Gibbon's suspiciously affordable FD RX7

[gibbon]

I can't quite remember the exact moment that I suddenly became aware that I needed an FD RX7, but it became a full blown itch over the next few weeks, checking trademe and FB marketplace pretty much daily - but also noting that the price of these cars was starting to tick down, and a lot of stuff wasn't selling. So the third time the price dropped on this one particular machine that was already in the cheaper category happened to coincide with half a dozen beers in my gut and before I knew it, I was the proud owner of a 1997 FD3S

so it arrived on the back of a truck, which I am told is how these vehicles generally prefer to travel from A to B

It was a quiet day so I anticipated this wonderful opportunity to dig around the thing and see where and how I'd been hoodwinked, but instead the towie turned up at exactly closing time so all I could do was roll it into the shop and bugger off for the weekend.

[gibbon]

(accidentally posted up the first post so now I'm scrambling to add actual content, bear with me!)

[gibbon]

So the car is from the other end of the country, I did zero due diligence other than a quick carjam to make sure it actually existed, asked a few questions, got a few replies, pulled the trigger

so first impressions; the exterior has definitely seen better days, the kit is cracked in multiple places, the paint is faded / blistered especially around the engine bay, the spoiler is gone (by request of the previous owner who wanted to keep it, no argument from me) leaving mount stubs all over the boot, the wheels are just there to get it rolling, the offset is totally wrong, they rub everywhere and have been kerbed with incredible thoroughness

Comparatively, the interior (which wasn't mentioned at all in the ad and I only got a few grainy photos of) is much nicer than I expected. It has a half cage which I originally planned to ditch on day one but honestly the back seats are completely worthless. The seats are factory, it's got a few extra bits and pieces inside and some carpet missing which I'll hunt around the internet for

The engine bay is a bit sad. First up: wedding night surprise, she's not a natural yellow. bit of a bummer but oh well. Still on the factory turbos which is a nice indicator that perhaps it hasn't had too much of an ass-kicking in it's life. Rusty water everywhere which set a few alarm bells ringing. airbox is gone and all that's left is ugly stock induction pipes flapping in the breeze and some chafed through pod filters

So I cleaned everything off and spent a few dollars on things shiny and frivolous

The stock air pump was sitting there but was unplugged, not sure if the ECU had been tuned for it or not, the previous owner had done some work recently (more on that in a minute), maybe he had left it unplugged by mistake? I got rid of it anyway as I really just wanted to get in and tidy everything up. Pic 75% complete as I had to block up the air pump inlets on the induction and fit a new alternator/water pump pulley and belt with the air pump gone. Tightest alternator pulley nut ever, holy shit

[gibbon]

Then I hit the first major red flag - I'd been expecting an "ohh, THAT'S why it was cheap!" moment, and perhaps here it was:

Excuse me what the fuck is going on down here? I do not appreciate busted wires and shit. At first I thought a rat might've gotten into the engine bay and chewed through the loom, but I found the rest of the wiring wrapped around the crank pulley

shit, I hope it isn't anything importa-aaaand it's the oil metering pump

 

so just to tell you guys how to suck eggs, that's the pump that feeds a wee bit of oil into the chambers to lubricate the seals. Now I did a bit of reading and discovered that the pump on the FD is a stepper motor controlled one, so presumably that means when the wiring got torn out of it, it just failed at whatever flow rate it was allowing at the time, as opposed to stopping working altogether. Hopefully that position was full tit max flow. SO, how long had the pump been fucked? Normally this would throw a fault code, but this thing has an aftermarket ECU so no dice

I very politely contacted the previous owner and he said that he'd never seen the busted wires, and frankly knew nothing about it. One interesting tidbit was that he said he had had some boosting problems with the (notoriously finicky) sequential controls on the turbo, had replaced a solenoid, but the problem had come back shortly afterwards, and that that was when he decided to sell the car. Why is this topical? Because when the metering pump loom was torn to bits, it pulled a hose off the vacuum chamber for one of the solenoids! So there's every chance that this occurred pretty much the last time this car was driven. Needless to say it's on premix now. 

 

 

[rusty360]

I'll get some popcorn.

