83 GSL stock daily... for now!
 

Hello all,
I just recently acquired a really nice 83 GSL that had been owned by the same woman since 86. The car has 285,XXX miles on it, but it's cherry! The interior is all together and isn't cracked or ripped anywhere.damn near all the accessories work and the car is remarkably complete! The previous order parked it after suffering a sudden loss of power while goin up a hill and her mechanics said the believed it was a clogged catalytic converter. I'm an apprentice mechanic and I troubleshot the car and think they were correct. The engine feels choked up and the exhaust pules are very weak with the cat in the system, but without they're strong as they should be. Apart from that the engine is running awfully. It won't idle below 2000 rpm and it's idles is very rough. I sprayed starting fluid around the base of the carb to check for a vacuum leak and sure enough the idle shot up 500 rpm or so when sprayed. Right now I'm in the middle of swapping intake manifolds. I have a 12A from an 83 auto that I know runs well and that I pulled out of a junkyard a few months ago. I plan on keeping the car pretty much stock and using it as a daily wheel I work on my 82 Pro-7 spec race car!

Oh I also accidentally let the car fall off the jack and it landed on the stock radiator. Thank God it didn't damage anything but the radiator. The radiator was original to the car and was rotted out anyway and it needed replacing. The whole bottom half was green like Lady Liberty!! I have a Koyorad in it now, but annoyingly the coolant level sensor doesn't fit in the bung of the new rad so I'll have to this of something for that now too...

I'm really excited to get this thing on the road and driving! Hopefully I can have the intake swap finished and the engine running later today. The new cat is backordered by Magnaflow and I about I'lll see it before July. The original ship date was 6/3 but now its been pushed to 6/23. I have the exhaust jerry-rigid in the meantime.
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That's what happens to a stock rad when you drop eh car on it!

Congratulations, looks to be in beautiful shape. You're gonna have fun with it.

Very nice looking car. Will be lots of fun.

For reference, a 1980 just showed up at the Chula Vista - East LKQ Pick-a-Part yard today. Might want to see what spare parts you can pull off. '80 is an SA, so not all parts are the same as FB, but still worth a look.

Carl

Given the mileage, the car is in incredible shape!! Are the seats from a Miata? Do you know any of the car's history?

No the seats are actually stock seats. They're the originals that came with the car and are in desperate need of a re-foam! The driver's side is extremely worn out and needs a small tear sewn up. I know the history since 86 when the previous owner bought it. There car is immaculate for being a daily-driven 80s sports car. The only incident the car had was a rear end collision in which the bumper and paint were messed up but the car itself was undamaged. It has some issues I'll explain later but I'm stoked to be able to get it running and daily it!

Wow that's awesome! they very rarely show up in parts yards around here! I'm over a week late but I'll try to head that way tomorrow and jump on any parts that I can!

Alrighty, y'all here is the progress so far with the daily. I still don't have a name for it; noting has yet struck me as fitting yet. In mechanical news, the car had a clogged catalytic converter when I purchased it. I've ordered the Magnaflow direct replacement and its not slated to ship to me until the 23rd, so in the meantime I've rigged up a muffler so the car is drivable. Aside from the cat issues the next biggest problem seemed to be a vacuum leak. The car idled like absolute crap and I couldn't adjust it to idle below 1500 RPM with the idle speed screw. I swapped out the intake manifold and carb with an extra I had and at that point the car ran well at driving RPM, it still disked like crap, however. At idle it sounded like a 1-cylinder generator and at first I was terrified I'd lost a rotor, but once again at driving speeds >2000 RPM the car ran great. the engine seemed to rev happily and had a ton of power. Then the air cleaner starting to make noise like a horn and I pretty quickly realised that my shutter valve was stuck open and always pulling a vacuum. I pulled the hole in the air cleaner for the shiver valve and now the car idles velvety smooth!

