Hello all.
Just thought I would introduce myself. I recently picked up an Red 88’ N/A. I picked it up with the intentions of autocross and general fun driving.

After five hours of general cleaning and an hour at the carwash, she is starting to look presentable. I’ve taken a number of pics and I’ll post them as soon as I can I’ll get them up-loaded.

For now I’ve spent my time fixing all the cracked plastic, and getting the car cleaned. I’d like any suggestions anyone has on what mods I should start planning on and what systems I need to pay attention to. I understand that there is a shop in my area that specializes in race RX7’s, but I rather do as much as I can. So far I’ve disconnected the flakey alarm system, and I’m looking at doing the fuel cut off switch to help with the flooding issue that the previous owner mentioned happens once in a great while. (In the week I’ve had her she hasn’t flooded.)

If your in my area drop me a line, I'd love to check out others RX7's!

 

welcome to the forum!
and im pretty sure i almost traded my jeep for that 7
check out what a couple of us NW guys have been up to.
https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-generation-non-technical-pictures-198/build-thread-body-snatchers-56k-bad-idea-705932/
and if your looking for s4 interior parts pm Endnue913 hes got tons of s4 stuff.

 

Thanks for the info. Looks like you guys are/were having a blast.

As far as interior parts, about the only thing I need is the red hazard light button. I'm not too worried about it right now as I haven't figured out what I'm going to do with the over all use of the car. If I go so far as to remove all the interior for weight reduction then the little red button won't matter much. The interior is in such nice shape I hate to scrap it, and until my driving skill catches up with the performance of the car I'm going to leave it in. lol

 

nice n/a very clean looking.

 

Thanks, it's amazing what 5 hours of scrubbing can do. Now I just have to get a proper gear shift ****. The Hurst t-handle shifter just screams redneck. lol

 

HEY ! i know where that Home Depot is! I feel special now!

 

Cool, it's just up by my house. It was just a nice sunny day and it looked good sitting there so I snapped some photos.

Maybe I should get a sponsor sicker from the Home Depot! LOL.

 

hey, welcome to the rotard group. where are you located in tacoma? i have a montego blue fd, i live over by the UWT campus. anyways, nice S4. you should come up to the rocko7 meet next friday, if you don't know where it is pm me and we could probably meet on friday and head out over there. oh, and about some modifications to do to your car, i'm not sure how it is for the 2nd gens, but the pre-cat deletion with a downpipe is like the right of passage for 7 owners it seems. clears up a lot of the heat in the engine bay and you'll have better throttle response. again, welcome!

 

Welcome to the club and if it were me I would swap a TII enginge into that thing as soon as possible.

 

I live just off Center St up on Tyler. Thanks for the invite. Rocko7 meet?? Right now I'm out in Montana visiting my folks for the holidays, so I won't be back in town till the 5th of December.

I'll have to look at the exhaust system when I get home to see what I'm dealing with. I've only had the car a week, so I don't know all the details about the car as of yet. I believe the previous owner stated it was a new dual exhaust system but I don't know for sure. My only concern with making mods to the exhaust has to do with inspection. (I'm from Montana and we don't have inspections) If I knew what I could scrap under the hood as far as emission controls, canisters, hoses and cats I would.

If you have other suggestions, keep them coming, I have a lot to learn.

 

gotcha. and yeah most of the time we just goof off while we work


and as far as stripping your emissions you can take a crap load out.
racing beat makes a block-off kit that will make it possible to remove all of that jazz.
ask Endnue913 for a engine bay shot and you'll see all that you can take out with that kit
orr maybe i'll just make him post an engine bay shot

 

Yeah and i wasn't even drinking in any of those build thread pics. LOL...
... regarding the block of plate kit.. you can get it MANY places... for about 35 bucks at the best. First i would start by stripping down that bay in the normal fashion... dump the fan and fan shroud, grab an electric fan, and toss the stock air box and get an apexi cone or something in that vein... that will start an immediate increase of space in the engine bay, then when your ready to simplify the bay.. get the block off kit.. that makes it possible to strip the air pump, emissions vac rack, ACV, BAC and a bunch of crap. I aslo have dumped my AC system and PS system.. ( by de-powering a S5 rack, AWESOME mod) ....... makes cjanging your spark plugs a breeeeze!

Too bad you cant make it to rocko7... see you next time then!

 

By removing all that stuff, will the car still pass Washington inspection? I love to tinker with any car that I own, and anything that I can do for free to make improvements I'm all for.

I'm going to try a little autocross this season, so I have to be careful about making to many mods that will put me in a class that either I can't afford to race in or that I just can't compete.

