A classic tale of "it followed me home" with no need of a classic "what car" thread. I saw the ad on a FB group "local" to me and found a killer deal that I knew I would regret if I hesitated...
So I called the next day, and then the day after that it, it followed me home!
It was in good hands, I pulled up to this t2 between 2 mazdaspeed 6s and a v6 3 pedal mazda6 hatch.
This car is one of the 1500 produced AEs. It is largely original too! driver seat was recovered (poorly) the passenger seat needs to be recovered (badly) but it had all of the pixles, I have never been in an FC rx7 that has had all wiper modes on the switch in working order. GOOD sign.
The last owner had it for 7 years and did his customizing but went to rebuild the engine and it never ran after that, has low compression. But he did manage to repair some rust and repaint it...
but just look at that under side!
however it has a little hillbilly w/ import vibe. The Smoked out lights and two tone (slight black on the bottom)with black pin stripe in the moulding and the driver seat... Easily reverseable though!
But the underside was bedlinered but I think it needs to come off then POR the surface rust and or pre wash with muratic acid and water.
but overall, a few spots here and there very minor, no rust and everything pretty much intact so here are a few other shots.
not my doing but the two tone continues onto the engine bay:
so that will need to be corrected when the engine comes out.
Neat features unique to the 10th ae
1. Power steering cooler
2. White wheels
3. Unique white paint
4. Bronze/gold tinted glass
5. Headlamp cleaner washer system (IN 19 FREAKING 88!)
6. 10th AE unique interior
7. 10th AE shift knob/boot unit (I have but in poor condition)
8. 10th AE steering wheel
9. 10th AE fender badges (this one does not have)
10. 10th AE floormats (does have!)
probably some other things too, I think there is a special key but this doesn't have that .
Oh well, expect updates on this in a few months but right now its in even moar gooder hands...
Sweet! Beautiful car! I love how the Japanese liked to make their special editions all white (the 300zx Shiro edition comes to mind, as well as Supras could be had with white wheels and white paint). Good luck, I'll be watching this for sure!
Cool car!
5. Headlamp cleaner washer system (IN 19 FREAKING 88!)
My '86 626 turbo has this.
sethmeister4 wrote:
Sweet! Beautiful car! I love how the Japanese liked to make their special editions all white (the 300zx Shiro edition comes to mind, as well as Supras could be had with white wheels and white paint). Good luck, I'll be watching this for sure!
Shiro is Japanese for white. :)
JamesMcD wrote:
Cool car!
5. Headlamp cleaner washer system (IN 19 FREAKING 88!)
My '86 626 turbo has this.
I'm just surprised anything in the 80s was with a HLC system well aside from volvo bricks that is...
White is an important color for Japanese racing cars.
http://www.petrolicious.com/the-colorful-history-of-national-racing-hues-an-introduction-1-of-4
Looking forward to how this goes. Looks nice.
Due to a series of random event, good updates in the near future, (and way ahead of anticipated schedule) but until then. Some I forgot:
the car came with this gem!
Its in VERY nice condition.
A looooong time ago I had a custom set of embroidered patches made to replicate the factory floormats for these
In reply to banzaitoyota:
That sounds awesome, my one side is there but the driver side is long gone, its just all black now.
Nice. My old brother and sister in law (from my previous wife) had a pristine, super low mileage version of this. Neither of them was a car enthusiast and after a few years of mostly storage, they asked me if I wanted to drive it so they could see what the car could really do. Both were surprised by what the car could do and how little they were using that potential. Unfortunately, they sold it so they could buy a generic black BMW like all the other neighbors in their wealthy subdivision.
Yup. Really good bad ideas have surfaced:
Ebony will be tasked with getting ivory running, as well as getting another black one running.
Its a shame because this is mostly a complete car, needs some assembly and it would be fine.
PS: anyone interested in a t2 shell w/ drivetrain?
OH YES! Bad things have happened… to my wallet! HOWEVER I decided to add 2 interns for roommates this summer so my mortgage is free. Free to spend on tools and rx7s that is…
They appear to have switched places…
But first! Here is where the 2 build threads briefly cross paths. The 10th AE will not be a race car so around town driving with the occasional autoX or spirited driving. I need the PS ratio (15.2:1) compared to manual rack ratio (20.3:1) in the rallycross car, I kept fighting the wheel and the ease of steering and lack of parts in the engine bay is nice on the t2 since many other parts are taking up space, much easier to service the ignition side of the engine bay. More details on steering in franken wankel thread.
See!? Much easier! Also note the thicker aftermarket sway bar, it is red. Ooooohhhhhhhh reddddddd bar, bonus!
Okay so, the other car. Well it was a friend of mines that he ran for rallycross, started messing with it. Gave up bought an ecoboost mustang and wanted it out of his driveway. Ran when parked and ran until partily disassembled, the car has 100k on it.
I bought it for the shocks and engine, engine showed 80psi on both rotors, so it was properly worn but would still run, I wanted to get into this project at the end of the year but this was a good deal and I had nothing going on over the weekend so an rx7 friend came by and we shared parts, beers and tools and got to work!
STEP 1: Remove the engine from ebony.
STEP 2: remove the engine from ivory:
Step 3: mix and match engine parts:
10th AE came with new clutch/throw out bearing so that was transferred over to the engine from ebony. Ebonys clutch was on its last leg, good spare though.
