RX7 FC finding out what it wants to become

Been DDing the car for about a week now and its been good. It loves the colder weather and its been running cool and starting great. It still doesn't always fire right up when its ho but that's a carb for ya.

First issue came up yesterday, it had a misfire but not crazy bad. Popped the hood and it was the spark plug wire it fell out of its clips and was resting on a header pipe. It burned through the wire and starting grounding out. Put it back in its clip and it was fine. So add new wires to the list. But just another part of building a car!

So that's where it sits now!

Things with the mazda have been doing well! I did make it out to cars and coffee yesterday and it ran cool between 70-75mph so the cooler weather is doing good things for the car! I did have my belt loose a chunk of itself on the way back. I heard a noise but all the gauges were good and 5 min from home I just kept on going and didn't stop. Once I got back popped the hood and saw a small piece was missing. I knew it was going to happen one day that belt has been maken noises for a long time. Still need to get one of the pulleys moved just a little, but the biggest thing was a new shorter belt and its lot tighter now!

I also took some video of the car with the baffles removed, editing that now.

Also this weekend I got a chance to shoot my uncles new car! Been trying to get up with him to shoot it for a while and the weather was on our side Friday night. He has a Carra S with lots of extras! Its a beautiful car and very cool! Not my taste but it looks amazing through the lens!

I knew the shoot was going to go good when my very first test shot trying to figure out my settings came out like this!

So pumped on that shot! I kinda surprised myself on how well it turned out! We went to three spots to shoot and found a good straight road to test the launch control! Its not crazy fast but the car sticks and the auto transmission in the car means instant shifts! It felt like linear power and was an amazing feeling! The transmission also sounds amazing when it shifts just driving regularly! Sounds like a super car! Then again it probably cost more then my first house will... But a huge shout out to him for taken me for a ride and just being a cool uncle in general! We are going to shoot more of the car he is going to pull some strings and get us into some abandon warehouses through his connections!

Here are a few more!

No big plans for the rx7 right now iv been keeping an eye out for a set of wheels and tires, the tires on the mazda are getting dry and id like a different look. But I might have other plans for that cash that don't involve the mazda. Just have to wait and see!

Video showing the exhaust with the baffles out

https://www.youtube.com/embed/zz3SbyB2cSw

got back from a weekend away and went to start the mazda and couldn't get it to crank. The motor spun fine but it wouldn't light a fire. That afternoon I worked in it thinking I neede to hook the choke back up since its cold again and carbs don't like cold weathers. Thats when I found out there was nothing coming out of the pump jet so pumping the throttle did nothing. I have already replaced it two times so its getting kinda old swapping it out every 800 miles.

So founf myself on CL and found a holley 650 DP for sale with rebuild kit for a reasonable price. Went and got it last night. The carb looks good (sorry no pic yet) and its a true holley rebuild kit aswell.

So ya iv had issues with the edelbrock iv had on there. It runs fine daily driving it but If I try and turn hard or brake hard or do anything like that it stumbles. Iv tried a few tricks and set the floats at lots of hights but the holley is the carb for road racing and curcle track and I bet there is a reason why.

So the 650 is abit larger then I wanted and will more then likely have to jet it downa bit but I definitely wanted a double pumper seeing as the car is 2700lbs and 4.11 gears with a 5 speed.

Parts are coming to plumb it up and hook up the throttle cable so fingers crossed its a smooth swap!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2wU2fDelVR8

Quick peek at whats been going on with the car!! Hope you like them.

I really liked those borbets on there, I have the same set on my miata. BUT, the new set looks AWESOME.

So I guess its time to catch up.

Yep picked up a "new" used wheel and tire combo. These were listed for a pretty good price so I decided to go ahead and grab them. My tires were getting close to being gone, a good amount of camber wear in the rear and they were just a bit old. They were good for summer but with the cold and rain I was spinning just normal city driving.

So these are STR wheels more or less knock offs. They are 18x8.5 et30. They are 5x114.3 bolt pattern so no more spacer. They have some 225/40r18's on all 4 corners. I also wanted a square setup so I can rotate them.

So Just for reference I was running a 16x7.5 (et14 with wheel spacer) They had 195/50r16 up front and 205/50r16 in the rear.