The newest problem is when the car i swarm, it boggs down massively and stalls when trying to pull away from a stop. Theres also a hesitation when I give the car gas below ~2000 RPM before the car picks back up and revs fine. I think its an issue with the fuel supply as when I first start the car and have the choke pulled and the engine is running rich it doe3snt have the bogging/hesitation problems. I'll check for another vacuum leak with some carb cleaner after work, but aside from that or the accelerator pump failing idk what it could be. I have another carb I may try to swap onto this engine/manifold. I also have half a mind to remove all the smog stuff as it seems very prone to failure, but I really don't want to do that as its illegal in my Cali zip code.

Any advice, Gentlemen? I'm at a loss

I have another update, this time hopefully with much better spelling! After I plugged the shutter valve hole in the air cleaner with some JB Weld Steelstik the car has been running really well! It pulls excellently and the engine seems lively and well reving. Now, the main issue is the car bogs down really badly in 2 scenarios: the first is under sudden acceleration from RPM <2500 RPM , and while pulling away from a stop, so much so that if I don't give it quite a good bit of throttle it'l stall out. I'm at a loss as to what could be causing the bogging down. So far I've tried adjusting the mixture, (enriching it made it idle a little smoother) adjusting the timing (once again a smoother idle) as well as checking the accelerator pump (it seems to be operating) and the vacuum secondaries. I used a test mentioned by sterling in another post and got the car to 80 MPH on the freeway in 3rd to see if the secondaries were in fact opening. The only test that showed anything negative was spraying starting fluid around the base of the carb, which caused RPM to rise only about 100 RPM, so I believe there's a small vacuum leak somewhere.

Anyone have any advice for where I should begin looking next?

Also I feel the need to mention that I'm not a beginner in regards to driving a stick-shift. The car I learned to drive on was an unrestored 1964 Ford Falcon with a 3 on the tree, my next car was a 96 mustang with a 5-speed and my most recent car before the 83 was an 83 Rabbit GTI. I believe over the last 7 years I've become pretty well versed in driving low-torque manuals, but I am open to the idea I just dint have the hang of driving a stick rotary yet. Do any of you have a problem getting the car rolling? Or is mine bogging down so badly that it stalls out. I'm currently having to rev the car to about 3000 RPM to take off.

if you learned on a clunky 3 on the tree with a Fail-cooon, then you are a stick shift virtuoso.

Why not replace the shutter valve? It's there for a reason. It is a bitch to get to though.

I've always have had to double clutch , give it gas from a standstill.

I dailyed that Falcon around for a good couple years! It was a clunky hunk-o-junk but it still was fun! The RX7 definitely has a dead spot, around 1500-2000 RPM, but I've started to adapt to that issue and I'm able to get it going without too much hassle now. That being said I still want to fix, or at least diagnose and understand its hesitation on acceleration ASAP.

More than anything it's the time and ass-pain involved in changing the valve that's preventing me from swapping it out for a new one. Out of necessity the car has become my daily a little earlier than expected and before I could get everything properly sorted out that I wanted to, but sometimes that's just how it has to be.

i bought a 12mm wrench, and heated it up on the stove and bent it so that i could take the carb off without too much drama. i also only put the vacuum rack on with one bolt, instead of two (there is one that is easy and one that is hard...)

so there are two ways to put the carb, the factory wrench was U shaped, and then if you pull the vacuum rack (as an assembly) you can get in there with just a normal wrench.

Funny, I learned to drive a car with a manual transmission on a 1963 Ford Falcon with a 3spd on the column. The car was a gift from my grandfather before he passed away. I still have the car!

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For the bogging down I suggest that you check the fuel filters and the pressure on the fuel pump....

Since you got side-tracked on learning to drive 3-on-the-tree, here is my entry. The 52 Ford in the background was what I learned on. Don't have it anymore though. I do still have the Model A in the foreground.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...cd1c95b689.jpg

That's a great photo.

That is really cool photo...

