On Saturday I won a Mazda RX7 turbo II Gen 2 on Ebay. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1990-MAZDA-RX7-TURBO-BLACK-Spares-or-Repair-/271149377942?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT&nma=true&si=J%252FbZn3HjrbbkUYK%252FJ8B7zQZkSSg%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc
After the auction I did think what have I gone and done. It was a bit of a last minute spur of the moment purchase. It looked like it needed saving and I broke nearly every single car buying rule I have... I didn\'t even go and have a look at it. Just paid and arranged collecting it.
After mildly worrying about it for the past three days it turned up on a trailer this morning. It did look a little green and sorry for itself.
The RX7 do suffer from rust, which could have meant I bought a pup . Thankfully it\'s pretty solid. The floors have been patched a little bit and theres a bit of rust on the rear arch and few other bits here and there. But no terminal tin worm and looks pretty good for a 22 year old car.
After getting it off the trailer and checking it over a bit more I noticed water in the passenger footwell. Which could\'ve been a bit of problem, as the ECU\'s reside down there. Luckily they haven\'t got wet. The interior isn\'t the best, The seats are ripped most of the screws holding the plastics together are either missing or broken. But if I\'m going to strip it out it doesn\'t really matter.
I\'ve not really managed to do much to it except rip the carpet out and mop up the water. But if the weather is okay tomorrow I\'ll have a look at getting the engine running.
Currently I\'m in two minds if I should make it a track toy or not. There are not that many of Turbo II\'s left on the road, so will parts be difficult and expensive to source. Will it be able to take the stresses of track days and be reliable enough. Am I going to be destroying a car that are getting few and far between.
On the other hand once it\'s stripped, caged and some other bits and bobs fitted. Will it make a really nice cheap track toy. I think it\'s got potential.
A few pictures after a quick wash to get shot of the green crap.
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/2A879DE0-A9FE-4B87-B081-1E28B03F23D7-598-000000328DEF293C_zps5232e847.jpg)
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/03BA30A7-C737-46EB-B4C9-4D61D63550E5-598-0000003286D27BB1_zps2a8a5810.jpg)
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/BC3E9E8F-683F-4FA5-8109-8B4EE6C28884-598-0000003276F44F29_zps47a77611.jpg)
Well been having a go at getting it going today. At the start of the day the engine wouldn\'t even turn over. I think this was a bad connection on the alarm. Got it turning over on the battery. Drained all the 40L of old fuel and put in some new Vpower. But it\'s currently not playing ball. I\'ve had to give up as the battery needed recharging.
I\'m not a massive fan of the rotary, never really liked the one in my old FD. Drank fuel and sounded rubbish to my ears. I would love to put a large v8 or s2000 engine in the car. But would be spending far to much on a bit of a fun track toy.
The last owner spend a far bit of money on it. Getting all the rust patched up so now pretty solid underneath. I think I could get in through an MOT without to much faffing about. But I\'ve got to get the engine to running first.
After a bit more fiddling around today the car now has a running engine. Really chuffed as no tip problems and ran up to temp and all is well. Will give it a good service and then tackle the brakes and then sorting out a few electrical problems.
I was surprised the ricer sized exhaust is pretty quiet. But still don\'t really like the sound of the rotary, they just sound a bit like a hairdryer to me.
I\'m still undecided if I should track toy it or clean it up move it on. Then invest the profits into something else i can get up and running, as it\'s good fun when it all goes to plan.
I\'ve been a bit slow to update this. The Rx7 hasn\'t given me an easy time getting it up and running. Oh and I also found out the car was a Cat C when the V5 turned up. I know I should have run a HPI check on the car. Stupid me.
Mechanicals
Once I got the car running I found that it had a pretty bad coolant leak from the water pump. It looked like it was coming from the front pump seal. Which I used some liquid gasket on. Then the rear seal started to leak so I bought a new front and rear gaskets, which are rather expensive for what they are. Once I fitted those the pump started to leak from the shaft. So bought a used one of those. Finally I had no leaks thank god.
Once I\'d finished dealing with leaks. Attention was turned to a non functioning oil injection pump. I managed to find a second hand one of these, as the cost from Mazda was eye watering. I fitted that hoping it would get the car up and running properly. Which it didn\'t... The pump still didn\'t work and the car would go into limp mode. Unfortunately the old pump had short in the motor which took out the ECU. I did smell burning electrics when I first got the car running. But it soon stopped smelling once the ECU had finished being destroyed. Whilst scratching my head on what the problem with pump might be, i stumbled across a thread on the American RX7 forum about pumps melting ECUs. The ECU still worked and gave out error codes that the pump was faulty. So a used ECU was sourced plugged in and all problems where solved.
