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I did it again. I bought another car.
Is there something wrong with me? Do i have a sickness? Is this contagious?
Do i need to start a group?
Hi, I'm Kyle, and I'm a Caraholic.
OK seriously. Some people like a good story, maybe others don't. If you're here for the meat and potatoes you can scroll down to pretty pictures and more content, but I'll share a quick backstory for those that care.
If you've read my intro on my FD you might notice I've been on the hunt for years at this point for an FC, and most specifically a Turbo II. Now as a quick aside, just a month ago I'd found one local and "close enough" for what i wanted and snagged it after hesitating, half-cocking, and straight up missfiring on several others I should have bought. It was a 1986 GXL auto swapped manual NA car with a bunch of goodies on it, a somewhat tired engine but mostly complete car. The paint was pretty faded but being blessed in the PNW with no salt on the roads it was very rust free. It had some turbo II aesthetics on it and was used for road racing by the previous owner.
I've had it parked on the side line while cranking on other projects. I got tired of waiting for the "right FC" to come along so I had thought my search was over and I could concentrate on finishing my FD, stop watching marketplace and Craigslist every hour of the day and eventually get working on this FC to make it what i wanted, primarily turbo swap it. But this isn't where our story ends (or begins?).Lo and behold, a challenger has appeared! Up for sale just miles from my house and I had to pounce on it.
This 1987 Turbo II was listed with a blown turbo, non-running but complete car. After checking it out and getting the backstory, it seems it had sat parked for a few years in the sun and the interior took a pretty harsh beating. The outside didn't look too bad, there were some subtle signs of a repaint and very little rust to be found such as on the sunroof panel. We tried getting a compression test on site, and both rotors read zero, zilch, nada. No pulses whatsoever. It was a little difficult to piece together the story, but as I understood it was "running when parked". The previous owner told me the turbo was puking oil, so he was going to swap it. I didn't really know what had happened at that point in the story but I started getting pretty giddy checking this thing out. I felt that the car was still worth purchasing so we made a deal and I brought it home.
A quick wash
Ok, so you probably spotted the bad: the interior is pretty rough. The dash is cracked, some of the plastics literally crumbled just touching them, and the rear carpet was getting sucked up in chunks as I tried vacuuming it.
Stay tuned for follow on. I plan to clean the car up, assess the damage and begin the hunt for some replacement plastics that are just too far gone to restore. Anything that isn't crumbling to pieces I may attempt to refresh using some SEM interior paint. I had really good success with this on my FB interior. When some space gets freed up in the shop I'll detail what the plan is for the engine situation.
I won't use the word restoration, because that isn't what I intend. More like, Correction. I'd like to "correct" as much as I can with this car, in the vein of making it OEM or OEM+. I've learned over the years that trying to min/max everything can lead to something far from what it was intended to do, and usually worse off in so many ways you don't anticipate. Making 800HP is cool, but usually it means your car sucks at so many other things that you find you don't even want to drive it to put up with all the compromises.
I've decided to pick the things that are eating at me first and foremost, mostly the neglect element. Sure, I'd like to get this running ASAP, and i do intend to do that on the side, but I have to fix things up to make this car feel less neglected and more pampered.
Let's start with the damage the sun has done.
These seats may not be in the best condition, but I feel like in the meantime I'd like to give it my best. You can see the original Burgundy color hidden away from the sun. I tried out Duplicolor Vinyl and Fabric (Burgundy, p/n HVP110). Like with anything paint related, it's all in the prep work. I vacuumed, shampooed, then vacuumed the seats again. I carefully masked off the seats from the Tweed centers and followed the instructions on the can.
And a comparison of halfway done:
Ideally these seats should be reupholstered, but I was really pleased with the outcome, so this will definitely buy me some time while i look into this.
I've actually had pretty good luck with that Dupli-color vinyl paint on dashbaords. I'll be curious to see how it holds up on a high wear surface like a seat. Also depending on how ambitious you are, you can reupholster the seats fairly easily if you have access to a semi-decent sewing machine. You can use your current seats as templates for the fabric. It's a lot of time, but not too difficult.
Thanks for the feedback, i think i actually did some searching for upholstery and came across your build thread. I think ultimately I will redo these seats, but this will get by for now.
The engine in the car had no compression. Looks like it ate a turbo and that was the end of things. Luckily i do have a spare engine. I also had a rebuilt transmission fresh and ready to go in.
A bit more rust needing fixed. Painted and sealed up.
So now everything is hooked up, and I'm having a lot of weird electrical issues.
Car had a turbo timer that didn't seem to turn on with the key. I pulled it out, and hooked the ignition switch back to factory.
Idiot lights didn't want to work
Key-in chime BARELY was audible. Messed with the plug, occasionally it'll get louder, but then dim.
Idiot lights started working
Key-on, AC aux fan runs all the time
Logicon - Fan speed works, but selecting any other blender other than defrost does nothing. AC button does nothing.
Gauges do not work.
Tried starting the car. Will crank without the clutch pedal depressed.
Getting spark, no fuel.
Starts and runs on starting fluid.
Fuel pump doesn't seem to be turning on.
Open to suggestions, I'm continuing to check fuses, look over the factory wiring diagrams but I'm getting crosseyed because i hate dealing with circuits.
Turns out the fuel pump was seized. When i thought i had it working, I went to try and start the car, and no fuel flow. Pulled the fuel pump back out, gave it a few wacks with a screwdriver, and got it working again.
Car started right up, no issues. Mild idle surge, smoking a fair bit.
I don't know the history of this engine, I was told it was "rebuilt" but that's the oldest story in the book.
Gauges still do not work, except for the oil pressure.
Happy to have a successful running car, lots more things to do.
Took the gauge cluster out, and lo-behold, there's an obvious issue on the backside of the board that I'd read about. I cleaned all the mounting pads with some scrubbing, dunked the screws in evaporust for a bit and reassembled.
I have a working tach!
Still do not have working temp, boost or fuel gauge.
Found the reason for the fuel pump to be so unhappy. The fuel tank is in pretty rough shape. If you're rust squeamish, I suggest you turn your eyes.
The bad news is there was a lot of chunks, and still flakes left in the tank after dumping it. The good news is that the rust seems isolated MOSTLY to the internal baffle, and only the upper part that connects to the tank ends. There are no holes leaking fuel out, so for now, I'm going to recondition this as best as i can and run it. I'll be on the lookout for a better condition tank down the road. Dropping the tank is only a 20 minute job.
I ran a hose for about 15 mins through the tank until all the crud stopped coming out. I then added a box of screws, and started shaking the tank around to loosen up as much as possible. Another flush, and then it was time to acid etch the rust in the tank.
I used Phosphoric acid, mainly because it neutralizes the rust and converts it. I've read some bad stories on the tank seal kits, with the sealant breaking down and plugging up your fuel system, so i decided to skip that and just fill the tank once the acid had done its job. I figured there's oil in the premix, so that should help keep the rust down, right?
Don't tell my wife what I used her hair dryer for.
Not perfect, but much better. I can live with this for now, as long as no more scale breaks off while i drive the car. I think my fuel filter needs replacing again though, I think I put it thru too much hell
Threw on the mazdaspeed wheels. I need to get shorter lugs so i can put the center caps on. The car probably needs some more low too.
Added a walbro 255 when i buttoned things back up. I plan to change the pickup filter shortly after running a few gallons to ensure all the crud is gone.
Up next is to tackle the dash swap. I removed the old one (right) and the new one just needs parts swapped over.
A better look at just how fried this dash and the top cap were. Yikes.
No surprise i broke several interior trim pieces trying to remove the dash, things just crumbled. So i'll be on the lookout for red interior parts. If you happen to know anyone please reach out!
Also one last mystery solved, but I have no idea how I'm going to fix this exactly. I suspected the Logicon was dead on my car, as it never switched between settings, but it looks like the arms for the blender box are in pretty rough shape. All those little plastic keepers for the rods have disintegrated, and i found two of them dangling. I have no idea how they all go back together. Does anyone have any idea where to get these things? Maybe i need a parts car...
Nice work so far on the car. With the connecting rods for the damper, I am not sure where you might get the pastic bits. The damper rod connects close to the center hump on the drivers side, deep under the dash. Mine is currently disconnected so I can operate the damper by hand if needed.
On the gas tank, if you have the time and ambition, try electrolysis. It is more common in smaller tanks but works with larger tanks too. I was amazed with the parts I used the process on. It just chewed through the rust. The surface is cleaned of all rust and is left oxidized black. Now with a heavily rusted tank, keep watch for holes afterwards.
Well, as I had outlined above, I had a difficult time finding any kind of replacement part. I didn't want to buy a whole heater box off a member or ebay just to strip a couple of parts off of it, so it was off to modeling and 3d printing some replacement parts.
With that issue resolved it's on to swapping everything from my old dash into the newer one.
Next up is refinishing the faded interior. I was able to source a couple of panels from a friend that were too far gone. Some of them are only slightly better than what i have, but hopefully the paint process helps to hide the flaws.
Of course not everything came out smoothly. I snapped several pieces. Since these interior parts are harder to find, and never in junkyards anymore, i decided to try and repair them best i could.
A little makeshift plastic welding with a torch and a screwdriver, followed up by epoxy and some toothpick splits. I know this isn't ideal, but i want to make the best of the situation and try to save what i have rather than source new parts that might just break when i go to install them anyways.
Another shot of just how sun faded these parts are.
I'm using SEM burgundy Color Coat. I've used this product before on my FB interior, and I was pretty pleased with the outcome.
So here is an example of a "control" piece, next to some faded parts. The control piece came from a shattered dash plastic that is hidden behind the door when it's closed. It's the triangle piece that covers the side of the dash when the door is open. This probably best represents what the original color should have been since it sees little to no UV degradation from sun exposure.
And here is the SEM painted sample on the left, and the control OEM finish on the right. You can tell the color is a little richer and darker, but i don't think that's a bad thing in my opinion. SEM is not manufacturer specific, so it makes sense that it won't be a perfect match for Mazda, but it's pretty darn close.
Here's the painted sample next to a panel ready to be finished.