Carl that really is an awesome picture! & Mazdaverx713B my falcon has the next gen body style but it still has the 3-speed on the column. Learning how to drive on that car actually has been really helpful given that it helped me learn to be smooth on the clutch etc and also had a choke I needed to set when cold starting. Both those skills have come in handy for the 83 GSL daily! I don't mind the slight detour into old fords so I'll post a pic of my falcon when I can remember to take one.

The fuel filter seemed fine upon inspection but I may change it on principle in the near future. I think the pump has adequate pressure given that when I absolutely get on it seems to pull really strongly and doesn't hesitate at all after the initial 1500 bog down. Also if I go from idle to matted while the car is sitting in neutral it'll hesitate, but every mat after the initial will have no hesitation in that problem range. I checked the accelerator pumps again and they seem to be working. Might it be something with the floats?

Carl, (and everyone else) do you have ready access to a pdf or link detailing the mods one does to the carb to convert it to mechanical secondaries and/or to prep it for for things such as Pro-7 class racing? I have an extra carb off of a junkyard 83 auto that I'd like to rebuild into a back up for my racer that I'd also like to have as a test carb that can be thrown on to test fuel or air issues. I have tried the search feature and it yielded a ton of threads about random stuff unrelated to any of the carb mods I was looking for. I found plenty of threads advising searching the forum as it'd already been covered elsewhere, but I couldn't find the threads they were referring to! :scratch: I've thought about messaging Sterling as well but Idk if its worth bugging him.

Oh and j9f3ds I bought a Home Depot 12mm wrench to do exactly that to! Though at this point I'd like to ditch that rats' nest (at least for the time being) as I think it needs a going through and rebuild as well.

Despite all these small issues I have been daily driving the car and its been an absolute JOY! It's a zippy little machine. There's been one more issue to pop up though: the car sags about an inch lower on the front left corner than the other 3. I've replaced springs with a set of Racing Beat springs but the problem persists. Nothing looks bent for broken. Any idea what may be causing the 1 corner to sag?

When you installed the RB coils did you you installed the top strut mount facing the right way?

If one it's facing the wrong way that will explain the height difference.....

Well that would potentially explain it. When I reinstalled the front struts I made extra effort to ensure that I installed them in the same orientation in which I removed them. That being said I was replacing shocks and springs in an attempt to fix the fact that the front left corner of my car was sagging noticeably. I don't remember any instructions in my FSM in regards to orientation influencing alignment or ride height. Can anyone provide any info that the FSM didn't? My strut mounting braces have a little notch cut out on one side of them, does that influence anything?

I found this...it will show you the right position...where it is supposed to be the factory setting. .

Hope it helps...

https://redirect.viglink.com/?format...l_steering.pdf

are you serious? I thought steel only starts to bend at 600 F ?? your kitchen stove gets up to 600F ??

seems like our parents and grandparents up graded their cars every 5 years because the tech advancements being so rapid. now the technology improvements aren't as rapid ? my folks had a 1960 ford falcon. they dumped it in 1968. it had trouble going up hills.

Add 38 years to the '58 ford and you got 1990. Having a 1958 ford would be unheard of in 1990.

i was surprised too, it is possible that a 2019 vintage craftsman wrench is not steel....

gas stove, i held it in the flame for a while, and then at that house there was a gap in the pavers right outside the kitchen, so i put the wrench in there and stepped on it. i went slow, because i didn't want to crack it, and i had no way to tell how hot it was.

The gas flame is actually pretty hot, as opposed to the temperature of the oven. To confirm, I just measured the temp of the flame and it is 1550 degF. More than enough to bend your wrench.

Carl

For mechanical secondaries, I don't think you need/should want to do it on a street driven car. In my opinion it will add driveability issues (or other mods that will needed to avoid the driveability problem). It also has the potential of smogging your car difficult. If you want to do it though, I think Benjaminxxxx and Jeff20B have done some serious write-ups of the other mods that are needed to make it street drivable.