Ok here is a more photos and updates on the car and the new wheels and tires. Its been very good so far the car is doesn't have as much vibrations so its much more derivable on the highway. They do rub on hard corners still need to build new end-links for the sway bar. It is a aftermarket bar and right now its set to the loosest it can be so near stock. But with no welder its not going to happen soon.

Here is a side by side of new and old.

Here shows the width of the new vs old. And yes there is some stretch but they wouldn't fit if they were not.

Here is something new that might happen.

Yep some side skirts, the car looks like a donk with the 18's and its as low as it can go but still needs to be lower. So im looking into some options for a kit for the car but there is no way im going to buy a corny kit or pay for a good one so this is where im at love to hear what yall think about the way it looks. Once I get further into the kit ill show more and talk about how im doing it.

Some of the S5 cars had lower "skirts" I think the GTU (S4 Version) may have as well. They should match the car well and not be too redonkulous.

I think there is something wrong with the headlights....

Ya they have a few stock kits out there but hard to find and still not in my price range, but im going to try these skirts and a mustang 00-04 front lip. The mustang lip fits the car really well and are only $50 on fleebay. Then color match the lip and skirt and it should make the car look less like a hood ride.

And yes the headlights have the sleepy eye look but they are a bit to low right now.

Hmm possibly head gasket?

So over the summer the mazda ran great but liked to get hot at 70 but be fine at 60. Over the last few months I keep finding I need to top off the coolant. Tonight we were supposed to have the snow-pocalypse, but like normal its rain and a little sleet. So thought I would take the mazda for some fun since the roads are empty and just wet. It was a blast but stopped at a red light we saw smoke from under the hood so we drove back home.

So once we got back I opened the hood with fire extinguisher in hand found that the over flow for the coolant had puked and all we were seeing was coolant burning off.

So my temps were great the whole time never got 100% up to temp and I only did 4-5 slides for a few seconds each nothing that should have made the temp spike that quick. So maybe a head gasket is bleeding into the coolant at high rpms?

Anyway food for thought. Im also going to swap the rad cap next time at at the parts store. The gasket on mine could use replacing.

Skirts look A-OK to me.

Thanks man!

Here are some more photos because we all want build threads with lots of photos!

A guy I worked with rented some lenses for Christmas so I got to play with them so!

No big updates but finally found the issue with the coolant. The water pump gasket was slowly giving way and now its to the point of leaking really bad every time it gets up to temp. A easy fix ither then I live in a apartment and I can't do it here so going to tow it to my brothers more then likely and do a full flush and flush out the rad ect. Also found an exhaust leak on the passenger side manifold so going to swap that out at the same time.

Everytime I thought my water pump gasket was leaking, it was actually the waterpump seal on the shaft and just running behind the pulley and getting the gasket area covered. If the waterpump is cheap enough, I would replace it as well.

Good luck. We are all counting on you!

Thanks @wvumtnbkr

It was not not the shaft that was leaking although I did think about just getting a new pump. At first I thought it was blow by filling the cooling system and coming out of the coolant overflow. The coolant overflow drain is right on the passenger side and follows the frame rail and dumps near the bottom of the radiator on the passenger side. The first time in the snow I saw that it got all over the passenger side fender so I though it had splashed up with the wind and fan from the over flow tube. So I filed it back up and drove around the parking lot and let it get up to temp and I could smell coolant so I quickly parked it. When I got the hood open I could see it coming from the bottom of the water pump and again the passenger fender was covered. So it was getting under pressure when coming up to temp and with the pressure of the pump itself it was pissing out from where the pump bolts to the timing cover.

I had it towed to my brothers and thankfully autozone had the gaskets. Then talking with the guy there I figured out my mistake I used black RTV on the water pump instead of the gray for water pumps. We was saying that the coolant can slowly eat away at the black RTV that is meant for oil. Don't know 100% if that is what was wrong but it seems to fit the bill. Also the gasket came off really easy so it wasn't stuck on there like it should have been.

Anyway drop the coolant pull the pump which looked fine then dry apply the right RTV then bolt it all back together and run to the junk yard for a while to let it dry. After about 3 hours it was set up so I started to put water back in it and bleed the system (something I didn't do well the first time). All seems to be well but im going to keep checking the coolant and topping it off to get all the bubbles out.

Also picked up an exhaust manifold gasket and swapped it out on the passenger side. I finally found where the leak was coming from a week or so ago and now it so much better! No more sounding like a old farm truck!

Anyway car is still at my brothers so fingers crossed I can get it this week and fingers crossed again that it does not leak!

So another quick update on the mazda. Iv got about 100 miles since I did the pump and so far so good. Also its a bit quieter with the new exhaust gasket.

Made it to cars and coffee this morning and it was packed by far the most iv seen at that event. Also got a chance to clean under the hood this afternoon. Still had water marks from the coolant. Really wanting to do a wire tuck to clean everything up. Might pull the motor when I do get back in a shop or a dry place to work on it. I want to do a cam swap and a new through out bearing. Then clean everything!

Here is an update on the side skirts. Got them mocked up today and another coat of primer. Really like the way they look on the car and I also have a rear canard to fit to make them look a bit better as well.

Now I need to look into a color match paint...

No new news with the RX7 its been running good all week DDing it to work and back. I did got to a drift but it was the same weekend that I was doing the cooling system. I could have tried to make it but didn't want my test drive to be a hour long drive then drift then drive home. So anyway I went and shot some of the action. Next event will be in two weeks and iv got tires prepped ready to go so fingers crossed it will stay healthy.

So been a very up and down week! Came out of work Monday to find a puddle of coolant under the rx7. I opened the hood to see a ton of coolant on the timing cover so I thought it was a leak from the timing cover. So I limped the car back to my apartment and let it sit but nothing seemed to leak on the drive home. Grabbed parts to replace the timing cover and drove the it to my brothers to do the fix.

Friday night went to work on the car and found out that it was a loose coolant hose... Anyway test drove the car a lot last night (friday night) and today got the motor nice and hot but no leaks.

So the big deal about all of this for me is there is a drift on Sunday and its only the second drift I will have been to. Iv been busy or the car has been broke so this was a perfect chance to go! Plus I have tires ready to go!

So here are more photos because that's what we all want to see!

Here are all the parts I gathered to fix my loose hose clamp!

So parked on a bit of a hill so I had amazing fitment!

Drift Prep + dog

Well we survived the weekend!

Made it to the drift event, car ran cool on the drive there with no leaks. I only did 65 the whole way (well I think it was 65 my speedo was off because I have larger tires). Got to the event got checked in and tires on the car.

So made the first run and it went well, came off the track and someone ran past my car say something fell off... then kept going... So I park shut it off and start to check over the car. I don't see anything so walked back to the track and there was my inner fender. So to much lows and to bumpy of a track for my car. Didn't do any other damage but still sucks. So made two more runs but the carb was not having it. It was 78 outside yes 78 in February. So after sitting in line it would vapor lock and really have trouble during the run.

But I did much better this event, I was able to hold more drifts and transition from one drift to another. Kinda creepy just letting go of the wheel and letting car rotate. So I made about 7 runs I had to pop the hood and let it cool for about 40 min between runs. Kinda sucked but there is plenty to do to kill time! Enjoy!

So long day but the car did good for itself. The drive home was long hot and loud. I need to bring a cooler to the track not eating all day kills you. So the car ran hot on the way home it would creep up to 200-205 it normally runs at 190 so I turned on the heat and cut the fan on and that would bring it back down.

So there she was at the end of the day and after the long drive back I decided the car wont be drifting again. To much damage to the car and I would need to many mods to get the car good for drifting. So im kinda at a cross roads not sure what to do with the car. Might be the start to the end? We will see.

Just keep it as a back roads or daily driver car. Its perfect for that sort of thing. Find a fox body mustang or something to go drifting in. Cheap, bulletproof, drifts good, and parts are everywhere.

If you end up thinking of getting rid of it, let me know.

It will be a few months before I do anything im still enjoying the car but might start thinking about the next build. IDK what the car would even be worth im afraid my value will be much higher then what people will pay.

Don't know if I will drift anymore or not its fun as crap but I think i'v found out over the years im more of a pit person then a driver. Id really like my dad to finish has race car so I can go to the track with him and get the car ready for vintage racing (hint hint MightMike, if you still read my build!)

I'm still here....

So no big updates on the RX7, paint for the side skirts is coming this week so hope to install them this weekend. Car has been running good and is a ton of fun to drive!

I got lucky and someone I know through Instagram got some sweet photos of my RX7 drifting from the last event.

Shout out to Chad Newton, go follow him @asrt42nv He has a 2 door JK and SRT4.

So pumped on these photos!!