[gibbon]

I need to get some more pics but stock photos would probably cover most of this off. Other shit I found, well going back to day one when I jumped in it to fire it up and drive it off the truck, it fired up real nice, except the oil pressure gauge which was cheerily sitting at zero. so I'm sitting there while the towie mucks around getting his ramps lined up, wondering if I'm rooting what's left of the engine, but I figured if it actually had zero oil pressure, the towies would have already blown it to bits when they absolutely would have taken it for a hoon at some point on it's way up here. Turns out the senders are notorious for crapping out, I pulled mine and its resistance range was way out. SO I JUST BOUGHT A NEW ONE AND IT TOOK ME 30 SECONDS TO FIND IT ONLINE AND IT WAS THAT EASY BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HAVING A CAR THAT ISNT AN OBSCURE 40 YEAR OLD MITSUBISHI IS ALL ABOUT

Ventured underneath for a look and found the powerplant frame cracked through

apparently this is another very common fault on these cars, this one has an aftermarket Mazdaspeed brace (or a Mazdaspeed badge on a red painted factory brace?) but apparently they're barely any better. Will zap it up where it sits

[gibbon]

now the bodykit, I can kinda live without. Initially I went looking for a very stock machine but fate would have it (and not for the first time) I ended up with something very much the opposite. It does look like it'll unpick easily enough if the day comes, although that would mean buying stock guards and a stock bumper and most parts aren't cheap. So I'll stick with the kit for now, the downside of this is that I'm limited to exactly bugger all wheels that will fit. As mentioned it came on Enkei 3 piece wheels which sounds nice, but they don't fill the guards, and sit way too far in (even with the 20mm spacers there's extreme wheel rub if you even think about steering. I thought about changing the lips, I thought about changing the barrels, I thought about how that would mean spending 5k just to end up with some beaten to shit centres just to keep the wheel snobs happy. So I cheaped out and got some 9" -20 Rota RKR's because they're pretty much the only thing that would actually fit, straight off the shelf. Realized what I needed on Friday, found some for sale on Saturday in Cambridge, @RXFORD was coming through on Sunday, they were in Auckland Sunday night, and one of my customers was driving a truck straight past on the way to Whangarei the next day, the system works!

(compared to the time I tried to bring a starion engine up from CHCH, which wore out it's welcome with about three different OS members, and THREE YEARS LATER, having never actually arrived here, was sold sight unseen)

Despite being only an inch smaller they seem absolutely tiny, it's taken some getting used to. But I can turn corners now. Oh but the previous owner had wandered off with the lock nut key. He sent it up to me but it was too late, I'd already created this piece of art

what is it? it's a small piece of pipe with five castellations cut into it, hammered into a slightly larger piece of pipe, and welded up with great enthusiasm and little ability. but it did the job! oh and with a socket welded crookedly on the end because I still had half a rod left and by god I was going to use it

 

[gibbon]

Last thing today I took it for a drive around the airport which was interrupted by a BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ which was pretty fucking obviously trying to tell me something was up. the "add coolant" buzzer and light was on and the temp was definitely higher than it should be. I had drained and flushed the coolant a week or so ago and thought I was pretty diligent in bleeding the air out, so I topped it up (and it wanted quite a bit), gave it another run, and... coolant all over the floor, under the overflow bottle. I had admittedly seen a little bit of coolant on the floor after driving it in but to be honest I filed it under "I don't want to see that". So again, another "ohhh that's why it was cheap" moment. bad water seals? is the engine pressurizing the coolant and blowing the water out of the separation chamber?

nope, just a bad pressure cap on the chamber. topping up the filler, it was running straight out of here and into the expansion tank. with a bit of heat in it it would've been fair pumping out. a $37 fix, and everything's back to normal

Suppose I should talk about how it actually drives? so yes it starts hot and cold (and very hot!) so I think the engine is, actually, pretty good. It's got 78k on the clock which is probably still young enough, certainly for what I paid. If it craps out at 100k that'd probably take me decades to run that figure up. 

with standard porting and turbos it probably doesn't set the rx7 world on fire, power wise - frankly that suits me. my other cars are a pajero and a triumph, and this is the fastest thing I've driven in quite some time. And it's harsh as well, it's loud and smells like two stroke and the suspension is hard as hell. a million years ago I had two series 1 rx7's, one was bog stock and the other one was more extreme than this. 9 times out of 10 if I was going somewhere I'd jump in the standard one. So I'm super glad that this has a comfortable interior, I guess I just wish it were a little more tame. maybe I'm getting old?

