Hello everybody I've been on this forum for a month or so now and figured it's time to post up my build page. In the past I've always built Honda's and to make a Honda a respectable "sport" car you have to dump a lot of money, time, and bloody knuckles into them. When it was time for me to get away from Honda and into a real car, I originally wanted to find another AE86. Hands down the best car I've ever owned and I greatly regret trading it for a Honda Civic a few years back... But being I'm in the MidWest a clean rust free AE86 is damn near impossible, and I had all but given up on the search for another one when I came across this RX-7.

A friend of mine had traded his project 1986.5 Toyota Supra for a rolling shell 1986 Mazda RX-7 Sport thinking he'd eventually stuff another 13b under the hood and have fun with it. But I made him a cash offer he could not refuse and it's been siting in my garage since the first of December 2014.

A little about the car before I get to the pictures, being a MidWest car its whole life and being rust free is insane. I've never seen a car this old not have rust, and the interior was mostly there which was a big bonus considering it's got the red interior which I'm finding is hard to find parts for. Overall I would of given the car a 7/10 but it still needed a few things done, but that's the fun part right?!

Listen we all know what an FC RX-7 is and what they have so I don't really need to explain anymore about the car itself that wont be explained in the pictures. But with any car I plan to do anything with I have to make a build list, check it twice, and change it about 100 times before I'm happy. Well that was what I typically did with a Honda build, and the list was LONG... But to my most pleasant after doing my research on the FC and looking up other builds. I knew what I needed to do to the car to make it into what I wanted to do with it. Which is really just a good weather joy ride on the twisty back roads of the Ozarks!

Turns out as you all know the FC is such a well rounded true sports car not a lot has to be done in order to achieve the desired results. Really I could of just replaced old worn parts with new OEM parts and probably been pretty happy. But what's the fun in that? So here is my list of thing that will be performed to my 86 RX-7 Sport.

NA 13b Rotary
NA 5 Speed Transmission
86-88 NA LSD Rear Diff
Prothane Master Bushing Kit
Megan Racing EZ Street Coilovers
Ultra Racing Front and Rear Strut Tower Bars
Katana Speed-Line 16x7 +40 wheels
BFGoodrich G-Force Sport COMP-2 225/50R16
NRG Short Hub
NRG Quick Release
NARDI Steering Wheel
Mazdatrix Short Shifter Kit
K&N Cone Filter and MAF Adapter
Racing Beats Header
2.5" SS Mandrel Bent Exhaust with Dual MagnaFlow Mufflers
Street Rays Solid Motor/Trans Mounts
Devin Diff Mounts
BRIDE Racing Seats with Adjustable Rails

That just about sums up the list, and a lot of those parts have been bought and installed at this point. Some things still needing to be found and bought, but we all have a budget... Well... At least I do anyways... So now that you've all passed over everything I've typed and skipped straight to the pictures. I better get to posting pictures before you all think all I'm doing is typing information down that none of you really car to read. Because I'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of build threads that are similar if not identical to mine...

The fist picture and the first night it stayed in my garage:


After cleaning up the interior a bit, really all I did was vacuum the carpet:




After a good cleaning the next thing on the list was a power plant. Originally I wanted to swap a 2JZ-GE under the bonnet. But after looking at four different engines and they were all high mileage paper weights with a stupid price tag. I decided to hit up The Rotary Doctor in Neosho, MO and he hooked me up with this low miles great compression 13b:


Compression Numbers:


As well as this rebuilt and ready to go 5 speed transmission with shitty ebay short shifter:


Mated everything together:


StreetRays Solid Motor/Trans Mounts:


Prothane Master Bushing Kit:


Katana Speed-Line 16x7 +40 Wheels:


Wrapped in BFGoodrich G-Force Sport COMP-2:

 

On jack stands getting ready for some love:


Megan Racing EZ Street 15-way Adjustable Fullbody Coilovers:


Prothane Kit, Coilovers, Wheels and Tires all installed:




Pushed out of the garage for the first time in a few months to have the engine bay cleaned and prepped for paint:


Used Racing Beats Header Getting Prepped for Paint:


After:


Showing off the Magnaflow Exhaust:


Engine Bay Painted and ready for a new hear:


Just a neat picture I took while removing all the emissions from the 13b:

 

1986-88 NA LSD:


Anyways... This is now all caught up pretty much, I had the new rear diff gear lash checked since it was a rebuilt unit and it was spot on. The engine bay is still empty waiting for the engine to be implanted. But with this horrible MidWest weather I don't see it happening anytime soon. I hate the cold and I hate snow, we currently have both... I seriously cannot wait to look back on this thread in a few months when it's 75F and I'm cruising the back roads. And say to myself, "Wow! It sucked when I typed all of this."

So yeah... I guess as things happen and more parts come in I'll update this thread. So until then STAY TUNED! ~ See what I did there

BTW THIS 12 PICTURES PER POST IS DUMB, just sayin...

 

Hey brother looks really good, can't wait to see it up and running! I'm in the same boat out in Overland Park, ripped everything apart right before it got cold and just waiting to put it back together once it's nice.

