Very nice work! Makes my driver's side rear quarter panel and little dents and dings here and there look much more manageable. I was lucky and was able to buy a factory rear quarter as well.. going the glue in route vs welding. Have a good day.

 

Maybe you said it somewhere else in this thread, but what spoiler is that? I like.

 

Thanks guys! The spoiler is from a company called RetroSpec. They have changed websites many times between when I ordered and now, and honestly I don't even know if they are still making this spoiler. It took several months to get (this was 2009 or so) and the shipping was quite inflated. Good quality part though and I really like the look as well.

Retro-spec is the site I found when googling them, looks like you have to email for availability. They were on the forum here for a while as well, I think his username was like Fazz32 or something like that. Again though I've had this for years, so I'm not sure what is going on with them now.

Swbtm - I saw your pm, just been too busy to give a proper reply, I will soon though. Didn't want you to think I was ignoring you

Edit - his username is Fazzt73 and here is a link for his FC stuff. Could contact him about the FB spoiler though https://www.rx7club.com/vendor-class...s-fc3s-876301/

 

Quick update, no pics (they all came out blurry ) but I finished restoring the 83 GSL rear end (the one I had to swap between this car and the 85, confusing I know for this thing and re-installed it this weekend. Glad to have this car back on all fours. Sandblasted the whole thing, including all brackets, backing plates etc etc. Put new axle bearings and seals in it along with new brake hard lines and hoses. Overall it came out really nice.

Goal for this week is to finish up the odds and ends on this car and get it running/moving under it's own power.

 

Good luck getting her rolling. Question for you: how were the yourcarpart.com weatherstripping to install? Looking at buying some now, did they come with the mounting clips? Just clean, line up and glue as you go?

Thanks

 

Sorry I missed your post. The seals I got are OEM Mazda so no issues fitting them at all. No need to glue them, they fit into a channel along the top and have clips already in them for the rest of it.

Update on this - Finally finished converting this back to stock (fuel system, wiring etc) and got the old 12a fired up. Was a real pain in the *** to get fired the first time, but this engine and carb have been sitting for close to 2 years so I can't complain. Starts easily now, but seems to have a stumble off idle. Assuming the never rebuilt 31 year old carb is getting grumpy...

I need to get a new axle seal since I messed one up putting the rear end back together, then I can bleed brakes and take this thing for a spin.

On the non mechanical side I'm redoing the hood. It got a bunch of tiger stripes in the metallic paint, and had some dents I missed when I was body working it. I had a better hood sitting behind the shop and am in the process of stripping and body working that one. I also still need to strip and paint the metal sunroof as well as finish the windshield trim. Hoping to lay some paint this weekend, but we'll see how the weather is.

Some other random stuff to finish, like badges, the front side marker lights etc, but it's almost done.

For now, a pic of it after going 50 feet down the driveway. It's first trip under 12a power again haha.

 

this looks awesome! great job on the rust repair! i think i needed to see this color. I may not be keeping my car white now! :P

 

Haha, yeah white looks good too, but this blue is hard not to like

 

Got the axle seal replaced and bled the brakes, this is now a fully functional car again. It goes forward under it's own power, turns and stops. What more could you want... lol

The carb has some issues though. It starts easily, idles fine and revs up quickly, but if you try to rev it up slowly it wants to cut out around 2000 rpm. Seems like something is clogged and/or starving... Probably time to rebuild this carb... ugh..


Anyway, as mentioned in the post above, I was unhappy with the hood. It was embarrassing honestly compared to the rest of the body work. I reshot it last weekend and again it came out poorly. Decided to give it one more try this weekend. Sanded the shine off with 400 grit wet and reshot it. finally it came out the way I wanted - something I'm proud enough of to actually post a pic of haha. Much better than the uneven "tiger striped" crap I was getting... I'll put it back on the car sometime this week and probably dig into the carb...

 

Wow, that's an awesome build! I'm going to fix mine which is almost as rusty as yours, but i don't plan on painting it for now. But man, honestly, you are an awesome metal worker!

 

Kudos! It's really looking good. Finally getting to the pay off for all the hard work.

 

Car's looking great man, keep up the good work!

 

Ok, been a loooong time since i had anything worth updating on this. I'll spare all the details, but basically I've been spinning my wheels (not in the fun way) for the better part of this year on this car. Those who have followed this, and my other build thread for the 85 might remember that I took the S5 T2 I had in here and put it in the 85 back in March. My plan at that time was to go back to a 12a in this car, but it wasn't meant to be. The carb gave me nothing but issues and I decided to just cut my losses and not waste more time on that engine. I then went to a S5 NA engine that I had sitting around (ran poorly when in my 85). I replaced all hoses/gaskets etc etc with the hopes that I could get it running well, but no dice. Had idle issues and again I decided to not waste anymore time on that engine. I have since sold the short block - good riddance...

So, what did i end up deciding to do you might ask? Well, many thoughts went through my head, V8, Miata engine, S2k engine amother other things. In the end though I decided I would stick to what I know, but with a twist. I got another JDM S5 T2 engine, from ebay this time and greatly simplified it by removing the turbo. So basically what I'm left with is a nice simple 4 port 13b with fuel injection. Will it be the most powerful thing ever? Not at all, but one goal with this build was to keep things nice and simple. As usual I stripped the engine down to the block, replaced all vacuum hoses, intake gaskets, injector o rings and what not. As well as removing a bunch of things that weren't needed and stripping down the wiring harness. I've been busy! The best part, I fired it up this weekend for the first time, and after a bit of timing/TPS/idle adjustments it went into a nice smooth idle, hot starts easily and just generally seems like it's going to run very well. What a relief to finally have a good engine in this thing!

The engine was definitely rebuilt at some point and had the strongest sounding whooshes I've ever heard when turning over. It also (unbeknownst to the seller) came with a Greddy hybrid turbo and some other goodies which I'll be saving for my other FB's at some point.

I used a GSL-SE front cover/oil pan along with an old RB engine mount brace. The trans and clutch are 12a parts. It's using an S4 omp with custom cable linkage to actuate, and the TB has been stripped of all cold start BS and has been modded to use an FB throttle cable. There are other minor changes as well, but those are the main ones.

Anyway, a few more days of work to button up some things (the intake isn't done yet) on the car and I can register it and hopefully put a few miles on it. It's been sitting in a nearly done state for far too long...

 

Congrats, looks really close to the road now. If you ever find that you don't want that greddy... i'm not too far away I'm finding through research my old 12a turbo might be a bit undersized

Could you please take a pic of how you hooked up the omp to be cable actuated? I'm thinking of doing something similar when I get around to removing my holley.

 

mmm daddy like what he see's

 

Awesome! Cant wait to see what sort of power you get out of it. What computer are you running?

 

Thanks guys I'll be interested to see how it goes as well. I haven't registered it yet so I don't know how it drives. I'm thinking I might get it on the road in the next week or two though. We'll see

I'm guessing 140-145 hp is probably about what I can expect from this, maybe a bit less. I'm running a N374 - JDM S5 Turbo ECU. I went back and forth on whether I should use NA injectors and ecu etc but figured the extra fuel from the 550cc turbo injectors couldn't hurt, so i'm basically running all turbo parts, just no turbo. Can always experiment with different setups later.

It starts right up and idles smooth as silk, and will have more hp than the 12a did, that's really all I wanted out of this

 

Looks great ! It seems to be sitting a bit lower than stock as well. Are you running lowering springs ?

 

Thanks! Yeah it's got Eibach springs. They've been in the car for years. The tokico shocks I had were shot and one was leaking so I replaced them last year with KYB's. Haven't driven the car really yet, so I can't comment on how this combo rides/handles. I'm suspecting it'll be just fine

 

4 port Turbo II motor
TII ECU
Turbo II injectors
All Turbo II parts
But no turbo?

When you say "experiment with different setups later" = boost right???

I'm just giving you grief man, looks awesome! Wish I could find a decent setup that's similar to this one locally. A guy has a full TII swap engine setup ready for $1,000 for an FB locally because he's leaving the FB game and heading towards an FD. Seriously considering swiping that setup for this current car I'm building. Can't even get the 12a to start though - talk about frustrating! I'll check in some more on this one, it's going well

 

$1000 is a great deal for a T2 setup, you should jump on it!

I'm keeping this one NA for the foreseeable future. Not planning to put the turbo back on. I wanna keep this one simple.

Actually not everything is T2 on this, it's a 12a trans, and the pressure sensor and AFM are both S5 NA pieces, no need to use the turbo parts there...

 

It's off of Craigslist now, just checked. But he has 13b with the description "It has turbo housings and i believe S4 irons. I do not know what rotating assembly it has. Motor ran when pulled" for $200 online right now. I texted him for an entire day about FB's - his username is 82fanTC or something like that on here, he said he mostly lurks on the forum instead of posting. Nice guy, I should go check out this motor he has for sale. I'd rather go 13b than staying boring old 12a...but I was told the 12a was rebuilt 10,000 miles ago with new seals. I should take her apart and check this winter.

I know what you mean about keeping it simple, running a FMIC with all the piping, probably going Rtek, tuning the beast, it all adds up. Will be nice to have something more simple for a while I bet! Love the color of this car for sure. I'll be respraying mine red this spring and using many techniques I learned from you in this thread about painting.

 

Good luck. I'll post more on this once I get it on the road.

 

It should also be mentioned the Sean already has 2 fb's within turbo2 set ups lol!!!! Car looks good as ever.

 

What kind of power do you expect with a 4 port NA? 130ish? Probably feels like a 6 port with the ports wired shut? Im still kicking the idea of building a GSL-SE engine with R5 12A plates and adapting a Nikki to a Hitatchi manifold.