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Posted I a Facebook group and after all the comments pushing to start a build thread here I finally bit. There are a lot of gray areas with this car, but what I do know was that my father had one and my uncle had one. My uncle wrecked his come to find out over the past holiday, and my father acquired it. I had been under the impression that the current chassis was a 79 and my father swapped 85 interior (my uncles car.) now where hesitation has set in is the 85 vin tag, so unsure if during the dash swap my father also swapped the firewall vin tag.
12a with Mariah wide body kit my father installed in 93, complete car tech turbo system, racing beat sway bars front rear, and coil springs in the rear.
Car flooded in 2017 hurricane Harvey while I was still in marine corp, and my parents had enough other stuff to deal with. Sadly the car has sat since until recently i actually got started on it again. About ready to pull motor and trans at this point will do a full tear down and attempt to see what all hood I have to work with.
Hood rusted out planning on replacing with carbon which I will paint to match. Swapped interior
Front end stripped for pulling motor and trans Draining dif and dropping tank to get wheels back on to sit on blocks. Turbo waste gate and manifold.
Last edited by Snewmann; Dec 29, 2022 at 08:11 AM.
cool build. from my experience, it's an 84-85. check the vin stamped into the firewall. Banzai Racing RX7 Vin ID.
there's also a tag in the door jam with the month/yr it was built.
What a special car, not only widebody but 12a turbo! Unless somebody did a lot of work to swap out the whole rear bodywork, you current chassis is a FB. The interior definitely from an 84-85. What damage did the flooding do? I am super interested in the workings of that 12 turbo setup. Good luck.
cool build. from my experience, it's an 84-85. check the vin stamped into the firewall. Banzai Racing RX7 Vin ID.
there's also a tag in the door jam with the month/yr it was built.
door jam info is missing, read thread on vin identification everything points to 85 but the 85 interior came from a rx7 that ran under an 18wheel and peeled the roof off. So think the robbed the firewall vin tag and put on this car.
door jam info is missing, read thread on vin identification everything points to 85 but the 85 interior came from a rx7 that ran under an 18wheel and peeled the roof off. So think the robbed the firewall vin tag and put on this car.
Like stated above, the VIN is also stamped on the firewall.
door jam info is missing, read thread on vin identification everything points to 85 but the 85 interior came from a rx7 that ran under an 18wheel and peeled the roof off. So think the robbed the firewall vin tag and put on this car.
it will be interesting to see what is what
i see an 83-85 oil cooler, and it looks like the radiator and hoses are original, the clamps are in the right place, and the little tag is on the radiator (which will be plugged...), fan shroud also looks 83-85 to me
obviously the interior is 84-85 headlight motors and cowl panel are 79-82 though.
someone upgraded to the 81-85 Disc brake rear end, and power mirrors, but that is pretty common
What a special car, not only widebody but 12a turbo! Unless somebody did a lot of work to swap out the whole rear bodywork, you current chassis is a FB. The interior definitely from an 84-85. What damage did the flooding do? I am super interested in the workings of that 12 turbo setup. Good luck.
about 24” which would have been a one the seat bottoms. About half a gallon of oil drained out the motor, transmission locked up and turbo full of rust. Still a poor scope of damage but haven’t seen anything that can’t me fixed yet.
The door handle color indicates it is not a 1979. The mirrors are also not 1979. Another giveaway are the tail lights and spare tire well. Look at the spare tire well. If its a space saver, it isn't a 1979. In my opinion, this chassis is not a 1979. I do think you have a really nice RX-7.
The door handle color indicates it is not a 1979. The mirrors are also not 1979. Another giveaway are the tail lights and spare tire well. Look at the spare tire well. If its a space saver, it isn't a 1979. In my opinion, this chassis is not a 1979. I do think you have a really nice RX-7.
Yea, not seeing anything on the firewall. But it does have a space saver.
interesting that it's not there. maybe someone used filler to cover it. that vin tag states FB in it. found another vin decoder on the forum. says it's an 85 GS.
and the paint code, V3, indicates it was originally tender blue metallic. so everything was repainted.
and don't think 79 came with sunroof, but i could be wrong on that.
79's had moonroofs but it was a one year only latch, it was a clamp style rather than a twist **** like the 80-85's had. The latch type could distinguish whether or not is was a 79, but at this point is seems like this car was/is definitely a FB.
North American 79's did have factory sun roofs. Moon roofs were only aftermarket items for the first few years. You can't see the latch type from any of the supplied pictures but I assume it has the rotary **** style first used in 1980. You can see it has the built in, spring loaded wind deflector as opposed to the separate, snap in one used in 79. I agree, this car has all the DNA of an FB.
interesting that it's not there. maybe someone used filler to cover it. that vin tag states FB in it. found another vin decoder on the forum. says it's an 85 GS.
and the paint code, V3, indicates it was originally tender blue metallic. so everything was repainted.
I am planning on maybe sanding that spot back hopefully it wasn’t ground down and that it was just filled. My father did the all the body kit, and repainted it, but like stated above I believe it was from a donor. Will text my uncle and ask him what color his was. I also know this color is a Honda Milano red still have one of the ppg paint cans. I see some tape lines up top but I do not see any signs of this car ever being blue. Does anyone know of indiscreet location of original color, possibly under carpet or is all that original factory primer? And another point I may look into is when did Mazda start galvanizing body components for corrosion.
I also know this color is a Honda Milano red still have one of the ppg paint cans. I see some tape lines up top but I do not see any signs of this car ever being blue. Does anyone know of indiscreet location of original color, possibly under carpet or is all that original factory primer? And another point I may look into is when did Mazda start galvanizing body components for corrosion.
Mazda started with the Super SZ steel in 1981. Mazda also painted the whole car body color, so whatever the original was should be somewhere, easiest is probably under the carpets or in the rear hatch area.
i do like the red though, it looks great
basically Mazda fully assembles the body sheet metal, it gets primered, undercoated and then painted. then the wiring, interior, engine and suspension go in. pretty much the only difference between 1979 and today is that they have more robots
almost sounds like maybe one was totaled out, kept car but ins got title. so repairs were made and vin tags from another was put on this body. could explain the removal/cover up of the stamped vin #.
fwiw, my FB does not have the VIN stamped in the firewall sheet metal either. The VIN is on the tag riveted to the firewall - just like yours. Mine is either an 82 or 83.
Finally got motor pulled. Got ahead of myself and moving to quickly forgot to disconnect slave cylinder, and ripped it hose loose. Maple racing in Houston will be completing the engine rebuild. Planning on rebuilding this clutch with a racing beat 6 puc sprung disc. Has anyone used this assemble before (centerforce performance) Getting into the transmission, game plan is to swap the gear box with a n/a 89-91 keeping the original tail section and swapping the speedo gear.
those Centerforce clutches were pretty cool back in the day. the weights let the pressure plate give a stock like pedal feel, but it clamps harder the higher you rev it because of those weights.
Gutting interior Will pull storage bin once dash starts going back in Deep clean and soak of all carpet. 80mill sound deadener. This product had an excellent price point vs dynamat. Finished the upper sound and insulation pad for “above” the dash used original as template. Cut just cut vinyl used spray adhesive to bond them. Using in conjunction with sound deadener.