Only real plans to come are to hunt down the last bits of interior and get it wof'd ........."shouldnt take much" says the previous owner.........

[shrike]

Love it, I look at them every now and then but at 40k aud for a rough one (and lack of space, though I'm looking at acerage atm lol) I can't justify it currently. Same issue when I look at other JDM cars I lust over

I just keep living vicariously through threads like this and as much Rob Dahm content as I can get ha

Tame could be a reasonably sized single turbo (similar power to stock), removal of rats nest and dbw/modern ignition/modern injectors  

I liked Rob Dahms FC modernisation Series as inspiration 

but no harm keeping it stockish either

What ecu is it running? 

Keen for follow on updates 

[gibbon]

I'm sort of trying to avoid messing with it too much, especially if it was going to need re-tuning etc. If the turbos give up I really can't say if I'd go hunting for another set of twins or go with an upgrade. Someone does appear to have replaced a lot of the hoses in the rat's nest, PO said he'd gotten in there to replace a solenoid so perhaps it was him

It's got an Apexi power FC (with a hand controller - for when I want to press some buttons and make it explode?)

Honestly they are just such a gorgeous car I just had to have one. Like everyone, I wish I'd bought it ten years ago for half the price, but that's life. And it is so refreshing to deal with a 90's car for a change (sorry fellow oldschoolers) not everything is broken, there's no rust, there's aftermarket support, the manuals are in english... coming from the starion to the FD is absolute night and day

[Alfashark]

Also living vicariously through this thread.

The old lady had one for about 2 weeks and ended up taking it back to the dealer as "It were shite" and got her 635 CSi back...

The brother in law had a red one a few years ago but since he has the mechanical knowledge of a banana, when it popped some plastic cooling system components he just pushed the car off to one side and left it for a year or two - I was very close to taking a bunch of cash to him and rescuing it: If it hadn't cooked up, replace the rooted plastic parts and proceed. Or if it had, remove the dorito and replace it with something terrible such as a well built 1.9TDI.

Hopefully your WOF list is very minor and you can enjoy the car over summer!

[kws]

Thats very cool, even with the NFS Underground bodykit on it. Love a good FD, one of the most beautiful cars ever designed IMO.

Hopefully the dorito spinner keeps working well. Do you know the origin of all the rusty shit everywhere, hopefully just the coolant tank?

[rusty360]

My favourite line so far! 

welded up with great enthusiasm and little ability

Awesome car! Love it!

[rusty360]

You haven't mentioned what it's like to sleep in? Or is the wife ok

[nick_m]

Great read. I am also a fellow 90s car enjoyer and FDs are on that list too

[VitesseEFI]

On 25/10/2024 at 11:07, Alfashark said:

Or if it had, remove the dorito and replace it with something terrible such as a well built 1.9TDI.

😀

That made me chuckle. It could be as fast as the original, go 4 times as far on a tank of fuel and upset so many people. Obviously it would sound and smell completely wrong….,

[gibbon]

On 26/10/2024 at 09:16, kws said:

Thats very cool, even with the NFS Underground bodykit on it. Love a good FD, one of the most beautiful cars ever designed IMO.

Hopefully the dorito spinner keeps working well. Do you know the origin of all the rusty shit everywhere, hopefully just the coolant tank?

The rusty shit is definitely concentrated around the coolant filler cap, someone's taken it off when the engine was hot for sure, but that could've been anytime really, it was a bitch to clean it off off

Finally bought it home and after seeing it the wife has come around, big time. In her words "I just assumed you'd bought another absolute piece of shit"

[gibbon]

17 hours ago, VitesseEFI said:

😀

That made me chuckle. It could be as fast as the original, go 4 times as far on a tank of fuel and upset so many people. Obviously it would sound and smell completely wrong….,

both of you get out of my thread 

[VitesseEFI]

6 hours ago, gibbon said:

both of you get out of my thread 

You’re right, something like Dave’s mega-revs V6 would be far more appropriate 

 

Seems like the original Dorito spinner is fit enough for now, which is a result!

[Goat]

Shit yes! Series 7 is the prettiest of them all!

Fingers crossed its an easy fix to get it running sweet.