My first RX-7 Build!!
 

Hey everybody, I have been on the forums for quite a while and I have decided that its about time I started a build thread.
I have been building my seven for a while now. I have always been interested in 80's Japanese cars and decided to save up some $ with my summer job to get one "I'm a broke ass college kid". I love engineering and all things mechanically cool and I always new that the rotary engine existed and I thought it was soo cool even though I didn't know much about it. I have worked for several years as a mechanic and I am very mechanically inclined so I wanted a fun little project.

When I finally had enough cash for my 80's sports car I wanted something cool and rare so I thought... why not an Rx-7? I really wanted to learn about the rotary engine. Then I started searching for one...

During my search for the awesome 80's Rx-7 Project I came across a local for sale post on the internet. It was fate. A 1988 Mazda Rx-7 GXL posted for $1000. I went to look at the car knowing that it had TII brakes and LSD differential after some research. The body and exterior in the car were pretty good except the paint. It didnt have any major damage like dents or rust. The interior was not perfect and did need a little cleaning but looked great. Under the hood was a different story. The 13b was really dirty "greasy". I started the car up and it ran fine other than the temp gauge moving up slowly past the quarter mark where it was supposed to be. I shut the car off and asked the seller what was going on. He told me that he had no idea why the car would not stay at operating temps and that he wanted to get rid of it. He also stated that the car had never been driven since he saw the temps climbing. With all this being said, I got the car for $800 and the guy gave me a ton of extra parts including a rear hatch "w/o wiper", tail lights, 3 ecu's, 3 MAF sensors, and some more misc. parts.

I jumped on the deal and got the car towed to the shop where I worked. :nod:

Sorry Im not too sure why the pic is not working. I have been testing in area 51 also and it does the same thing. I have photobucket. and Im using the copy and paste method into the insert picture icon. :scratch:

It has to start and end with the IMG code in brackets. Looks like the Photobucket copy/paste method has gone to putting URL in brackets around it. Remove all the crap around that and it should work.

I found the link by selecting "reply w/ quote" and I selected the Photobucket URL from that.

Oh alright. thank you sir!

[IMG]http://i1355.photobucket.com/albums/...Cuartas/12.jpg[/IMG]

And it is a 2+2 GXL so it has the back seats.
[IMG]http://i1355.photobucket.com/albums/...Cuartas/15.jpg[/IMG]

good score

Once I checked everything at the shop... Brakes, suspension, fluids. I started it up and drove it home after work. Well it ran fine but the car started to get hot after a few miles... I had to stop. and wait for it to cool down.

[IMG]http://i1355.photobucket.com/albums/..._Cuartas/2.jpg[/IMG]

The first thing I did was remove the the old faded window tint. It was a pain. I removed all of the tint with a heat gun and the left over glue with a rag and some goo gone.

Oh and the car had no exhaust. It was just the exhaust manifold. It was super loud.

Once I parked it in the driveway I noticed that when left parked without starting for a few days it would be hard to start then it would smoke white for a little bit. It was showing all of the signs of blown coolant seals according to all the research I was doing. After all this was my first time owning a rotary.
One day I decided to pull out the spark plugs... Sure enough they were covered in coolant. I knew now that it was time to pull the engine. I was actually excited about it. I wanted to tear apart a rotary and learn about it.
After clearing out some junk in the garage I was able to have some space for the rebuild I was planning.

Here is some pictures I took before I did anything to it.[IMG]http://i1355.photobucket.com/albums/..._Cuartas/3.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1355.photobucket.com/albums/..._Cuartas/4.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1355.photobucket.com/albums/..._Cuartas/5.jpg[/IMG]

Hood and front bumper defenitly had to be replaced.[IMG]http://i1355.photobucket.com/albums/..._Cuartas/7.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1355.photobucket.com/albums/...Cuartas/10.jpg[/IMG]

The sunroof was stuck in this position[IMG]http://i1355.photobucket.com/albums/...Cuartas/16.jpg[/IMG]

Cool. I plan on starting a similar build soon

Got your work cut out for you! The coolant seal rebuilds typically render the most re-usable parts so this isn't necessarily a bad thing either. What do you plan to do in the long run other than obtain an exhaust because by now you are likely deaf? It seems our name is becoming more common on this site as well. The population of Simons has doubled from 1 to 2 hah.

