1984 GSL 307 Chevy swap in Peace River, Alberta, Canada
 

Hi, my name is Jarret Bellwood. My adventure with 7s started about three and a half months ago on my 15th birthday. I was looking for a project car to restore for my first car. After looking at multiple cars and having all of them turn out to be not what I was looking for I stumbled upon an ad for a 1984 Rx-7 GSL. I went and bought it the same day. After discovering that the egine wouldnt turn over we pulled it and began exploring my options. I looked at rebuilding the 12A but learned that I would probably have to rebuild it again in a year. After searching around I discovered the v8 swap section. Immediately it appealed to my as I'm a v8 kinda kid myself, although there is nothing wrong with a rotary. I purchased a deluxe kit from Granny's Speedshop, and picked up an 1984 Oldsmobile Delta 88 with a 307 Chevy and a 200-r4 transmission. So far I have sanded the side skirts, front and rear bumpers of the car in preparation for rocker guard. I have repaired holes in the rear fenderwells and rockerguarded them as well. I have also been prepping the engine bay for a coat of glossy black paint. I've sanded and painted odds and ends from the car. I've improved the stereo by adding two 6x9s in the cargo bins spots, two 8" bass tubes, a 4 channel amp and a clarion head unit. This past weekend I've been working on pulling the engine and transmission out of the delta 88. Should be done that in the next few days hopefully. From there I will be sending the valve covers, oil pan, rims and other odds and ends off to be powdercoated hemi orange (I'm a mopar fan). I will also be polishing up the block itself. Engine bay will hopefully be painted in the coming weeks. Will be posting pics as soon as possible

Well finally pulled the 307 and 200r4 out of the Oldsmobile today. Also started painting the engine bay on the Mazda. Unfortunately after using the first can of paint I realized that the second can was gloss not semi gloss. I will hopefully be getting more paint tomorrow so I can finish painting. Sorry about not getting pics up, system hasn't been working very well. I will try again tomorrow.

Well after being on holidays and forgetting to post I finally decided to try and update the thread. In the time that has passed I have finished painting the engine bay. I am almost done stripping the engine down to the bone so I can begin to clean it up. I have also received all but one part from my granny's kit. Attaching pictures still hasn't worked so I will just put a link to my photobucket page. http://s1315.photobucket.com/user/Ja...ood/slideshow/

It says your photobucket is private

I will go in and change that. Forgot I had it set on private.

The album should be public now. As for an update on the build, I have spent the past few night scraping all the grease off the engine. Will be bombing it with braking clean and wire brushing it up tonight or tomorrow night. After that I will be taking the tappits and new oil pan to powder coating on Friday. Will also be staring to tape up the car for rocker guard on the bottom half of the car.

Well the past little while has been pretty productive. I have sent the tappets, oil pan and manifold to powder coating, I have finished up some bondo work and rocker guarded the skirts on the car. I prepped and painted the engine and have almost collected and ordered all the parts I should need to complete the swap. Sadly the car had to be moved into a portable tarp garage for space to store our tractor. Once the parts get back I will be bringing the car back in to drop the engine in.

Looking good!!

Thanks. Your build is looking pretty good too.

looks good. must be a unique ride in peace river.

Yeah. Not to many Rx7s around northern alberta, even less v8 swaps.

Well after a productive weekend of painting, reassembling, polishing, and cleaning my work has come to a screeching halt. I managed to clean almost all the nuts, bolts and small parts for the engine and car and most of them are not painted or ready to be. I sanded and painted the mechanical fan, pulleys, new water pump, and other miscellaneous parts. I installed the manifold , tappits, some stuff on the manifold and the main drive pulley. After finishing these things I moved on to installing the new oil pan.... That's where things went wrong, turns out granny's sent us the wrong oil pans so I'm looking at about a month before I can have anything in my possession that will work. It will also set me back a couple hundred bucks to get the new one powder coated again. And to add to the bad news my shifter I got didn't get shipped with the cable so I need to wait to get that as well. Hopefully these issues will be resolved soon. Will do another update later this week hopefully. New pictures will be up soon as well hopefully.

Well found out that I have the wrong kit. Apparently there is a difference between a chevy and an Oldsmobile 307 that no one bothered to tell me About. My dad kinda just assumed that they were the same but hey, we made a mistake and that happens. When I ordered the kit there was some confusion and Grannys sent me a kit for a chevy not an Oldsmobile. Sooo I am now going to be building custom motor mounts ad modifying the rest of the kit to work with the Oldsmobile. Kinda nice to be a welder an have a dad that's a welder.

Sorry about your setback but good thing you have welding skills and help to get it turned back around.

Yep, olds and chevy are two different animals.

I have a 327 and a 200r4 sitting in my garage that were to go in a project I have since abandoned.

If you run out of hood clearance i would suggest finding a capri hood scoop. It will provide what you need and kinda have a TII appearance.

http://s222.photobucket.com/user/84s...ml?sort=3&o=15