Just started my first project car, FB rx7!
 

Hi everyone, I just attained an old rx7 for a project car, I imagine lots will be done so if anybody has suggestions please help out! End resolve is a somewhat classic appearing drift car, not crazy amounts of power because I really am new to this sort of thing. In the cars current state, it has a bit of peeling clear coat, Clutch won't disengage (tried bleeding it, adjusting the pedal (I suppose the slave was just replaced in it just before I got it, master looks new aswell) so I'm suspecting it to be a pressure plate.

welcome to the board. :)

could be a few things. pull the inspection plate and try to see what's happening/not happening. look for any slave cylinder or fork issues. if that doesn't provide any insight, then you'll just have to man-up and pull the tranny. as you said, it could be the pressure plate, but it could be a FUBAR'd pilot bearing as well.

Whelp. Tried bleeding the clutch again to no avail, it appears as though the for is moving when the clutch is applied, however there is no pedal pressure... The guy I bought the car from told me that it needed the clutch to be bled and then clutch shims? If I recall correctly?

Update: pulled the tranny. Clutch was completely gone, so new flywheel, release/pilot bearing, clutch and pressure plate have all been installed. She's alive!

What are you guys doing to get power out of these things? End goal is around 250 or so... Depending on how that feels. Is that really possible on the 12A? If so what sort of things do you have to put into it?

250HP?..you need LOTS of cash if you intend to run it as a Non-turbo.

Starting reading the BUILDS Section and finding out what others are doing for power.
You'll soon find out is is not cheap to achieve..BUT well worth it once it has been done.Your right Foot will thank you..lol!

Yea, if you want 250, you better start thinking turbo.

agreed. you're not going to pull 250 out of a 12A without some kind of race-type porting or a turbo.

Definitely not ruling anything out! Engine is getting rebuilt over winter, so until then I probably won't do anything other then bolt ons. Still have to fix some other issues, wipers don't work and there is a shorted circuit (I think) somewhere in the the rear wiper wiring causing the fuse to blow instantly. No biggy, the headlights aswell don't work as well. Thinking its a problem with the switch, they pop up fine, flash (pulling back on the headlight switch) works but no low beams or high beams. Also no wipers , partly a problem that the wipers themselves are super old and need replacing, but they don't work anyways. Hopefully just the switch, the fuse is fine, I'm replacing that entire thing anyways for the headlights so we will see what happens. Would love to start a build thread for this but I'd rather it be running and operating as it should first, pretty stoked on it though. Awesome car to drive!

Congrats on the car. And nice to hear ya got it runnin'. Just fix the little things as you go. But as these guys said, gettin' that kinda power out of a 12A is gonna be tricky. Perhaps you should look into a 13B swap. maybe even TII to get you at a good starting point. Good luck!

This has probably been answered about a million times but does the 13b align on the same engine mounts as the 12a? Excuse my laziness in not searching for it...

you're still fairly new, so okay, what the hell ... you might as well use it while you can. ;)

you can mount a 13B in a 12A SA/FB chassis by using a GSL-SE front cover and modified mounting bracket. that's the easiest way. obviously, you can go for custom mounting depending on the 13B you have, but that would require fabrication.

If you plan on 250 hp you may want to consider swapping in a 13b or 13bt. Something like a TII. Hope everything goes well! I'm also building an fb. I'm putting an S5 N/A engine in mine however.

Update! No pictures... Looks like winter is coming pretty fast so this is probably going to be pretty dead for awhile... But so far I've done a bunch of preventative stuff... Lots to list. Bought a spare engine to tear apart and put in once the current one gives me issues, it's just another 12A. So that's cool. Right now I've got a bunch of little things to order from mazdatrix, mostly seals for the doors and windows and what not. Thinking about using this for ice racing once I'm deep enough into winter... Needs to keep me warm!