1976 rx3
 

I've held off on putting anything on the club regarding this car's build up for a while, but with DGRR around the corner and the potential that this car may actually be there, I thought I'd go ahead and share it with you all.

This build will be an abbreviated version. There are a lot more photos and details on the car's build on http://www.twitchyracing.com/category/grmrx3/.

Ok, on with the build.

Some of you may remember an ad for the 1976 RX3 from Brian at Rotorsports Racing back in late 2011 for an ITA 76 RX3. Some fellow racers and rotorheads and I were discussing doing the Grassroots Motorsports Magazine $2012 Challenge car and when this came up, I contacted Brian as we all agreed it would be a doable candidate.

This is how the car looked when I arrived to pick it up with fellow member one320fc and my one-year old daughter (gotta start them early on this car addiction).

http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...yofpickup1.jpg

After spending a few hours BSing with Brian and getting a look around his shop, we hit the road back home. Made it back just in time to meet another guy picking up my old '87 FC I had sold earlier that week (when you have limited space, you can't get a new toy sometimes without another going away unfortunately).

Got the car unloaded that night and left it be. We had a lot of research and project planning to do before any tools touched the car. It sat in my driveway for a few weeks to the point where it got noticed by the town police who told me to put it in the garage or they'd tow it!

In the garage cleaned up finally we could see the extent of the work ahead of us.
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...04012012_1.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...04012012_3.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...04012012_7.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...4012012_11.jpg

Basically, the car was an old tired racer that had about 7 layers of paintwork over 30 years of weathering steel and TONS of bondo. With the challenge in mind, we had to limit cost on bodywork. We contemplated leaving the body alone all together or fix the damaged areas and respray. Decided all the bodywork could probably be cured for under $200 if done VERY cheaply.

Here are some more shots of the body damage and repair areas. Essentially, like any good IT car, stickers hold the battle scars together.

http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...4012012_17.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...05132012_2.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...4012012_13.jpg

Basically, the only "good" panel that had the least bondo was the passenger front fender. Both quarter panels were hit, both doors were hit and hood and front fenders were all dinged up and filled. Come to think of it, the deck lid was actually in pretty good shape.

Started bodywork repairs soon thereafter:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...05132012_6.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...5132012_13.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...r4_5122012.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont..._7292012th.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont..._7292012th.jpg

Also decided to shave the fuel door since the car relies on a remote cell and filler (also shaved door locks and other small holes in the body we don't need anymore):
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...08162012_2.jpg

We had to do several repairs on the bumper supports, mounting locations, etc due to contact with other cars, rust, etc.

Turned attention to getting the engine bay cleaned up and prepped:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...07212012_1.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...08062012_4.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...08062012_3.jpg

The color for the car after all this work? White. Why? Because it was stupid cheap, white covers nicely and its about the easiest color to spray. Again, cheap is the key here.
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...08092012_2.jpg

It was about this time in the project around June of 2012 that my father in law had passed away and I began having kidney issues, blah blah and it was pretty apparent this car wouldn't make the September deadline for the event. On hold for a few months, but we weren't going to bail, it would just be a $2013 challenge car now :)

Moved the car to my mother-in-law's home so I could be around more and get more space for paintwork, etc.
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...08182012_1.jpg

Built a temporary booth, washed the car up (doesn't everything look better wet?) and prepped the car for the respray:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...08182012_2.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...08192012_2.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...08192012_5.jpg

The plan was to get this thing in to one nice color and get rid of as much pink as possible, so the doors, hood, deck lid, etc all came off to properly jam out the car.

Then it got primer (yes, I know these pics suck... I don't keep nice cameras around with this much dust).
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...08252012_3.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...08252012_1.jpg

Then it got its color (three coats total):
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...09012012_6.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...09152012_2.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...09152012_3.jpg

The roof, hood and deck lid all look flat for a reason...

Got the taillights cleaned up and undercoated the fuel cell, engine bay painted, etc.
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...11032012_3.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...11032012_1.jpg

Told you there was a reason:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...11042012_2.jpg

Next was to start reassembly on different parts of the car. The rules of the challenge state we have to have headlights, taillights, turn signal lenses, etc..

