Well I've been really busy all summer and this car has just been kind of neglected. I drove it last night and I think one of the flex lines collapsed on me. I turned a corner and it started to brake pull like crazy and I could smell hot brakes. I guess it's time to tear it down and do the brake/suspension/axle swap. I have all the parts I just never had time to do it. While I'm at it the flex lines will get changed, (probably with stainless ones) and I'm going to send the master cylinder away to be rebuilt.

Well this car is back under the knife. I have it in my garage on jack stands. The entire front suspension has been removed so far along with the brake master cylinder and booster. Turned out the left front caliper actually locked up. Anyway all of that will be in the past. All new stainless flex hoses along with a set of camber plates have been ordered from ReSpeed and I plan on swapping in either an FB master and booster, or an FC setup if it will fit. After the front has all been done and I figure out my suspension drop, I'll start tackling the rear axle and suspension.

I made the trip to see Sam at ReSpeed yesterday and picked up all of the parts for the front suspension. Hopefully today with some luck I will get the front suspension and brakes together. I also took apart all of the exterior gauges and cleaned/polished them. I've tweaked the carburetor a little more and I upgraded my screens on the velocity stacks. I've also finally bought MSD coils and I made a proper bracket to hold all 3 coils together. No more zip ties!:biggthumpup: I'll try and take some pictures today to show you guys the mess in my garage.

Awesome Buggy! Can't wait to see the new upgrades on your cars. May make a trip up to ClassicAuto soon to check my car out and pick up a part or two..

I've been working away at this project and I've hit a few snags along the way. For those of you who think the GSL-SE front suspension is a "bolt in" swap think again. I had to drill out the holes in the bottom of the struts where the ball joint bolts up. The GSL-SE uses M12x1.5 bolts while the Rx-4 uses M14x1.5 bolts. Also finding a M14x1.5 tap is not the easiest thing to do. Luckily a friend's boss had one that I could borrow. I also ran into issues with the FB brake booster and master cylinder swap. The studs on the Rx-4 brake booster are much longer than the FB. To use the FB brake booster you have to remove the stock studs and somehow install longer ones. I decided to just reuse the stock Rx-4 booster. The next issue I ran into was with the brake master reservoir. The stock Rx-4 reservoir is remote mounted on the strut tower while the FB has it mounted directly on the master cylinder. This interfered with my DLIDFIS ignitors that I had mounted on the strut tower. After some thought and some parts swapping I got the stock Rx-4 reservoir to fit on the FB brake booster. Just had to remove the rubber seals from the Rx-4 master cylinder and swap them with the reservoir seals on the FB master cylinder. Anyway, after all that I finally managed to get a rotor on and I mounted one of my Riken wheels just to see how it was going to look and get an idea of the new ride height in the front. First thoughts, it's going to be low and mean!

I got the front suspension and brakes all assembled the other night and got the car back down on its wheels. My fear that it was going to be too low was then confirmed. It looks mean, but unfortunately I think it is going to have rubbing issues with the fenders when turning. I may have to make spacer plates to go between the camber plates and the strut towers to raise the front end back up a bit. I also stripped down the whole rear axle to get it ready to swap in and took measurements off of the rear axle to give to the guy that is building the leaf springs. Picture time!
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Looks perfect the way it is. maybe it won't rub

For just normal street use it would probably be okay. I'm just worried about on the track when I throw it into corners hard that the car will lean and hit the fender on the tire. You can barely fit your fingers between the fender and the tire.

I put the car back up on jack stands on the weekend. The rear axle and leaf springs have been removed, and I'm taking the leaf springs to a local spring shop tomorrow. There they will get a re arch and probably and extra leaf added to stiffen them up. I'm going with just a 1" drop in the springs for the rear. I'm also getting 1/2" spacers made for the front to go between the shock tower and the camber plates. That should raise the suspension just right. :)

After comparing the GSL-SE and Rx-4 rear axle I realized the SE rear axle is actually 2 3/8" longer than the Rx-4 rear axle. I'm in the process now of shortening the axle. I've also been told that my leaf springs should be ready in the next day or two. Should be able to have this car back on the road in early May! :)

This is one sexy RX-4! i thought the RX4s only had the "pointy nose" front. Different front up there in canada? Many of theese left up there? :)

Beautiful.

Love it!

The '76 and up Rx-4's had a different front end. Originally though it had huge bumpers and bumperettes with lots of ugly rubber trim molding on it. I scratched the entire stock front bumper and made my own. Also removed all the trim and crap from the rear bumper and welded it smooth. I tried to clean the look of the car up as much as possible. As far as how many are left here in Canada, there are a few but not many. My car actually came from Ohio.

I found an actual PDF of my dyno results from back in 2010. Still love the torque and hp curves.
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What are you using for the "screen" on you velocity stacks? Do you feel they're doing a sufficient filtering job? I'm trying to find a filtering solution for my 55 mm IDA-style throttle body on my FC.

I'm using 2 layers of just plain steel window screen and then a layer of really fine screen I got from a buddy. I forget what micron that screen is but it is really fine. I just wrapped the velocity stacks and then clamped it down with a hose clamp. I think it does a good enough job. My old filter setup let in just as much dirt if not more than this does.

this is really cool

Man this is beautiful!

I'm just playing the waiting game with this car now. I'm waiting on my axle shafts to be finished so I can finish up the rear axle. Hopefully it will be done soon. I'm getting tired of seeing this car in my garage on jack stands.

I spent pretty much all afternoon this past Sunday shortening the axle housing and getting it all sorted out. We got one axle shaft pretty much done. Just one more to go and this bad boy can get put back together! I'm planning on hitting the track with it in July at Toronto Motorsport Park for a Sigma time attack event.

I worked hard on the car the last few days and had it back on the road yesterday. Man what a blast to drive now! With the new higher gear ratio out back it's a rocket! The ride is perfect too. Stiff enough you feel confident to throw it around, but still very comfortable to drive. I had a few problems though.... First one was the car is now too low to get in and out of my driveway. I need two 6 foot long 2x4's to do it. Second problem, and this is a big one, I snapped an axle shaft. :( I went to take off in front of a buddy's house and I did a nice peel in first gear full throttle to about 8K, then a hard shift into second full throttle. I heard the tires chirp into second and then SNAP! Had to push the car back to my buddy's house and call CAA. :) Guess I'll be on the phone with Sam at RESpeed on Monday ordering Moser axles. :lol:

Here are some pictures for ya!
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Looking good! Fix her up for the BCM for sure!

The axle shafts are ordered. They should be here in about 2 weeks so I should have it done in time for BCM. :)

The new Moser axles have arrived. I may get time this week to put them in or it will be on the weekend sometime. :)

I haven't updated this in a while. I got the new axles in and took care of some loose ends like hooking up the parking brake cables and doing a tune up. The car was starting to run a little rough. I replaced the plugs with new platinum plugs and I tore the carb apart completely. I cleaned everything up and started over setting the idle and everything correctly. Got the car running almost perfect! I had no idea a bridgeport could run so smooth and be so streetable. I drove it at our annual Bruce County Rotary meet and it worked great! Having a few issues with the 4 speed though now so look forward to a 5 speed swap in the near future!

It's time for a long overdue update for my cars! Not too much is planned for the Rx-4 this year. I have to replace a piece of trim around the windshield that flew off the car late last summer. I decided one day to see how fast the car actually went and the trim decided it didn't like that idea. ;) There is also a small rust hole that developed in the rocker panel that I need to get fixed. I'm still deciding if I want to tackle that myself or just have my body guy do the work. I may also get at the 5 speed swap depending on how my TII build goes this year. The most exciting thing though is I'm getting a gilmer drive setup! It should be here next week. As if the car wasn't loud enough already!

Long time no update! Not much got done on the car since the last update. Did get the gilmer drive on and the trim for the windshield. Also took care of some other things like new battery and I tried to tweak the tune a little better for highway driving. Car was running amazing until it decided it had had enough of my abuse. I was having some good fun with it last week and then half way through 2nd gear it just lost power and started running like crap. It still runs, but not right. Checked both fuel and ignition systems and everything is working fine. Checked compression with a regular dial gauge and nothing really there either. I know something internal isn't right though so looks like the engine is coming apart.

Hope its not a hurt motor. Maybe time to turbo it :) I have a huge turbo, manifold and exhaust you could use:) (my old setup) Only issue wouldn't be cheap :)

I'm pretty positive it is a hurt engine and yes I think turbo and fuel injection is in the works for it. I may be interested in that setup because I would like 400whp from this car. I know where there is a dual 65mm throttle body setup for sale to fit my 4 port engine I really should buy that up soon. I should tear my engine apart first though to see what kind of damage has been done. It should be minimal because the car stil starts, runs, and idles it's just not right. Also in my dream plans is all new suspension again lol. 4 link setup in the rear and possibly FC or miata front suspension with rack and pinion steering. No more 70's technology underneath me.

I got the engine out and torn apart a few weeks ago. Turns out a combination of things happened. I had too much clearance between the apex seals and the rotors which caused blow by to get behind the corner seals and it burnt the rubber plugs out of some of the corner seals. Other than that, the engine is fine. I had the irons sent out yesterday for cleaning and I'm going to start collecting parts soon. The old girl should be back up and running for the spring with a fresh engine!

Update time again. Parts are on the way and hopefully the build will be underway soon. New goopy apex seals, gasket set from atkins, corner seals and springs from mazda, and best of all a new carb setup! It's going Rotary Engineering dual weber 36 DCD's this time around. Hopefully wake the little half bridge up some more. I also modified my header so the idler arm will no longer hit it when turning. I'll try and post pics of progress soon.

The engine is built and hopefully I'll have this beast up and running again soon. The rotating assembly has been balanced this time and almost everything I can powder coat is getting it so no flaking paint anymore. A few quick pics.

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I have lots more pictures and stuff to post once I get some spare time. Too many things to do right now.

looking very nice. :icon_tup:

I've been busy all summer, but the car is together and running well! Loving the twin 36 dcd carbs on this engine. They got rid of a lot of the herky jerky low end drivability issues. Much smoother, more low end torque, and scream with the secondaries opened lol.

hey Buggy hows the 4 running? love the build!

Thanks! Funny you ask, I was just about to post about that. The 4 is out of storage for the summer, and due to a cancellation at work it went straight on the dyno. Started at a baseline of 182 rwhp and with some jet changes and other minor tweaks this was the end result. I'm pretty pleased, I hit my goal with this engine setup. I'll take some new pictures to post once it has a good wash and detail for the season.

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I dropped off the car to Joe at classic auto last weekend to get some minor body repairs done before winter. Then the work will begin for dgrr 2017. I need to rebuild the rear diff, swap in the 5 speed, fix a few other minor things. Stay tuned!