Hey all, figured I'd start up a build thread for my newly acquired 88 RX7 (minus motor).

This project will be an all electric powered conversion. Goals are 70mph highway speeds, and 70 mile range between charging. Since the motor, controller, other electronics, and lithium batteries will cost upwards of $12k, this will be a pretty long term project and I am going to start with prepping the car for the conversion. Removal of all parts related to the gas engine (ignition, fuel system, etc) will be first. Then clean up the body and replace any needed body/trim parts.

Anyway, here's some pics. From what I've learned here on the site, I am pretty sure the car is a GXL model.













Washed up!!



The paint cleans up perfect with some polish compound...will be buffing the whole car out soon...

 

sweet! ive wanted to ev a 7 for a while now

 

Ok, some more progress. Pulled the gas tank, filler neck, exhaust, all exhaust hangers and hardware, and all under car heat shielding. Also pulled all the rear interior out, and removed all sound deadening and any parts back there not needed for this build.






Also started wheeling the car out. Paint is looking great!

 

Looking forward to following this. More interesting than another 13bt swap. Good luck!

 

Thanks. I'm not building it for speed, however the motor I'll be using will have about double the torque of the stock rotary.

 

I machined up the flywheel today. Since I don't need a ring gear, I knocked it off and then machined the inch of material that was behind it down so that it was even with the end of the pressure plate area. Then I machined the huge counterweight portion off the back. The next step is give it to a flywheel shop to zero balance it and resurface the disc area. Also saved a little more weight as the machining removed almost 5 lbs off it.

 

nice! will be watching,you'll wanna find an alum. hood off vert or sport model,that'll save you 30 more lbs or so,the harley wheels look good on the expedition too!

 

Thanks, I have an alloy vert hood on the way down from NJ ;-)

 

Nothing too crazy progress wise. I replaced the non-working power window regulators with some weight saving manual setups, and I finally got my hood! This is off a convertible RX7 which comes factory with an aluminum hood.

 

Very cool project. I tried to get some friends to do an EV RX7 a few years ago when they talked about doing an electric car. They were all talk unfortunately.

I look forward to watching this one.

 

Subscribed to your thread. Interesting car to EV swap. Should be an awesome design.

 

Updates?

 

Little more progress on the RX7....

The entire interior is out except for the seats. Dash is pulled out. I got a chance to compound out the entire car and she's looking great now!

I also bought my Warp9 motor, just gotta figure out how to ship it here from PA to FL.

 

Did you paint the hood? It was all rusted? Or did you find another hood??