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Joe Maddox 1991 Right Hand Drive Turbo FC RX7 Build Thread
Back in the early 2000's, when it was not logal to import the fc3s, I really wanted a RHD rx7. This is the build I did years ago and found a folder of pictures of and thought I would share! This could work for someone who might have a clip and would like to do the same thing?
So... Where to start. I guess I will start with where I was and why I decided to do it this way. I was driving a 1983 Mazda rx7 Widebody FB at the time. I had been into rotary cars and working on them since 1999. I fell in love with one years before that and had to have one!
I was not sure how I could ever own that car and so I kinda just gave up on thinking about it that day, but the gift was awesome and got me plotting on how I might own one someday. literally the next day I was heading out of town to my wife's parents ranch in the middle of nowhere. Little service if any. Hell. But they are good peeps and she grew up on the 3500 acres and the city is a cramped to her. So we bailed. Sitting bored as hell all day up there ( I am not a rancher ) I was surfing the rx7club and found JD Daniels (ehime) selling a complete RHD front clip! I wrote him right then. I had nothing, just put it all into the build for chris weigel's widebody rx7. I was doing that build for free and took a bit of the cost myself. So I asked if he wanted a payment or two as I was not willing to touch my credit for it. Not that big of a deal. They used to be a dime a dozen back then. Not so much these days.
He was not interested in payments, so I went home and opened the savings up and took out the money for it. The clip was missing a few parts, but had the metal and the dash and that was all I really needed. He ended up also having the rack and crossmember as well as the doors. They were a bit beat up, but looked usable.
I ended up then needing a dummy car! I wanted an S4 as they all have manual belts in JDM cars and was trying to stay close to stock looking with the interior. So I found a nice 1987 SE to start with. It was local and only 300 bucks or so!
There were several ways to do this. I have not really seen one done that was not a good looking and functional set up in the end. However I wanted it to look stock. Like it never happened and came from the factory that way. So my friend Isaac and I started on the body. I took everything off and he started drilling out weld points.
All welded up and painted the car was now ready to get to the body and paint!
I gave the cars engine bay a coat of paint before I started on the body.
I ended up getting a rare s4 body kit. I wanted to keep it s4 as I had some Bi color lights I wanted to run on it.
I ended up getting a turbo parts car and using all the body panels from it and passing the shell onto a friend after taking the diff and the trans (as seen in the last pic already installed).
I spent many hours after this point. Making all the edges right, smoothing the dings and making the prep perfect. When it was ready to shoot I pulled everything together and got ready to lay primer and color down! I was by myself from the firewall on, so no pics of me doing it unlike the other builds. Late nights only car guys can understand lol.
It turned out perfect! I was pretty happy. I had instantly had some regrets with choosing the s4/5 trim to run the lights. But was otherwise content with it.
I started putting the interior back into it. The wiring was all wrong. after many days of trying to figure out what was wrong with all the blinkers and why turning on the hazzards killed the headlights, ect... After dozens of friends like Marc from Pineapple Racing came down and could not figure it out and left with it not being functional. I gave up. I rewired a USDM harness and ran all us relays and switches. It was not easy, but it worked perfect and I had everything for a 91 GXL model now! ( Obviously I parted one, I bought the NW moderators car, Fumi).
I had all the options of what lights to run on it. However I decided that for now I was just going to run some clean s5 USDM lights! decisions decisions
There was a lot of wiring to do, I ended up putting in a touch screen system I loved. Had everything as an option. Lateral G's, acceleration in g's, the a neat digital speedo. However I wanted the stock cluster still and everything working, So I wired in everything separate. It ended up all working amazing! Loved the EDFC (at first).
I started building a motor for it. I had helped marc heynderickx of pineapple racing move his shop FD3S engineering from the original place in beaverton to his fathers house in Canby after his falling out with his engine builder Daniel Leed from pineapple racing. It was a big mess. He ended up calling him a scammer and said they had a falling out because Daniel was on drugs and he would help me build my motor and just avoid the guy. (foreshadowing into my own life later ahaha,ugh) So when I was up there, I had Rob at pineapple port my s5 Irons I got for the build.
OMG they were minty! Rob Golden at pineapple sure can port a motor! Those templates are gold, use them! That aside, I lost the pics. Many pics faded to time unfortunately. That was one of them. I picked them up and went over to marcs house. He was there and we set up another day to assemble it! I showed up later and had the rotors and the housings,ect. He was not happy with the cleaning and only the irons were prepped well enough. I had not a media blaster and did my best. So I spent the day cleaning and prepping the motor! I got the motor ready as Derek of Rotary Power Northwest showed up! Marc then let me know I was building it. I kinda freaked out, but Derek assured me it was going to be ok, I got this. I was a body, paint and interior guy, this rotary engine build was new to me! So I said **** it and went for it! I assembled the rotors with crisco and superglue as he and Rob has said. Marc would come out from the house and check on each stage to make sure I was doing it right!
What was going to be a couple hour build I went up for turned into a 12 hour day working on the motor. I snapped a couple pics that I sent to my wife to explain I was a little busy but ok lol!
After I ended up getting the rotors ready and all the seals in and glued, he ended up coming out and helped/showed me how to stack it! We stacked it and then we called it at a short block with just the tension bolts in as it was the 12 hour mark for me with two hour drive and he had work in the morning. But the right hand drive had a s5 turbo motor ready for it! Loaded it up and headed home! Note marc is in clean slacks. lol :-P
i got it home and the next day started putting the motor together. I had lots of goodies. Not even sure of everything now. Act, trust, ect. It was good.
I ended up putting it in by myself right there. That was not easy, but I did it without a chip in the paint!