It doesn\'t sound like it was that difficult or time consuming to get it up and running from what I\'ve just wrote. But thats far from the truth, I got pretty close to sticking it back on eBay as a non-runner. The uk/euro cars are a little different from the US cars, which is where most of the technical help comes from. For example the US car has an engine light on the dash which you can read engine fault codes off. The uk cars don\'t have this and I couldn\'t find any information on how to pull the codes. In the end after two days of trying various methods I finally managed to get the codes using a multi meter.
After all these problems I decided once fixed it was going sell it on. I went about buying missing interior plastics, a new drivers seat, wiring up a new head unit and replacing the front bumper. As the original was the wrong one for the car. The car was starting to look resectable.
With the car starting to look a lot better than when it first turned up on the drive, I think I\'ve had a bit of a change of heart. I\'ve found myself buying adjustable suspension and some new wheels and tyres. Looking at roll cages and mulling over striping it out. I\'m going to get the MOT done at the end of the month and get the car road legal.
Pictures to follow once I\'ve put the body kit back on the car. Removed because Stevie Wonder must have fitted this one. Why would anyone use white silicon on a black car?!?!
Here are some update pictures. I think I can safely say it\'s an improvement from 2 months ago. Still got some jobs to do to tide it up a bit more. It really needs a good machine polish.
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/IMG_0305_zps90b0c4df.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/IMG_0305_zps90b0c4df.jpg.html)
The new correct front bumper looks a lot better than than the one that arrived on the car
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/IMG_0308_zpse1396b38.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/IMG_0308_zpse1396b38.jpg.html)
The Skyline R32 GTR wheels look a lot better than the flakey old original on the car. I\'ve got the originals on ebay and hopefully they\'ll cover the cost of the replacement (£70 bargain)
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/IMG_0301_zps2b4b17bb.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/IMG_0301_zps2b4b17bb.jpg.html)
The car does show its age and does have a good few battle scars to show for its years
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/IMG_0304_zps8ba2cc06.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/IMG_0304_zps8ba2cc06.jpg.html)
The seats are a bit of a mismatch on the colour. The interior is nearly finished but needs a few bits to finish. But it might be all getting ripped out if final make my mind up to track day it.
Now just got to get it MOT\'d. I\'ve found classic insurance for £190 which I think is pretty cheap. It\'s only £30 more than my Land Rover 90 with a good deal more poke.
The RX7 is now MOT\'d and I\'m finally getting to use it. A few more little problems have cropped up.
Idle was inconstant, occasionally it would idle correctly at around 800rpm. More often than not it would be idling at 1400rpm. But after resetting the warm up thermowax, throttle stop, bacs and TPS it returns to the correct idle. I think I coursed most of this from fiddling around with all of that when trying to get it running.
It was loosing coolant. Which was a little concerning due to the horror stories you read about failed water seals on the rotor housing. Thankfully it was just a leaking hose heading to the heater.
Other than that the car is running great and doing terrible MPG. I\'ve got to say it\'s good fun to drive, handling is far better than I ever expected it would be. The only criticism is it\'s quite skittish on ruff roads. As a track car I think it\'ll be perfect. So I\'ve finally made a decision, a track car it shall be.
As bank holiday Monday has been a cracker weather wise, I\'ve been stripping out the interior and removing the sound deadening from the floors. Which was not an easy 4-5 hours of chipping and scrapping. With all the bits removed the car has shed 54kg in weight. Before I take it on it\'s first track day, I\'m going to fit a larger radiator and fit a more accurate water temperature gauge.
Quote from: TVR TommySome pictures of the stripped interior.
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/BFE29D8C-B1EB-4B8D-B23E-90005915AE7C-685-0000015B6F9B9513_zps5873f1af.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/BFE29D8C-B1EB-4B8D-B23E-90005915AE7C-685-0000015B6F9B9513_zps5873f1af.jpg.html)
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/1EE383EA-9DC3-4B75-A168-649E9BEE21F6-685-0000015B507A180D_zps54ca8cd2.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/1EE383EA-9DC3-4B75-A168-649E9BEE21F6-685-0000015B507A180D_zps54ca8cd2.jpg.html)
The car is now pretty much completely stripped, a little more extremely stripped than I first intended. All that remains is dash and door cards. I\'ve painted the floor black and the inside is coming together. One problem I\'ve come across is lack of headroom. With a helmet on I hit the headlining. So I\'ve had to remove the sunroof mech to get an extra inch of headroom. I did think about bolting the seats directly to the floor. But ideally the seats need to be movable. As I\'m sure an array of different sided drivers will drive it, so easy adjustability is more important than a sunroof and headlining. Either I\'m going to permanently fix the sunroof panel in place or if that doesn\'t work, riveting an ali sheet to the roof which might look a little getto. I think I must have stripped about 70-80kg out of the car now.
