Hello everyone!

I have a 1987 FC RX-7 GXL that I have been working on with my father. This project has been very tedious, and has given us a lot of trouble, but has been one of the best experiences possible for me.

This is essentially my first car and the first car I have learned to work on. I have a little done to it, but have a lot of questions right now.

History: I was scrolling on FB in an RX-7 group when I stumbled upon the listing for my car. I’ve loved all things rotary and RX-7s for years, and I saw this as a perfect opportunity. It was stuck in a garage for 12 years as the owner had passed, but a relative was able to acquire it and do some basic cleaning and work to get it up and running. It was a 1 owner car up to that point, and was very clearly loved and driven, as when I acquired it, it had 78,000mi on the dash. We shipped it down to the south where we live, and begun working on it. After almost a year of ownership now I’d like to share what we’ve done with the car.

Modification List:
-Full RacingBeat Road Race Exhaust
-Banzai Racing Dual Pulley Kit
-Mazdatrix Short Shift Kit
-LED halo lights
and much more to come

Problems/Questions:
-Broken 5th/6th actuator: i believe it’s stuck open, so what could this eventually cause, we have a replacement, because the rod is actually stuck which is why we accidentally broke the plastic bit off.
-Does my exhaust sound and engine noise tell anyone that something is wrong? (I’m very paranoid because this car was garage kept for 12 years and i want to make sure nothing is wrong)
There are no fault lights on whatsoever so that does lighten my worries.


The exhaust install was a pain in the back. With a fully rusted out and just disgusting OEM exhaust, we struggled immensely taking everything out. When putting everything on and installing, the pre-silencer seemed to have way too short of hangers to even reach both sides, but we found a way and executed. The biggest issue was the 5th and 6th actuator valves and the little rods that go inside. We broke the little part that i assume goes either in or out or turns something in that port.

Anyways, I’m glad to be a part of this community, and here are some pictures of the car, along with idle sounds and what not to go along with my worries!

I don't know if the pics are actually that big if they are I'll just remove them but that's everything!

 

Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your new RX-7! The car looks very nice in the pictures you posted. The paint appears to be original given the car still has the original Mazda decal on the front bumper. How does the car run and drive?

 

Welcome to forum

 

Good work getting this car on the road! Have fun and be safe out there.

As far as the fifth and sixth ports. It looks like the road race kit does not have the feed/return connection? If so, without that, the ports will not work anyway without it, unless you get creative. There is a hefty down side to not having functioning ports. I will let someone else explain, I get it backwards sometimes. I think it all depends if they are wired open or stuck closed though.

 

Car sounds fine - but it's sat for 12 years. My brother's car is in the same boat - the engine is ticking time bomb. Every piece of rubber and plastic is drying out or is dried out... Start planning the engine rebuild because it's coming.
Highly recommend a compression test and keep an eye on coolant. The coolant seals will likely fail soon and burning coolant is a quick way to wearing out apex/compression chamber seals. If you think about it, engines are meant for burning gas and/or gas and oil mixed, not coolant.

 

Welcome to the club! Thanks for the great intro, and congrats on the car. Would love to see some pictures in the daylight, even the interior. Sounds like you scored a great one.

If he purchased the full racing beat road race exhaust, it should come with the exhaust port for actuating the 5th and 6th ports. That's one of the key advantages of that exhaust, you don't lose that function.

If your ports are stuck in the closed position, you're likely missing out on the top end power afforded by the extra airflow when they open up.
If your ports are stuck open, you'll experience loss of low-end torque.
If one is open and the other is closed, you'll get some funky driving characteristics, and it won't be as smooth as it could be.

For fixing the system, remove the actuators, and see if you can manually rotate the sleeves. If they are stuck, you'll want to extract them from the intake manifold and clean them. They'll likely be gummed up with carbon and be stuck. Reinstall, and fix the actuator arms. You can manually open and close them but be sure to test the functions of the actuators too. I think there is a callout in the manual for this, so be sure to get a copy from foxed.ca.


As said above, and not to be too alarming, but this is an old car. You may not be facing a rebuild so soon if you're lucky, but don't chance it on old crusty fuel lines or vacuum lines. I suggest replacing anything that looks remotely stiff or degraded. Silicone tubing is your friend for all vacuum related components, fresh fuel injection rated hoses, and be sure to replace any coolant hoses you can, as a split hose will quickly lead to overheating and a cooked engine. It's not worth the risk to save some cash, you'll pay the piper later.

 

Thank you! The car seems to run perfectly fine! I love driving it and it’s always a treat when I do. It’s just a bit hot especially in Texas with no AC, but that’s probably the only thing we’ll send it to a shop for, everything else we’re doing ourselves.

 

Thank you! Someone else touched on it but the road race exhaust should still allow the actuators to work we just had to delete the air pump which i believe only functioned for the catalytic converter.

 

Appreciate it!

 

Very true! I’ve been doing my due diligence and premix on fill-ups and watch all my levels before each drive. I’m prepared if something were to go wrong. So far it’s been great but I do want to get a compression test done. We’ll see how everything goes as time goes on!

 

Thank you so much for all this information! I’ll send pictures of everything for sure! We bought an upper and lower manifold that has the actuators from another s4 engine, and just need to find the time to take everything apart. Since the rod is stuck in that broken one, we’ll have to take that whole upper and lower manifold off and clean everything.
Here are some more pictures! And if you’d like to see more let me know! Part of why we pulled the trigger on this one was because of how mint the interior was! There’s a little stain on the passenger seat right now from when we changed the shifter out, and the driver’s side floor mat is worn through and stained but everything else is super clean. The body is in a rough condition by my standards. There are so many dents, dings, scratches, and random splotches of paint or some sort of material, most likely from neglect and objects sitting against it and rubbing against it for the past 12 years. The hood is also dented on the driver’s side from the inside from it having been closed on some sort of object I would assume, so it’s slightly misaligned there but other than that i love the car. My rims are heavily scratched and banged up so I will be getting a new and nice set of rims when we go into that stage of the build.

 

Wow, that's in fantastic shape, again congrats! I think more pictures is always better than less, I love seeing these cars survive 40 years later.

A good paintless dent repair technician can probably clean up most of the door dings and straighten the car out without a huge investment into bodywork and paint. A detail on the paint could bring a lot of the imperfections and flaws out, as well as add some shine to the worn paint. I think you did really well.

You should consider starting a build thread so that those of us on our own FC journey can follow along, help troubleshoot issues, provide feedback, inspiration, and celebrate the wins with you.

 

Thank you so much man! This car was definitely a catch, and I will get started on that thread as soon as I get some good down time. I have recordings of doing a lot of the work on my car for documentation purposes and to potentially start a build series on YouTube or something of that sort. There aren’t too many videos on the FC and I’d love to be someone that puts out content for those who are stuck on a project or need a bit of help. We’re all learning and I have learnt so much already so if there are any specific questions you have about certain things i have done on my car feel free to ask! Or correct me as well because again I’m learning as well. Thank you and everyone else for y’alls hospitality!