Step 4: insert ebony’s engine into ivory:
Step 5: Do not have intake manifold gaskets or turbo gasket…
Step 6: PBR
Step 7: like in rally, press on regardless! So with a few days lead time on those parts we got busy doing everything else we could do which was chassis oriented. Because it was a rallycross car my friend graciously decided to buy new racing beat springs and slap them on billstiens with new rubber, so I graciously installed them into the 10th ae:
The former owner who repainted this car, painted EVERYTHING. Literally. Some parts nicer than others, he did do new calipers/pads/rotors/ball joints/tie rod ends so this wraps up the front suspension (minus end links) being fully cleaned up/”restored”
And onto the rear!
Again the prior owner replaced rear calipers/pads/rotors then painted the calipers but shocks were still bad. Matching brand rear sway bar, doesn’t look like racing beat, maybe RE speed? Not sure. Some suspension bushings look worn/tired/aged but that will be a next summer concern and the endlinks are in poor shape.
You will see that there just isn’t fancy suspension going on back there…
Its my old non turbo racing beat cat-back! (you can tell by the dented muffler) and it is stainless, should add a nice touch to the sound, looks, and performance.
After installing the exhaust and bleeding the brakes we tossed the wheels back on the car and got back to business, with the parts car we can swap over the reflectors to de-rice it!
Good news for the rear tail lights though….
Its film! But swapping it over is much easier than removing this and cleaning the adhesive off.
And ta da!
Back inside the car the new engine is. Oiling system is hooked up, chassis is squared away, fuel lines are ran, ignition is hooked up and organized with various new NGK plugs/wires to choose from between the two cars
Had minor wiring repair, brake fluid level switch, oil level sender and something else that is probably useless:
More updates soon to come.
ohhhhh here are the fun updates...
Another neat thing about these 10th anniversary cars is that they have a unique momo shift knob with boot, these are hard to come by but mine is in bad shape but I may try and salvage it (Read, pay some shoe/leather store to deal with it). PO decided to do nice shift boot and e-brake boot so I don't mind right now.
Took a few more things from the donor car and these seats were in much nicer shape than my stock beat up ones and I once I have the car mobile, I can concern myself with finding correct seats once AC is re-installed. (long term goal)
Since this car was supposed to be a cruiser and around town kind of car, It must have a radio and it currently lacks one…
I had to do some repair work too:
Ah, here we are!
The front speakers don't seem to work and the antenna did not want to go up, harrumph! However, at least I still have working intermittent wipers!
This thing was last registered in 2011. It has sat around for some time and I found that I needed to replace the tires because they were even older and dry rotted, average tread life on them so I decided to go with 225/55/16s via continental DW variety. Very good wet traction and I enjoy them on my wagon with 18s, SUPER soft sidewalls that will roll over but are great around town summer car with spirited driving and maybe a handful of autoXs a year.
Then it was time for ebony the T2 to go its new owner, another long time loyal Mazda enthusiast. Frankenburban happily abided.
There was some emission delete/removal and oil injection system removed to simplify the stock setup. This is a very handy diagram for when doing said emission deleting/engine simplifying.
When you perform this task you can also remove the double throttle plate setup on the throttle body and then port&polish it like so:
And this is a stock one:
(ewwww)
It was starting to come together!
It is a good time while you’re in there to replace a few gaskets, hobble together exhaust parts, tweak this or that here or there, run new vacuum lines and etc. Good enough to run eh?
Because it had been sitting so long once I had everything hooked up, it should fire, right? Nope, added 5 gallons of fresh gas (with premix of course) got it to kind of kick over with enough fogging of persuasion fluid (starting fluid) and start but instantly die. Diag’d a bad fuel pump …
These screws are a PITA!
Rusted and usually stuck in there, these were and then PO painted bedliner over them so I had to grind them out but (I love my carbides) then vice grips got them easily.
Out with the old in with the new!
Also, the new fuel pump came as a kit with new filter and hardware as well as stainless steel allen head hardware for the fuel pump body to gas tank – bonus!
When the repaint occured there was bedliner done on both sides and then a plastic sheet was above that and below the carpet! Nice added comfort touch.
I finally had some open free time over the weekend to get at this and I got it running., even enough to put about 18 hard miles on it and did a little woodward cruising Lots of updates scattered around timing and life etc but don’t worry just because you don’t see an update here doesn’t mean I have not been working on it I just get slow to updating this.
And while doing so… THE ANTENNA FIXED ITSELF! IT’S A MIRACLE!!!!!!!!!!!
And its current status:
Still a few tweaks to adjust and sort out but mostly complete and capable! Next up is finishing the chassis, prior owner did have a good start and my Bilsteins setup was a nice touch but wait to you see the next update :)
Nice!
However, no battery hold down and exposed side terminals can lead to a bad time.
In reply to wvumtnbkr:
yes! good eye. I also have 1 turn bulb out and 1 headlight out. After work today I will be stopping by to grab these items and then some.
Ask me how I know....
It is amazing what you can weld with a battery.....
Well I got the battery cables better hooked up and battery tied down. A little more TPS/throttle cable adjustment and it idles much better, still sounds like a little bit of a boost leak/vacuum leak under boost, you get that cool spaceship whistling sound but I put about a tank of gas and netted 10.2 mpg. I was having fun on the loud pedal quite a bit.
But the loud pedal was quiet and it became the zoom pedal.
Got bored and starting picking at the rear, the film came off very easy, much more original.
Well in a few days they having summer snodrift, the normal snow stage rally I frequent in January, however they are running a regional rally of the same (or similar) roads as they do at snodrift. Each day will be progress. THE GOAL? Alignment by Friday and then drive up Friday afternoon to our ritual meeting cabin spot up north. It will be a good break in/shakedown for the car after the chassis will be essentially refreshed.
Monday I was sick so I didn’t get much done but Tuesday I was feeling better and decided to tackle the front suspension/steering:
