That'd be sweet! That's too bad about the spark issue, thankfully there's tons of help online and the RX7 community seems to be alive and well for the most part.

So, today was the big day. I went and picked up a transmission, clutch, turbo, and radiator from another guy (jaggermouth) that lives in my area. However, I had to go on the ferry to pick up the stuff in Nanaimo. It took my girlfriend and I all day but we had a great time and the weather was fantastic.

Waiting on the ferry.

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The drive, which ended up being about 400kms round trip but was unbelievable. I also recorded 24MPG in my 1st Gen.

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The loot.

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Unfortunately my dad figured the clutch wasn't worth putting in just to take out in a few thousand k's so I'll just get a new one and be done with it. The whole do it once mentality. Now the list is;

- Exhaust Gaskets
- Exhaust Hangers
- New Clutch
- Resurfaced Flywheel
- Turbo Gaskets

After this list and an alignment I think the end is in sight.

Biig update today. Got the trans. and clutch in with the help of a friend. It's an ACT Xtreme Pressure Plate with the 6-Puck disk. Has about 50% left on it. I've heard that the puck clutches are super loud and to me drivability is very important so I got a good deal on this one to try it for this season and if I like it, it has the life to last next year as well. It was my first time doing it and the job took us 4.5 hours with a few breaks in between. The only issue is that the transmission won't go into 1st and reverse with the car turned off and no clutch engaged. If anybody can lend some insight that'd be much appreciated.

I also took the whole exhaust system out and cleaned it up. Man the Racing Beat stuff cleans up nice. Next up is sending the turbo off to get balanced and then install the radiator/ flush coolant and I'm good to go (for now).

I'll post up pics later, took a bunch.

Ok, so today I installed the rad, and blocked off some of the open lines. More importantly, I ordered gaskets from Mazda, Mazdatrix, and Racing Beat basically whichever gaskets they had that were the lowest price. Wow does it add up in a hurry. I got basically every exhaust gasket minus the two for the mufflers that I purchased last year when the car was running. I also got new nuts for the manifold to the turbo, and new nuts for the manifold to the block, as well as the 3 turbo paper gaskets. Thursday I send off the turbo for balancing and then once gaskets arrive, installation will be under way and maybe a days worth of work until she's running. Then another days worth of wiring, cleaning up, oil changing and it'll be road worthy. I haven't been this excited in a looooong time. Currently I'm all backed up with the pictures but heres the last ones I promised.

We started off by taking the exhaust off. A friend of mine was helping out, and yes that's his Skyline in the background.

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New trans. cleaned up, old trans. in the background.

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'New' (Used) ACT clutch going in.

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Centerforce clutch I pulled out. Wow, no wonder I was slipping like crazy, three pads just flat out missing on the disk..

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Exhaust in the process of being cleaned up.

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That's it for now. Will update when the parts all come in.

New links.

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Great progress on a quality build man.

That clutch disk is crazy!

That's a fine lookin turbo you got there.

Thanks guys! Really dig your work too Nate, I've been keeping an eye on your build since I can remember. I stopped updating the thread because frankly I didn't think anyone gave a fuck but maybe I'll post up some new pics when I take them.

The turbo got reman'd and came back absolutely spectacular. For the locals, if you need your turbo rebuild go to ADP Distributors. $220 and it got the full meal deal in terms of rebuild and they blasted it nice and clean. I got all my gaskets and all that too. All that's left is the bolting up of the turbo return oil line, the three downpipe nuts that Mazda can't get me because the computer/ system says they're 10mm when I know they're 14 and then just drain the gas and install my new fuel filter. She's getting there. As usual, what always SEEMS like a days worth of work turned into another month and what SEEMED like the last $500 turned into $1000 pretty quickly. It pays to buy new things I guess especially since I've spent a good chunk of my money on nuts and bolts. Oh well, worth it in the end.

Oh, also the engine in my FB blew so that ate into the wallet but it's all good now. She's living and breathing. From the day it blew, it took 5 days to buy a new motor, clean it up, change the counterweights, reseal the oil pan and install it again. I was pleased, and it was my first engine swap/replacement ever! it helps to have good friends. Anyways, thanks for reading and I know how it works, I'll supply an equal amount of pictures to keep the few of you interested.

Bolts aren't measured by the tool used to remove them, they are measured by the thread diameter and pitch. The factory nuts are 10mm.

awesome! looking good man :icon_tup:

Nice TII!

Thanks guys! I have tons of progress since this, just been ridiculously lazy in updating. I'll make a big update tomorrow

Any updates on the build?!

Those pipe polished up really good...

Needs moar updates!

Haha you guys are killing me. I'll get on it later when I'm not so hungover.

Updates bro! Need more BC people!

OKAY. So, this is it. Summer 2013 - Present.

I insured the FC mid-summer after all my issues (previously noted) were fixed. Well, they all weren't fixed but enough of them for me to be semi-satisfied enough to daily drive it. The motor blew up in the 1st gen. Greeeat. Knew the time would come, I was more than pleased that the little guy held up the entire winter and conveniently enough there was a longblock 12A on craigs' for $200. Sweet. Went and checked that out and it had been rebuilt at some point 'apparently'. Was relatively thorough but not insane because it was a $200 engine, so I grabbed it, went out to Steve's and we dropped, cleaned up, and installed the new keg in about half a day. It's just so great how easy the FBs are to do anything on. I have a serious soft spot for those cars and my old one will be missed. More on that later. So, we got the engine going, had an entire motor's worth of spare parts now which was just great. Another set of ignitors! Mine were pooched, well one of them. So, the engine compression tested after not having been ran in years, and sitting open, whatever. It put out 100PSI in the front and 100 in the rear. Amazing! Driving a car on half an engine for 10,000k's and then all of a sudden the same car has a healthy motor I couldn't even believe the difference. Whole new car!

So, now things get sad. With two properly running cars, and it being summer, with very annoyed parents (no, I'm not 17, but I am a student), one had to go. It was time for the FB to be passed on. Gave it a fresh oil change and did the plugs and wires and put it up on craigs' for $1200. I thought this was more than fair as the car ran like a top now, but it still had plenty of cosmetic issues that the right buyer for this car wouldn't care about. This was a runner, which is why I bought it and that's it. So, the guy came around and loved the car. Didn't know, well, anything about RX7s but I had faith in him and even though I had a ton of interest I honoured the fact that he was first in line. I sold him the FB and the spare parts (the long block spares, a door, full straight-pipe exhaust, a header and a mint transmission) for $250. Great. I left with a good conscience, and he was pretty chuffed with the whole ordeal. I even took him for a ride in the FC and that smile was basically the signature on it. Looked exactly the same as mine the first time I stomped on it in my car.

So, now that I had a bit of money I began to daily the FC. This is where things get lame. Car started running like garbage, had an insane oil leak from the pan, huge coolant leak from the LIM. Overall, just pissed me off. I then took the student mentality of spend it before it's gone. Ripped the engine out and had it rebuilt. I knew my internals would be nice and, well, they were! Went for a full street port through Steve and the only reason I didn't bridge was because I'm on stock ECU. We'll get to that later as well. So, now I had a new engine and got to reinstall things how I'd like. Developed another baby oil leak and a coolant leak again but that's going to be taken care of when I get the motivation. Also picked up an Optima Redtop as my old wet-cell battery shat itself. Went through two starters (somehow), got stranded on the way home from school with a blown fuel pump. Dad brought the truck out and we towed my car with a rope in the pouring rain, on the backroads at 10PM so it was dark. Super dangerous. Never doing that again. But overall, I've just been driving the car for the first time since I've owned it. I've put 15,000 kilometres on it!! Would I recommend dailying an RX7? No. Especially not a boosted one. But, it sure is nice to get in to your car and want to drive every single day. Almost a treat I guess. You just have to be alert and always on top of the car so when things go wrong they can be diagnosed immediately. I (somehow) predicted the fuel pump was going to go 2 days before it happened. No idea how, but it was weird.

Also, someone backed a trailer into my car. Nice. The guy was really good about it actually and honoured his mistake. He paid me out cash at a slight discount of what the local body shop would've charged. I thought this was more than fair and complied happily. So, instead of fixing the dent, I picked up a taillight to replace the one that got wrecked, bought a Microtech LT-8 (I know, I know), my setup is primitive enough that this won't be an issue, and an Innovate LC-1 (which was absolute hell to install). Also, I have a friend whose dad has a body shop and said he could fix it up for $500 properly. I guess I'll get around to that in the summer. This year I'd like to have the car painted, and the Microtech wired up with a nice tune on it. Pretty modest goals compared to some people on this site but I'd rather take my time and do things properly than poorly and rushed just out of impatience. Pictures will come when I get home from school. I didn't document nearly as much as I should have but if you've read this far, you asked for it. SO YOU GOT IT. I'll never sell this car. I've thought about it many times but I just can't do it. So, that's it for my bi-annual update.

Good progress
 

You've been quite busy over the last couple months! Sorry that you had to make the tough decision and sell the FB. The new owner got a steal of a deal at that price! Hope he takes good care of her. :nod:
Steve really does awesome work and is a great guy to chat with and discuss crazy projects.
Quick question, who's going to handle tuning with that Microtech LT8?

I LOVED that car. Much much more than I thought I would. I got seriously attached. Yes, I've been unintentionally busy. All I wanted to do was drive the thing but things break and make work. The buyer got what I considered a fair price. The body was knackered so what was left of that shell/ drivetrain can only be worth so much. He did get my old grey T2 seats though! Darrel (forgive spelling), I highly recommend you put a set in your car. Well worth it.

Mark Carlson at Racing Greed will do the tuning. He's the man. The time will come when I can work more than 2 days a week. Maybe reading break in March.

Instead of buying car parts I invested in a D80 last weekend for picture-taking. So, inherently, I have taken some recently. Enjoy.

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Backtracking a little bit, to try and remedy my hot-start problem I bought a new coolant temp sensor. Don't think it helped but whatever, peace of mind. Also if you'll notice in the background I picked up an S5 alternator and a dual-sheave pulley. Two pictures of the engine freshly assembled. It's criminal how few pictures I have of that whole timeframe. No, I didn't paint the block. I am really against that type of thing. To each their own! Anyways;

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Well, went over to a local guy's house and he showed me his R100 resto-project. He just bought his daughter that pink FC as well. Currently drives that red vert in the middle. We also did a swap and I acquired a front diff mount so I won't be driving a clunky car for the next few months until it the mount breaks again!

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The pink car was previously 2J swapped, and he's putting a 6-port block back into it like it's supposed to be.

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Love the dedication. Seems like things worked out in the end with the car getting hit, considering everything. What color are you thinking for the car?


BTW, the unpainted engine looks surprisingly good, definitely tasteful.

Thanks Nate. I've been thinking about it a lot for quite a long time. If I went OEM, it'd be Brilliant Black again, if I decided to go a Mazda colour it'd be Black Cherry Mica from a CX-7, and then if I did a whole 'nother random colour it'd be BMW Imola Red from the M3. Then I've thought about doing orange or yellow but those don't suit my personality enough. This is why I haven't done it, I can't decide!

Objective number one right now is the diff mount and cleaning up my most recent wiring. Then the larger priority is spending the weekend wiring up the Microtech and getting a tune.

That dark purple from Mazda is a fucking awesome color. So few pictures seem to capture it properly, its so nice in person.

I was just looking through Craigslist and there's a car that looks exactly like yours that's up for sale for $6250. Say it ain't so Simon!

Ahh you got me. Everyone in our group is getting 'adult' cars. One guy got his V-Limited STI, the other is selling his GTS-T for a GT-R, so I figured it was time to get an FD. A friend is willing to sell me his for a very very nice price and so I put my car on craigslist for an unrealistically high price! I don't necessarily want to sell it as much as it's just a feeler. That being said, this by far the nicest, smoothest and best this car's ever ran. I have absolutely no problem keeping it for eternity. Just an FD would be nice, especially one with 200,000 less ks than my car.

Also, installed a Walbro 255 and adjusted the clutch to spec the other day. Vast improvements on both fronts.

PS; If you notice in my first post that I said I had a Walbro before, the PO lied. It was a stock pump. I'm lucky it didn't take the motor with it when it died.

So you want to switch to an FD now. I noticed one on Kijiji located out in Alberta, JDM (unfortunately) with <70k km, RE Amemiya special edition. All for $6500! Looked interesting. I'm just not a fan of RHD cars in a LHD world, it would make over taking and negotiating corners a bitch!
Quick question, where did you get the rims?!

Umm, not necessarily, it's just that this particular car is much better than what I have as a base/ platform/ chassis. Not just because it's an FD, but because of the life it's lived. It is an Alberta car so I'd have to get an OOP Inspection done on it but that won't be an issue. What I do like about the RHD cars is the back seats. I know they're built for mice but people can at least legally squeeze back there. We've gotten 7 into an FB once so 3 into an FD should be a piece of cake aha.

Rims are XXR 522s. Don't get them, they're cheapo shit. I bought the car with them when I didn't know any better. Get a used set of Watanabes for your 1st Gen. The perfect old school japanese style rim.

FC's are better buddy ;) haha Yeah I saw this on craigslist too and was shocked after seeing this a day before I saw it. I'd really consider keeping it. Rebuild the engine for $300 or so, totally worth it.

Do you guys know of a good rolling chassis for sale in BC? Something in decent condition that won't require a mountain of bodywork to make it road worthy.......and for a reasonable price too!

I may know of one or two. I'll ask around!

I'm not all that serious about selling it. Just testing waters. The engine's rebuilt! I'm going to comp test it this weekend and see what it comes up with.

Thanks Simon!

Yeah I get that. Buddy of mine has thought if selling his twice and each time backed out cause he can't get rid of it haha. Once it was considering an FD and the other was another FC that was dialled but e has decided against both times. See how that compression is, thinking I need to do one on mine too

Comp test's always a good idea. It was 90/90 when I got it rebuilt so hopefully 110s will show up. Saw your engine today Darrell, looks good! That's the biggest hybrid I've ever seen. Compressor wheel's huge. It'd be a ton of fun in your FB.

hahahaha I'm hoping so! Really excited about the progress on the engine and bummed that it has to take a back seat for a while longer. Such is life. At least I can spend some time cleaning up the other parts and getting my new aluminum radiator installed etc. I recently got a Megasquirt PnP ECU and my new hobby is going to be figuring out the wiring harness for the T2.

I pm'd you about something I am wondering about.

Ahh man, wiring's an interesting hobby choice. As long as you're patient and your stuff hasn't been hacked at by a few other kids my age it should be fine! I did a ton of cleaning up when I first got my car. It wasn't fun.

Now, for updates. The car.. well. it's gone. It still hasn't hit me. I was pretty devastated and I will talk about the black car for the rest of my life no doubt in my mind. It was my first everything. That being said, I am getting an FD so the pain is numbed a bit, but definitely still there and will be for a long time. As of this second I'm not going with the RHD one I previously mentioned. That's option number two but I don't want to give too much away. It's exciting times in Maple Ridge. Stay tuned!

I will also be continuing just updating this build thread and not in the 3rd Gen. section because I'll always be a 2nd Gen. guy :blush:. Also if anybody knows anybody that's selling a sub-$1000 FB that'd be swell. I need something to get around in for the next 30 days.


