Well I figured I’ve read many project threads and thought I’d share mine. This is more of a chronicle of my car then a build-up.

It was a pretty simple idea for a project: buy a decent NA RX-7 and have a fun reliable street car. Well 2 years later this is what I’ve come up with.

March 06 I bought a 1987 GX. The previous owner had done the 5-bolt conversion and added an LSD from an S4. A basic car with a few added features.







Two days after I bought the car the Alt died. So that was replaced along with a new battery.

I also replaced the old worn shocks/springs with some JIC coilovers.

Later on in the summer I had this exhaust fabricated by Battle Auto from the block back. Wanted a lightweight performance oriented somewhat quiet exhaust. Louder then expected but it works. A lightweight steel flywheel and new clutch was added. By this time the old motor had blown a coolant seal just before winter storage.







Now here we are 1 year after buying the car, March 07. I had Rotary Dynamics build up a nice solid NA motor for me. They cleaned up the ports for me a bit, and replaced all the vacuum hoses with silicone hoses.

Proved to be a great reliable motor, ran very strong last season even while daily driving 150kms every day.




With the motor came an upgrade for the brakes and suspension. Brand new Hawk HPS pads and new rotors were added. The front calipers had some pistons seized so low Mile JDM calipers were purchased and reman’d rear calipers were bought. I also came across a cheap set of Vert BBS rims and some new Falken tires.

I then replaced old bushings on the front end. The control arms were re-done, a T2 sway bar was added with prothane bushings and RB end links replaced the old end links.

 

If you’ve read this far that’s all fairly basic steps. This winter is when the car really got gutted.

This is where I spent many hours in the cold:




I purchased a T2 Drivetrain. I received a jspec transmission, driveshaft, LSD, sub-frame, control arms and hubs. The Sub-Frame and Control arms had been powder coated with some of the bushings replaced. The LSD and Lateral Arms had been painted along with the driveshaft.

I then finished the job and ALL bushings and bearings and seals had been replaced mostly due to the help of ClassicAuto!




From this I had to source some axles. I was able to purchase these low mile jspec axles that had been rebuilt.

 

While the old rear end was out I thought it might be a good idea to replace the fuel lines. What a headache this proved to be. I replaced the main and return line and upon re-assembly the brake line broke. I then replaced the brake line.

Since I was going for a solid setup I got some Mazdatrix Stainless DOT lines. Because of this I broke the old rusted hard lines running from the junction box to the flex line.

SO all hard lines from the firewall back (minus the evap line) have now been replaced.

I then replaced the rear sway bar with T2 sway bar and new prothane bushings. Since the rear mounts were rather rusty new mounts were purchased from Mazda. I had to cut into the sub frame to remove the broken bolt in the sway bar nut. Another big P.I.T.A.

A new rear camber adjuster was also purchased for the rear end from Mazdatrix.

I’ve become good friends with the Mazda parts guy as many many bearings, bushings, mounts, brackets, transmission cross-member and various other parts have been purchased this winter.

 

I also sourced a used corksport rear strut tower bar and a corksport intake. With the intake I was able to play around with this idea. I have a few hoods so a vent will be added to run a short straight intake into the TB.

A new CSF replacement rad was installed as well and $10 at the scrap metal place got my the aluminum to make my own radiator cooling panel.

I also had Rotary Dynamics rebuild a manual steering rack I had received. Not only do they build amazing motors, the time and detail they went into with even just a rack was amazing.




When I was priming the system to check for leaks I couldn’t get any flow, I tore down the whole system and found an extremely gunked up fuel tank. My Mazda parts guy hooked me up big time and sourced a new one for me. I replaced all the old screws and hose clamps for the filler hoses as well.

At this point the car has been mechanically restored from the firewall back.

To keep the underhood temps down, combined with the new rad I hadded a T2 hood with a reverse vented scoop, I wrapped the headers, and added some water wteeter to my coolant.

Now the start of the season, ClassicAuto again came to help with the transmission/flywheel/clutch swap. We dropped the tranny swapped out the flywheel and began installing the pressure plate when we realized the old NA lightened flywheel had a weird setup of spacers and odd bolts. We couldn’t re-use them on the ACT Streetlite flywheel. I call up Rotary Dynamics and drove a couple hours to get the flywheel bolts at 10pm to get the car running the next day.

 

I also tried my hand at the interior. A few dollars at Canadian Tire got me the supplies needed to re-do my stereo console and prep itfor some gauges.

 

Here is the car the way she sits now. I have an RTek and once I get my Wideband I’ll be playing around with that. I think I’ve reached my goal of my fun reliable NA car. Of course the car is now preparred for a turbo or other power adders in the future My philosophy is to have everything else in top shape before adding some real go-fast parts.













