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Hi everyone, I'm a UT Austin CS student (Hook'em) imported from Hawai'i, and I'm terrifyingly new to rotaries, and really cars in general. I bought myself a 1984 RX-7 GSL this past summer as my one big reward for landing an internship, knowing that it would be a project car for a long time to come. Story goes that it's been parked in the harsh Texas sun for the past twenty-one years without being driven because "the A/C went out." Which I guess is a reasonable reason, living in Austin. So I got it for a great price and I've been steadily working on it.
This is only the second car I've ever even owned. I didn't even get my license until just before my 21st birthday, and I wasn't even all that interested in cars really, but then my weeb roommate showed me Initial D and that was fixed right up. In my hunt for a starter daily driver, I bought myself a 2002 VW Passat 1.8t back in December of last year; not the car I was looking for really, it mostly happened out of chance. I made the decision when I bought it that I would learn and do all the maintenance and miscellaneous repairs myself. I've yet to take either car to a mechanic, and honestly, at least the FB's problems make sense. I'll keep it longer than I keep the Passat, that's for sure.
Not entirely sure what the limitations of posts in this section is, but here goes: I am currently looking for a replacement fuel tank, and possibly a passenger's side fender. Unfortunately, I just got my tank sent back from the radiator shop because it was apparently "falling apart under the initial pressure wash," and the tech told me I should just write it off as a loss and not take the risk with restoring it, as it was "the worst fuel tank he's ever seen." My fender's got a dent so bad the passenger side door scrapes across it every time it opens, so I'm gonna hammer it out and raise its bondo levels dangerously high - whole car is getting a fill, sand, and rattle-can paint job anyways (never done any of that before of course) - but I would probably prefer an intact piece to work with.
Good news is, the car starts and idles with gas sprayed straight into the carb (no I haven't been doing that, the guy who sold it to me wanted to show me it started, and I didn't have the forethought to say "wait stop it's been sitting for as long as I've been alive"), and I already have replacements for most of the rest of the fuel system. New muffler just came in today to replace the rusted-out one on there, which I'm very happy about. I've got beautiful leather seats from a junked RX-8 that are going in there - got the idea from an FB I saw at a car show recently that had done the very same. Going to replace all the carpeting, see what I can do about the plastic molding that's all warped and peeled from sun damage. And of course, every other remotely disposable component is getting replaced. All the brake rotors and pads (hopefully I can save calipers), spark plugs, clutch master and slave cylinders, a lot of the hosing, all the filters, every fluid imaginable - I'm not taking many chances with something nasty blowing up all my hard work. Or crashing it.
Anyways, one little pic of the first day she made it onto my driveway:
You can even see the '97 registration on there
Thanks for reading that wall of text! I'm excited to contribute to this community; the old posts have been really helpful getting me this far. Cheers!
Looks like an amazing project with quite a good back story!! I would suspect the carb to be in need of a rebuild in addition to dropping the tank and having it cleaned and replacing the fuel filter. The car will need almost everything I'm sure but will be a great car to learn on. This will be a car you will love and appreciate and will be your pride and joy once its complete. Would love to see more pictures of the car. Welcome to the forum!
Thanks for your input! I do have the new fuel filter and a new filler neck (old one is rusted shut), but I'm having trouble replacing the fuel tank as the stock one's been deemed to not be salvageable. I would love to find a source that's not Atkins if at all possible, since it's about $900 after the cheapest possible shipping and that just seems a bit ridiculous.
As far as the carb rebuild goes, would I just need a kit? Would something like this work, or is there a specific kit I should hunt down? I know carburetors need a bit more love than fuel injected systems, but I've never worked on one, so I don't know what to look for.
That carb kit would work just fine. As far as sourcing a tank, you may want to make a thread in the classified section here on the forum. I'm sure there are tanks out there at a much cheaper rate. Last tank I bought ran me $80 plus shipping. I think I had like $130 or so total in the tank with shipping.
Unfortunately there's not really a cohesive RX-7 group in town. On Facebook there's an Austin City Sevens group, but this forum will have most of the know-how you need.
Yeah, I've noticed there's not much Wankel going on around here. First seven I've even seen in the wild was an FD very recently, and I only see a handful of RX-8s on the road. I was surprised to see two FBs and a good few FDs at the last COTA Cars 'n Coffee though, that was cool. Hopefully I'll be able to bring my FB to a show within a few months, got the idea to swap in RX-8 seats from one of the FBs I saw there that had done it. My stock seats are completely trashed.
Technically, I actually live just barely in Pflugerville, but school and work are both in Austin so most of my time's spent in town.
09-10-18, 11:55 PM
Hello from Austin, TX
