Well, I've been debating this one for a while, but decided to jump in feet first anyway. What follows will be a running story line about a non-running (at first) 1983 RX-7 and the subsequent build-up/modifications done to that vehicle. All the little tricks I've learned and things that I've picked up over the past 15 years will be poured into this vehicle. Any controversial mods will be backed by dyno runs where possible to back up or dispel claims.

Requests or opinions welcomed but may not necessarily be done.

Any directions or "tutorials" are my experiences and not to be taken as "Gospel" or the one true way to do something. It's just how I did it, your results may vary, please don't run to a lawyer but feel free to insult, I can take a good beating as Sterling can attest to.

That said, this story begins after losing my prize '80 RX-7 in May two years ago, I've kinda stumbled about in a red 1984 RX-7 for the next year...In the process of looking for a suitable host for the streetport 12A, I ran across two silver '83 RX-7s owned by the same guy. I had a good engine so I bought the one that wasn't running becuase "it just needed a battery." Because of the non-running issue, I was able to buy this straight vehicle for the grand sum of $725...

Here's how she looked when I first found her...





The first thing I did was stick a spare Optima yellow-top from the '80 RX carcass, spin the engine by hand, dump a small blend of gas and oil, then try to start it. Big puffs of smoke, but it started right up. Then I discovered why he lost interest in it. The infamous dowel pin oil leak. At least the engine didn't smoke after warm-up and cleaning itself out...the first mod was to ditch the stock rims and slap on the 15" Weds Autobahns that I've had forever...


The obligatory artsy shot...





Second mod was to replace the rear shocks with some KYB G2s bought from another Forum member here at a very nice price...then it was a day at Motor Sports Ranch with the DFW RX-7 Club. The car could drift nicely through all the sweepers but 100 hp meant all the FDs were constantly on my bumper waiting for the "safe" zones where passing is allowed. SSixspeed had a lot of fun schooling the same FDs, however, with his almost stock '03 SLP SS Camaro...

Day at the MSR track in November...





That's it for this first part...the next thing to happen involves the clutch..at MSR, I noticed immediately that the clutch was starting to go. 4th gear pulls out of "rattlesnake" had the RPMs climbing but the car not going any faster. Before I could get to it, though, the clutch hydraulics went bad, so that's the subject covered next.

 

Lookin forward to future installments. Is this gonna be a non-emissions complaint car? I know you have those pesky tests there .

 

Believe it or not, this car will have to be emissions compliant...right now, it's OK since it's all stock, but the future mods will be made with passing in mind. I do, however, have a rotary-friendly place to go to if things don't work out...

You'll be interested to know that your air-flapper observations are going to be the subject of one of the dyno-tested mods this coming March 28th. I want this running story-line to stay basically in chronological sequence, so that mod, already done, will be covered a little later.

 

It will be very interesting to watch this whole thing come together.

Very cool way to document your project

 

Yeah man keep that stuff coming. Those wheels are absolutely gorgeous too. You're lucky you had them "lying around" lol.

Zac

 

Yeah I was going to compliment you on your wheels also. Nice to see them in use again! I absolutly love mine!

 

 

Looking forward to reading the rest of the story. But I thought all references to "Gospel" were supposed to be left at the doors of the DoO room?

 

Good observation, I certainly don't want to draw YZF-R1 into this innocent little thread about my rexie...

OK, the next step is actually the door seals...I'm copying-n-pasting this part and linking the relevant thread since it was covered earlier and FD Racer took some nice pics...my set didn't exhibit the kink on the top channel his photo shows, though...he shoulda sent them back since they are guaranteed for 15 years as observed below...

From the "Anyone bought those new door seals on ebay" thread originally started by cincoletra.

OK....the eBay company is 1A Automotive and they're the vendors for Metro...the seals have a 15 yr warranty...I installed a set that cost me $45 total off of eBay, if I remember right, just this afternoon...definitely one of those "box on the shelf for a while" kind of projects that I finally got around to doing. Quality was superb and details tell you just how good this is. The clips have a definite step, so you push until you hear and feel the click and that's it. No worrying you pushed too hard and you're pinching the rubber. Also, and this was really neat, left and right hand side pieces are identified by a single dot of color on each piece of weatherstrip rubber. Sure, you might have had to do some sailing or boating first to understand them, but for me, there was no doubt which was which. For all the landlubbers, it was...passenger side=right side=starboard side=green dot and the driver side=left side=port side=red dot...an excellent example of out-of-the-box thinking from Metro.



