About 3 years ago I was gifted a 1983 RX-7 by a friend of mine. He'd raced it in SCCA IT7 for about 10 years (roughly 2000-2010 period) before parking it. It sat for 10 years, then I got it and dragged it home. Aesthetically the car isn't bad, but it's what you'd expect from a car that's 40 years old and was tracked. Mechanically the car was really in pretty good condition and just your standard rubber wear items needed to be replaced. Plus the gasoline in the tank and carb was, as you'd expect, awful.
Being a former IT7 racer, the car was built to IT7 specs from that timeframe. Full roll cage, interior was pretty much removed. It had adjustable shocks on it (which were 100% dead). The exhaust is a header and generally free-flowing, 4.88 limited slip rear. 4 wheel disc brakes, the Nikki carb had been gone through for track use, so it's missing the appropriate emissions equipment that you'd expect from that time. The engine was rebuilt (again, as allowed per IT7 specs so it's not got porting or anything like that done to it).
I went through the car and got it running. These things are simple so it really didn't take all that much. But, as anyone who works with these knows, parts availability has become an issue. I've still been able to get everything I've needed at this point, but it's not the best supported car.
The intent behind the gift (both for the giver and for me as the receiver) was to resurrect it and return it to the track as an active racer. I'm looking specifically at track driving and I'm especially interested in endurance. Initially, my goal was 24 hours of Lemons (and that still may be the goal). At this point, I've taken it to half a dozen or so Track Night in America sessions at Heartland Park in Topeka (which unfortunately is shutting down, and it's unclear to me what other options may come up near me). The car I'll say is mostly sorted at this point, other than I still seem to have some fueling issues when on the primaries (I converted the carb to mechanical secondaries, but I suspect that I didn't get all the gunk out the first time I rebuilt it). I've tracked it on 100+F days and it's performed flawlessly from every perspective except the aforementioned fueling issue. But, it's slow.
My goal at this point is get the thing running right, but the one area I've had trouble with is figuring out where a home for it is from a race series perspective - and if there's anything besides Lemons where it might be remotely competitive (or, better put, not stupidly slow compared to literally every other vehicle on track). However, as I read the rules for Lemons, I also somewhat wonder if I'll run into issues with it (or other cars), due to the distance between my helmet and the roll cage. I'm taller (bit over 6') and my helmet touches the bar at the top of the driver's door normally. Really beyond that there's not much, just some details with their safety regs vs. what was the norm at the time this car was built.
So, I'm a bit in limbo with the car - I want to get it running fully "right", am debating if it should get an engine swap (an RX-8 engine would be a nice wake up for it power wise) or if it's at a point now where it's basically past its point of fitting in anywhere. Any thoughts from the group appreciated.
