200K Miles Daily Driver -HERGTUS-

[Phoenix7]

Back story:
Wife owned an escort and a Jeep Cherokee. Both were good to her but she wanted an FC. My friend decided to sell his car at the same time we were in the market and we made the trip to Ohio to pick it up.

Left at noon (or 1) on a Saturday and got back to California by Monday at 3AM. We were dead tired!! It had the RB header and midpipe mated to N1 Duals (real Apex-i units from Japan back when it cost BANK!) but the damn car was WAY TOO LOUD! ABout 3 miles into the trip we decided to get ear plugs. Time went on and I repaired and upgraded little things and maintained it as best as I could. We've been DD'ing this car for a good 3/4 years now and it's still freaking amazing.


Well, it rolled over into the 200K miles last December

Oil change every 3000 miles, make sure fluids are topped off. Had a lil overheating problem once and I got that fixed and it hasn't given me any problems.

-87 octane
-spark plugs need changing at this next oil change (~300 miles)
-E-fan
-Pinneaple intake sleeves
-suspension goodies
-RB collected header, MP and catback
-fuel controller (150whp)
-Exceddy clutch stage 1.
-gets 270 miles per tank (usually have 3 gallons left) I think it's running a tad rich so I think it's time to install a wideband and maybe EGT setup (still reading on it to find what is optimal temps and whatnot) so I can lean it out for better MPG.

This thing pulls like a dream. Tested the TPS a while back, on the dot. We took it to Thunderhill in Feb. while trying to finish my turbo project. She has some battle scars but I already have a replacement lip (i don't wanna get into that story). Trying to see how soon I can get the wing, front end and hood repainted. I have a few more things I want to do to it but I want to finish my 7 and get her on DD duty while I work on the NA.

It's fun having two FC's. One does the money earning while the other gets the money in her. Once I'm satisfied with the whole car I'll do the paint, that way everything will be perfect and then possibly look to sell it to get a nice stock FD.

The really cool thing about this car is how reliable it's been and how quick it feels. I've spoken to a few people and they think I can lean it out more and gain another 15hp-20hp so I'll be looking into it as my TII nears completion (remember I want on car in DD duties and another under the knife).

[Phoenix7]

Her car (before the mild scars) and our friend's Vert:



Old N1 duals:



Decent engine bay. Needs an Air Isolation Box:




More pics:











HKS 52mm (or 55mm?) old-school cat-back:

[Phoenix7]

It's a little blurry but I was cold. We drove through a SNOWSTORM (in Wyoming) on the way back from Ohio:




More Pics:














Rolling over 200,000 Miles:

[Phoenix7]

The U-joints broke on her while driving:




A simple replacement would have been fine but this made the repair difficult:





Her dad and I replaced the transmission with another one but then I forgot to add fluids and I damaged the tranny AGAIN! I decided to take both broken trannies and made 1 good one out of the parts that were goo and that's what we're driving right now.

We have been going to monthly RX-7 meets with a local club (BARC):

BARC1-Emmeryville




BARC2-February




BARC3-March

[Phoenix7]

[My5ABaby]

FUGLY!










j/k

Great looking car, especially considering the age. However, this thread fails without a picture of the little lady herself.

[Phoenix7]

So, I've been on the track with my previous 7's and I thought Brooke would love to go drive around and feel what the 7 is supposed to be driven like! We signed up to go to Thunderhill for her first event EVER!

Everything went well the week before. Preparing, inspecting, and fixing issues. We leave at 5 AM to make it to the track by 8 AM and when we were 15/20 minutes away from the track we had a tire blow out at 90MPH (I was rushing to make it on time).

We were towed to the nearest town and replaced all four tires and were able to make 1/2 a day of the track event. We were rushed and a little lost so we didn't get too many pics and the real photographers focused on the Drift cars mostly. My ultimate goal was forher to get comfortable with the car and slowly push herself out of that "fear" mode and it worked, too well!

She had a blast, I had a lot of fun and we're looking forward to the next event, hopefully we can take BOTH our cars next time.


BLOWOUT:

[Nopis1O]

nice. guys. ya can your really get that much horse out of lust leaning out your mixture. i find that hard to believe. maby if you car is running very very rich? i dunno sounds interesting. when you get your wideban let me know how it goes.

[Phoenix7]

Well others are making 170rwhp+ with less mods so I think it's feasible. I'll keep these threads updated as more work gets done.

[Nopis1O]

kool. ya im going to open up one of my own threads as soon as my itbs get here

[Phoenix7]

I'll be interested to see your work on the ITBs. I'm not too familiar with them at all.

[Phoenix7]

Most recent problem:
http://www.rotarycarclub.com/showthread.php?t=1850

[Phoenix7]

The tranny is making noise. I don't know what to do. Used TII tranny and Mazdatrix DS (quite a bit of money) or rebuild the NA tranny.
I don't know how long until the tranny dies so i have to decide soon.

Needs new crush washers for the oil cooler lines. Dunno the condition of the lines themselves yet. 200K+ miles rearing it's ugly face.


If I go TII tranny I'll need this:
-TII flywheel $300.
-TII slave cylinder $20
-TII starter $100
-Mazdatrix DS $300
-TII Tranny = $200 to $500 (depends if it's local or shipped).
--------------------------------------------------------
Total = $900 to $1400 to go TII tranny (not including any labor since I'll do it myself, most likely). I can try to reduce costs a tad more but it's a realistic figure right now (lightweight flywheel is the only expensive unnecessary cost).

I already have an extra exceddy clutch kit for the TII so I'M ALMOST AHEAD.

I dunno how much to fix the tranny yet (going tomorrow to get a quote) so I dunno which way to go.

[Phoenix7]

I think we're gonna rebuild the NA tranny. It doesn't seem cost effective to go TII Drivetrain right now.

I noticed the noise appears in 2nd gear and REVERSE but only at lower RPMS (under 3K). I'll be taking it to a transmission shop ASAP (went to work on my car today instead).

[Phoenix7]

picking up a TII tranny soon. Just preparing.