Now it took a lot to get it to this point. I was working a lot and was doing favors for everyone. I had moved marcs shop, sold his cars and he was not the only one. So I had many other cars and projects going at this time. One of the problems and projects I had going on the side was Chris Weigel's widebody rx7 I had build for him. I had finished that build a while back and it was on the road. However it blew the 12a it had in it and he was talking LS swap. He had had blown another 13bt he tried to put in after rotary shack scammed him into a failed carb attempt with it. I gave him the entire motor with everything from my right hand drive for 1500, at a later payment when his taxes came in. Only one warning came with it and that was it was being sold as a my first motor and only for what I had into it so far, no promises lol! I just wanted to see the car I built still on the road! I went over and helped him install it and it was back on the road! You can see this cars build here:
When chris weigel was hired onto rotaryworkz! First day at rotaryworkz! After I helped him put my rhd motor in I gave him the rad and a few things to really spice up the interior! To assure there was no more talk about the LS swap in his car I gave him this Brand new JDM Cosmo 13bt RE motor! A gift to assure the future of the rotary shop's enthusiasm!
After giving lots of things like the lights and the louvers and the interior ect to that car and many others I had an amazing assortment of cars. I had one of each generation finally! The FD3S was a project and a cast out of marcs, but it was still an FD. When I brought it home from marcs. It was burnt and had a partial interior. No roof or glass, wiring was toast and he kept and sold the drivetrain. It was 3500$ on the rx7club but he took some payments and I worked my *** off for him for a long time. Sold his cars and then found out he bought this car from a wrecking yard complete for 750$. I suckered lol This was it after I got it all together. Glass, interior, engine and trans. Was finishing it up and then I got an offer I could not refuse...
I was almost done with it and then got an offer I could not refuse...
I guy who had everything I wanted for my FC from the the tien coilovers and EDFC to brand new Apexi N1 duals... His car was with the thousands of dollars of parts I was dream shopping for. the FD was nice, but after dealing with the people who have them and driving a few of them I was not a fan as much as the FC. It is the better looking in ways, but I am just a fan of the FC! Plus that car was not really what I wanted. So I made a trade and that is how my FC ended up with the Tiens and all the goodies that came to it in the end as I will show! So this crap was taken off and put on another car!
So there I was with a car I almost had done and a car I almost had done. I sold one and the other one is now sitting with a ton of new parts and really nice, but no motor or trans.
So I started working on another motor! I had build many since then. A few for local people, one for a friend and now this one for myself. I wanted to try something new that I had not done before. Everything has been done in the car world, but I had yet to make a mutt motor. I started with a good set of s5 NA irons and a turbo middle. I used S4 turbo rotors and started putting it all together! Ever try to build motors by yourself on a hundred degree day when everyone is at the river? Brap life! lol
Note the hood and the car had gotten a new body kit on it? After helping out a few people with their cars and builds and finding that I was not getting anything in return I started charging. Not that I was not ok with the gifts I was offering, it just started to feel more like it was a expectation as opposed to a gift. I did not want to work and pay for peoples projects, all the time. So I charge for a few engine builds and car restorations and got all the rest of the parts for the right hand drive build! For each one of these engines my trader score rose as well, that was always nice.
They were all very happy people each time. All but one of my motors is still on the road today! That is a nice feeling!
So! The car was redone for several reasons. First was I did not like the s4 trim and s5 trim meshing together. No matter how rare the kit was, I would rather a knock off than the mixed set up. Then I also bought some euro lights I wanted to run on a s5 bumper. Having the rear already I figured I would just go that route. I also did not like the interior not having the factory insulation. I have been restoring classic cars for many years and finally decided to give this car the work I put into my classics. So this is what it looked like when I pulled the motor. this is how done it was:
I started on the interior first. tear down was easy, been here before. restoration of a restoration is always easy.
I ended up getting better carpet and went with some stock fc seats as the fd seats were nice, but not really comfy compared to the gxl seats.
I tossed on my FD3S wheel and then got started on the body again!
I wanted things to be a little different this time so I went with the BN sports kit, RE mirrors, Wangan wing, JDM FTP lights and euro bi color turn signals. I had not seen many with this combo. the Blitz 03 rims I thought really brought the room together.
Well it was time for paint, however my shop was down for the count. I needed to shoot in another place. I had a shop next door that was not ok with paint in the air and although I was in right, it was wrong. So I asked a friend if he could help and we took it to his shop!
Again it turned out amazing! I was really happy to see the new kit on and the trim all matching. So not we are back to putting the motor in it! I got the Carbon hood from a customers car. Trade for getting him back on the road! I was not sure how I felt about it at first, however it grew on me really fast!
After many hours of work I had the engine bay all buttoned up and the motor in! New gauges,new radiator and a bunch of JDM swap I was ready to give it a start!
After touching up on the exhaust by topping it off with a Jasma downpipe to RB presilencer and Apexi N1 duals I had it fired up! I drove it over to my friends shop to have another bracket put on, He has the ability to raise the car better! ahaha
The car was finished! Of course there is always carbon fiber and controls systems to do, but it is now the little toy car I was given and wanted to drive around!
I had taken the dead red shell from sitting in a yard rotting a way to driving around looking like that. I took the interior from nothing to clean JDM. I felt pretty good about the build! I hope this inspires others to save or build projects they may not think possible or worth doing! This car was amazing and is still one of my favorite builds!
Here is a little build video and a drive at the end. There are many videos of this car on youtube. Remember though, everything here was done before the Iphone EXISTED! So, the videos are after it was done and shot on the very first ever iphone. The quality is garbage. Sorry!
01-14-20, 12:46 PM
Joe Maddox 1991 Right Hand Drive Turbo FC RX7 Build Thread
