Hi Everyone,
I was never a super regular poster back when I frequented the forums but I was on here all the time. In university I bought an FD with unknown engine issues. I rebuilt the engine using what I believe was an atkins rebuild kit and then modified the turbo's to non sequential. I had bought the car to use on track days and I just wanted the reliability of non sequential.
The following year I was scavenging parts to upgrade things but on a somewhat cheap university budget, I think the only place I spent real money was on the EFR 8374 Turbo. I didn't really every get the car properly tuned and it needed a lot of thing to get it where I wanted. Reading posts I wrote 10 years ago as a kid is a bit cringe, if anyone is interested here are the two threads I found that I made as my build thread, the thread on here seemed to stop getting update part way through where as the one on rotary car club goes through all the later mods. Rotary Car Club Build Thread RX7 Club Build Thread

Anyways, after graduating university I got a pretty busy job, in general got busy with life, and honestly just never made a large attempt to get back into the project. I believe I fogged the motor when I put it away but the car sat in my seacan for about 8 years, last year I bought a new place that has a second garage for my hobbies and projects. When pulling the car out of storage it wouldn't run even though it was running when I put it away. I did drain all the fuel and replaced with fresh and injected oil into the rotor housing prior to start but I had crank but no firing. The fuel pump doesn't seem to be making pressure or running at all so I'm certain that is the culprit although I'm not sure why yet. I moved the car to my new garage and with new house projects it has still sat there untouched since.

For whatever reason my ADHD ravaged brain has settled on deciding to get back into the project now. The immediate goals are to completely refresh the entire fuel system in such a way that the EF 8374 won't have any fuel limitations. I then need to figure out how to get things tuned, I have a power FC and I have read that there have been lots of advances in that area with FC tweak so I have to decide if I want to stick with the power FC or look at other options. Lastly I am going to replace all the suspension bushings and pillowballs as I know there was a very annoying suspension related rattling prior to being put away for storage. Really the goal is just to fix the most immediate issues and get the car running on a fairly low boost level, boost level will probably depend on how low the EFR 8374 IWG will allow me to run.

I have some longer term goals for the car that may be seasons or years down the road, things like:

• Rebuilding the engine with more porting, and better doweling to better survive somewhere around 350-400hp.
• Any other supporting mods for this power level, I believe things like replacing the PPF with better transmission and diff mounts may be a requirement
• Upgrading the oil coolers and the rad/intercooler are a must before more track days as cooling has always been a concern on the track
• Getting the air conditioning reinstalled and functional, I believe upgrading to RX8 components seems decently common now days?
• Eventually once everything else is good I would like to refresh the body and paint. the interior is in good shape but the exterior is far from mint, hail dents in the hood, rear left fender dent, cracked paint where the fenders were poorly rolled, and paint issues on the roof are just a start

How the car was when I first got it.


How the car has sat for the last year


Current condition of the engine bay

 

Welcome back man! I love the story, and I'm glad you've hung onto the car all these years.
It looks like it's got a ton of potential. Do you plan to create a new build thread and start fresh? I'm looking forward to watching it unfold.

 

I see no reason not too.

 

Welcome back man!!!

 

Welcome back to forum

 

Welcome. You were one of the smart ones and held onto your car while on project sabbatical. With the current price of FDs if you had to buy another one the project would likely never happen. Good luck and have fun tinkering with the project.

 

Without a doubt. I'll be putting more money into it to get it where I want it to be. I bought the car for 3000CAD and then rebuilt the engine myself. The idea of finding a stock RHD FD in moderate condition for 5000CAD all in definitely doesn't exist anymore.