$400 gsl-se

[TaylorI]

Hi, I'm new to the forums and rotary. About a month ago I bought a GSL-SE for 400 dollars. Now I didn't expect it to be perfect, I didn't even know it was an SE till I got to the guys house, but it ran and drove. With non working brake lights, power steering, a very soft clutch, non working alternator, no battery, and an idle of about 4k. But I was excited and eager for the learning experience. What I plan to do with this car I don't exactly know yet either. Rally, autox, or a road race car, I want to do an s5 n/a swap for rally but an s4 TII for anything else, that is if I can actually find any reliable information on the swap. The engine is a mess wires unplugged, vaccum hoes cracked, a severley leaking master cylinder, and a really bad smoke. I'll post pictures when I find my camera and I'll be documenting what I do to the car from day to day

[Max777]

first things first, it's very bad to run a car with no battery attached to the electrical system. The battery, even if it's dead acts like a voltage regulator, otherwise the alternator can produce ungodly amounts of spiking electricity, with no control to stop it... at least as far as I understand it. You can run a car off the battery w/o an alt hooked up, but dont do it the other way around.

You need to obtain a factory service manual, and do some reading, as well as familiarize yourself with the basic mechanical principles of a rotary.

The mess of wires might be unplugged emissions components... the smoke could be coolant seal o rings, oil seal o rings, or a stuck open Oil metering pump. I heard that this is a common thing with smoking FB's, but it might just be the carbed ones, so do some reading on it.

Also, I'm more of an FC guy, but if you plan to swap in an FC engine, I would recommend doing the entire FC3S front sub-frame swap, which will get you better brakes and suspension options, rack and pinion steering, which is much better, and stock mounting points for an FC 13B engine. I would also recommend to use a megasquirt (or better, ie: haltech, microtech, motec) standalone engine management system if you do a complicated swap like this. It will get rid of a LOT of unnecessary components, extra wiring, and just generally make it a much cleaner process than re wiring a bunch of stock shit.... however it does present the issue of dyno tuning.

Where are you located?

Some good sites for parts are:

mazdatrix.com

atkins rotary

pineapple racing

racing beat

RE-Speed

corksport

check those out.

FSM's are also available online as well, do a search for them on google you will find tons.



I hope this all helps, I'm bored so I decided to be helpful!


Max.

[TaylorI]

oh no sorry if that's unclear. I brought a battery from my DD and used it but the car has no battery of it's own. and well the alternator doesn't work in the first place so the battery I bought just gets drained. Also I have an FSM and I am very familiar with rotary mechanics well book wise none practical. I Found today that the smoke was from synthetic oil being gunked inside the engine, which almost had no oil in it. So an oil change later and no smoke. I was so glad since I was dreading removing the engine for a rebuild so soon.

Another fun fact was my AAS (air adjustment screw) which can be used to set idle has been broken off halfway and someone tried to use sealent to keep it from rattling out. which led me to believe that this is the cause for my extremely high idle, also that someone has also tied a string around a linkage on the throttle body keeping something open.
Back to my AAS I can not just simply buy the screw. It's not a part mazda sold seperately. I can buy the screw for an 86 n/a and I'm hoping they are the same because of the similarity of the engines but I have no person to confirm this so anyone with an 86 could they maybe take a picture of the one from their throttle body.

I also figured out the wiring and plugged it all in as per the fsm and later I shall clean it up so it looks more orderly. Next order of business is to find a camera so you all can see this.....well it's a thing right now.

I'm from Vegas, NV

excellent forum.


dupontregistry

[Max777]

Well, you're off to a great start!

Seems its in much better shape that what you first described it like. Almost sounded like it was way too far gone to even fix at first.

[TaylorI]

ok so here are some pictures.


engine from right side:

Engine from left side:

why is this string there????

broken AAS:

Can anyone tell me if there screw is similar

wiring isn't in the greatest shape

rusted out radiator:


to clear some things up yes I removed the a/c componets and the afm not driving the car without afm just not on for pictures.

[Max777]

Yeah, gut emissions, and get an intake! You can go to autozone/advanced, etc and get some pipe, couplers, and a cone filter if you want.

The wiring isnt terrible, just needs to be cleaned up a bit.

Good luck, man!

[TaylorI]

I'd like to keep emissions for a bit so I can drive it around town for a bit no plates on it as of yet and I think I have to pass smog.

That's why the AFM is off because I'm mating it up with an intake, also why the air pump pipe has a breather filter on it.

[Whizbang]

i love GSLSEs, best FB you can get

[TaylorI]

so I'm planning a trip to the junkyard tomorrow I need:

1.master cylinder and brake booster.
2. throttle body if I can find one
3. AAS from 2nd gen.
4. alternator s4/TII prefered

I'll let everyone know how it goes and see what I can do.

what's all entailed in doing a TII swap? I know drive shaft is custom but also I've heard an exhaust must be custom?

[TaylorI]

Went to the junkyard and got a working alternator so yay for not having to charge a battery every night. No luck with the throttle body, the screw for the s4 n/a is smaller. I'm trying to research if I can use a 13b throttle body and UIM then maybe I can use a s4 afm? more research to be done. I'm starting if I should just skip straight to the s4/s5 swap......

[TaylorI]

So I got to work on the car today and to say I am dissapointed well yeah I'm dissapointed. I installed the alternator, got all my intake system hooked up, and rethreaded my idle screw. Only to have the car run a 4k idle and 3200 after some adjustments and then the battery not to charge at all. So I have a break in the wiring somewhere and I think I have bad compression the engine is making a strange sound now. sigh I think I'm going to redo all of the wiring and atleast check all of it over.

long break in updates, I'm a senior in highschool and exams are next week so I haven't had time.

for next time need to source a break booster and mastercylinder. well I did get the car for $400 bucks so I can't really complain.

[djmtsu]

It will get there. Just do one thing at a time!!

[TaylorI]

yeah one thing at a time. 10 things at many different times though haha. I'm hoping I'll have it done good and running and maybe painted for DGRR '10 but we shall see

[TaylorI]

So I removed the master cylinder and brake booster. Both rusted almosted completely. So now I need to source a few parts and get those replaced. I'll post pics in a bit