Just wanted to start a new thread and hopefully get some good advice from someone. What should I do to prepair my 82 12a for winter? I'm for sure going to put a nicer starter in the car but I'd like to make the winter as less stressful as I can.

 

You'll get as many versions and opinions as responses. This is what I've done for the past 15 years. Car is stored inside...

*Fuel stabilizer with a FULL tank of low or non-ethanol fuel.
*Car on jack stands at jacking points.
*squirt a bit of 2 cycle oil into the leading plug holes, replace plugs and turn the engine over a second or two w/o starting.
*Wash/wax the car. Vacuum.
*remove battery and/or place on a battery maintainer. I like Deltran.
*Cover car
*Light a good cigar and start a list of anything I want to work on while it's up.

 

This:

https://www.aaroncake.net/rx-7/storage.htm

 

Ive been misunderstood. I would like to drive the car in the winter. I'm mostly worried about flooding the engine.

 

As long as it start normally and you have a good battery, you should be fine. I used to daily an 85 GSL 12A back when I was in college. We had one year with over a foot of snow for about a week. My car started every damn time. Flooding is really only a major issue on the early FI cars.

 

So I should be able to drive it in the winter without it flooding?

 

I drove my '86 last winter without any issues (though I won't be doing it again this winter). Aside from mine being EFI and yours being carb, our engines aren't all that dissimilar, so here is my experience.

To prepare it for winter, I usually just put in a lighter weight oil (usually 10W30) to compensate for the thicker starting viscosity, and give all of the other fluids a cursory check (which should be done periodically anyways). You will want winter tires, and you should still be gentle on the throttle in winter conditions. Give the car a minute or two to warm up before you start driving, and drive gently until it is fully warmed up to operating temperature.

As for your starter, I wouldn't bother replacing an already functional part unless it is giving you trouble.

Also consider getting it rust-sprayed.

 

My experience was different than ACR's. I had an 81 (carb'd) I bought brand new. Probably less than 3k on it going into late fall when it starts to get cold here. Every time ambient got below about 15 F. or 20 F. it wouldn't start and flooded. Which prompted an oil change and calling in for a "company car" to give me a ride to work. I finally just bought an old but reliable beater and parked it. Even with some snow tires of the era, mine had an open diff and was so light it didn't get around very well the few times I had it in the snow anyway. YRMV.

 

I live in the greater Seattle area, so we rarely saw temps as low as Sgtblue. I personally had zero issues and my RX7 had over 200k miles on the clock. It's the usual "your mileage may vary" situation. I think I kept using 20w50 year round and the car never treated me poorly. The only thing that caused a starting issue was the cheap Autozone starter failing in the summer of 2008.

Honestly, if you are that concerned, you should probably have a second car if you don't already. You will not know how it will start until you get the that point. The other difference in my car was that I had full Racing Beat exhaust and I had removed the air pump and all of the emission controls. That may, or may not have had something to do with it.

 

I should mention in addition to my earlier comment that last year, in my location, it was regularly below -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit), and below -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit) for at least a week. Never had any starting trouble.

The very low winter temperatures here are the reason I switched to 10W30, in your location the switch might not be necessary.