1986 NA build - budget rallycar/road car

[Fidelity101]

Let me tell you the story of this car.

some guy bought it in SC drove it for years - very good people, good rotary owners, then the rear rotor went out and it sat in their backyard for years. Around 2005 some guy from Chicago bought it off ebay and brought it home to try and rebuild it and he did a pretty bad job at it and his hack wiring jobs were a pain in the ass to fix amongst the dreaded 3800 hesitiation. So I spent the 1st two years of it fixing the runing issues, lukily I got it for cheap with a bunch of extra parts that I was able to keep/use or sell. So I bought an RB street exhaust for it and AL flywheel and swapped in the 1st gen rx7 13b trans for shorter 1st, 2nd, 3rd and just let her rip! But it looked like this:



It also had an atkins rotary rebuild and street port in it with about 55k miles on the rebuild, I drove it an additional 15k miles and the motor went, but were not at that part yet.



yes that is black duct tape covering a hole in the hood put in by owner #2 for a cheap air inlet vent thingy.
so I found a new functional vented fiberglass hood for 200 picked up locally then a couple months later later I had a friend of mine from school paint my car:




got OEM S2000 sparkling white for 900 dollars with prep work and everything, came out pretty good, jams and all.



then the following summer I gave it some class by fixing a bunch of old car problems, worn out bushings, suspension, hydraulics, clutch issues. Also decided to give it an update on the interior went from blue to red with TII seats.

[djmtsu]

Looking good. White FTW.

Where in Illinois are you?

[Fidelity101]

I updated the look of it and lowered the car with some tanabe springs by 1.5" got some lousy offset (+47 or +42) but super lightweight lancer OZ enkei wheels and painted them gave it some tarmac rubber.

I was able to run 15.3 @ 89mph for my best run, 1st time at the drag strip on the s4 NA LSD and 14" pizza cutter tires, I could def get a 15.0 now if the car wasn't awaiting an s5 transplant.

Now it awaits this an s5 NA going megasquirt, have report a throttle body since I had to sell my ported one to buy the motor. Around spring time I will be looking for a set of convertible struts and springs to give it a lift on my phone dials and then I can throw on my current setup for street driving with the 15" wheels/tires with tanabe GF210s on tokico blues.

Going to be making a splash guard out of cutting boards, tough, and flexible enough to withstand some big hits and wont weigh as much as steel, and make some mud flaps out of a used snowmobile tread. I'll post pictures of the motor work so far including cleaning and painting the manifolds. keep posted for updates.

oh and I live by the west suburbs of Chicago in the summer and Upper Lower Peninsula of Michigan during the school year.

[djmtsu]

Originally Posted by Fidelity101

oh and I live by the west suburbs of Chicago in the summer and Upper Lower Peninsula of Michigan during the school year.

Nice. Naperville/Aurora was my stomping grounds for 21 years. I grew up in Sugar Grove, and my parents still live there.

I need to hit you up next time I come back to visit.

[Fidelity101]

Well the car is in Michigan currently and can't move under its own power

but I used to work right around Naperville/Aurora area, I have relatives in Aurora - I'm from Geneva.

[djmtsu]

Originally Posted by Fidelity101

- I'm from Geneva.

Swedish Days FTW!

[Whizbang]

cutting boards?

[Fidelity101]

Originally Posted by Low Impedance

cutting boards?

you know for cutting up vegetables and whatnot on, you use it in the kitchen and they can come in some pretty large sizes if not you can probably find some used ones off craigslist, they are about 1/2" thick typically and can range from 6x10" and larger, easy to cut when you heat a blade up, or the plastic around the cut with mapp gas.

[Whizbang]

never gave them any thought as far as skid plates. Not sure if they would take a hit

[Fidelity101]

Originally Posted by Low Impedance

never gave them any thought as far as skid plates. Not sure if they would take a hit

Since they are a complex plastic they have a HUGE plastic range so they allow alot of flex without the sacrifice of strength and will no problem take those small rocks and pebbles not mention a huge rock or a hit it will absorb the impact more than a metal would. AL is usually too thin and is too soft so a big impact from a large rock or bottom out means it could take the shape of the impact or bottom out and if the rock is pointy enough its going to make a perm indentation or flex too much and run the risk of puncturing the oil pan.

Steel works well and you can use thinner steel than AL but its heavier and more expensive than some HD plastic cutting boards.

oh and my car is base + sunroof so I got manual steering and no AC, not a whole lot of weight to my car, which is why Im sticking with the 4 lug, also dont need super huge brakes on gravel.

[Fidelity101]

Made some progress today mostly just sand blasting and beginning painting for the intake manifolds and water pump housing:



I still have to put some more coats on, just some 5 dollar rattle can w/ ceramic so it may not hold heat out super well but worst case scenario it looks nice lol.

I'll post pics of the coolant stuff and the lower IM when I get pictures of them.

While sandblasting I found a 6" crack around the s5 LIM plenum but putting the s4 LIM up next to it, they look identical so now I gotta sandblast and paint my S4 LIM too.

I'm going to polish off the paint on the UIM portion with lettering and lines so its shiny aluminum looking.

[Fidelity101]

Got a little bit more done today, here is a teaser:

[Fidelity101]

Got some work today in my cramped space:



started taking out stuff from the engine bay, cleaning and organizing I figure now is the best time to paint the engine bay. My jams were painted when I got the car redone but now you can see the nasty blue underneath






get it ready for Megasquirt (If I can get a job over the break) or just get it ready regardless.

[Fidelity101]

Just picked up a few items, pictures later

S5 BAC
S5 alternator
S5 TB w/ TPS

and an extra pair of high imp injectors along with an upper s5 fuel rail with regulator, these were the last of the things I needed before I get this running.


things that are coming soon, s4 injectors rebuilt rebalanced, RB oil pan baffle, MS trans/motor/diff mounts and a bunch of misc gaskets

pictures soon to come

[WE3RX7]

Some of the recent pics didnt show up...

looking good though...