She feels very solid, handles great, and has great throttle response. I just have to take care of a 3800rpm hesitation which decided to manifest over the winter and get my brakes working top notch before \i consider her complete.

Much thanks goes out to ClassicAuto and Rotary Dynamics. They helped me out a lot and went above and beyond every time! Thanks guys!

If anyone doubts their mechanical ability, I had never turned a wrench on a car before my RX7, now here I am 2 years after buying this car happy as can be and very proud of what I have learned I can do.

Thanks for reading!

 

Lots of nice work. I don't think I have ever seen a filter placed where you have it on an FC before.

 

Thanks! I still need to fab the heat shield for the filter. I also performed surgery on the stock intake snorkel. when cut up, the opening fits perfectly into this one area in the wheel well. When all is said and done, I'll be drawing air in from the wheel well into a sealed off filter area, and want to create a small reverse vent over the filter. Hopefully this can create a draw through effect.

 

Looks great Mark!

I thought I saw you drive by last night? Some smooth sounding grey FC did anyways...

You've done a great job on that FC, some really clean and really nice parts went on there. Not many FC guys go to those lengths - pat yourself on the back

Hope you enjoy it in the nice weather this year!

 

Yep that was me. I took a nice test drive on theback roads. I also drove by and took a quick peek to see if you were around, couldn't see from the road though.

 

Glad to see it all came together for you. Looks like you've definitely done a good job and spent a hell of a lot of time on it. Should make for a problem free summer.

Brent

 

Looks real great. We've got to get together. One day I may get ambitious enough to post a buildup.

 

Thanks guys!

It's definetly been a love/hate relationship. I love it right now, but a few months back when it was-10 under the car in the tent and everything I fixed caused something else to break, well it was more of a hate thing . haha

We will for sure meet up this season captn kev!

 

Mark, you've done a great job since day one. Your patience and positive attitude have proven very effective at accomplishing a large and new goal. Great job! When's my test drive?

 

Looking good Mark!

 

very nice. i don't think enough people realize that a NA can be fun to drive on a daily basis.

although i wish i had more power sometimes, i have put on almost 40k km in about 4 summers and the car has never given me any major problems.

i went with the Zeitronix wideband on my car. it is a good unit if you don't have a full standalone, since you can hook it up to a laptop to datalog AFR, RPM, TPS, etc.

have fun driving her.

 

That's nice work on the center console. Any details on how it was done? Fiberglass?

 

looks great and just in time to enjoy the summer ................. have a good one

 

It was a very low-budget idea. I took out the double din plastic from the stereo area and measured the open space.

I then took some 1/2" MDF I had lying around and cut to fit into the cd player area. Once I had the rectangular piece cut and a nice firm press in fit I traced in the circles for the gauge holes and traced on the rectangular shape of the cd deck. A hole saw, jig saw and some filing got me some good fits for the 52mm gauges and cd deck.

I really wasn't sure how to proceed from here. I went to Canadian Tire and got some Bondo-Glass( FG reinforced bondo), regular bondo, sealer, primer.

I filled in all the gaps and added extra to make sure I could get a nice strong and smooth finish. some more filing and sanding got me to this point:




At this point I decided to fill in the cigarette lighter area as well. I have never used it in my car and don't plan to. So I took the same steps as above to fill in the hole.

Once that was done I primered everything, and bought some black textured spray paint again from Canadian Tire.

I need to repair one crack I didnt see before the spray paint, and it got bigger after installing. No big deal, just gives me another shot to learn more about this type of work.

It was more of an experiment to see what I could do on a low budget instead of spending $150 on a blank cf console from the states. I should also mention I left enough room to take the hole-saw and add a 3rd hole in the middle for a 3rd gauge. For now I just want to find/make a small RX7 or Rotor Emblem in between the gauges. I'm really happy with the way it worked out, I want to paint my shifter surround with the same paint to have a matching console, the textured paint really doesn't look all that bad as part of the interior!

 

See, Rx-7's are easy to work on!

 

You were right all along!

 

Impressive and creative work, Mark. It's great to finally see the fruits of your labour.

 

It worked out quite well. I may do the same thing on my shifter surround.

 

I'm waiting on a shift boot, once it's in I'll spray the shifter surround as well and post some pics.

 

Well it's been a while but I might as well post the dyno results here since it is still the same project. Since I last posted, mechanically I swapped in RB headers-presilencer-Brullen catback (dual exit) and got my 5/6 ports working. I installed the RTek & Wideband but it has yet to be tuned.

Anyways here's the dyno sheet: S4 NA Stock ports with intake and exhaust:




I have an S5 intake that I'm gasket matching right now and plan to install, then tune from there. I'm almost affraid to go any further and then mess up my tq curve.