For the race car, I am not sure if it is really necessary either. I am pretty sure that Pro7's were not allowed to use mechanical secondaries and I never used them until I bored out the primary venturis. I do not have any dyno data to compare the HP/TQ curves with and without mechanical secondaries. One of my racing buddies is on the technical staff at Mazda and has worked with a lot of their vintage race cars and his advice is to stick with vacuum secondaries unless you can't. When I bored out the primary venturis, not enough vacuum was generated to open the secondaries. I have made the conversion to two different carbs (FB and SA). The linkage is different and I did it two different ways. There seem to be a variety of ways it can be done. I also had some difficulty understanding how other people were doing it. The descriptions always seems to be missing key details. I just figured out my own ways. Once you strip the carb, it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out what you want/need to do. The one thing I def don't recommend is to tie the primary and secondary linkage together with twisted wire. That seems like a serious potential failure point for a race car.

If you are running a stock port 12A, I am not sure if there is a benefit to enlarging the venturis. Someone else might have better info on that. From an SCCA standpoint, Spec7, Pro7 and ITA do not allow any venturi enlarging. I have a spare carb with enlarged primary venturis that you can try sometime if you want. In the meantime, you should be ready for the track with what you have.

I realize that was all kind of wishy-washy, but hopefully at least marginally helpful.

Carl

I've bent cheap Harbour Freight and Husky wrenches after letting them glow a little after being held under a propane torch for that felt like ages. If you can get metal to glow red hot you know you have it cooking though!

I'm not old enough to have seen many major advancement soon cat tech as they debuted, but it does seem that at a point around the 80s-90s the mechanical components of a car became pretty much standardized and then the improvements were related to each being added to cars, so the individual improvements may have had less value individually and it only really mattered when whole systems could be integrated or improved. That's my thinking on it anyway.

Carl I see your points on why mechanical secondaries may not be the best choice is I'll table that while concept for now. The vacuum system seems to me to be a point of failure and I'd like to eliminate was many of those as possible but that may not be an option sadly. I have a small vacuum leak now somewhere in my carb/rats' nest and I'll have to put some time into chasing it sooner rather than later.

my thinking on the mechanical secondaries is along the same lines as Carl. if you had two cars, one with vacuum and the other mechanical, the person in the vacuum secondary car can just floor it, and the car goes. the other person in the mechanical car needs to give it as much throttle as possible without bogging the thing, which takes skill/brain power. even if the person driving the mechanical secondary carb is perfect and gets it exactly right, the two cars will be evenly fast. if the driver in the mechanical car doesn't get everything right its slower.

so since you can get the vacuum (internal to the carb, pretty foolproof) to open almost whenever you need it, i don't see the point to doing mechanical secondaries.

or you can think of it like this; the car is a mess, and we have to go through the whole thing, but there is limited time to do it. is it better to drive the car or mod the carb? there is nothing wrong at all with either answer btw, perfectly fine to just have something in the garage to tinker with. i have a DD car and a car shaped thing i turn wrenches on when i'm bored.

Well that's why I couldn't find that info in the suspension section of my 83 FSM because its in the steering section! After reading that section and several posts on here about setting up a stock style suspension I made sure that the little arrows all pointed in the appropriate direction but there was no change at all in ride height. I double checked and measured and it turns out the front drivers side is 3/4" of an inch lower than the right, and the rear is about 5/8" lower as well. The whole drivers side of the car is lower than the passenger. Does anyone have nay idea what could be causing this if not the springs? My next guess would be bushings but I'm running out of ideas. The lady who owned the car before me was very large and she daily drove the car for decades so something has to be worn somewhere. I plan on replacing all the suspension bushing with Energy Suspension Poly bushings anyway, but if it's not the bushings and nothing looks bent where would I look next???

I understand all that you two are saying.That's why I'm on these forums: for advice like this!! After being told why its a bad idea I'm disinclined to mess with the carb too heavily. That being said I do have an engine in the garage I do want to start tinkering with. its out of an 83 auto and it has the counterweight so I'm thinking of building a bolt on performance motor out of it with a lightweight flywheel. That engine is already out of the car so to remove the smog equipment and bolt on speed parts would be a lot easier! I have my race car motor I can compare it to as well. I guess I'll just fix my vacuum leak and work in leveling out my suspension. The ride height issues are what are driving me nuts right now!!!

