dabuzz

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.

Coilovers are back from remanufacture, had to supply another set of struts, and he has rebuilt to 2023 specs, with new shocks, reused the old springs and camber plates, but all machined correctly and the proper spacers added so the top actually pivots now. After finding the wheel bearings nearly void of grease, and cranked up waaay too tight, I bought a new set of bearings, greased and fitted up the hubs in anticipation for the struts to come home. Once they arrived I attempted to fit the hubs to find that somewhere in production mazda upped the inner stub axle from 25 to 28mm (new struts must be 2nd gen), meaning the brand new inner bearings were now useless, which also meant buying 2 more at a price 3x as much for an uncommon size ffs! Anyway, all sorted now

Oh - look what ive found now! Easy fix once again, but just showing how lazy they were Some of the reason is that they fitted a s4 rx7 box, but retained the rx4 bellhousing, I guess so they didn't have to buy a new clutch and flywheel. Stupid thing is that this puts the box on an angle so pushes the lever over, hence they had to make a dog leg gear stick, then fully fab a new gearbox crossmember, so much extra work. This iin itself isn't an issue, it works perfectly fine, just looks ugly! but still no reason to hack so much out if it, and not put any steel back

Was hoping to not have to do much at all considering the initial cash outlay. But it's still worth what it's worth. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of 'look what ive found now'

Yea it's had a wee knock, and has some filler, but most 50 year old cars have had something happen over the years. Im ok with it. Main thing is there's no rust in it

There's more, ill share as I go. Definitely, only RX model I'd even consider going this size, much bigger car can handle the 18s with ease.

Question- Where is the best place to run your main battery earth cable? Answer- not your boot lock........

its begun - going from a near perfect car to someone else's build I knew I'd find things not up to my standard - but jeez Ripped out the coil overs as I knew about a bent strut, and that the coil overs were constructed in an unusual way. but F-me, this is rough_ all certed by the way haha First thing I noticed was almost zero grease in the hub bearings, right wound up tight, and were rough as, then pulled apart the coil overs to find- Top hat for the camber plates jammed against the top of coil over (no spacer)so they didn't turn at all - instead spun the whole spring/shock assembly Struts have collars welded to them , with a slip over threaded tube grub screwed to the strut tube, all completely on the piss, and top of shock just angle grinded to suit. so have bought another set of struts and am having them done properly and safely, plus fitting new wheel bearings etc

Really interesting! thanks for that. I found a few old images of it probably when you owned it @re10 certainly has a history this car, oh I wish it still had the original interior but it is what it is

Paint is definitely nice, the colour flops are mad. Theres a few nastys around the car, but ill just work through those at some point.

Couple of changes straight up, fitted rear seat belts for the kids, changed tail lights to full red, as well as fitted red rear reflectors, and 1/4 'Mazda rx4' badges. Biggest thing was ditching the ugly black wheels, im not really even a Simmons fan, but these 3 piece FR18s popped up and I knew they were just right for the car. There's a bunch of other things I need to do, including having to rebuild the coil overs as they are not great, and get a custom rear boiler for the back as its obnoxiously loud. But she's looking much better already.

It does now - first thing that went in

Introducing the new addition to the garage - 1974 Mazda RX4 coupe I figured as this is not going to be a big build, ill just carry on with this thread here So after selling the 2, I paid down some debt, and searched for a cheaper car that was supposed to be more family friendly after looking at a bunch of Rx4 sedans with various degrees of rust I remembered a coupe that was for sale last year, and I didnt think it sold, so I found the owner and turned out he de-listed it as CBF with all the Trademe and Facebook "experts" chiming in with their 2c Car was in Tauranga, went down had a look and agreed on a price. 4s are much bigger inside, so the kids fit in nicely, but the 2005 spec tan interior isn't exactly friendly to 4 and 6 year old boys who really just don't give a shite. Overall the car was a good buy though, has been professionally painted about 2 years ago, and has been well looked after. there are a few issues both mechanically, and visually that need attention, and ill get to those as soon as I can I have no idea what to do about the interior, might just black out the body coloured dash parts, fit new black carpet and leave the rest, it isnt quite so offensive in person. I hate black wheels - so those will be going asap Rest of the specs 13b Bridgeport rebuilt 1500km ago s4 gear box Hilux LSD s6 rx7 front, and primera rear disc brakes coil over suspension All fully certed etc

Yes sold - after spending 10 years building it, after driving it, I realised it was just a little bit too nice, and didnt quite suit my needs anymore. its beautiful to look at but in reality (I thought) I needed something a bit more user/family friendly to just chuck the kids in and go for an ice cream etc, and that I wouldn't be so precious about. its gone to a really nice home, and will be well looked after, I got to pay a bit of debt off, and still have enough for another nice car that wasn't 100k++ Have been looking at RX4 sedans, but all have had various degrees of rust with a 60k price tag and I really don't want to go down that road again if I can help it. But I have just this weekend made a handshake deal on another car, which makes a semi-liar out of me from what I have just said above Will post more on that in a few weeks once I get the new car home

Headed off to a local V8 car show, managed to pick up a trophy, which was nice, but unexpected.