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Figured I should make one of these now so I can track my build! I purchased my dream car, a 1996 fd! I wanted a non modified or slightly modified, low mileage car, because as a kid I dreamt of building one and really wanted to do the work myself. This is a rhd car that has only 30,000 miles. First impressions were nothing short of infatuation!
After checking fluids I drove it to work the next day. While taking some drives the hot side tube blew apart. I ended up making a new tube out of silicone. Fits better than factory, and is just temporary until i decide on an intercooler set up (thinking greddy v mount). I installed a APEXI N1 titanium that I purchased on marketplace for 400 bucks. Just wanted a little more noise while I located and waited for shipping on a RE twin dolphin tail.
The tires were nice and hard so figured i'd upgrade a bit. I wanted a good summer tire. Despite my love of the r88r i opted for a more street worthy tire and purchased Nitto nt555. I accidentally ordered 18 inch tires(so clumsy of me haha), so I had to purchase my dream wheel. Ordered 18x8.5 in the front 18x9.5 in the rear in all of the BBS LM glory. Ive always loved the look of diamond black BBS wheels, and purchased a set of red and gold center caps for extra pop. (I have some black and gold bbs centercaps if anyone wants to buy them). They look a little big now, but when I drop the car about an inch, I think they will look great.
Tragedy struck later that day as my motor took a crap. Front rotor low on compression, rear rotor not even letting the compression tester gather data. Put my finger over the plug hole and its a gentle kiss of compression. Well to be continued. Pulled off the hood in anticipation of pulling the motor and having it built.
First order of business, new shoes (i know, bad priorities). This has been my favorite wheel for so many years.
Blown motor left me waiting for a tow Why do tow truck pictures always look so good
Congrats on the car and love to see more clean RHD cars being purchased. Yours looks like a Type R like mine. Bummer about the engine though, hopefully you can salvage as many parts as possible for a rebuild. One thing I always try to tell people that buy old low mileage cars (not just imported) is to make sure everything is solid before they start driving it hard, not saying this was the cause of your failure but there is a good chance an injector wasn't running at full capacity or at all or there was another issue. I've imported hundreds of engines over the years and well over half of them had sticky injectors, a lot wouldn't even fire until given a good whack and that would just be to free them up, they still didn't flow properly. Not saying this is the case with your car but when I look at 30 year old cars, even the low mileage ones like ours (mine had 45K when imported), I still look at them as restoration candidates because of these issues and how parts age. I have a checklist that I perform on these types of cars and when I imported mine a couple years ago I followed the same process. These fuel systems can have a bunch of gunk and rust in them depending on how they were stored and the ethanol content of the fuel used as well as how full the tank was while being stored. The first thing I did after pulling my car off the trailer from the port was pull the fuel pump and check the fuel tank for rust and corrosion. Then 44k treatments for the first 3 or so tanks to clean everything out as best as possible. No full throttle runs or driving hard until I know everything has been cleaned to the chemical's best extent. Even then I was still cautions and restored the rats nest and fuel system having the injectors cleaned and tested so I know everything is operating as intended. You can see my restoration progress here An old Man’s 94 Type R Restoration to OEM + - RX7Club.com - Mazda RX7 Forum
I'm excited to see the build and hope the engine failure won't keep this thing on jackstands for years.
Congrats on the car and love to see more clean RHD cars being purchased. Yours looks like a Type R like mine. Bummer about the engine though, hopefully you can salvage as many parts as possible for a rebuild. One thing I always try to tell people that buy old low mileage cars (not just imported) is to make sure everything is solid before they start driving it hard, not saying this was the cause of your failure but there is a good chance an injector wasn't running at full capacity or at all or there was another issue. I've imported hundreds of engines over the years and well over half of them had sticky injectors, a lot wouldn't even fire until given a good whack and that would just be to free them up, they still didn't flow properly. Not saying this is the case with your car but when I look at 30 year old cars, even the low mileage ones like ours (mine had 45K when imported), I still look at them as restoration candidates because of these issues and how parts age. I have a checklist that I perform on these types of cars and when I imported mine a couple years ago I followed the same process. These fuel systems can have a bunch of gunk and rust in them depending on how they were stored and the ethanol content of the fuel used as well as how full the tank was while being stored. The first thing I did after pulling my car off the trailer from the port was pull the fuel pump and check the fuel tank for rust and corrosion. Then 44k treatments for the first 3 or so tanks to clean everything out as best as possible. No full throttle runs or driving hard until I know everything has been cleaned to the chemical's best extent. Even then I was still cautions and restored the rats nest and fuel system having the injectors cleaned and tested so I know everything is operating as intended. You can see my restoration progress here An old Man’s 94 Type R Restoration to OEM + - RX7Club.com - Mazda RX7 Forum
I'm excited to see the build and hope the engine failure won't keep this thing on jackstands for years.
Thanks for the awesome reply! I'm going to replace pretty much everything for the new motor. All fluids, etc. It's going to be a lot at once, but I really want this car to be long term reliable
06-25-24, 11:18 PM
