After much debate and measuring and random thoughts, it was time to give up on my RX8 ideas. It just didn't make sense and was going to cost way too much money. So I managed to sell the rolling shell...
a truck with a winch is a godsend, time to swap trash for trash. SWMBO won't let more yard cars stay there so only 1 inop at a time means rx8 had to go bye bye.
and associated parts along with some spare Rx7 parts to come up with enough cash to save this car:
it was conveniently located near my parents house in the Chicago area so being that is thanksgiving week and I was already coming here with my truck, it made sense to drag the trailer along for the ride as well, in the end it only cost me a little bit of gas money however this car has no title so there is going to be some interesting things that will need to happen to get that resolved and registers but we are far from having this on the road so that will wait.
It is in rough shape and as far as I can tell it hasn't been rally raced since 2003. It is in dire need of rust repair inside but has some redeeming features being the rear end of the car is in good shape, doesn't appear to have been rolled (yet), front has some
tiny gas tank but looks to be very intact, unlike the floor:
passenger area is held together by paint, inner and outer rockers are gone, you can see air through them:
engine bay looks to be fairly solid but lots of paint flaking off
lots of work ahead, no real time table but should be fun as these were 2000lbs in original trim so several hundred pounds lighter than the current rx7 and if we can put together a 160-200hp motor for cheap this should scoot pretty good but before we get there it needs a floor and preparations for a suspension overhaul.
Ideally the stock welded diff axle on 13s isn't going to work great as we cant fit brakes or cant find tires but some fabrication and various FC parts for the front end will work as will a shortened 8.8 ford solid axle and convert it to a 4 link, ideally I can find some Ford Econobox rally parts and adapt it, we will need to do a lot of modification to the floor to fit ourselves in this small car but that has been done before and will be done again, if we had to cut the floor out anyways this makes for a nice opportunity as this car basically fell into my lap.
the bolt together cage parts are pretty laughable, safety has come very far for Rally since this has hit the stages but still has some ways to go given the immense challenges of the sport.
Key project goals:
- install Floor
- Title (if no title, I can't register it then it will just become a rallycross car versus a stage rally car)
- map out history
- Performance/Rally Readyness