What is Rocko7 exactly? Like I said I'll be back in town around the 5th, I'd love to meet up and check out everyones cars and the "personalization" they've done. If we could get enough interest from local guys we could meet somewhere central. I know that here in Tacoma, Point Defiance Park is a popular place to meet.

 

Rocko-7 is a get together at The Rock restaurant in Federal Way, formerly Taco-7 at the Federal Way Del Taco. It's just a monthly get together the last Friday of every month for us rotards that can make it.

 

Hello and Welcome. My advice for autocross, KEEP IT STOCK. We learned this the hard way! Your best bet is to put some Falken Azenis 615s on your stock rims as wide as will fit and drive it for a year, then look at how your doing and the different classes and build to where you want to run. With an Rx-7 its very easy to mod yourself into into the SM2 class where the competition is SC vipers and 3rotor TC 3rd gens. Check out the Bremerton Sports Car Club www.bscc.net. Our first event is right around the corner in February!

 

no you will not. well not without a little prep work
which is another thing endnue913 knows all about

 

In the build up of your car, what mistakes have you made? What do you wish you had done differently?

 

Hello and welcome to the club!

Nice looking rx7! Looks like mine... Mazda definatly made alot of red 2nd gens!
As far as the flooding issues. Try this: Before you turn the car off, rev it to ~2500RPM and then turn the key off and engine will spool to a stop, and it should solve most flooding issues. Make sure to do this everytime you shut the car off. If that doesnt fix it, it may be time to send the injectors to be serviced.

 

My only concern is that if someone else drives the car and it floods.

I'll have to check to see how much it costs to have the injectors serviced. I haven't had any problems with it, but I don't want to either. I'd rather have the injectors looked at than be stuck on the side of the road. I understand that I can pull a fuse to get me going, but if I have an injector problem, I'll need to get it fixed.

Thanks for the advise, I can't wait to meet some of you all.

 

I'm about to send my injectors to this company for a rebuild.

http://www.witchhunter.com/

 

Well, first off, we began building the car before we started autocrossing. No mistakes, it was a great car and really fun, no regrets at all, just didn't really fit into a class well, so was not competitive in autocross, except for novice class where all cars run head-to-head. We spent a substantial amount on suspension which helped, but alas it was still a SM2 car, with a SM2 index and we didn't have enough power or money to be competitive in that class or enough room for tires to make it stick. When we ran street tire this season in it we took last/2nd to last every event. I did learn how to spin out very well

What really makes the car in autocross is the driver, so don't worry about setting up your car yet, come out and drive and have fun and learn. Then start modding (if you want)

Most club's rules resemble the SCCA's classing system, although usually a little broader, more allowances. We run street tire class at BSCC which uses the SCCA PAX index to weight the times, as we aren't quite ready to take the plunge to dedicated R-compound tire. If you build an SCCA car, your car should be competitive in the local clubs. A stock class car allows cat back exhaust, K&N filter (No CAI), front sway bar and shocks (must be original mounting points) and that's about it, wheel sizes must stay stock, but you can put as wide a tire as will fit on the rim.

If I were to build an rx-7 for autocross I would copy kill no cones set-up (short version - NA, suspension, tires). Since we are taking a little break from 7's, next season, I will be putting Falken Azenis on my stock Mcoupe and driving that in street tire class with the A stock index.

There are lots of folks here who autocross and can give you a hand. You can also get on the local autox community mailing list at www.wwscc.org. Feel free to pm me or woundup7 or chat with us at the rocko-7 or izzy's meet. We will both be at the toy run too.

M

 

Regarding your Emissions... WA rarely does a visual of the engine bay.. they mostly concerned about your output hydrocarbons.... Which usually at a higher RPM are burning away pretty clean... but its the idle that will kill you.... The "emissions" equipment is a series of vacuum lines and sensors... and IMO can be tossed without much effect to the emissions testing... you just have to do a little "tweaking" before you run it for smog. But, hey... if your FC can pass smog in the first place... consider your self lucky! LOL.... when is your next test? Since you only have to do it every other year, i would leave your car alone if its coming up in a matter of months.... then see if you would have really passed stock. Then go to town... unless you really want to autocross.. then listen to anything and everything that rotorette and woundup7 have to say... they win at that game.

Just dont plan on alot of POW-AHHH from the NA... they arent quick.. and really never will be... like i always say... my car is slow in a straight line... but when it comes to the touge... well... thats just what i love to do. You dont really need alot of HP to corner hard... theres only so much you can even give it before you break loose...

HAVE FUN... either way...

 

haha, mindfungus, pm endneu about his "air pump" trick to blow fresh clean air through your cat. or you can run on ethalalcohol for the test (credits to grae)

 

i dont know what hes talking about ^

That sound very illegal.

 

welcome to the club!