If I remember correctly from my days before having adjustable spring perches, I think the left side always sat a bit lower. I assume that the car sat lower on the left with the original springs? Are the RB springs new or used? If used, is it possible they were slightly different lengths? Probably not, but worth a thought. I am sure you also put the upper rubber isolators back in on both sides between the spring and the upper spring perch.

If you want to get it evened out, Mazda made/makes spacers that fit between the strut top hat and the body. They are a little less than 1/4" thick. I think the bolts on top of the top hat may only allow 1 or 2 spacers. If you need more than that, you can press out the studs and install longer bolts. In the rear you can double up on the rubber spacers at the top of the spring. If you want to do that I have a couple of old ones that will work and you can have. These two things were how we evened out (height or cross-weight) the car when I was racing Spec7 and did not have adjustable spring perches.

I would be surprised if the bushings in the front could have that much effect. I think the only rubber bushing there is the inboard end of the control arm. The tension rod bushing should have nothing to do with ride height. I guess the bushing in the top hat could be jacked up, but it should be noticeable if it is that far off. As far as I know, that bushing is not replaceable and you would have to replace the entire top hat.

I am pretty sure most people on this forum will say not to replace the rear control arm bushings with Energy Suspension bushings. They restrict the movement of the rear axle too much.

Carl
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Upper Spacer - Front Strut
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Top Hat

I owened 5 FB...two of them with Nikki carbs with mechanical secondaries and never had a problem on the street... Does it takes time to get used to mechanical secondaries? Yes....but after that it's a blast to drive.....

Carl, the car did have a noticeable lean before I changed the sprung for the RB springs; it was the lean that made me want to change the springs! I bought new RB springs and I did check and make sure they were the same height before installing. I also did install everything exactly as it came out of the car, including the rubber isolators. The FSM mentions those spacers but I haven't been able to find any via a google search because it seems I'm in need of at least one, if not two. The strut top hat seemed to be in pretty good condition and went in just fine. Next step is to source or make some of those spacers I guess.

raven12aFB considering I have an extra carb sitting around I think I'm gonna modify one just because I can! I love to tinker and I have my Pro-7 car as a reference and because its an extra carb the daily will still be together and usable as I'm messing around in the garage. Best of both worlds!!

After doing some research it seems you're right and that the consensus is to NOT put poly in the rear. I have no problem saving a little bit of money and putting OEM style rubber in the rear. I also read that some of the Pro-7 racers ditch the lock washers and nuts in the rear for lock-nuts and barely tighten the nuts so that the nylon lock ring engages in order to allow the trailing arms to move even more. Carl, do you have an opinion on that? Does anyone else have any advice on the rear end bushings? Considering my race car and my daily have the same set-up currently I'd love to use set-up tips and tricks on both!

the nylon nut thing works, but its LOUD, probably not good on a street car.

so i've built two FB's semi recently, and both are just stock rear suspension, and both are fine? the first is Fungus Mungus's car, and he's running big A7 Hoosiers, and the thing rolls way over, but there is no snappy handling to be found (it keeps up with the 792P in the infield). the second one is the Lemons car we just did, and that one actually understeers (for 2/3 of us). it does understeer on corner exit, which kind of sucks, but its also a "new" car (lol!)

so is there a problem in the rear? yes. is it a big one? no

I understand it'll be loud, but that may not b too big a deal for a street car, I also may get tired of it QUICK! While we're talking about ease of driving as a daily, I just took my Pro-7 car out for a drive and DAMN does it drive really well. Currently it drives really well on the street, even better than my daily! It has a fully race-prepped carb set-up and a 4-puck strung clutch disc and its genuinely easier to drive on the street than the road car is to drive! I haven't had the racer out in a while and it really does feel awesome. It also has the Mazdatrix short shifter which I'd been thinking of installing on the road car when I pull the trans to service the throwout bearing and slave cylinder, but I may have changed my mind. That may be a little much for a daily. The mechanical secondaries and clutch disc, however I may eventually put on the daily... decisions, decisions!!

