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I recently purchased a 1993 FD RX7 (Automatic). It has periodic starting issues and I decided to remove the aftermarket alarm and lojack that was installed. As I looked into the starter, i cant seem to identify what this add-on part on top of the starter/solenoid is. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
Wow... what a mess that is. That part is a solenoid. Could be the solenoid on the starter itself went bad and this was a cheaper solution than replacing the factory starter
That's a little reminder for us all that these cars weren't always JDM royalty. When I bought mine it was more of a save than purchase, sitting in the back of a mechanic's shop, covered in dirt.
It looks like they cut into the wiring harness for that ****, too. That sucks!
Appreciate the responses. As I dig more into this, it looks like there are different starters for automatics vs manuals (which is pretty odd to me). I think I will go with a new starter w/solenoid and hope to wire it back to stock. No idea what the previous owner was thinking with this.
it looks like there are different starters for automatics vs manuals (which is pretty odd to me).
not odd at all. differences in starters between auto and manual trans probably holds true for all automotive make/models. bell housing between man and auto trans is different, so there will be differences between starters. mainly just the aluminum nose piece. that's why when getting a starter, counter guy will ask if it's a manual or automatic.
For most cars, automatic and manual use the same starter because they bolt to the engine.
FDs are a little weird. The early rotaries had a top mount starter, sat on top of the engine. When Mazda switched to a bottom mount starter, they kept the old machined pad on top of the engine and used it as access for the torque converter nuts on automatics. Mazda kept that machined pad until the end of the FCs, which is why you can put a starter for an RX-2 on a Series 5 FC engine.
ANyway. For the FD, Mazda eliminated that machined pad. So they needed another way of accessing the torque converter nuts, so they instead changed the whole bottom of the rear end housing for automatic cars and had the starter bolt to that, instead of to the transmission where it had been since 1973.
