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Hi everyone. I’m 21, a college student, and a girl who knows almost nothing about rotaries.
Why am I here?
For the past 2 years I drove a 5 speed V8. An old new edge mustang. Unfortunately I no longer have that vehicle on the road. I wanted my own project to start from scratch and have fun working on while I finish up my last year of college. I hate my lack of knowledge of cars.
I picked up an old shell for $1450.
I bought a 13b motor, transmission ecu, the entire drivetrain. The shell is full of parts. Now I have no idea how to put this car together. Any diagrams or advice would be appreciated but I am just introducing myself for now and if I have any questions down the road I trust you guys to help me out. Thanks!
This forum should have anything and everything you need, searching it is probably the hard part but it gets easier, for starters I’ll link a site with workshop manuals and that.
Buying one is of course better but this works, the one I have is from Mazda and pretty much describes the entire teardown and build again in detail. When it comes to mods and stuff rx7 people are nuts and have tried basically everything so searching forums is probably your best bet.
For a moment there I thought it had C4 Vette rims on 3 sides.
Let's look at the car
. . .Its a 5 lug car
It has no sunroof which is good in a way for rust reasons
It's got manual windows. . .Which is weird cause 5 lug cars had power options.. . .SO right away I wonder if somebody did a 5 lug conversion on a base S4.
Looks to be a 86 to 88 S4 model because of the front bumper style
Rear duck spoiler was an option
Seats look in passable shape after a good clean.
Looks like it started life as a 5 speed car.. . Not sure. . .
Has coilover struts as least on the front.
Front end looks straight. .
Hopefully that brake booster is still good.
Dash looks decent,
. Gonna need some tools for sure.. .. But this is the right forum to be at. . . .Lots of helpful people.. . .
here is another link to copies of the FSM: Foxed.ca
there's no "one" way to begin the journey ahead. i would say start with just getting things mounted to the car and each other. transmission should probably go in first simply because it will be much harder if you put the engine in first. don't try to do too much in a day because frustration may become a factor. this should be fun, remember?
make lists. make them realistic.
so maybe day 1 could be something like: mount transmission and connect driveshaft. maybe drain it and fill it with fresh oil.
you didn't have the luxury of disassembling the thing, so you will have no memories to help you put wires back in place. so wiring should probably be left toward the end. for the engine bay, a lot of it is pretty intuitive once you have the engine and other pieces in place. you will sort of see where the connectors fit.
another pain in the rear might be getting hardware if you don't have the originals. so maybe that can be one of your "days". the FSM can help to a point. you can also get a cheap metric tap and die set, and makes notes of what you will need. the lengths may prove a little tricky, but you should be able to get the size and pitch by seeing which tap or die fits.
as said above, you will be able to find help on the board. plenty of people willing.
Welcome to the forum!! Looks like you picked up an 87 Sport model given the rear spoiler. The rear spoiler is fairly uncommon and looks fantastic.
As for where to start, I would clean the entire car to start. Make sure the engine bay is ready to accept the engine and trans and have all of your work done in the engine bay before installing the engine and transmission. Once your drivetrain is installed and the harness is hooked up, go through the fuel system. Once the car will run and drive, then concentrate on brakes and tires and suspension work. Finally, bodywork and paint. That's how I approach these types of projects. I've been where you are and projects like these are incredible and wonderful and you learn so much about the car you're restoring. I thoroughly enjoy doing them:
might want to check to see if the motor and ECU are the same as the one in the car before you get 2 deep. I know I had to swap out the entire wiring harness on one when I changed engines. that was a challenge itself.
I'm curious whereabouts in Fl you're from? The reason I ask is if you're not far from Tampa maybe I can stop by and give you some advice in the right direction. I got about 20+ years of experience of working with Rx-7s especially non running projects. If you can use that sort of help just pm me and I'll send you, my number.
08-01-23, 12:29 PM