Pretty happy with the results, the darker, richer color feels more fitting in a black car, verse a more bright red. I'm installing all the interior carefully, repairing clips as I go. I really don't want to have to take any of these panels off again for fear of even more things breaking.
More progress lately. I got tired of the wooden stick holding the hatch up, so ordered some new struts from amazon. They're pretty much bolt in, but you do need to take the hatch light, and the connector off for the rear wiper.
The factory rod end on the drivers side strut seems to be crimped on, so i had to cut the end off to slide these connectors off and install onto the new strut. The aftermarket ones are threaded, so the rod end comes off.
The interior refresh was a major success, in my opinion. Here's a little reminder where it all started:
Successful first trip, further than around the block a few times.
A whole list of things were added to the to-do list:
Fuel tank reports 1/2 when fully topped off
Temperature gauge not working
Boost gauge not working
Clutch and brakes need to be rebled
Idle is a little choppy - Should vacuum leak / boost leak test
Adjust TPS
Fuel pump is screaming after 45 mins of driving, guess that rusty fuel i unknowingly ran through killed a brand new fuel pump - New one on order
Need to install wideband
Window tracks need to be greased
Steering wheel adapter needs a printed filler ring
and on...
I ran out to my parts guy and picked up my order of OEM mazda goodies:
86-91 Rx7 Right Dash Vent (FB67-60-785A)
86-91 Rx7 Left Dash Vent (FB01-60-795B)
86-91 Rx7 Right Demister Grille (FB01-60-161A)
86-91 Rx7 Left Demister Grille (FB01-60-171A)
86-88 Rx7 Center Console Grille Vent (FB01-64-840B)
86-88 Rx7 Stereo Panel Bezel FB01-55-210c
Ashtray FC01-64-610B
86-91 Rx7 Left Outer Door Window Trim (FB01-59-810)
86-91 Rx7 Right Outer Door Window Trim (FB01-58-810)
86-91 Rx7 Right Outer Door Window Trim (FB01-50-981B)
86-91 Rx7 Left Outer Door Window Trim (FB01-50-985B)
Also trying to solve my Rtek situation. I purchased a palm off ebay that was in good condition and came with a really strong battery. I was able to figure out how to get Pocketlogger installed. Turns out the Tungsten E2 uses a more modern cable connector than what my car came with. Doing some digging, it looks like I have a Handspring connector:
I'm trying to decide if it's worth spending more money on a questionable palm again. Digitaltuning no longer sells the serial to palm cables, and there doesn't seem to be any source that does.
The issue is serial to older palm connectors are units that didn't have USB connectors, meaning an older Palm will likely be difficult to connect to a computer to get the software loaded.
I've also been considering trying to get bluetooth to work, since the E2 does support it. There's a thread recently about how to get a bluetooth adapter to work.
Alright, so last I left off I was fighting to get a palm device to mate up with the Rtek. I was never successful in finding the right cable, so i went down the path of bluetooth, and with the help of this thread here was able to get it to function. Now my cell phone using styletap can access the Rtek via bluetooth. FANCY.
I detailed the paint as best as i could. This car has been resprayed in the past, and while some of the body was decent, the fenders and hood weren't the best. But, a little shine and from 10 ft it's far less noticeable. Also new fender stickers!
I also installed a wideband to monitor what is happening, and the "tune" is all over the place. It's far too lean into boost, and at idle I'm so lean it barely wants to run. I've tried doing the idle calibration wizard through the Rtek multiple times (it's just step by step as the manual has you do it...set initial coupler, adjust TPS, adjust BAC, adjust fuel trim, adjust BAC) but I cannot get this dialed in. I will play with it more, but ultimately I think I'm done playing in the 90s and want to upgrade. Having to slide or adjust columns or values one by one on a simulated palm device is just awful. On top of that, these are old school injectors, I hate the air flow meter, I want to be able to fine tune in cells more than clicking around, etc etc. More to come on that soon.
Had a chance to take it out to its first Cars and Coffee this weekend too.
Wiring and tuning both intimidate me, but this is something i really want to learn and not just hand off to someone else if it can be helped. I'm sure a lot of people are going to shake their heads at an absolute amateur trying to tune a rotary for their first go at it, but this is how you learn. Trying, and hopefully not failing!
Wiring and tuning both intimidate me, but this is something i really want to learn and not just hand off to someone else if it can be helped. I'm sure a lot of people are going to shake their heads at an absolute amateur trying to tune a rotary for their first go at it, but this is how you learn. Trying, and hopefully not failing!
for the wiring, just go one wire at a time, and its not bad. i like to build the harness, run the car and then wrap the harness later, just cause i always forget the coolant temp wire.
for the tuning, there is TONs of info on here, it helps to search the thing you want, and use Arghx as a user, his old threads are really helpful.
tuning part 2, is that with a carburetor you need a systematic approach. ive been told to start with the idle, and work my way up, and since EFI is much more complex (carb is like a 2 cell map, with an idle zone, EFI is usually 20x20 times 3 or more) being systematic probably helps more
if you can use the auto-tuning functions (or closed loop or whatever they call it) you should, it helps a lot a lot
08-24-23, 09:19 PM
love your progress.