I agree that the stock suspension is generally fine, especially for the street. The problems may really only arise when the car is lowered a lot and you are driving really hard. In my opinion, if someone is driving hard enough to have a problem on the street, they should probably have their license taken away. ;-). I converted my car to tri-link/panhard a number of years ago, when I switched from Pro7 to ITA/STL. I feel like it really does make a difference. I think it is more predictable on the track. Directional transitions are more stable, closer to my Spec Miata (which I got rid of about a year ago). The tri-link setup is very noisy however and would drive you crazy on the street in minutes. It drives me crazy driving around the paddock before going on track. Having said that I have done lots of very enjoyable racing in RX7's with the stock suspension layout too.


I am planning on going to Willow Springs for some testing (see if I got the oil temp sorted) on either July 9 or July 23 (or maybe both), if you are interested. A couple of other local racers might be going too (RX8 and FC RX7). let me know if you are interested and I will keep you updated.

I agree with your assessment: if you're driving that hard on the street you need NOT be driving at all! I guess I'll replace the rear bushings with stock style rubber ones and put Polys on the front. I may convert my racer to a panhard bar and heim joints (instead of bushings) but that's not something I want to deal with on a daily basis. I'd also love to take my racer to the track with you! I'm not sure I can secure a tow out there however. I couldn't make the 9th but if you're heading to the track on the 23rd I may be able to get there! Please send my a private message or a text about it when you get the chance!

An update for y'all: This weekend I took the car up to Camarillo to see a good friend (who has a very nice hot rod BMW 2002) and do some small maintenance tasks and the hit the canyons in Malibu. The car ran beautifully!! I added some seafoam to both the oil and fuel to clean those systems and changed the oil and filter (VR1 and a K&N oil filter) before we went driving and the car seemed to love all of it! Thankfully everything seems to be working as it should and the car really is a joy to drive! I got some great pictures of the cars on a turnout on the road up to God's Seat and I'll try to post them sometime tomorrow when I get a chance.

Mechanically I don't have anything major planned for the car in the near future, but there are still plenty of maintenance items I'd like to take care of, like changing bushings and fixing an oil leak and getting the rear wiper or the windshield sprayers or the cruise control to work or converting the AC to R134a and recharging it... I still have a lot to do!

My next big plan is to start race prepping an 12A currently in my garage so I'll be posting much more on my race car thread, but as I get things done on the daily (that I still haven't named yet) I'll post all of that info here!

Here are some pics from my drive

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Alright, lads a new problem has developed and I'm in need of your diagnostic help and advice. My car was running very very well up until recently, but yesterday I noticed a strange behavior. Normally when I mat the throttle the car gets up and goes, but yesterday when I tried to get on the throttle the car seemed to hesitate and then eventually it would begin to accelerate. Also once it did start to accelerate the revs would continue to climb after I let off the throttle completely before coming down again. I even broke 7k RPM once as the engine kept revving another couple hundred rpm after I'd let off. I know the carb has a vacuum leak somewhere and I've yet to establish where. Also it seems that I can't get my throttle cable tight to the bracket. I can tighten the top nut with my fingers, but that's not tight enough to prevent the cable from loosing again, and I can't get a wrench on it to impart anymore force. I also can't get a wrench or my fingers on the bottom nut.

At first I thought that the sluggish revving and dieseling were caused by the vacuum leak getting worse, but i it perhaps a loose throttle cable? Also how do I tighten that damn cable down!? I'm getting quite frustrated over this problem, gents. Please aid me in any way you can!

Vacuum leaks are easily detectable... get the motor running and spray carburator cleaner around the area...the idle will change when you hit the area with the leak....

The throttle cable should have two nuts...one for the front of the base and one for the back...