FIrst NEW part on the car really, lol:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...12012012_6.jpg

More fun with carbon vinyl wrap:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...12012012_7.jpg

Exhaust had to come out for various reasons:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...12012012_8.jpg

More reassembly, paint work, powdercoated some goodies, etc etc.
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...12012012_9.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...2012012_10.jpg

I did this pic for some other car guys, I like seeing before/afters side by side. It makes all the hard work seem worth it. Just need to fire this beast up and do a before/after of the whole car :)
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...58619420_n.png


I need to load more photos and get the website updated and I'll share here too.

Looking at it now it shows a lot of progress. Wheres the pics of you in the makeshift booth? or the donor 12A?

I skipped the booth pics, lol... what a disaster that booth turned out to be. Haven't uploaded any pics of the rest yet. Need to get out of the garage and in front of a computer... oh wait. No I don't.


Side note, just noticed your sig and I guess it didn't dawn on me that your cosmo is a '76. When we get the RX3 done, you'll have to fire it back up and we can take the '76s out for a cruise!

Looking good!

Jumping ahead a little to where we are now. The engine for this ride will be a bridge ported 12A. We acquired a donor car and pulled it's engine, the engine is now on the stand awaiting tear down and porting work. 2gslse and I believe the engine failed due to the coolant seal (hopefully just the seal and not the jacket). We'll be pulling this engine apart soon and plan to reuse pretty everything that's reusable. If that's the case, the engine rebuild (just the keg) should easily fit within our $2013 budget. If not, we'll have to sell off parts from the project to recoup cost, lol...

http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...WP_0009451.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont.../WP_000984.jpg

Brief little update. Engine tear down is complete, but finishing late left little time for cleanup and inspection, etc. Once the exhaust manifold was pulled, a quick glance inside the exhaust ports showed the front rotor was very wet.. further lending to the blown coolant seal theory.

The teardown itself... well, it was less than smooth. I've never had dowels be as stuck as these were which just made it take a bit longer. Its all apart now and I need to clean everything up a bit more. There is a good amount of corrosion on the front housing and some pitting near the coolant jackets. Definitely looks like a front water jacket seal failed. Bearings looks really good, eshaft looks really good and most irons/housing appear good. This engine was FILTHY inside though so it's going to take some good cleaning to verify it all...

More pics and full writeup on the site to follow.

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...76061258_n.jpg

Beautiful.

And this is why cleaning is so important. The amount of carbon buildup and coolant/grime covered this up pretty well:

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...91930576_n.jpg

This is the top of the rear housing. Bottom looks equally bad. The front rotor housing also has flaking, but not to this extent. SOOOO... long story short. Yea, need some housings...

WOW. is the rest of it in good shape so far or do we need to evaluate the possibility of a big block 13B? i'll talk to you later today give me a shout on your way to work if ya can.

tagged. i can't wait to see this thing at DGRR. WHite RX3 = OMG!!!!

Thanks - unless we find one more 12A housing, the DGRR appearance is questionable however. There is a chance that a buddy of mine has one laying around, but won't know until this weekend.

Pulled the front rotor back out of its bath to try and get the last two side seals out that decided to be pretty well stuck in their ways... long story short, I have one broken side seal now and the other one isn't budging.... so a few more parts will be on order to get the engine assembled...

I do know a guy I work with who has a 12A that at one time was in running condition. He wanted to make a rotary go cart. But his plans went elsewhere. He has the full drivetrain. I can ask if you need another engine.

Thanks man - I'll keep that in mind... I'm hoping the other housing is good this weekend so we can get this engine together and wrap up the rest of the car before DGRR... otherwise, it'll probably get a 13B or a stock port 12A since those are both on hand as well...

Don't think a REW with a haltech fits the budget unfortunately, because we've got that on hand too, What fun that would be in a 1800lbs beer can...

Yea I think we can head up their this weekend and take a look..sucks we dont have more time we could pull the engine out of the 79 as well hell the repu has a 12A in it also!

I'll look around some this week but I've got something pretty important to do also.

