Simon's First RX7/ Build
 

So, the time's finally come. I decided to only post my build a few months into it so I had some substance to put up here first. I decided to separate the build into to categories/ jobs. You'll see what I mean later.

Background Info:

The car was bought in October 2011, from an owner who more or less hacked it up about as bad as anyone can to a car that they received in mint condition. It was the PO's first car so some of these things were inevitable. Fortunately I have every receipt prior to his 3-year ownership so I know what I'm working with. It's a great base car that I intend to make into a very reliable 300whp DD. I know the goals I intend on aren't anything groundbreaking, but I have a motor that has 70,000km's on it and still is very healthy. I am hoping to get to 110/ 120,000 before I rebuild.

All of that being said, this is what I have to tinker with.

- Motor Rebuilt at 170,000 (Currently sits at 255,000) by Adam Heyman @ RX7 Specialties.
- S6 Rotors
- S5 Turbo
- S4 Irons

- 255lph Walbro Fuel Pump
- Blitz Boost Controller @ 10psi
- Apex Recirc. BOV
- Full Racing Beat Rev. 2 Turbo-Back Exhaust
- Defi D-Series EGT/ Boost Gauge(s)
- Apex'i Turbo Timer

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looks like your off to a good start.

Thanks! I appreciate the positive feedback

nice wheels bro what are the specs on them?

Thanks, umm, I was actually worried someone would ask me that because it's ALWAYS the first thing people point out. I know just about nothing about wheel specs but I do know they're XXR 552's and they're 17x8 I'm pretty sure. I know they're 17's but I'm not 100% about width. They have 235-width tires and they have the slightest amount of stretch. Offset I have absolutely no idea about.

So, the first thing I did upon receiving the car was to restore the interior the best I could. I'm not a big fan of the grey interior on the S4's, so I started by finding a MINT carpet from one of the local rotary guys. It's off a J-Spec car that had to get torn apart but had 50,000 original km's on it. Along with the JDM flootmats, and carpet, I also received the JDM door cards. Everything was in great shape so I was just stoked, even if I did overpay a bit.

Next on the list is a black 10th AE interior that I have waiting for me. It'll complete the conversion/ transformation and it is now a bit more of a frankenstein car of more uncommon/ desireable parts.

Before:

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In Progress:

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After:

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no worries man they look great on the fc they are similar to mine, interior looks great

Those wheels are xxr/sportmaxx 522's not 552's. I had those on my old 280z. I shoulda kept them when I traded for my fc. lol

Anyways car looks good!

Thanks for the correction. I got them with the car and the PO didn't really tell me much other than that they were XXR's. I love them

Car is looking good, what's next after you finish up the interior?

I still have some more updates to put up here that I did around Christmas, but next will probably be a new transmission/ clutch. I will unveil my future plans for the car as the build goes.

Ok, so the next thing I did after the interior was get those winter tires. They're Nokian Hakkapeliitta 5's. 235/45/17. They actually suit the car perfectly, and have the slightest amount of stretch. The tires on there before were 215's and were stretched the the max, so because they were bald I decided to get some winters so the car would survive. I got a great deal ($300) for the set and they'd only been used 1 season.

Because build threads aren't much without pictures, after that I decided to get the cargo straps for the rear and bring it back to stock as much as possible on the interior. I went about finding the straps tucked away next to the tire iron.. They were extremely corroded and in overall terrible condition. I had to rip out the seams, sand down the rust and spray a nice clear coat over metal. My mom's sewing skills came in handy also for sewing everything back together.

How I found them:

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Taken Apart:

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Fixed:

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Re-Assembled:

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I'll get some shots tomorrow of how they look now. I'm very happy with how it all came out. This is also going to be quite a detailed/ budget thread, so if you're just looking for pics of new turbos and 3-rotor swaps, I'm sorry but this isn't going to be one of those types. While it is a budget thread, I don't skimp out on buying cheap eBay stuff either. It just takes time to buy the right stuff the first time, so bear with me.

nice car. Great to see it fell in good hands. Digging the black on grey inetrior. Has it been sprayed or is that the original color?

Thanks. The carpet isn't dyed, nor is it the original carpet from the car. It's out of a jspec 'GT-R' model that I was lucky enough to pick off of. I got the floormats too, which I just love.

As for an update, I decided to wax the old girl yesterday. It's most likely the first time it's been waxed in a looong time. I couldn't believe the difference that it made. The old man took some good photos as always as well.

Enjoy.

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Also, the cargo strap pictures as promised;

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Subscribed. So many builds happening lately.

Ok, so I figured I'd post a small update. I'm waiting to get paid, so I did two smaller things. My sunroof NEVER goes up without a little push, so I got to cleaning and re-greasing the tracks. After about 10 or so cycles, it does everything perfectly! I'm very pleased about that.

After Cleaning:

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After Greasing:

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The next thing was the rips in the driver's seat. One on the back right side was a pretty big tear and the other one was on the left side by the arm. They're circled in the before picture. Anyways, as always when I stop into my parents place I put my mom to work and so she sewed the tears up. It came out great, a nice little fix. It's a good patch job at least until I get my Black 10AE Leather's.

Before:

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After:

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Good thread... Im also swapping from the ugly sky blue to the black interior.

Nice. I'm not a fan of the blue either. A black interior is just timeless, really. It'll never look out of place or odd, unlike the burgundy for example. I'm sure it looked great in the 80's, but it definitely wouldn't be my first choice now.

Agreed. My current FC came with mint black interior thankfully. And I recently found a desently priced/condition set of t2 seats. Obviously been repaired, so Im getting them completely redone soon. And apparently the club dosent like the size pics I have so it wont upload em.
Also Im having the same issue with my sunroof, I need to take it out and clean/re grease everything. I just dont want to damage anything taking it apart.

I'm not sure exactly what's up with your sunroof, but all I did with mine was give the tracks a very nice wipe down as you can see in the first picture. After that I juts took some grease and applied it generously pretty much everywhere, and some on the black hinge/latch that raises and lowers the sunroof. Once the grease settles in, you'll be good to go.

So, it's been ages since I've updated, but plenty has happened.

First off, the car has been uninsured and sitting for about 3 months now. I took it off the road because of the clutch/ transmission issue. The clutch slips like crazy under boost and the transmission grinds into 5th and needs new mounts because it shakes around like crazy. This is how all of the issues started.

Now, I knew there were plenty of things wrong under the hood because the previous owner was very inclined to hack up the car and I knew he did his own personal wire-tuck. So, I decided to explore and fix these things while sourcing a trans. and clutch.

I started with the little things that I knew were wrong. The nipple on the radiator cap housing was snapped off, so coolant was leaking out of there, so I sourced one that was in great shape. So, as I was taking the old radiator housing off, the head of the bolt just snapped off. Great. Now it was time for a new thermostat housing because the rest of the bolt was stuck in the old one. In due time, I sourced a new one. Then, taking that off and installing the new radiator/ thermostat housing, I was fastening the last bolt on and then the end of the water pump housing just snapped off on me. This was a big issue. So, I sourced a new one of those as well (luckily a local guy (Steve Wallace) happened to have one left in his stock).

Doing all of this I managed to clean out a lot of the engine bay because I had to uninstall most of the front-half of the engine bay to get to that housing.

Thermostat Housing/ Radiator Cap Housing/ Water Pump Housing;

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Clean(er) Engine Bay;

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While doing all of this, Steve also had an above average condition interior in his basement from his old 10AE, so I bought that from him. As well as the rear wiper arm that I'd been searching months for. The only real thing that needs attention are the seats, which will be reupholstered in due time. Now I just need a new steering wheel and a stock head unit.

Grey to Black Interior Conversion;

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Continuing on with the updates, and back onto the engine bay stuff. While doing the water pump housing replacement, the justifiably brittle, and old OMP lines (well one of them) snapped on me. Soo, off to Steve's again to get new(er) low mileage ones.

Once I did that, because I had to take off the UIM get under there, I figured I'd check the injectors because she floods uncontrollably. Yep. 3 of them are cracked on the tip and are now useless. So, I made the biggest mistake yet and purchased 4 reman. units off eBay. Little did I know that I was sent high impedance injectors, but we'll get to that later. Once I got my new injectors, the old, brittle clips snapped on me while I was taking them off. Yup, back to Steve's to get new ones.

So, now that I had new injector clips and new injectors, the OMP lines were new, gaskets were all good, I go to fire up the car yesterday and she's leaking fuel. Like I mean pissing out fuel. Upon removing everything (again), I fixed the loose hose and now all of a sudden it won't even get a spark. Called up Steve to see what the issue was and he was kind enough to come down and give me a hand. He immediately notices that they're high impedance injectors and what I finally thought was the day I'd get to drive the car, was in fact another day of waiting. My goal was to have the car ready by July 8th, as that's the date for the first bcrotary cruise of the summer. I guess I'll have to miss that now.

Anyways, back on topic. While Steve was over, he noticed that someone had cut the knock sensor wire, and just left it hanging, and the air-temp sensor on the block was just broken off. Thankfully he had some parts on hand to help fix. Without him, the car would be on bricks. A true genius.

New OMP Lines;

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Knock Sensor Wire;

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New Injector (1 of 4);

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Injector Clip (1 of 4);

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Upon finding out about all of these issues (leaky injectors, no knock sensor, vacuum leaks everywhere, a mis-wired boost controller), it's a mystery to me how the motor hasn't blown. It's going on 70,000 and has good compression. I guess it's a testament to either RX7 Specialties, or just sheer luck. I was boosting at times 15PSI on the stock turbo as well, and still no issues. I didn't want to, but it was completely uncontrolled, so upon noticing, I stopped the redlining and took it off the road. Now I have to get the right injectors and still find that trans. and clutch, my original mission.

looks damn good man

Looks great! I that the original paint?

I love return-to-stockish rebuilds. In fact, I have one going now so this is some good inspiration.

Lookin good man im in the same boat fixing PO hack jobs right now. Except on an FB lol.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the feedback. I'm coming up on a year and looking at it compared to when I first got it is shocking how much has been fixed up. Still plenty more though. Once she's running with the fixed drivetrain I'm going to start sourcing parts for the replacement engine so that when mine decides to go, I don't have to worry about it. This is definitely a restoration build as far as mechanical goes, and I love the stock interior look so I need that head unit. The exterior though appeals to the JDM guys, and I like it. Many hours have already gone into this build, now I just need more money!

So, another big update. I ended up getting my stock injectors reman.'d, and back just in time for 2 days before the cruise. We got to start up the car and she runs! However, in typical RX7 fashion the drama wasn't over. The temp gauge was about 2/3 up and I knew on the S4 gauge that that was way too high. So, we touched the top of the rad. and one side was cold and the other was boiling hot. Yup, needed a new rad. Steve lent me his rad. out of his old 10AE, so basically my car is turning into 10AE Jr. at this point as I keep pillaging more and more parts from it.

Needless to say, I got my day permits and it was a success! The meet went great, and the turnout was ridiculous. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

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And lastly..

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The meet went great, I'd assume around 20-30 cars. Even some skylines showed up too.

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We cruised for about 3 hours all the way up to Harrison Hot Springs, then to Cultus Lake. All in all a great day as it was my first cruise. There were even a few cars that came up from Seattle, great guys too.

So, after the cruise it was back to the drawing board to now and get the car on the road for the rest of the summer. Main issues;

- Idle (Won't idle under 1500, won't idle on it's own when cold, yada yada).
- Emissions Testing.
- Driver's Seat bolt was stripped so the seat is leaning on its own.
- Maaajor Oil Leak.

I went to ICBC and they wouldn't let me put my 3-month permit on because the car needs Aircare. So, I needed to bolt in the cat that I had been given just for the one day every year that it gets tested. I threw that in only to find that the old racing beat gaskets had been burnt to a crisp. This resulted in me trying to bolt the cat in regardless and me having a huuge exhaust leak (as expected). So, I'm working on getting those gaskets soon to rectify this and finally pass aircare. Hopefully this week it'll finally be over with.

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Racing Beat Midpipe out, cat. in.

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Next thing, idle. I went over to Steves and picked up a nice low-mileage throttle body that had all the old accelerated warmup stuff on it! The previous owner had absolutely stripped everything off the old one.. nice. Needless to say, I have a perfect 750 idle now and when i turn the key i don't have to pump the throttle to keep her alive. EXTREMELY happy with this now. Things like that really bug me. Also picked up a nice clean stock intercooler with the rubber grommets and the right mounting bolts, cleans it up a bit. The old one looked like it was just thrown around the garage a few times, maybe the garburator once or twice. Needless to say, I'm happy. Still working on that pesky driver's seat issue. The threading nut will have to be re-welded on and a new bolt in.

Really cool thread you're updating here, keep it up!

Great job so far! How're you liking the Racing Beat exhaust?

nice build man

Thanks everyone. Umm, the Racing Beat exhaust is great just too quiet. I like how it's very civil and doesn't bother the neighbors but it needs a bit more noise. Within the next few months I'm having that midpipe taken out and getting just an unrestricted pipe to go in it's place. It should sound perfect then. With the power improvement, the Racing Beat kit should be a no brainer.

Small update. I noticed that this little guy was in the scrap bin so I grabbed it from Steve's as a nice mantle piece.

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It isn't usable but I decided to clean it up and put it in the garage. A nice piece of history and it really is a beautiful piece of art. Out of a '79 Cosmo too so it's seen some shit.

Next, this compartment will finally be complete.

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I've been scouring the web for a stock head unit, particularly the Pioneer CD one for months (since I purchased the vehicle). I found it on Portland craigslist and the owner had bad experiences with shipping and refused to ship it to me. He wanted to meet up halfway or just flat out me drive to Portland. So, I scrapped that idea and just moved on. Fast forward 6 months and I noticed that the same unit was still on craigslist and emailed Tim again. He finally gave in and it is now airborne and should arrive within the next 5-10. It will likely be fully refurbished and have the aux. input installed. I have read good things about Factory Radio Service, so it will be sent there for the handywork. I can't wait! I also conditioned the leather as it was very brittle/ tough. Came out nicely, but it'll still be a few more coats before it's to where I'd like it. It is 24 years old after all.

