Just joined the site and wanted to document the progress on getting my new 1983 GS back on the road! I picked this up from a buddy (for free!) who didn't want to deal with the headache this project is going to be. As far as I can tell, this car was a one owner all the way up until 2017! Then it was bought by a friend of a friend who drove it around until ~2020. I believe it has just sat for the past five years. I do know it has been started in the last year but it's far from being started up right now.

Found these in the back cubby area.




This is how it looked when I got it back home.






This is how it looks now that I have cleaned it up! It has a couple of interesting parts on it that I have been able to identify: Hayashi Racing wheels (not sure the specific type, also noticed that one of the pictures I found in the car from the late 80's has the wheels installed), LRB metal door panels, interesting bumper (no clue what brand), and a Rotary Engineering Dual carb setup.

Obviously, the car is in rough shape. Not sure what I am going to do with it just yet.
Here is a list of Issues I have found so far:

• Everything leaks
• Gas door wouldn't open with the button on the dash or the manual tab behind the taillight
• Accelerator cable is stretched
• Brakes barely work
• Hood won't close all the way; the hood latch seems broken
• Driver's side door won't open from the outside. It needs a new door handle
• Sunroof mechanism is broken
• Windshield wiper won't work: one of the wires was cut
• Every single piece of trim in the car is basically crumbling
• Carpet is pretty messed up
• Seats are torn to shreds
• Couple spots of rust in the interior, nothing terrible. Underneath the car actually looks pretty good
• Hatch struts need to be replaced
• Headliner is toast
• Radiator needs replacing
• All the fluids need replacing
• Those ugly LEDs need to be replaced

The car is basically a parts car but if I can get it running decent, I will try to get it back to usable condition. It is clear the first owner really loved and cared for this car. Along with the pictures I found all of the dealership manuals, receipts for a bunch of work in the 80's, a service manual, and a couple of parts catalogs from the 90's.

 

Before I jump straight into getting the engine going, I wanted to at least get the car in a place where I can open all the doors...

First Issue: The driver's side door wouldn't open from the outside. Seems like a common problem is that the door handle will break​​​ because of a weak point in the casting. Went on marketplace and found a door handle! Was stoked to be able to get this fixed so quickly... the second door handle snapped at the same point my first one did. Still haven't found another replacement.

Second Issue: The gas door will not open when pressing the button at the dash. The button to open the rear hatch works just fine. Tried the manual way of opening the gas door that you can get to by removing the rear wheel arch trim and that was also not working! Decided to try 12V directly to the gas door harness and that popped it open just fine. So now it's an issue with the button on the dash. Removed the trim that houses the gas door button, unplugged the button and plugged it back in. Nothin. Checked the harness for 12V and it wasn't getting anything. Kept messing with the harness for an hour or so to see if it had been cut somewhere. Nothin! It ended up being loose/corroded battery cables. I have no clue why the back hatch button worked the whole time but not the gas door button. Oh well.


Third Issue: The rear hatch struts were toast. Replaced those so I don't have to juggle the hatch while I am working on the rear interior of the car.

Fourth Issue: The surrounding trim for the headlights was missing. Got a pair for cheap from the guy I bought the door handle from and slapped them on the car. Much better looking now but I still need to replace the LEDs with something not LED.


Now that I can access the gas door, and I know how to fix the driver's side door I am going to see about getting the engine unstuck. At this point I don't know anything about the health of the engine, but it only has 83K miles on it!

My plan is to pour some marvel mystery oil into the sparkplugs, let it sit, and then turn it over by hand to see what I can hear. Hopefully it won't need a rebuild immediately but I know it is an inevitability.

Also drained the gas tank last night. No crud came out with the old gas!

Found another issue to add to the list while I was draining the gas!

Really expected more rust down here.

 

Lots of work but the car has some cool mods!
Rust seems only surface rust or am I wrong?

 

So far surface rust is all I have found! Wouldn't be too surprised if there was some rot though. We will see

 

Your electrical problems are probably grounding issues first (theres a grounding point on the driver side shock tower about opposite of the AC (if it has it). Theres ground up under the driver console, if you lay on your back under the console and look straight up you can easily see it. Then theres a grounding strap that connects to the rear muffler mount to the top bolt of that same muffler hanger (it grounds the rear of the car.). After grounds, check all the fuses.

The LED headlights can be replaced with Hella H4 7 inch round housings and then you can use standard H4s or convert to an LED that is H4 compatible. This implies you have H$ connectors wire into the existing harness. Theres used to be a relayed kit for this from Black Dragon.

Anyway, you have a great project going. I can try and look up some of these things and get back with links. I'm retired, so it keeps me busy.

 

I will look into the grounds!

The headlight connectors look like they were cobbled together pretty poorly. I will have to see what they did to get them installed and working. They do work though!

I just parted out a MK1 AW11 and I think I kept the extra set of electric fans... Did they make a difference in your setup?

Help is always appreciated

 

Got a couple of things done this weekend.

Worked on the rear drum brakes since the rear of the car was on jackstands already. Got one side done, what a pain in the ***. I'm going to have to redo both sides anyways because the cylinders need to be replaced but I was given shoes and drums with the car, so I just wanted to get them on there.



Also replaced the fuel filter after draining the tank. Put five gallons of fresh 87 in there and the pump is running strong. The old one was nasty.




After *finishing* the work I could do on the rear, I went ahead and lifted the front of the car. Drained the oil and the coolant. Ran into some fun rusted out bolts on the radiator shielding underneath the radiator... Not sure how I am going to get them back on. Also noticed the oil drain plug is stripped. This car just keeps giving I am hoping it will seal with a new (correct) plug and washer (There was an aftermarket magnetic one in there) but if it won't... I have a timesert kit that I could use. Also noticed while the car is raised in the front, the passenger side door does not like being opened. It will open if you really yank on it. Not sure what's going on there as it worked fine while on the ground.




After work today I am going to adjust the gas pedal to see if that will fix the stretched accelerator cable, refill the oil and coolant, and see if it will start! I "checked" compression after letting it sit in MMO for a couple days and I hear three strong puffs on each rotor while turning the engine over with the spark plug wires disconnected. Hopefully it starts!

Should you be able to turn the engine over easily by hand with the belts at the front of the engine? I could move it with one hand without much pressure.

 

Got it to start!

Managed to flood the engine on the first try, whoops. Pulled the spark plugs, cleaned, and tried starting the engine with all of them removed for ~10 seconds. After that it started up right away! The throttle linkage got stuck immediately at 5k RPMs which was a little worrying but after manually moving it back to the idle position, the car idled perfectly around 800RPM. Smoked a bunch and idled for around 5 minutes.... then it died. After checking over everything, it looked like the carbs were filling up with fuel and I am guessing that flooded the engine again. Also noticed fuel leaking from one of the carb seals... right onto the exhaust. Definitely will be rebuilding both carbs.

Now that I know it will run, I can really dig into all the little stuff and get this thing on the road!

So far this is the list of parts I would like to replace or rebuild:

• Replace rear shoes, drums, and brake cylinders
• Rebuild front calipers
• Replace all brake lines with braided lines
• Replace master brake cylinder
• Replace clutch master and slave cylinder as well as the clutch line
• Replace radiator and radiator hoses
• Replace thermostat
• Replace coolant temperature sensors
• Rebuild the carbs
• Rebuild OMP
• Replace the O-Rings in the oil filter tower
• Replace all of the fluids I have not changed out yet: Differential, transmission, brake fluid, and clutch hydraulic fluid

If anyone has suggestions on anything else that needs to be replaced, I'd love to hear them!

 

Change the oil once you get the carbs sorted. I'm sure there is lots of gas in it.

 

Those Hyashi wheels were expensive and hard to come by back in the day. The Rotary Engineering dual webber carbs were awesome. My friend ran the intake and wheels on his car. They had the best exhaust on the market, I ran the exhaust on mine. I was stunned when I installed it. ( It's also why Rotary Engineering went out of business.)
I still have the Rotary Engineering catalogue along with a Racing Beat and Mazdatrix catalogues. I knew the owners. Big fun back in the day!





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Really cool project you have going on here. Seems like there is a lot to do, but every single thing checked off the list must feel so rewarding. Keep at it, keep posting your progress. Lots of people to cheer you on and give support.

 

I'm still workin on it! Went to the race in Talladega last weekend and I just started a new job so it's slow.

Got most of the parts in and started tearing the suspension down this week. The new radiator is the only thing missing in this picture.




Ball joint was absolutely trashed on the passenger side.



Looks like the struts were replaced with KYB GR-2s *recently*. They're still good but I already bought some new GR-2s so I'm just going to replace them while they're out.

 

I've been busy! So far since my last update:

• I have replaced all bushings, tie rods, struts, ball joints, wheel bearings, and rotors in the front suspension
• Working on rebuilding the front brake calipers
• Replaced the clutch master and slave cylinder
• Replaced the distributor cap, spark plugs, and spark wires
• Cleaned both of the grounding points in the engine bay

I have broken more parts than I'd like to in the process, but that's just the way it goes. Now I have a couple of questions:

• Would it be best to fully tear down the dual carbs and clean everything or just regasket? I have never worked with a carb before. I believe I found the fuel leak already without disassembly. I do have a "rebuild" kit for the carbs but it's basically just the gaskets and a couple of copper washers. I have opened one carb up and there was a fair bit of gunk where the floats sit.
• Has anyone ever tried using the b series idler arm in their rx7? It looks like the mounting points are slightly different between the two. The threads on the ball joint section of mine were damaged when I took it off.

Before:






After:




The intake really cleans up nice when there isnt an inch of oil covering it.

 

You can still buy new bushings for the idler arm, check the dealer first, might be a bit cheaper.

 

I already bought new bushings. The issue with my idler arm is that the threads are destroyed from when I popped it off of the steering rack. I couldn't fix them with a thread chaser.

 

Decided to just clean up the carb I pulled off and reinstall it to see if the car would still run. Ran for a second and then died once I reinstalled the carb. I reset the idle speed and idle mixture screws back to stock, i'm hoping that's why it died.

Man does it look good all cleaned up though.






I am getting a new fuel leak on the carb I cleaned up... kinda bummed but I did not take the primary or secondary shafts out for a cleaning. Guess I will have to now. The leak is coming from the primary shaft at the back of the carb, pictured below.

 

Congratulations on getting where you are currently! I would definitely restore that car and leave all of the original parts on the car. The car has a Mazda IMSA rear wing and front spoiler. They can be very hard to come by! The wheels are very retro and very cool! Also ultra rare. I would restore the wheels as well! Keep us updated on where you are with the car. Its really coming along nicely!