The Thread Itself As It Ran Earlier This Year...

cincoletra is kinda quirky, but a good seller, BTW....just thought I'd toss that in since I bought some stuff from him well after this thread...

 

Next step was in November...the obligatory alternator upgrade...

S5 80 amp alternator upgrade.





Here's the process in detail...

Economical Alternator Upgrade

I have since discovered an unusual difference between the '80 wiring loom and the '83/'84/'85 wiring loom. Or it may have been the way the '80 was wired for the electronic ignition by Rotary Performance. Anyhoos, it appears there is a constant 0.226 amp draw from the left wire (as you look at the back of the alternator) to a relay on the driver side fender. For a daily driven car or one that has been sitting only for a couple of days, this is no concern. Many new cars draw up to 0.5 amp themselves. But for an older rotary-powered vehicle sitting for more than a couple of weeks, this could be a concern. A diode is not the answer here according to the very sharp Joe at Sportscar Performance here in Arlington, TX who ran down this problem. The answer is a relay using the ignition circuit for the on/off "switch" to keep that wire dead when the car is just sitting around. Again, this is only a problem for older rotary-powered cars that sit around for weeks on end not getting started. Why my '80 RX-7 was completely immune to this problem, I have no idea and now the car is in '79+'80+'84+a whole lotta West Nile virus mosquitos_rx-7's possession for its final tear down, so the differences can no longer easily be traced...

 

It's great to see a writeup like this. Can't wait to see/read more!

 

Oh no, you said the YZ.......................**** I almost said it! Shhhhhhhhhhhhh, dont make my life any more difficult please.

 

Something I forgot to mention is that I'm running a yellow top Optima battery which checked out fine, so, no, it's not my battery that is the problem.

OK, I still haven't finished it, but to keep chronological continuity, I'll just mention the history right now.

Soon after the MSR event, the tranny started to get harder and harder to shift. Of course, it was the clutch hydraulics, but that fixing process will be described later in detail so I can get to some good stuff.

Prior to hauling the carcass off to '79+two'80s+'84_rx-7's for final dissection, Jose and I jacked the rear-end up on the carcass to pull the Racing Beat springs and Energy Suspension urethane bushings and sway bar for transfer to Furious, which also had her rear in the air. All I gotta say is that life is a lot easier when you have an electric impact wrench for the big nuts 'n bolts. We got it all done in one afternoon and I took the '80 carcass to its new home in Irving the following Sunday. Pics tomorrow. Y...Z....

What happened today, 03-28-2004, will pique Carl's interest in particular and will also be posted tomorrow with pics.....and three graphs...

 

Nice thread you have going here...

Thanks for the 80 man.... Loads of good parts to be transfered between my soon to be daily driver, and my 80 toy.... This car has got to be one of the most detailed car Ive pulled parts off... Everything I remove its been cleaned under and/or replaced... All the front suspension has crackless nice strong rubber, and everything!

Mad props to Mar3 for his great work that was done on the 80!

Hopefully the 83 turns out as good, but with no caddy sticking out the front of it....

Good job so far

Where are those precious baselines?


Later, Andrew

 

Hmmm, you know what? The bushings on the front suspension torsion bars and also the sway bar are Energy Suspension urethane pieces...you'll definitely want to pull those for your car. I'm going to put off front suspension work for Furious until next year since it's all working pretty good right now...Fuel kill, new alarm and stereo work is the next order of the day...

 

is that why they look so new? They are black though?! I thought they were supose to be red?


BTW... the torsion bar... I cant get off.... and one of the lower control arm on my 84 wont come off


I'll pm ya...

 

Bushings can now be any color you want them to be...they were a bling-bling red in the past because that "said" high tech back in the day. It's just another marketing tool..."If it's a different color, then, by golly, them thar bushings have just got to be something special!", basically...

Here's the shot of the KYB G-2 shocks mentioned above...



The Furious and red rex with their tails in the air...




The Racing beat beauties cleaned up prior to install.




Ride improved immensely since the shocks now had a spring stiff enough to do compression and load duty...bottoming out became a thing of the past...

 

OK, Carl had already reported in an earlier thread about the cold air flapper being a 15 or so cfm restriction in the stock air cleaner. The air flapper is highlighted by the green dot and rod. I had a need for the coil circled in green to be eliminated for space issues. A discount Dyno Day was being held by Kwik Kar in Richardson. See a pattern?

The stock air cleaner with that pesky thermal coil in my way...




The tools needed for this "Air Flapper and Thermal Coil" mod are

• Small pliers or small screwdriver
• Hammer
• Long punch tool with a relatively small diameter at end
• Drill and bits
• Small bit of sheet aluminum or steel
• "Tin" snips
• Two nuts and bolts on the small side and the tools to tighten them
• Fuel-resistant gasket maker, in this case, Permatex no. 26B
• Threadlok

The procedure loosely outlined...

• You pull the C-clips that hold the rod assemblies together with the pliers. If yours are too big, a small screwdriver and some patience will work, just don't drive that screwdriver into your fingers or hand.
• The long punch will drive the air flapper shaft out. Just support the housing on one end if you intend to retain it or modify it as opposed to removing it alltogether. There are no screws or hidden clips holding that shaft in.
• Drill out the rivets holding the thermal coils and it pops out.
• I cut a bit of sheet aluminum to cover the subsequent hole leaving room on two sides for a nut and bolt combo to mechanically hold it in place in the air filter box. Before I bolted it in, I applied the gasket stuff to the mating surfaces. When you go to bolt it in, run the bolt from the top with the nut below and use Threadlok to make absolutely sure it never, ever vibrates apart. Any metal piece shaking off here is the death of your engine! You have been warned. I also applied more gasket stuff on the bottom side of the air cleaner box to completely seal the patch.

With that done, I had room for a future project...

The air cleaner "fixed" and some of the tools needed...green arrows point to the flapper and rods removed...




First thing I noticed was that the intake "roar" had increased noticebly. Apparently, that flap is also intended to reduce intake noise. I didn't really notice an increase in power, but the sound upgrade was worth the effort alone, plus I did need that room.

 

I took my flapper out a LONG time ago 'cause it was making quite a rattling racket under the hood. That was good enough reason for me. Great thread Mario!

Oh..... and what are those little nozzles?

 

Ne'er ye mind those black beauties, matey...ar...

OK, here's the dyno day info...you simply cannot beat these prices...i was surprised to learn that only 4 cars took advantage of this. Hopefully, they won't be discouraged at Kwik Kar and stop this "event."


Furious up on the dyno rack for the first time in her 22 years...



The green arrow points to a quality, gerotor-style fuel pump...and no, this time it's an Aeromotive piece that feeds a 900+ rwhp Camaro race car owned by the Bossman of the shop. He sneered when I said, "How about those Carter fuel pumps??"...

Seeing as how this was a stock 12A with 155,00 miles, I told Chris to keep the max revs to 7200 rpm based on a gut assumption from dealing with these cars all these years. This first pass was done with a completely stock air cleaner lifted off of the '84 red rex, ie., it still had the air flapper assembly intact.

The first run with the '84 stock air cleaner...




And then the magic numbers...




As I said earlier, a 15% drivetrain loss is a valid guess and this vindicates that "gearhead math" kinda thought...it also means my '80 12A Rotary Performance Streetport built by Ari and Chris "Fuzzy" that had a bonestock Nikki was, in fact, a 135 HP "bullet." Not bad for porting and an exhaust system upgrade that still passed emissions here in TX.
The air-to-flow ratio for Furious was especially nice...it was dead solid in the 13 range where it needed to be and the engine never even missed a beat on the runs to 7200 rpm. I was quite astonished because the fuel pump is completely stock and I haven't even changed the fuel filter yet! You can see the pump starting to lose the battle around 6800 rpm, but, by then, the stock carb (Or the stock exhaust??) is choking airflow, so HP is has also tapered off in a big way. The next pull was exactly the same with no cooldown period to see if the numbers and the smooth run to 7200 rpm could be replicated within a small percentage. When they heard the rotary went to 7200 rpm, the rest of the garage came out of the office to watch the car...too bad it only was hitting double digit HP numbers..lol...


Second run with no changes...




The second graph...




A 0.35% difference, so the dyno was consistent and heat wasn't a factor...next is a small update on a mod done at the very beginning when I stuck the Weds on the car. I point it out now because of the above pictures that show the rear wheels buried in the fenderwells.

 

Good stuff Mario. So no tests on the flapper?

 

Your missing a piece of trim

More TQ than HP!!!!!

But wonder what it could pull, with fresh tune up, amsoil power foam treatment, dlidfis, and mechanical secondaries and ap mods, with an electric fan....... think it could beat 118rwhp(Erics SE)?

That is very good with a stock engine!!! With the heavier weds too! Dayum, potential, potential.......

 

Nice numbers and nice write up so far. I'll definitely be following this

 

I'm LOVING your write-up man this is pretty nice !!! Keep it going .. it's actually one of the first one I've spent 30-40 minutes reading lolll !

 

Sorry to say again, but **** man, those are sick wheels!

Zac