The car has defiantly lost all it comforts now. It\'s loud and boomy inside and all mechanical noises are very audible.
I\'ve bought a Koyo dual pass radiator, which should make a big difference in cooling. When removing the old radiator It was well past its best and I don\'t think it would have coped with the stress\'s of a trackday. The end caps had started to weep and the core was showing it\'s 23 years of service. I\'ve also removed a couple bits in front of the radiator that where getting in the way of air flow. I\'m also fitting a new temp sensor and gauge. The factory fitted sensor only starts moving to the red once your close and most likely already fried the engine.
Mazda fitted a thing called a thermo pellet that stops oil circulation to the eccentric (crank) shaft to improve engine warm up times. These fail and the engine destroys itself. So I\'m shimming it so the oil circulates fully from cold.
Removed the air pump and air control valve. The car has been decated, so was just taking up space and adding weight. Also fully replaced all the vac hoses as they where looking past there best and I could remove a couple of solenoids that controlled the air control valve.
Well the inside is nearly done. Just a few bits to do to tidy it up a bit. Like making a cover plate to protect the ECU, The roof needs painting where I\'ve had to grind out the old sunroof metal. I think it\'s in need of a rollcage, as the shoulder belts aren\'t great being mounted on the floor. Oh and a new steering wheel which should turn up this week.
Removing all the metal from the sunroof and taking off the air pump has removed another 30kg, The total removed so far is 80kg. I might also remove the power steering and ABS pump. Which should remove another 10kg.
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/IMG_0363_zps55a920d3.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/IMG_0363_zps55a920d3.jpg.html)
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The Citroen badged Sabelt seats are a bit misplaced in a Mazda. But they fit me perfectly and they where only £180.
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/IMG_0362_zps93ad5b2a.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/IMG_0362_zps93ad5b2a.jpg.html)
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/IMG_0364_zpsecd6dd9e.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/IMG_0364_zpsecd6dd9e.jpg.html)
The sunroof blanking plate is a bit of a crude way to fill in the sunroof hole. I\'ve tried to make it as neat as possible with some curves and correctly spaced rivets. I think I might give it a bit of a paint. There was no real alternative other than remove the sunroof and all the mech. With my helmet on my noggin, i have about 1mm headroom now. So my head still touches sometimes, with the sunroof in place I wouldn\'t have been able to drive it comfortable. Taking out the sunroof has given me an extra inch of headroom.
Hopefully Parcelforce will pull there finger out and tell me what import duty I owe on the new radiator. I can then get that fitted, so I can take it on a track day next weekend.
The RX7 has got its first track day under its belt.
(http://www.javelintrackdays.co.uk/trackday/index.php?view=image&format=raw&type=img&id=12283&option=com_joomgallery&Itemid=13)
It performed without a hitch. I was impressed with the CL pads, no fade and also the lack of brake dust was good. Not cheap at £250 a set but well worth the money. The Koyo radiator kept coolant temps around 86c and peeked at 89c, so no problems with cooling. It all went very well with not a jot of trouble
With the track day being held at Bedford. I was a little concerned about noise limits after reading about the low drive by at 87db. But the car was 86db static, so no noise problems there.
There are a couple of improvements I\'m looking to make. Slow tight bends would see the car lift a rear wheel, being an open diff just spun all the power away. I\'ve bought a stiffer front antiroll bar and also I\'m on the hunt for a LSD.
I did manage to get a no drifting board waved at me. Which was a bit of a joke being that the car wouldn\'t drift for toffee. The only reason the back came out was I out braked myself following a Caterham into a corner trying to keep up. Which just wasn\'t going to happen.
So now just got to plan its next outing.
The car has under gone a few improvements this week. I had to get shot of the open diff that was in the car, so bought an FD torsen LSD off the bay for the princely sum of £25. I was a little worried about taking on the transplant into the old diff case. But lucky was far less difficult than I was expecting. I\'m glad I didn\'t send it off to be done, as they quoted£250 for the swap. Whilst the diff had to come out I decided it would be a good time to replace the 23 year old bushes and also remove the rear steer bushes for solid items. There is no rear camber adjustment on the RX7, so had to buy some adjustable links. I also went for solid subframe and diff mounts. Getting out the old bushes was a pig of a job. Made even more troublesome when I dropped the rear subframe on my finger nail, which was on top of the vice. That quickly turned red with blood under the nail. Now that was painful, I was close to passing out when I did it and the finger was throbbing for the rest of the bush removal session. A tip for anyone that ever does that to there nail. Get a paper clip heat it up so it\'s red hot and then stick it through the nail. When the blood escape the pain relief was instant. To get the bushes out I had to press, burn and finally resorted to cutting some of the buggers off. All new bushes went in lovely.
The guy that I bought the bushes from was going to stop making them, so the only option in my mind was to buy everything he produced. He was half the price of all the other places that sell bits like this, so wasn\'t a difficult decision to make. I bought solid gearbox and engine mounts. Gearbox ones went on nice and easily but the engine ones where a sod. Bit of brute force and ignorance had the old ones out, nearly dropped the car off the axle stands when jacking the engine up and bashing bits around. These where well worth removing as the old ones had seen far better days.
Now for the test drive. The LSD is a huge improvement no more spinning the inside wheel on tight bends and the car gets the power down far better. Oh and the oversteer is a bit of fun. I think I need to get the car a little better set up as it\'s presently a little snappy. But the old hard tyres could do with going in the bin. So the £25 was well spent on that diff pumpkin off ebay. The road noise is a lot louder inside thanks to the bushes, plus can really hear the diff humming. Everything lightly vibrates due to the solid trans and engine mounts. Being a solely track car now all that doesn\'t really matter, I\'m looking forward to getting on another track day soon, I think it\'ll be much improved.
The car has now cost around £3000 all in and I\'ve put a good deal of hours making the car into the car it is now. So that is going to be everything major I\'m going to do on it this year. I think it\'s time to just have some fun with it for awhile with no mass disassembly. Next year I think I\'ll get a full cage welded into it may looking at upping the Bhp.
Here are some crappy pictures I took whilst working on the car
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/240498B9-E804-4FCE-9892-603FE2577BA1-2073-00000329B1364B5D_zps23cad881.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/240498B9-E804-4FCE-9892-603FE2577BA1-2073-00000329B1364B5D_zps23cad881.jpg.html)
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/46D87AA2-9D59-4E50-BE77-5782B8411F3A-2073-0000032998D0870C_zpsa77151c4.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/46D87AA2-9D59-4E50-BE77-5782B8411F3A-2073-0000032998D0870C_zpsa77151c4.jpg.html)
This is what I dropped on my finger
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/F0E7FCD0-8BF6-421B-869E-9B4BD4F5F435-2073-0000032987E8E2CF_zpsc52d03ed.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/F0E7FCD0-8BF6-421B-869E-9B4BD4F5F435-2073-0000032987E8E2CF_zpsc52d03ed.jpg.html)
And this happened to the vice I was using. Irwin customer service is rather good. After I did this to the 12 year old vice, I sent them and email and they are sending me a new one.
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/26BF3887-87E7-483F-9A0E-DE91AE34F1DD-2073-0000010A0E41F1FE_zps5e130055.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/26BF3887-87E7-483F-9A0E-DE91AE34F1DD-2073-0000010A0E41F1FE_zps5e130055.jpg.html)
A few pictures to finish this bit of the tread off.
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/IMG_1151_zpsaac2f4f3.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/IMG_1151_zpsaac2f4f3.jpg.html)
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/IMG_1152_zpsdf60d610.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/IMG_1152_zpsdf60d610.jpg.html)
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/IMG_1153_zpscc24a7d9.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/IMG_1153_zpscc24a7d9.jpg.html)
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/IMG_1154_zpseda146cd.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/IMG_1154_zpseda146cd.jpg.html)
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/IMG_1155_zps123a9d39.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/IMG_1155_zps123a9d39.jpg.html)
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a273/DBMSCOOBY99/IMG_1156_zpsc322af2d.jpg) (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/DBMSCOOBY99/media/IMG_1156_zpsc322af2d.jpg.html)
Nice write up. The car looks good and should be a lot of fun out on track. I know mine is!
Ade
nice work :)
looks great also :)
Very nice indeed. Lennycarloff will be pleased to see another black FC out on track!
Thanks.
Casey I\'ll have to get booked onto some of your TD\'s.
I am impressed with this write up. Its giving me a bit more initiative to get my two sorted out now.