Don't give me that " I need to go get my FB line..." :)

So.. small update, but the two "new" housings we acquired are also no good. They too fell victim to coolant jacket failure.

This leaves us with two options, drop in the 13B EFI setup from the other donor car we have (and if we can sell some parts to fund a turbo setup... we may go that route) or sell a few items to acquire a running stock port 12A which is known good and ready to go.

So what should it be? 13B EFI with a potential turbo setup, or stock port 12A to get this thing running?? Both have pluses and minuses (time vs performance)....

Well.. went to my mother-in-law's place where the car has been sitting all winter. We've had a terrible start to spring in VA so I haven't had a good moment to get started on the rest of the project until now. We were hoping the engine would be completed through the winter to drop in right now, but as you can tell from earlier posts.. that was a no-go.

We've decided to go 13B-EFI. We're going to pull the running stock 6 port 13B from a GSL-SE and run it as is, no rebuild right now. As much as it would be nice to go through everything, if we get the engine to run well in the GSL-SE, we're just going to yank it and drop it in the RX3. No time for anything fancy now. After November... that's another story.

For now, here she is all washed up and ready for completion. I brought the exhaust back home to fix some cracks in the headers and replace the old glass packs. Plan to bring the car home next weekend as well so I can start fabbing the new dash and finish repainting the interior bits.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot...81686188_n.jpg

Man we need to get some stickers on that thng the HOA will love it just wait till the 2am start time

I'll order the mazdacomp stuff soon... but I believe GRM will provide the rest of the decals required for the event.

The RX8 is sitting in the driveway now (where it probably live for a while during the RX3 build) so I'm sure I'll already be on the "radar" as it is. Oh well....


On another note.... fixing the headers is proving to be more difficult then I expected. Each radius has multiple repairs, and the cracks are were its REALLY thin. I may have to cut out and replace the entire radius, or give a try at one big patch on each...

This thread is ice cold, but here are the cliff notes to try and catch you all up...

May 2013, brought the car back to the house to begin the next phase of the build which would involve swapping in an EFI 13B and the interior overhaul.

Here's a shot of the interior prior to the overhaul. Basically, everything that wasn't already removed, got taken out and everything got a bath.

http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...2560279783.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...2560334964.jpg

Then some repainting would begin to match the exterior and give the car an overall fresh appearance.
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...2560364830.jpg

While repainting commences, a new dash cover is also contstructed, this brings us up to about August 2013:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...h_project2.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...h_project3.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...h_project5.jpg

Also, during August 2013, we test fired the 13B donor car after it sat in MC's woods for the last several years. Fired right up basically.. easy win! We let the engine warm up, checked all vitals we could and pulled it out.
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...2560405187.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...2560428942.jpg

Brought the engine home and had it await the install:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...2560450807.jpg

After going through a few different clutches, we pulled the best disc and tossed it on. OEM flywheel and OEM clutch setup for now. Modified the front engine bracket and dropped it "right" in:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont...2561086147.jpg

Fast forward to September 2013, attention was once again turned onto the interior to finish it up in order to setup the mounting idea and wiring setup for the ECU and new return fuel line, etc.
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont.../WP_001361.jpg

It started feeling like a car again:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont.../WP_001375.jpg

I know Brian can appreciate this, but this is how many hours in the garage looked while working on this thing. We had to mix the previous harness setup and the new EFI harness setup to get it squared away:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont.../WP_001376.jpg

Punched a hole in the firewall for the new harness and mounted the ECU:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont.../WP_001391.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont.../WP_001416.jpg

By October 2013 the engine wiring was mostly completed for the purposes of test fires and idle time, but we needed to address cooling. The radiator was reused and a new 10" electric fan seems to be doing well of keeping it cool. The issue with this setup is it leaves no room for a traditional pull config, so for now, its a front mounted push fan:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont.../WP_001397.jpg

Out back we needed to address the trunk paint and fuel system as we now needed a return system:
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont.../WP_001404.jpg
http://www.twitchyracing.com/wp-cont.../WP_001418.jpg

Looking good Billy!