Thanks man, I hope you have fun!

That is awesome that your name is also Simon. I havent met too many other Simons but so far the plan has been a budget build for fun. I might in the future with more money track, autocross, or take it out for some fun spirited driving in the mountains. I have already rebuilt the engine. It had a lot of good parts but you will see. Subscribe as I will be putting up a lot of pictures of the engine build and other cool stuff I have already done!

Another "before pictures of the engine bay"[IMG]http://i1355.photobucket.com/albums/...ps76de1287.jpg[/IMG]

cool car man, i'm glad you're enjoying her so far. she needs a little tlc, but she's in better shape than mine when i first got it

you can put more than one image per post, just needs at least one space between img strings. it also seems like you are putting one too many sets of img tags on each pic, if what you're copy+pasting has img tags already (ie: photobucket), you don't need to add your own.

welcome dude, and have fun with your little rotary

-sean

Thanks a lot man, and I am still new with posting pictures on here but the advice helps.

This is when I pulled out the blown motor.
Attachment 653267

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And to be honest I was excited but I was kind of nervous about pulling it apart.
I hoped that it was only the coolant seals.

Then the whole thing was reduced to this

Attachment 653229
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The amount of dirt, grease and oil that was on this engine...

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man, that thing is filthy ha ha

i can barely make out the contours on the front cover

-sean

nice build

Haha oh man, that's insane. It'll be extremely rewarding cleaning all of those parts!

Let me just say it was a total pain in the *** to clean all of that grease. Everything that I touched or that touched the parts turned black. I went through a lot of degreaser...

Front cover off...Attachment 652052
Ghetto structure I made to take apart the beast...

Attachment 652053
The e-shaft fit in there flawlessly
Attachment 652054

I got the rear plate off and voila there's the blown coolant seal
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Neat shot of the rear rotor. This was my first time seeing a rotor!!!
Attachment 652051

it's kinda cool, isn't it?

the first time i cracked open a rotary i was like "really? that's it? neat!"

-sean

Nice! It really is cool to see the insides. Looks like artwork. Make sure you check those irons for step wear.

Very cool man, great photos! I just started my build too. Any plans or ideas for the car? Color? Wheels? Body?

It is super cool. I love just looking at it and thinking of how crazy the idea of a rotary really is...

They were all within specs. They could have been lapped but I didn't have the $$$ hahaha

Attachment 651743
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Clean up progress...
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The set up in the garage so I could keep track of things
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Since I was working on this build with a small budget I went through the whole engine and decided that I was going to order the following: Viton Oil o-rings, gasket kit of course, side seal springs, apex seals (decided to go with Atkins 2 piece seals), apex seal springs, FD corner seals, corner seal springs, pilot bearing & seal, and front and rear main seals. In total I spent $563.96

Nice, man! I'm about to do the very same thing to mine for the same problem on the same rotor! Hahah. How difficult was it to pull the transmission with it?

nice price, where did you order all the parts from? Can pm if you want.

Its way easier to pull the entire thing out engine with transmission. Takes a little bit more time to pull altogether but its way faster and easier to put back in. when you take the engine out by itself you have to mess with both to line them up and believe me it gets tricky specially with the clutch and flywheel.
Its usually easier to take out altogether on most cars....

The Atkins Rotary website...

Looks like you need rotor bearings as well.

Yes I did need them but Oh well. I didn't have the money for the bearing kit and the tools to press them in. These will do for now. When I get my degree in Mechanical Engineering I will hopefully land a good job and a 13REW swap will be one of my first investments. In the meantime this is gonna be a budget rebuild here

Fair enough! Mechanical Engineering, that's impressive. What year are you in?

Thanks man, I am a 3rd year ME student (Junior).

Very nice. I'm finishing up 2nd year doing a BBA.