My official 1985 GS 12a RX-7 Build.
 

Hey all,

I have been meaning to get this thread going, but progress has been slow. I'm gonna be updating as we go, regardless of how slow it is.

The story begins:

When I was 8 years old, I used to go to Barrie Speedway every Saturday night. At the end of the night they would put on the 'King of the Hill' event, and most of the time, a guy known as Pizza Man would show up and smoke EVERYBODY in his first-gen RX-7. I was in love with that car.

Fast forward 12 years, and I found an RX-7 on Kijiji for $700. I offered him $500, and the deal was done.

I showed up and met this:

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDc4WDY0MA...9q!~~48_20.JPG

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1ac31f8a.jpg

As you can see, the interior has seen better days, but isn't absolutely ruined.

Attachment 680919

Here's the engine as we found it on the rainy night in Hamilton:

Attachment 680920

After a hefty tow charge, the car was brought from Hamilton to my place in Etobicoke. Now, it was owned by one woman in Windsor from 1984 until the early 2000's. Then it was sold to a man in Ingersoll, who drove it until it stopped running. It was then picked up by a young man in Hamilton, who had it for a month. Nothing against this young man, but he had a knack for killing cars. Regardless, it was in great shape, and I'm I got it.

When we got it back to my place, we pulled off the air filter and decided to take some before pictures to see how much progress we made. This is the engine currently:

Attachment 680921


Now, a friend of mine is helping restore it. He has the handy bonus of living at home and having a garage, so we're doing most of the work at his place. Regardless, I have an empty parking spot at my apartment, so that's where the car sits now.

Currently we don't have a lot of tools, so we've been sanding by hand:

Attachment 680922

Attachment 680923

We're planning on getting a sand-blaster to speed things up, but that may not be for a little bit.

The eventual plan is something some of you are going to cringe at. An absolute ricer. Slammed with an absurd paint job, and a huge spoiler. But at least I wan't to keep it rotary, right?

Wouldn't be the first time :lol:

But I don't hate on slammed out cars, some of them turn out well. There are actually a few that I greatly enjoy looking at. That isn't a bad deal at all for a 7 - I'd say you did pretty well. Will keep checking in!

not for nothing, but good God that thing is filthy! it'll be fun watching you turn this thing around. your plan is not my cup of tea, but as long as you consider safety when you "slam" it, then go for it. i just like to see these cars on the road, as opposed to rotting away.

Nice grab!
 

Enjoy! You're probably going to want to either do a GSL-SE suspension and brake swap or hit up re-speed.com and get their axle conversions.

The GS model uses 4x110 bolt pattern which is nigh-on impossible to find ricer rims for. The GSL-SE uses 4x114.3, which many Hondas use. Honestly though, the stock 13" rims are one of my absolute favorites on the FB - so long as they're slammed:

https://www.rx7club.com/members/tito...2006-46929.jpg

You may consider fender flares, they can add a really great touch. I also LOVE the wing on this 7:
http://www.mazspeed.com/btchn7.jpg

Also, be careful with exhaust, and don't skimp out and get the cheap stuff off eBay. Rotaries run really hot and can burn through mufflers! Often what will happen is that the opened up exhaust may sound super tinny. To avoid this, spend the extra cash up front and get a Magnaflow (people are digging the Hushpower) or Borla, those will be the best-sounding loud exhaust you can get.

Trust me, I've tried the N1 style, the 2.5" straight-through DTM, etc. ;)

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'm looking at the Racing Beat exhaust system, as well as their Holley intake kit.

I'm planning on checking out re-speed for a coil-over kit, as well. I may keep the stock rims, 'cause I absolutely love them, but if I am looking for aftermarket, I'll look into the GSL-SE conversion.

You can't go wrong with Racing Beat! My current and previous 3 exhaust systems are RB and they are rock solid and sound great.

Any info on their suspension? I'd like to get as much in one order as I can.

Of course, all of this will come once I know the 12a still runs.

It's very good. But re-speed is the way to go. Call an make sure he has everything in stock and that his fabricator is still in good turnaround - he was having some trouble with that for quite a while. Seems things are rolling again.

:nod: this.

Just a mini-update:

I decided to keep the stock rims and restore them. We pulled 2 of them off, and one of the tires was flat. The valve had cracked, so it wasn't holding air. We got the wheels off and back to the garage, and started trying to get the tires off.

Now, there's no other way to put this, but we are morons. We ended up cutting the tire off of the rim...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.n...48644222_n.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.n...47472531_n.jpg

I'll have some pics of the rims once we have them cleaned up.

Now this is what i call hard work. Either hopefully itll come out super nice or youll get tired of the work and sell it. Im betting that car is nice and preserved under all that dirt. And when you say slammed do you mean bumper to the ground or just lowered? And i bet with a good cleaning that interior will be new again.

lmao you know there was a much easier and faster way to take tires off rims by hand..........


if you do them right the rims will come out nicely. here is a set i did for my last car.
Attachment 679432
Attachment 679433

BTW it took about 3hrs per rim...

I doubt that I'll get fed up with it. There may be some stuff I pay someone to do, but it's nice to have a project. We're planning on reupholstering the interior, and doing some Fiber Glass door panels.

We thought it would be super simple to do, and it took us 3 hours just to get the tire off... The rims had to go back on the car, though as my landlord decided to yell at me for having a car in the lot without any wheels on it.

Great deal on a beautiful car. Good luck with your future endeavours. Oh yea, your forearms will be sore after doing the wheels by hand

Do you guys know of any decent places to get tires on the cheap, just so I can get this thing on some proper wheels?

Wow great job, what did you use on them?

Things have been going a bit slow as of late. It's quite cold again, and I've been busy with work.

If anyone has suggestions for simpler ways to clean brake dust off of the inside of these rims? I'm having a hard time with it.

Aluminum wheels use oven cleaner and brushes.

Hey man you need any parts? Ive got a shitload of FB and FC parts, I live bout 45 mins north of you lol. Good luck with the FB build man.

I just put a magnaflow silencer borla muffler on my 85 12a. If I was starting now from scratch on a budget I'd have a collected RB header, 2 of Magnaflow 10434 22" under the car, and a borla 40348 at the back. A quiet storm.

And if you're making project and to save money, build a stripped nikki. It's it's own reward.

Nice man I'm bought to start my 85 build

Nice work on the restoring of parts!

Hey all. Posting just a quick update, and a question:

The engine bay is looking much cleaner. We haven't had a lot of time to work on it, and both of us have been very busy, but we'll hopefully have it running in the next couple weeks. I'll post some pics of it looking clean as soon as I can. My friend who has the pictures is off at the track this weekend.

My question to you all is this: Where the hell can I find some decent looking 15" rims(obviously this is subjective, but I hate meshies) in a 4x110 bolt pattern?

Ebay, craigslist, sometimes tirerack.com or discounttire.com. also check the classifieds on here, you'll see some pop up from time to time.

Hate to have to admit this, but the RX-7 had to go. I had a serious financial crisis and there was no way to hold onto it.

This is the last picture taken of it:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/519248/rx7.jpg

Hopefully I'll get to try this again some time...