I got the rest of the exhaust bolted up last night and got the car fired up. Its finally quiet...other than a leak at the turbo. I knew that the car had a leak here as I could see black soot on the side of the lower intake manifold. I'll order a new gasket and while I'm in there I'll pull the lower intake manifold and install a new gasket and o-rings as I can smell coolant but I cant see any leaks other than some slight seepage at the lower radiator hose, which I will address when I do the lower intake manifold gasket and o-ring set. I feel like that will make the engine pretty leak free. I will post more pictures and maybe a video of the thing running. I'll have to figure that part out!

 

Very nice and great progress on this restoration. I will say, your dedication is admirable considering the ringer that car looks like it went through (that fuel tank would've sent me over the edge ). Looking forward to more progress!

 

Tha k you very much!! After I got the exhaust on, it was nice that I could actually hear the engine run over the exhaust noise. Unfortunately I still have a nasty leak between the turbo and exhaust manifold. I'll remedy that however. I have to order a few parts and I'll keep moving on the car.

 

I currently have the upper intake manifold if the car to deal with some vacuum issues. Once I have those sorted the engine should have a much better idle. If it does not I'll go from there. Been very busy with life over the winter with not much time to work on the car unfortunately.

 

Hey Dave! I finally found my way back on here. Car is coming along great. keep up the good work

 

Thank you my friend! Glad to see you back on the forum!

 

I just read the entire post. I love seeing restorations like this. Im happy to see that there are still people who try to preserve these cars instead of just modifying and destroying them. Ive been in the FC game since 2004 and have noticed a sharp decrease in parts and even cars for sale. There was not many of these cars to begin with. The scrapping and modifying of these cars are really going to increase the value of our stock examples in the near future. I purchased my 10AE in December and im in love. GREAT JOB!

 

@mazdaverx713b Whatever happened to this car?

 

I bought another 10AE shortly after I got this one running and driving. The one I bought I got from the original owner and had 82k miles. I ended up selling this one, as I could not afford to restore two 10th Anniversary RX-7's. Looking back 5 years, not knowing what the market would hold, I wish I had hung onto the car. This car was actually really rust free and straight. It just needed some really hard to find parts, like a replacement dashboard. My current 10AE is kind of rusty and has one larger sent on the left quarter panel. It does run and drive very well. It still smells new inside, and rides like a new car. If it weren't for the rust, it would be much easier to make look beautiful. This is my current 10AE: