My Red RX7 GTU Build
01-25-14, 06:04 AM
#1
Speed Racer
Thread Starter
My Red RX7 GTU Build
Background
Greetings! My name is Jason and I'm from Sacramento, CA. On January 24th, 2014 around 9am I got up and ready to go pick up a 1989 GTU for $325 in Richmond, CA. Everything was still in the car except for rear interiors, door panels, and seat belts. At least there were no cracks on the black dash! For this price I couldn't pass up even if I couldn't get it to run. I still could've part it out and made my money back and then some more.
Had to call up AAA to pick up the car; he arrived about 25 minutes later. Gave him a big tip just for helping me out once we got it to my house because he didn't wanna touch it after looking. He knew what the deal was with the rear interiors missing, car parked in the alley behind the owner's house (their garage was in the alley), flat tires, etc. Basically the car just looked shady at first glance and people would've thought it's a stolen car.
Anyways at about 2:30pm, the car was parked right in my drive way. Fiddled around a bit before heading out to my 4pm-1am work shift.
At around 3:25am, I finally managed to get the car to start after countless tries of unflooding the engine. A lot of white smokes came out the dual exhausts, but after a couple minutes it cleared up. I let it sat for about 10 minutes before I turned off the car. The temp gauge did move up thus I shut it off. It idled at just below 2k rpm. There's still a lot of work to be done since I started it up with whatever fluids that were left in the car (who knows how old they were?). The previous owner said he had it sat since about 2008.
Plans so far
I'm hoping that the engine is good for at least until I can get the car smogged so I can register and tag it. It's currently on non-op right now so I don't have to worry about back fees. Not looking forward to rebuilding an N/A when I can just buy a 13bt and rebuild that instead, but the cluster reads 205k mileage... If my plans go well then I will swap in an s5 13bt. Probably a JDM 13bt because they are easier to source. Also grabbing all the missing interiors so the inside can look decent.
My Questions And Concerns
So I never stripped the rear interior of an RX7. I am wondering if my car came with rear seats or bins. Does anyone have any pictures of their rear stripped or someone that could tell me judging from my pictures that I will post tomorrow? (will post pictures later on in the day time).
Pictures
http://imgur.com/a/GqK4M
Greetings! My name is Jason and I'm from Sacramento, CA. On January 24th, 2014 around 9am I got up and ready to go pick up a 1989 GTU for $325 in Richmond, CA. Everything was still in the car except for rear interiors, door panels, and seat belts. At least there were no cracks on the black dash! For this price I couldn't pass up even if I couldn't get it to run. I still could've part it out and made my money back and then some more.
Had to call up AAA to pick up the car; he arrived about 25 minutes later. Gave him a big tip just for helping me out once we got it to my house because he didn't wanna touch it after looking. He knew what the deal was with the rear interiors missing, car parked in the alley behind the owner's house (their garage was in the alley), flat tires, etc. Basically the car just looked shady at first glance and people would've thought it's a stolen car.
Anyways at about 2:30pm, the car was parked right in my drive way. Fiddled around a bit before heading out to my 4pm-1am work shift.
At around 3:25am, I finally managed to get the car to start after countless tries of unflooding the engine. A lot of white smokes came out the dual exhausts, but after a couple minutes it cleared up. I let it sat for about 10 minutes before I turned off the car. The temp gauge did move up thus I shut it off. It idled at just below 2k rpm. There's still a lot of work to be done since I started it up with whatever fluids that were left in the car (who knows how old they were?). The previous owner said he had it sat since about 2008.
Plans so far
I'm hoping that the engine is good for at least until I can get the car smogged so I can register and tag it. It's currently on non-op right now so I don't have to worry about back fees. Not looking forward to rebuilding an N/A when I can just buy a 13bt and rebuild that instead, but the cluster reads 205k mileage... If my plans go well then I will swap in an s5 13bt. Probably a JDM 13bt because they are easier to source. Also grabbing all the missing interiors so the inside can look decent.
My Questions And Concerns
So I never stripped the rear interior of an RX7. I am wondering if my car came with rear seats or bins. Does anyone have any pictures of their rear stripped or someone that could tell me judging from my pictures that I will post tomorrow? (will post pictures later on in the day time).
Pictures
http://imgur.com/a/GqK4M
Last edited by jlee916; 01-25-14 at 06:12 AM.
01-25-14, 08:42 AM
#3
I'd like to talk about your gauges...
Are you THAT low on gas? Probably just not a good connection...
Oil pressure is reading low. But... these cars are old, and the gauge could be very inaccurate.
Verify with a mechanical gauge.
Coolant temp! The factory gauge is terrible on S5 for coolant temps and is basically an on/off aka "good/fucked" indicator. S5 is about 40% up the gauge for operating temp. Anything above that is a very overheated engine!
Might want to verify that also!
All this after 205k is understandable if that's thee original engine. That's a pretty high mileage beast!
Are you THAT low on gas? Probably just not a good connection...
Oil pressure is reading low. But... these cars are old, and the gauge could be very inaccurate.
Verify with a mechanical gauge.
Coolant temp! The factory gauge is terrible on S5 for coolant temps and is basically an on/off aka "good/fucked" indicator. S5 is about 40% up the gauge for operating temp. Anything above that is a very overheated engine!
Might want to verify that also!
All this after 205k is understandable if that's thee original engine. That's a pretty high mileage beast!
01-31-14, 09:50 AM
#4
Speed Racer
Thread Starter
Today, January 31st, 2014, I figured out why my clutch pedal wasn't popping back up when pressed down. The hose was torn and leaks a bit of fluid in the engine bay. But in the mean time, the pedal is back to normal for now by adding fluid to the max line in the master cylinder.
Still trying to figure out why my oil pressure gauge and fuel gauge aren't working. I suspect the harness isn't plugged in under the hood for oil pressure. I think I'm just low on gas. Hopefully that's the problem so I don't have to deal with that.
There is a coolant leak under the car dripping by where transmission and engine meets. This was why my temperature rose up last time, and because there wasn't any coolant in the car when I took the picture. I'm thinking this is why my car backfires on idle. Going to stop by oreily auto parts and buy some crc block weld to see if that can temporarily fix it.
My idle is sitting high at around 2k rpm. Gonna adjust the tps to see if that fixes it when I wake up in the afternoon.
A slow progress on the car because I work night shift and sleep in the daytime. There won't be much going on in February as well because I asked my boss to give me all the Sunday hours for overtime. By the end of the month, I should have an s5 turbo engine ready.
Still trying to figure out why my oil pressure gauge and fuel gauge aren't working. I suspect the harness isn't plugged in under the hood for oil pressure. I think I'm just low on gas. Hopefully that's the problem so I don't have to deal with that.
There is a coolant leak under the car dripping by where transmission and engine meets. This was why my temperature rose up last time, and because there wasn't any coolant in the car when I took the picture. I'm thinking this is why my car backfires on idle. Going to stop by oreily auto parts and buy some crc block weld to see if that can temporarily fix it.
My idle is sitting high at around 2k rpm. Gonna adjust the tps to see if that fixes it when I wake up in the afternoon.
A slow progress on the car because I work night shift and sleep in the daytime. There won't be much going on in February as well because I asked my boss to give me all the Sunday hours for overtime. By the end of the month, I should have an s5 turbo engine ready.
02-01-14, 10:51 AM
#6
Speed Racer
Thread Starter
On February 1st, 2014, I decided to pull the spark plugs out and found out the previous owner used 4 bur9eq on all plugs. The L2 plug was the most difficult to take out from above the bay, but after 10 minutes of never giving up it finally came off. The oil dip stick location made it a pain to turn the socket wrench for L2.
I had to stop at this point because it was 8:30am; need to sleep for work at 4pm. When I get home, I will install the correct spark plugs and see how the car runs.
Managed to pick up all 4 16oz of crc copper block weld from oreilys yesterday before work. They were on clearance for about $1.80 each (can't remember exact price). I will be doing the temp coolant fix on Monday. Hopefully it works for me!
I had to stop at this point because it was 8:30am; need to sleep for work at 4pm. When I get home, I will install the correct spark plugs and see how the car runs.
Managed to pick up all 4 16oz of crc copper block weld from oreilys yesterday before work. They were on clearance for about $1.80 each (can't remember exact price). I will be doing the temp coolant fix on Monday. Hopefully it works for me!
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