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Hey whats up guys? My name is Andrei. Im currently 24 live in Washington state and have been a car guy since 18. When i turned 18 my grandparents gifted me 1000$ to get my first car. I went to a local online auction and got a 1998 Dodge Neon. It needed a bumper and a fender. Spent 750$ on the car, the rest on parts and paint. Had it for a little under a year and sold it. 5 cars later (VW golf mk4>BMW e30>Datsun 710 wagon>BMW e36) i end up trading the e36 for what looked like a cool sports car. I didnt know much about mechanics of cars and how the engine worked so to me it was just a car. The owner said that it had a built Pineapple racing engine, LSD, Upgraded radiator and blahblahblah. After the test drive i parked the car, stopped it and started debating. do i really want to trade a newer car for an older car. It looked alright(had bondo on quarter panel, interior was painted black from red) but overall i wanted it. First alert was that it took me about 15 minutes to restart the engine, the owner was saying that sometimes it floods and you have to pull a fuse and clear the engine. I said ok and traded. Drove to a gas station that was about 5 minutes away to refill and here is where the nightmares begun
The engine got flooded really badly and took me 3 or 4 hours to unflood. I kept calling the owner to see if he can come back and see whats up with the car and why it wont start, but he kept dropping the calls. My dad ended up driving up 50 miles with some tools to help out. We pulled the spark plugs and torched them. popped them back in and started it. Phew! and on the way i went back.
The car drove fine. no weird shakes or sounds, it was running a little hot about 70% on the gauge. After about 1 week it started getting really hot. and i mean gauge all the way to the top. I realized that the radiator had holes in it after filling it up with coolant. So much for an upgraded radiator. Anyway long story short, the guy got a prime red e36 with 85k miles on it, and i was left with a dying rotary engine.
my buddy Jesse pretty much summarizes how i felt after this trade.
Anyway i had to get a new radiator, so i went with koyo from mazdatrix. Put it on, filled it up with fresh coolant, and it seemed fine. But not for long. in about 2 months it started eating coolant. and i mean 1-2 days and radiator is empty. Thats where i really started looking up info about rotaries and how they are put together. Im pretty sure it had a cracked housing. I learned quite bit from this forum and other peoples build threads. At that time i worked at a local gas station as a clerk and some night i would just sit for hours without anyone coming through. So i read and read and watched stuff on rotaries and how to make them work and not break down. Luckily my friend Logan just picked up a super clean Vert that he was going to T2 swap. I got the dibs on the engine from the vert. The car had 120k miles on the clock. Had good compression numbers F:90 R:95. And correct me if im wrong but it looked like it was a rebuilt engine because the irons painted blue, which i thought meant that someone took it apart and painted it after building.
I lost lots of pics when my computer ceased to live so cant really show you the swap but trust me, more good stuff is coming
After the swap i was really happy because i did it in my garage with simple tools and a engine crane that i picked up on craigslist for 75$.
Then i picked up some Megan Racing Track Series Coilovers(600$), Racing beat full exhaust (650$) and some crown vic wheels with tires for $240$) All within 2 week increments (paychecks were every 2 weeks lol). Anyway, these were all parts i found on craigslist and had to drive quite some time to pick them up but it was worth it because the price says it all.
I was really happy with the way the car was turning out. and then .....
I found a body kit for 200$! it was in nice shape but needed to be painted.
Overall i liked this car alot, the sound of the rotary, the way it feels on the road, and spitting flames without an ebay kit definitely made it the car that i would want to keep forever. I was gonna paint it, found a full black interior from a crashed T2, but then....
One late night at work i was browsing craigslist for parts, and i saw a 1987 RX7 FC FOR FREE!!!! I looked at the post, the guy said something like i need to move, the engine is blown, pick it up. Call the guy right away (it was 11 30pm). He picks up, says there are like 10 other guys that want to come and pick it up. I told him that if he can wait 1 day i will pay him 300$. He says fine cause all the other dudes were kinda flaky. I couldnt go right away cause of work but the day after, im up at 5 am getting ready to get a dolly and mob. We had to take the ferry to get to where the car was.
