them by hand - would need a good setup to reduce force)

Nice! I just dropped the FC off at the tuner today and put her back on insurance just moments ago. I have to run to DMV tomorrow to get her registered.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net..._2303122_n.jpg

Sweet & looks good man! I'm hoping to be registered next month but may have to wait until August. :scratch:

Does anybody happen to know what a stock, automatic FD should get in the 1/4 mile? (I'm guessing about 14.8+, considering 5spd's) Found a hint that mine went to the track @ least once & asked the previous owner about it:

"it went a few times but not since the gears, injectors and some other misc. mods were done... best time was a 13 flat but the gears alone should bump it to the 12s."

That's without the harness adapter that'll have the tranny shifting up where it should be, first on my list of stuff to buy next month. (along with hood struts so I can check ma shit. hoods too long for me to reach the latch & get to the side to raise it high enough to prop, lol) It's not likely to see much track time but I hope to have the tranny's valvebody recalibrated too, which should make it a tad quicker as well as cut down on a little heat - always a plus. :icon_tup:

Have you set up the accelerator and brake controls? Sneaking it out?

No, my mechanic buddy seems intent to work on everybody's shit but mine, heh. If this was a straightforward install, with enough time & pain I could maybe get'm on enough myself that they'd really only need adjusted.. but that's not the case this time. :mad:

That's frustrating! Keep us updated.

For sure. Probably a dumb question, but did they put a dummy oil cooler in the empty duct of FD's that only came with one, or might I have spied that the previous owner upgraded that system as well? I've been thinking maybe I'd stick an aftermarket tranny cooler down there & had to do a doubletake yesterday. I can't reallly get down low enough to be positive just yet, but.. :)

Hey Mason,

You are not mistaken the automatic comes with two coolers stock. One for the oil and one for the ATF. The ATF runs through both the radiator and a cooler so if you plan on updating the radiator you will need to have an additional aftermarket cooler installed as well.


I have heard anything from 14.1-14.5 quoted for a fully stock automatic. I ran mine at the track with absolutely no experience and managed a 14.202 @97.96 this was with a 17 year old car, only mod was a downpipe, and a half broken-in motor.

Details here: https://www.rx7club.com/rotary-drag-racing-167/fd-challenged-challenger-r-t-884210/

Here is another recent attempt, someone made but he only had a 1/8 time. https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generation-specific-1993-2002-16/first-time-drag-strip-958770/


13 flat would be very impressive for a mildly modded Auto. I am a little skeptical about that time without more info, I assume he didn't show a slip? What are the mods? (I'm sorry if you already listed them somewhere.) What was the car tuned to?

Hey man.. so are you saying the factory automatic radiator puts the ATF cooler behind one of the outer bumper ducts? Because I realize it's got an integrated cooler, factory.. what I was pointing out was that it appears I've got a cooler behind both outter ducts of the '93-'95 front bumper cover, which if so I assumed meant it'd been upgraded to dual engine oil coolers of sorts. As far as tranny coolers themselves go, being stuck with auto's due to physical limitation, I learned loong ago that a simple $40 aftermarket unit pretty much always outperforms the cheezy factory design of sticking them in an already heated radiator, so still plan to install one - it just won't go in the other duct if I've got dual oil coolers for the engine..

EDIT - OR do FD's actually have an ATF cooler that's separate from the radiator & mounted where the 2nd oil cooler goes for manuals that come as such? If so that's pretty cool, because everything else I've owned literally had them integrated into the radiator itself, like I referenced originally..

As for mods, as per the above, obviously I'm not entirely sure.. what I've been told is the engine was rebuilt by Chris of Rotary Performance 10k ago with 3mm apex seals, has 3" HKS/GReddy from the (new, factory) turbo's back, Power FC/Commander, 850/1300cc injectors, high flow pump, GReddy Airnx intake, 4.3 out back, upgraded torque converter bolted to a Mazda reman ATX with 13k on it & has been tuned for 12psi street/15 track. Oh, and a pulley kit. The thing literally came with 10y worth of receipts from rx7.com, who built the engine, supplied all parts & did all labor on it.. yearly. :icon_tup: I've seen no slips. I just questioned the stack of business cards I found for a particular track. The previous owner's not really given me reason to doubt him though.

Yeah...if you still have the automatic radiator then we do in fact have two tranny coolers.....one in the radiator and one in I think the left side front duct

This:

There is the standard radiator that is integrated to run ATF through it and a secondary ATF cooler that is installed in the duct on the turbo side of the car (passenger side for LHD). The one on the Battery side is the engine oil cooler. It is essentially the same and some people actually still use the ATF cooler as a secondary oil cooler when they do the 5 speed swap.


850/1300cc injectors is enough to run up over 400 hp, Although I doubt he was near that if he only ran it up to 15 psi. With that mod list I could see running 13 if you could keep traction. I believe it could be done, but I like seeing the actual numbers to get a feel of how it performed. I'd love to see what his 60 ft was. Post some slips when you get out to the track. :D

Also, here is a good thread that you might enjoy reading if you haven't found it yet https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generation-specific-1993-2002-16/automatic-fd-guys-774433/

Looks like you've got a healthy car there, have fun :icon_tup: