Hi all, just recently bought my first RX7 a few days ago. It is (was) a 1988 Turbo 2 from looking up the VIN but currently has a NA engine in it. I bought it knowing it was going to be a heavy project since the previous owners have mostly stripped the interior and the car had been sitting for a few months. My plans currently are to diagnose the current engine and see if it’s salvageable and from there slowly I’ll slowly start piecing the car back together and eventually return it to a turbo engine. I’m no stranger to working on cars since my past two projects were turbo awd DSM’s but I’ve never owned or worked on a rotary before so this will be an all new adventure for me!

 

the exterior looks to be in good condition! welcome to the forums.

 

Welcome!! Wondering if that's a 10AE... is the paint code on the vin plate on the firewall UC? The glass looks like bronze glass. Got any pictures of the interior?

 

I’ll have to take a look when I get home, how would I be able to tell if it’s a 10AE? I also got it to turn on yesterday but it can’t hold an idle and dies after about 10 seconds. The interior is pretty much stripped unfortunately.

 

Looks like a clean base to build up from. Good luck with it!

 

First, the vin plate, if its under that sound deadening crap, will show the vin number and it will show a paint code of UC. The build date could be some time in 3/88, so check the sticker when you open the driver's door. The glass will be bronze tinted, and the interior will be black. No other 88 had black interior. Worst case we can contact Mike, j9fd3s with the vin and he can run it in Mazda's database and tell you exactly what you have. I'm really curious on this one! You could have a car that is potentially worth some money if restored back to original condition!

 

So i has a chance to take a look, the build date is in fact 03/88. I don’t see any mention of color codes anywhere however. The interior (what’s left of it) currently is mismatched with some black, blue and grey all over.

 

The glass looks to be bronze tinted to me. The vin plate on the firewall may have been removed unfortunately, but we can still get the vin over to j9fd3s and he can confirm if it is or not. The 10AE as you may know is a somewhat rare car, as only 1500 were produced worldwide! I have been restoring them and keeping track of them since 2006. I currently own two of them. Its a shame that they get chopped up and destroyed at times as they were such nice cars to begin with. Here's a picture of one of mine. Note the bronze colored glass, which was only available on the 10AE:

 

Just heard back from Mike, this VIN is in fact a 10AE.

 

I thought it was!! You should post the vin in the 10AE registry in the 2nd gen section. I created the registry back in p6 and have been keeping track of the 10AE's since then. You my friend have one rare car!!

 

Will do! Knowing that the car is a 10AE definitely makes me more excited to get to work on it.

 

Definitely!! These cars are coveted among enthusiasts and if brought back to its original condition, is worth a good amount of money!! Will look forward to seeing what you do with the car!!

These cars can com e back from a lot. My largest 10AE project was painted black and nearly stripped when I got it. It now runs and drives and is mostly assembled, though still black. Awaiting a few more things and then off to paint it back to the original color! Here's how I got the car:







And the car is now complete and running. Hoping to further motivate you into restoring the car: