Well I suppose I will start from the beginning. First the basics.
In the Spring of 2009 I bought the car from one of my room mates. It was a depressing sight seeing the ol' rx7 shut in his garage, needing some work that he could not do/afford. So I through a stack of $500 at him and grabbed the Title. Getting the damn thing going was a bit of an issue to begin with. After spending 2 weekends fighting to get it started, I started to wonder if it was such a good idea. Turned out it just needed a set of new spark plugs and off it went. Then it was off to my house with the new car. He told me the car had an oil leak but he could not recall where it was coming from. Due to the leak, the car would smoke as the hot oil hit the even hotter exhaust. So we had his parents tail us back to my house to make sure all went well. And it did. Here are some pictures of the car the night I got it:
Upon arriving home, no oil leak was found. I then went on to drive it for 1000 miles with absolutely no issues. Then one night driving it down to apple valley, the 75mph speeds brought back the oil leak. It was the common dowel pin oil leak. Unfortunately this calls for a complete engine block tear-down. So I spent the $115 to get the full gasket kit for my engine. However after thinking about it for a while, I came to the realization, with help from my father, that as long as I'm in there, I might as well do things right and do a full engine rebuild. So rather than a $115 fix, I had to chuck out a grand. However, that did buy me the full engine rebuild kit, internals and all, a brand new water pump, and a brand new radiator. Then the fun started.
I won't go in to the full work of rebuilding the engine (cause it is posted here) but here are some of the fun pictures:
And between the rebuild and fine tuning everything, that took up all of 2009. Then it was back to sleep for the rx for the winter.
So, on to 2010. Now that the car was running (mostly) it was time to take care of some of the other issues. First thing I tackled was the wheels. They had oxidized like mad and needed some SERIOUS tlc. I took each wheel and sanded them down to the bare metal and polished each one mildly. It took a great deal of time (thanks goes out to Garrett for helping me get these done) but in the end they tuned out great!
Then it was on to fixing my exhaust. It had snapped after the third catalytic converter due to being 30 years old and the rubber o rings that hold it up breaking off. So I bought Ivans factory exhaust off of his 81 rx7. Everything worked great, bolting right up, except for the catalytic converters on his exhaust would not clear my heatshield. Simple solution, get rid of them! So I had Tims Custom Exhaust make me up a cat delete pipe to complete my exhaust.
Then it went on to delete all of my emissions. I figure no cats, why bother with emissions. So all but 3 vacuum lines were pulled out.
That was all I did for quite a while. I then decided I was going to get a side draft carb set up. This ended up failed due to me having the wrong size carb. I had a DHLA40 choked to 39mm, when what i needed was a DHLA48 choked to 39mm. Due to this error, the car would start, idle, and move under its own power, but anything over 1/4 throttle and the engine would bog and all together die. It turns out this was a matter of too much fuel not enough air flow. Here are the pictures of how it looked at the time.
It then came time for a manual transmission swap. HUGE thanks goes out to Erik and Joelle for letting me use a garage stall at their house for this job and to asain for helping me get everything finished up. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I was expecting. Once I had all the correct parts, the swap took all of one weekend. I also managed to get a pair of racing seats off craigslist and put them in the car at the same time. Unfortunately I was too busy working to take many pictures of this stage.
And that was all I got finished for 2010. Now for 2011's upcoming plans. Sitting waiting to go on the car I have wheels, subsequently tires, RacingBeat lowering springs, the CORRECT side draft carb, and hopefully an exhaust this year.
MORE TO COME!
In the Spring of 2009 I bought the car from one of my room mates. It was a depressing sight seeing the ol' rx7 shut in his garage, needing some work that he could not do/afford. So I through a stack of $500 at him and grabbed the Title. Getting the damn thing going was a bit of an issue to begin with. After spending 2 weekends fighting to get it started, I started to wonder if it was such a good idea. Turned out it just needed a set of new spark plugs and off it went. Then it was off to my house with the new car. He told me the car had an oil leak but he could not recall where it was coming from. Due to the leak, the car would smoke as the hot oil hit the even hotter exhaust. So we had his parents tail us back to my house to make sure all went well. And it did. Here are some pictures of the car the night I got it:
Upon arriving home, no oil leak was found. I then went on to drive it for 1000 miles with absolutely no issues. Then one night driving it down to apple valley, the 75mph speeds brought back the oil leak. It was the common dowel pin oil leak. Unfortunately this calls for a complete engine block tear-down. So I spent the $115 to get the full gasket kit for my engine. However after thinking about it for a while, I came to the realization, with help from my father, that as long as I'm in there, I might as well do things right and do a full engine rebuild. So rather than a $115 fix, I had to chuck out a grand. However, that did buy me the full engine rebuild kit, internals and all, a brand new water pump, and a brand new radiator. Then the fun started.
I won't go in to the full work of rebuilding the engine (cause it is posted here) but here are some of the fun pictures:
And between the rebuild and fine tuning everything, that took up all of 2009. Then it was back to sleep for the rx for the winter.
So, on to 2010. Now that the car was running (mostly) it was time to take care of some of the other issues. First thing I tackled was the wheels. They had oxidized like mad and needed some SERIOUS tlc. I took each wheel and sanded them down to the bare metal and polished each one mildly. It took a great deal of time (thanks goes out to Garrett for helping me get these done) but in the end they tuned out great!
Then it was on to fixing my exhaust. It had snapped after the third catalytic converter due to being 30 years old and the rubber o rings that hold it up breaking off. So I bought Ivans factory exhaust off of his 81 rx7. Everything worked great, bolting right up, except for the catalytic converters on his exhaust would not clear my heatshield. Simple solution, get rid of them! So I had Tims Custom Exhaust make me up a cat delete pipe to complete my exhaust.
Then it went on to delete all of my emissions. I figure no cats, why bother with emissions. So all but 3 vacuum lines were pulled out.
That was all I did for quite a while. I then decided I was going to get a side draft carb set up. This ended up failed due to me having the wrong size carb. I had a DHLA40 choked to 39mm, when what i needed was a DHLA48 choked to 39mm. Due to this error, the car would start, idle, and move under its own power, but anything over 1/4 throttle and the engine would bog and all together die. It turns out this was a matter of too much fuel not enough air flow. Here are the pictures of how it looked at the time.
It then came time for a manual transmission swap. HUGE thanks goes out to Erik and Joelle for letting me use a garage stall at their house for this job and to asain for helping me get everything finished up. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I was expecting. Once I had all the correct parts, the swap took all of one weekend. I also managed to get a pair of racing seats off craigslist and put them in the car at the same time. Unfortunately I was too busy working to take many pictures of this stage.
And that was all I got finished for 2010. Now for 2011's upcoming plans. Sitting waiting to go on the car I have wheels, subsequently tires, RacingBeat lowering springs, the CORRECT side draft carb, and hopefully an exhaust this year.
MORE TO COME!