Where is Rogersville at? We have a few guys in the Shawnee/OP/KC area. Just curious how far you are from us.

 

Rogersville is about 15 miles East on HWY 60 from Springfield, MO. So I'm a few hours from you all. I'm actually originally from Independence but been living down here for a while now. I'm pretty sure I have the only FC in this area I live in.

 

I love it when toys come in the mail! Hope the Nardi wheel will be here before the end of this week...

 

Nice setup! What quick release did you go with?

 

I'm cheap so I got v1.0 lol it will do the job just fine

 

I decided to bear the 25F temp of my garage and install the hub and QR tonight. Took me like 10 min tops, this will also be the first time I've used an NRG hub and the horn will work from the get go!!

 

Nice! Should work great with the Nardi. I've got an NRG short hub in my S5 but don't have a quick release for it yet, let me know how you like it. My S4 has a Sparco hub and quick release and I'm really happy with it, not sure if I should copy it in both cars.

 

I can already tell you from experience the NRG short hub and NRG quick release is hands down the best combo on the market. I had the exact setup in both my AE86 and del Sol, very solid, no movement at all what so ever. It's the only setup I'll use in any of my cars when it comes to an aftermarket steering wheel. I have less than $200 in the whole setup.

 

I've never owned an NRG. But I picked up a fantastic condition Works bell rapfix II and lock for 250. Seem extremely solid except the bent lock key.

I do plan on using a short hub. With the short hub, how close is the hub to the column cover? And can you retail that turn cancel/horn mechanism?

Cheers for a great looking build!!!

 

The short hub does ride up pretty close to the column covers, I've even read some people had to trim the hole a little bit. I didn't have to for me it fits near perfect, and with the turn signal cancel there are provisions on the back of the hub to fit the tabs for that. It all fits perfect 0 issues, I'm very pleased with it all.

 

Stoked!

 

BAM! I ordered this from Tokyo this past Saturday and it arrived today. Gotta love those Japanese!! Also it is an older used wheel, for some reason when it comes to steering wheels I love period correct wheels to match the car. It's got a tiny bit of wear but not enough for me to turn it down for the price I paid for it. I'll have it installed this evening when I got off work.

 

What did you buy it off of? Rinkya?

 

I bought the wheel off of the Japanese ebay.

 

No hassles with shipping!!?? I've heard nightmares about yahoojpn

 

None so far, I've bought just a hand full of things. Shipping has been more than fair and very fast, I typically don't tell prices on stuff I buy. But I paid $88 shipped to my front door, and got it in four days.

 

F'in A I'll have to mess around with it later

 

Got the wheel installed, still waiting for my aftermarket Mazda Speed horn button to come in. But I'm very happy with how everything turned out so far, my only concern is the button I ordered has only one spade connector on the back of it. I'm assuming that is the yellow constant power wire with the hub and quick release. Not sure where the ground will go, I'm guessing anywhere I can ground it... I'll figure it out for sure...

First picture is just an overall shot of the whole interior view:


This picture is to show how much space the hub and QR assembly is taking up, not much more than the factory position:


This will probably be one of the last updates for a while as I don't really have anything else coming in. But stay tuned for more to come!

 

I have a steering column surround if you are interested, comes with the ring around the key hole and all. 35$ shipped to your door and you can make that look uber clean!

 

I will take you up on your offer, for I do have mine but it's broken on both ends.

 

Small but big update!

My Mazdatrix short shifter showed up today and I promptly went to install it. But ran across a pretty big issue right away... If you want to read up on it you can find the post in the 2nd gen thread... But long story short, I ordered the shift kit for the 84-88 trans only to find out I have an 81-83 trans. After some research and monkey business I was able to use some of the ebay shifter I had before to install the Mazdatrix shifter properly. Shifts like butter... Now I need to find a freaking shift ****, and a struggle it will be!!! 12x1.50 FTL.....



Stay tuned for more to come!!!

 

Hey guys and gals with the weather getting nice in Missouri, it means I have a few small updates for you all. The last few posts I've made have been long winded, I know this... So I'm going to do you all a favor and keep them short and to the point form here on out. Also if interested in the build and want updates faster you can follow my instagram "joshsanders85". Anyways, onto the updates!

This past Sunday the weather was nice enough to have friends over for a BBQ and rotary install. Overall went pretty smooth!


Also went ahead and ordered Ultra Racing front and rear strut tower bars, wasn't a fan of having to cut the rear speaker mounts. But I wasn't going to run a radio anyways.



And thanks to FCJG15 I have a MUCH cleaner interior now, still have a few things to find but it's getting there! New (to me) gauge cluster, cluster surround, shifter bezel, steering column covers all from him! Thanks again man!


Another angle of the newly updated interior with Mazdatrix short throw shifter:


And last for tonight I went ahead and bought an oil catch can setup to vent the top port on the oil fill tube. I didn't want the oil possibly venting to atmosphere... I fell like I found a pretty good place for it!


More to come as I start to button up the engine bay and get ready to fire the car up for the first time, so stay tuned!