And this is where the journey really started. I got the car for 300$ bucks, clean title, came with a disassembled engine that he thought was blown which i found all 6 apex seals intact in the parts box. The housings werent scoured. I think the guy just couldnt get it to work.
I drove my older FC for about 2 more weeks before i started the swap.
The swap ended up being really easy except for one part. I COULDNT ATTACH TRANSMISSION! The GXL chassis was automatic and i needed a custom mount. Luckily this company xcessivemanufacturing makes one for 125$!
A week later i got it on. Perfect fit very sturdy and thick plate steel.
All this was cool and all but the car wouldnt start. I started digging in to it.
1)There was no fuel coming
2)No spark
at this point i started realizing how many parts i shouldve kept before getting rid of the old chassis
Ended up driving to the new owners house and grabbing the fuel pump from him. He didnt need it because he was doing a SR swap so at least i didnt have to spend money on that.
Pop that thing in. Got fuel.
and at this point i think was the hardest time of my life. I could not figure out the no spark. Tested coils, and pretty much every electronic piece with a volt meter. And about 2-3 weeks later i realized that the driver side harness that goes to the coils and under dash has different color wires, because it was automatic. I found a guy that has a mazda lot not too far away and he just happened to have a rolled over manual FC that got in. He said i can have the whole harness with ECU for 200$. I jumped right on it. It was a b*tch getting that harness out. Not only there was glass everywhere and little room to work because of the crunched chassis but it was also freakin 100 degrees out. I was soaked when i finished pulling it. I get home take a lil break to chill out from the heat, and then off i went putting the harness in.
took me quite some time to get all the wires in right spots but hey it brapped up within 2 seconds. I was so happy you have no idea. I double checked all the wire connections and started to put the dash back in.
This was it! The first drive!
Oh how happy i was brapping it around the street and on the way to my friends house (the guys with the 240z). We had a sort of a competition who finishes their car first. He was swapping an l28 engine into his Z and i was doing the FC swap. and although he did get his car to finally run 2 days later, I still was the winner :P
After about a week of driving and making sure nothing doesnt go down i started putting fun parts on. Coils, little wing, bucket seat with harnesses and other misc stuff.
So there i was happy as hell, driving my fc everywhere and then suddenly i started hitting 4k RPM wall. It really freaked me out because i rechecked compression and it actually went up since i checked it before buying the engine F:110 R:110. I started messing with timing, took injectors to get cleaned, tested my electronics such as TPS, injector clips and CAS. Nothing. Re grounded everything as it says in Aaron cakes article. Nothing. Last thing i check fuel pump. I pop it open and the fuel is ORANGE. there was a rust beach on the bottom of the tank. I mean SPOONS FULL OF RUST. I tried looking up how to clean tanks and it seemed like id need LOTS of detergent and time. I called up the guy that i got my Harness and ECU from and he actually had a tank laying around. 180$ for a pretty much new clean tank! Swapped it over, cleaned up the fuel pump and got a new sock for it. Got a new fuel filter. Connected everything and voila. I could red line again.
The funny thing was my friend with the 240z had pretty much the same exact issue. He later found out that he connected the FUEL IN AND OUT in reverse. I actually suggested to check the placement of them a couple days before he figured it out but he says he already checked and it was in the right order
So to summarize this story, i wanted to get a car that i would work on. If something went out i would not take it to a shop and just figure it out myself. Despite everyone telling me to get rid of it, forget it, get a normal car, I stayed with my FC and now everytime im on the road its a pleasure to drive it. I had the first chassis for about a year and this newer one for just a little over a year. Ive owned over 15 different cars but FC is by far my favorite car.
My future plans are to port and build the engine that came with this GXL chassis, a standalone setup, and a roll cage.
If you want to check out more photos that got lost in the process check out my instagram @rotary_virus
07-31-17, 06:37 PM