I've detected one with that method and I am aware that one exists, I have yet to figure out where the leak is exactly as in what hose or gasket on the carburetor may have the leak. I'll have to gain access to a smoke machine or som slow burnish incense to find the exact cause.

I'm aware there are 2 nuts, but I can't seem to get a wrench on the bottom nut at all, and the top has a ton of crap in the way. Does anyone have any advice on tightening it? Or do I have to remove everything around it to gain access with the 12mm wrench?

I recently rebuilt my carb, when reattaching it I had to deal with the throttle cable also... I found that I could use a set of pliers with rubber hose over the tips to hold the cable in place (keep it from spinning) and a stubby open ended wrench could get on the top nut (at about a 45 degree angle) with enough bite to tighten it. Since I was keeping the cable from turning I didn't have to have anything on the bottom nut. Worked for me, hopefully will for you as well. Good luck.
This is the stubby wrench set I was using: https://www.harborfreight.com/12-pie...set-97383.html
For $12 worth a shot...

I figured I'd likely have to go and grab a stubby wrench or two. I was going to heat up and bend a 12mm wrench to use to get my carburetor off so that wrench may come in handy as well to tighten the cable. I'll get on that and see how it goes. Right now I'm searching the forums to see if I can find the common sources for vacuum leaks. I know I have at least a small one, but I'm trying to see if someone else has previously posted what spots are common leak points so I can begin there.

I can't help you with the vaccum leaks because don't have a rat's nest and my Nikki is completely dehogged..

I'm genuinely jealous of that! Trying to keep my car above board in Cali has become a hassle, but I knew that getting into a post-1975 car.

I've stared a new thread for the issues one been having in the hope that someone may know what's going on with it: https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generati.../#post12476823

Cali? That sucks...I'm in Texas and because the 7 is 25 years or older we don't have emissions tests...so...no air pump, ni rat's nest, ni cats...

Hello all! Life really has been kicking my ass for the last month and I'm sorry I've been AWOL. The biggest news I have on the Black Daily, which I think I've decided to call Carasu or Crow in Japanese, is that I discovered the cause of my carb problems... a MASSIVE fuel leak coming from the rear float bowl!! Suffice it to say I swapped that carb out for my spare immediately upon finding that and the thing seems to be running way better now. I still need to fine tune the idle mixture a little but it seems to be much happier. I also finally replaced the leaking o-rings in the beehive and soon I'll drop the oil pan to replace that gasket as well.

oh and I was also rear ended... Thankfully it was a very low speed impact and the car and I are ok. His insurance will be covering it all and a trusted shop will be doing the repair work. Insurance estimates $1000 but we won't know until the shop has the car apart. Thankfully it just need some bodywork. It could have been so much worse!

It's been a busy few couple months! In car news I finally got my race car on track (my thread on that read car talks about that) and I had the rear end bodywork damage on my car fixed finally. I've really really enjoyed having this awesome little car as my daily, and now I really want to give it some restoration work, and seeing as that's a major part of that I do as a job I feel I'm up to the task. I've decided that I'd like to build a nice "day 2" car, a car with simple period-correct mods that would have been done back in the day. My goal is a half cage for side impact and roll-over protection, 15' mesh wheels, rear window louvres, a restoration of the bodywork and interior, a glass moonroof, and mechanical fixes and upgrades to things like headlights and brake pads. Here's a screenshot of a good chunk of the to-do list, but it's by no means exhaustive. I recently found an old 2-spoke RX7 steering wheel and that went in today, but the other projects have yet to be started in any way.

Also I have a glass moonroof, but it only has one hinge. I've spent hours trying to find info on the fasteners used to hold the hinges on but I've had no luck at all. Both google and the forums haven't been too helpful lately. Does anyone have any info or ideas on where to get those weird fasteners that hold the hinges onto the glass itself??


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...f28ca91e32.jpg
A screenshot of part of the to-do list

I'd check out a glass shop, one that does shower doors etc. Photos would help.