I also have more big news but it'll have to wait until I get paid.

So, two days and two big updates.

First;

I've been searching everywhere for the specific Pioneer premium head unit that came with the convertible RX7's for about as long as I've owned the car (almost a year now). Finally found one right around January that was located in Portland. The guy didn't want to ship. Lame. So, I continued looking half-assed while just casually browsing like I normally do. Anyways, I noticed about a month ago that this deck was still for sale in Portland so I figured the same guy an email telling him the same thing I did 6 months ago and he finally gave in. It cost me a small fortune for what is basically an autowreckers special. Nevertheless I finally have a head unit and the PO told me that it had been their spare one and was told upon buying it that it was as-is and had never been tested. Yikes. Desperate times.. So, I still went ahead with it and it finally arrived in the mail 2 days ago.

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I took it apart and cleaned it and all that jazz but it was still heavily faded and upon plugging it in, the CD player accepts CD's but the lens is pooched so I'll have to send it in to factory radio service, which I was planning to do anyways. I'll have them put in a aux. input so I can use my iPod.

Update 2;

This is a bigger one and one that I've wanted for a long long time. Similar situation to the head unit. Going way back to winter last year an FB popped up at Steve's house. He was selling it, but was unsure of condition, had been sitting for a long time and all that usual stuff that goes along with a 28 year old car. Anyways, it always caught my eye. I just love the old FB body and one day I'd really like to restore one. I always joked about how I wanted to buy the car and that it would be mine someday. Fast forward, the summer came along and hours got better and the FB was still there. Soo, I got the money together and then we tried to fire it up because it had been about 8 months. No go. Compression is wonky as well but that will be taken care of next summer, I plan to tear it down and just do a ghetto build on it. Clean up the housings and replace all the seals and gaskets. So, we started it and it wouldn't start. Carburetor was messed up. I hadn't even purchased the car yet and I went out and found a carburetor on craigslist the very next day for $100. It was from an '82 (this car's an '84) and Steve said that they were different but it would still work. So, even though this carb I bought was in completely unknown condition and hadn't been used in years, I took the leap of faith and we threw it in. Perfect! The car idles and runs like a dream. About a month or so later I saved up the money again because I had spent the previous amount on the T2, and I finally bought the old girl. Also, having two RX7's now I had to name them. I came up with Smokie, and 2.0. Smokie is because the T2 has an oil leak that runs onto the exhaust causing it to smoke up any intersection or parking stall, and 2.0 is the '84. Enough rambling, here's the pictures.

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The two brothers.

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2.0's getting a full stainless exhaust but that's it. It's just reserved for winter duties because she's pretty rusty. Smokie still needs plenty of love, so that's still priority number 1.

Looks good

congrats on your first build iam also on my first build FC t2 s5 with chain bride and s4 rotors for more boost.

nice build

:icon_tup:

Hope to see more
 

Great thread. Love the wheels and the seats - so hard to find a decent interior.

Cheers.

Thanks everyone, much appreciated. I've shut the FC down for Autumn/ Winter so first on the list is a Koyo Rad and a properly working Trans and Clutch. That's what I'm hoping to have done by Spring. That pesky oil leak as well needs to be solved. I love the FB so much I'm doing my best to keep all the money just going to the FC.

Builds usually get more intense during fall/winter i thought? Well fore at least, but See you next season then bro!

Umm, well I figure that now I have a 2nd car I can finally do the things that I wanted to all year because the FC can be taken off the road for extended periods of time. FB will be being refreshed as well in the coming spring.

wow ! Your car is clean !!

So, I'm picking up a transmission this Friday (finally). The wheels are turning once again. Next on the to-buy list;

- Clutch
- Radiator
- Exhaust Gaskets

I'm super excited to start wrenching on her again. It's been awhile to say the least.

Nice build! I'm on my iPhone so I for get the side bar for location, where you located? Noticed ICBC and air care. My favorite company to deal with eh! Luckily up north we don't have air care! Glad to see it coming along!

Oh man, I've already got my fair share of ICBC stories. But, I don't have a choice (thanks socialist government) so I just have to swallow it and pay the man. Thanks for the compliments, I'm in Maple Ridge in the mainland. We're talking about having a meet in the near future, if we do you should come down!

If my car is running, I'm having issues with spark and can't figure it out at all. But if it runs ill try and come, I only have one other member who lives in Prince George with me (import fanatic) who has been a tremendous help but we still haven't solved it! Hopefully both of us can come down though!

Great looking car