dabuzz

Good score on that new ute, lots of goodies with it, be a cool car to just roll around in.

congrats - such a beautiful car, you've done a great job - well done!

Haha, I definitely know the feeling

keeps getting better and better! aweome work

Sparky has finished, all new power feeds, added relays for ignition, fuel pump and rad fan which was previously straight off the key. Car starts great now, and does everything it should. Have also pre wired the car for EFI, so if I decide to change over its very straight forward now. Have turned attention to the fuel system, it had a return line back to the tank, and for a carbed NA rotary you don't want any fuel running away from the motor. It also runs the factory fuel lines, so until I get a chance to upgrade the hard lines to 3/8, I've done a small upgrade for now. Blocked off the return line, fitted guage, and 3/8 hose from the regulator. Previously reg was fully open due to return line. Have slso replaced the crusty looking filter cut it open and found years worth of crap on it

Amazing skills man, lovng the build! Tech question- I noticed you dressed all the welds on the chassis, I was always under the impression you had to leave welds raw for cert purposes, as weld is stronger with more surface area?

If you're vapour blasting, you wont need to coat in anything else, the process leaves the finish very resistant to filth, if just bead blasting then a light coat of matte clear helps. paint everything else in high temp black, and it will look tidy enough. Be mindful that as you are not modifying too far, that once the beautiful clean painted block goes back in, it gets covered with ugly ancillaries, wiring and hoses etc that will do no favours for aesthetics, so no need to over think it.

Oh man, cut so much shit, remember everything worked, so it's just a tidy, but have also added feeds and relays ready for ECU etc in prep for possible future plans . Maybe I should leave that earth just do the car remembers it roots..... Nope ha

Sparky thinks he's found why all the voltage drops Should go faster now too with the weight reduction Will replace all of that, with this

My sparky mate came over today to start on tidying up the looms, they pretty much just grabbed everything from in the bay, and jammed it under the guards. Lots of redundant parts, and mixed matched wiring etc,we wondered if @Roman has worked on this in the past The car has had issues with starting and charging, so with fresh wiring for those and rad fans, fuel pump etc will definitely help, we will retain all the rest of the loom for lights, horn wipers etc as those work just fine.

Fresh WOF!!!!! Veeeeerrrrrrryyyyy happy

Agreed man. you might also be pleased to know i have most of a 13b J port that im tinkering with atm, may or may not find a home in the 4

Agreed totally expect some work when buying an old car,but yeah...... took it out for a run today to test a bunch of things, and it's driving really nice now, suspension is doing everything it should, no noises at all, got up to temp, ran really well, felt pretty good all round There's still a few things to do, as listed and it's not starting well ( bad starter/voltage drops maybe), I think that's down to wiring issues which I've already planned to look at. And I'm going to change the fuel system a little. Overall, I'm starting to like the car, and it does look pretty sweet on road

Haven't fixed that yet Waiting on my sparky mate to come and go through a bunch of other stuff, will do that at the same time.

I dont have a vid, but difference was massive, not so much in volume, its a little quieter(still loud) but with the stainless one, it had a terrible tinny resonance under load, was nasty to listen too, with the new steel boiler it sounds as it should without offending the ears, hard to really explain how it was before, the resonance got inside your head, it truly was bad. ha, yea you be right about the overflow, maybe need to find an old school thickwall double brown one

This is not a rant, and I suppose at the end of the day I will have far more confidence in the car, and more importantly confidence with taking my kids in it, once I’ve finished going over everything. I thought it would be good to put up a current list of what I’ve had to fix here so I can look back and go WTF bro…. Still cant really believe how much I have had to do even though the car was; A. Sellers quote “not some slapped up banger” B. Halfway through a 6 month WOF C. Pricey 1. Fitted 18 inch 3 piece Simmons wheels. 2. Full Red taillights. 3. Fitted rear ¼ Mazda RX4 badges. 4. Fitted new Red ¼ reflectors. 5. Fitted Rear seat belts. 6. Replaced Leaking water-pump. 7. Replaced front wheel bearings after having no grease, damaged and worn. 8. Replaced bent strut and remanufactured Coil-overs, they were a major safety issue. 9. Made new trans tunnel gear stick cover for massive hacked up hole, and fitted new shifter rubber to seal it off. 10. Fitted large new custom rear mild steel boiler muffler because it sounded awful in stainless – still loud though. 11. Replaced gearbox mount, and modified crossmember so it didn’t foul on the mount as it was before and banging. 12. Replaced worn leaf spring and hanger eye bushes. 13. Fitted new rear bump stops, to stop driveshaft hitting tunnel. 14. Replaced leaf spring pad bushes. 15. New U bolts as threads damaged. 16. Adjusted non-working handbrake. 17. Replaced Missing number plate light and bracket – rewire so it works. 18. Replaced missing window washer system with an under dash hanging bag – wire up as original system butchered and non-existent. 19. Repaired dash indicator lights, because of the Autometer dash setup they had to hack the back of the gauge cluster but failed to properly modify the wiring and bulb holders and their badly soldered joints just fell apart. Fitted new LED bulbs and wiring, and secured correctly so it all works now. 20. Fitted the correct Steering wheel boss as the indicator cancelling part in the one fitted was incorrect and the indicators didn’t turn off after completing a turn. 21. Reconnected horn as was just left unplugged, due to previous boss kit not reaching the contacts. 22. Thermostat was missing and thermo housing by-passed for full flow, coupled with rad fans on full time as soon as key on, meant on a cold day the engine wouldn’t get over 60deg and would run like shit. So I have un-modified housing, fitted new thermostat and a thermo switch to the housing (still yet to wire in with a relay) to be able to let motor warm up properly before fans kick in. Things to do: Calibrate speedo gauge. Calibrate fuel level gauge – even though seller promised me he did this. Deal with terrible wiring around car. Get reverse lights working. Fit radiator overflow. Re make throttle cable setup. Get a WOF Then “maybe” I can start on the actual fun stuff……

super cool little car, amazed you can find 'any' parts for it! Out of interest, who reco's water pumps these days now that Muzzas waterpumps has gone?

Bang! Crack! Bang! Thump! Smash! After refitting the front suspension she's far better on the, road but God damn there's some nasty noises from the rear, first port of call was the replace the leaf spring eye bushes, the leaves aren't pinging and cracking now, but was still finding that over big bumps there was still banging in the rear, easy to see why, check the state of the bump stops . Found replacement bumps, and bought new spring pad rubbers while I was at it, I did shave 15mm off the standard bumps just to give a little more travel, and had to buy new U- bolts as of course the threads were stripped. That's all the rear suspension upgraded now too.

Wow, top quality work! She's a thing of beauty

Just to be clear. Use your existing shaft rotors and front counter weight Buy s4/5 type rear counter weight Buy new lightened flywheel Send whole lot to be balanced together

Just use your existing shaft, don't worry about being lighter, it's a street car, you need torque

you aren't making sense here "E shaft balance but if I decide to go lightened flywheel, need Rx8 E shaft and counter weight" get your existing rotors, shaft and front + (new) rear counterweight and send off for balancing as one unit after any machining you want to do. You dont need an rx8 shaft how much are you taking off by surfacing plates? if only a small amount you don't need to harden again. if youre taking off heaps, its possible the plates arent fit for purpose anyway.

This, but directly from AR Remember; Time = money

Yep, my mate who bought it is very happy, actually, he prob hasnt even seen a build thread -might be of interest to him. I'm liking the street machine look of the 4 better, just need to make the car itself better

so ratty - so mid 80s evil car movie vibe - love it! Actually looks like a really good clean up would make a huge difference alone, before pouring much $$ into it.