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Okay, so a bit of good and bad news. I'll start with the good news. I picked up a Volvo 850! She was super duper cheap ($300) and runs, is Aircared and now insured. The Volvo's a slush box unfortunately but I couldn't find any stick shifts in the sub-$1000 category so whatever. 185,000 on the clock and all it really needs is a starter and a passenger-side CV axle. I only bought the car because I'm still waiting on the guy to give up the FD and me to be happy, so this way I have something to drive me to school for the meantime. The bad news is that the motor popped on the guy I sold the car to. It must have detonated, and I feel absolutely terrible about the whole situation. I can't believe it even happened, the motor was built properly 13,000ks ago. His compression results were 126 in the back, and 86 in the front. Now he has to fork out another $3,000 to get it built again. I just can't figure out how it happened, I drove the car for 8 months with that motor and never had a single hiccup. Plugs, wires, fuel pump, it was all fresh. Really an unfortunate situation. I'll put up a few pictures of the boat when I get a chance.

That's such a shame. Hope it doesn't make the new owner hate rotaries. On the brighter side, we both know a great mechanic that can rebuild it for him in no time flat!

^ This is true. He's going to buy a JDM engine, so best of luck to him. Anyways, I'm picking up the new car on Saturday so I figured I may as well send off the Volvo. This is her, not that anybody cares.

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Well, time came. Picked up the 7 today and learned how to drive on the other side of the car in dense Vancouver traffic. Car's a '92 R1, Alberta registered, so it should be an interesting time trying to get it legal here. So the fun begins.

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Damn man, looking sweet! Can't fully say that fd's look better, but they do have a nice flare to em! Looks a bit rough through photos, but definitely not bad

Thanks! Ya, it's definitely rough. I got that headlight cover sorted and am starting to chip away at the repairs and getting her running right. Hopefully the sun comes out tomorrow so I can do a proper wax and get some decent pictures. I'm so happy to have a 7 again.

The new ride looks great!!!! You'll get used to RHD in no time. Cant wait to see what mods you have planned for the this beast!

Darrel, thanks a lot! It's a lot of fun, but the first mods will actually be un-modding some of the things the previous owner did to it. RHD took about an hour or so to get somewhat used to. Mods will be very modest as well, I'm not a crazy power guy. More of just a clean, comfortable, 320ish whp, that looks relatively stock. In as vague terms as possible, those are the goals.

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New drive belts! No more squealing.

So, quite a lot has happened. I have to get the car inspection-ready so those are the number one priorities. Therefore, this is what I've done!

I replaced that eyesore missing headlight situation. Then, from day one I've said I was getting rid of the hood so the Volvo's farewell trip ended up being an 8-hour drive down to Rainier, WA to pick it up. The CV joint ended up breaking on two pieces basically the minute I got across the border on the way home. It was a miracle. If that had happened in the US of A, I would've been screwed as I was on the I-5 with a dead phone. I also replaced the filters with used, but better ones for a super good price. Then the previous owner found some sweet parts and saved me some time tracking down these things on my own. Rearview mirror, a-pillar gauge pod, turbo timer, and a fuel filter. Sweet. Strut bar got installed, and I de-smoked all the turn signals and corner markers.

If anybody needs a carbon hood, PM me!

Filters/ Strut Bar:

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Headlight Cover:

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Freebies:

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Roadtrip for the hood:

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Now-for-sale hood:

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Then, this was the process of removing the paint from the markers. It was just goof off and some elbow grease. I then polished them a bit but that didn't do really anything. I also found out that the exhaust is an HKS catback. Always a nice surprise.

Before:

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Middle:

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After:

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New Hood!

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Now I'm just on the lookout for a 99-spec bumper and paint.

got quite the cannon there. That's like what, a 4" tip or so

Umm, I think so. The actual diameter of what the exhaust flows through is 3" so that's all I really go by. I like it though!

Yeah true, but tips can make a difference, especially in noise levels haha...I like it though, get some paint and you're golden!!