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Gibbon's suspiciously affordable FD RX7


gibbon

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honestly everyone keeps telling me to ditch the twins but I love them, the first turbo is so responsive, if I so much as breathe on the throttle I get glorious spooling noises. By the time the second turbo joins in, I wouldn't want to be going much faster anyway

really really want a set of the stock wing mirrors, you'd think there'd be tonnes of them gathering dust around the place but I've yet to find any for sale 

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30 minutes ago, kiwi808 said:

Have you tried Retro Automotive in Dunedin? Cory has a huge stash of bits and might be able to help.

I'll give him a go, thanks. rotary people seem to be pretty cagey, it's hard to even find the right people to ask 

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47 minutes ago, gibbon said:

so with the new air seperator cap on, the cooling system has finally been able to build to operating pressure. which of course means all of the leaks have now become apparent. Including the water lines that somebody secured with zip ties, wonderful 

I ditched the plastic AST at the advice of everyone and fitted an aluminum one as the original one is apparently a hand grenade 

Then it developed a misfire, and then I got too cute moving the thing around the workshop in small trips and inevitably flooded it, lesson learned. So. Changed the plugs (very wet and very worn), dribbled some ATF into the chambers, and it fired back into life with a hiss and a roar, or rather, a miss and a roar and a LOT of smoke. Decided to pull the leads off and check them. #2 leading was having none of it

IMG_20241208_202120.thumb.jpg.48f5e67a494bc9cf9a6c44954437e1ff.jpg

yeah that'll be the misfire 

Mazda had the forethought to put the coils in the dumbest fucking place on earth, so I had to pull lots of bits off to get to them. My wife walked past at one stage, saw the mess and said "I guess that's the end of that then isn't it"

One silver lining is that I was able to take the throttle body off and get a real good look at the fast idle adjustment (which is on the back side of the throttle body because it was designed by the same guy who mounted the coils). found a wear notch in the idle stop cam which probably caused some of the weird surging idle, dressed it out.

I'm conscious that with the age of the car, anything still original on it is probably getting towards the end of it's first life. I don't really want to just clean out that coil and use it as-is. I definitely don't want to put them back in that location. The stock coils are apparently good enough, but they're pretty pricey new from mazda. And the engine bay is cluttered, there's no really obvious candidate for relocation. So again I'm staring down the barrel of spending lots of money modifying a car that I never really intended to go crazy with, because the alternative is spending lots of money building stock problems back into it

I'd add more (not particularly interesting) photos but I'm not savvy enough to resize them. 

Yeah OEM coils are expensive :O I looked on both Rockauto and Amayama, plus some rough googling based on part numbers (for brand new options)

Could possibly DIY something using the below products as inspiration as well

TM has this right now

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/car-parts-accessories/mazda/electrics/listing/5056499743

Few options aftermarket ie R35/VR28 coilpacks (require wiring) found a guy who also has a power FC and got them working, (comment is they are hard to service)

https://www.raceonly.com.au/product/rx7-fd3s-bolt-on-pnp-ign-1a-coil-harness-gen-3/

Seems to be a good plug and play recommendation but is pricey also

Something like this with some custom sparkplug leads and some wiring could be an option

https://www.nzefi.com/product/high-performance-4-coil-ignition-compact-kit/

AEM also do smart coils but seem to only be a thing in the UK

Might be worth testing them as per below to see if they are savable

coil_test-jpg.8087

 

 

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10 minutes ago, shrike said:

Yeah OEM coils are expensive :O I looked on both Rockauto and Amayama, plus some rough googling based on part numbers (for brand new options)

 

I was looking at sakebomb and vinnyfab plug n play options but both cases I would say the actual hardware makes up less than half the price, the rest being a big premium on the convenience of not having to do too much work to install them. My coils are all in spec but I'm sure they're original, I guess I might just relocate them for now so if they do crap out eventually they'll be easier to replace 

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24 minutes ago, gibbon said:

I was looking at sakebomb and vinnyfab plug n play options but both cases I would say the actual hardware makes up less than half the price, the rest being a big premium on the convenience of not having to do too much work to install them. My coils are all in spec but I'm sure they're original, I guess I might just relocate them for now so if they do crap out eventually they'll be easier to replace 

Ahh yes so SakeBomb is in USD so similar pricing to what I was trying to find more locally 

That TM link for buy now $77 might be useful if they are in spec as spares depends if you want to gamble tho 

At least the ones you have being in spec helps :)

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10 minutes ago, shrike said:

Ahh yes so SakeBomb is in USD so similar pricing to what I was trying to find more locally 

That TM link for buy now $77 might be useful if they are in spec as spares depends if you want to gamble tho 

At least the ones you have being in spec helps :)

that trademe listing is pickup only unfortunately, you'd think it wouldn't be too hard to post

I'm leaning towards the nzefi coils as they're cheap, local, and do away with the ignitor as well. Just gotta work out where they'd fit! and whether the power FC will be cool with them 

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4 minutes ago, gibbon said:

that trademe listing is pickup only unfortunately, you'd think it wouldn't be too hard to post

I'm leaning towards the nzefi coils as they're cheap, local, and do away with the ignitor as well. Just gotta work out where they'd fit! and whether the power FC will be cool with them 

The Vinnyfab kit uses the NZEFI coils

Vinnyfab kit

They also sell just the loom/leads on there own

Vinnyfab Loom/leads

That's a bugger on the TM ones wanting pickup, oldschool freight?

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8 hours ago, gibbon said:

that trademe listing is pickup only unfortunately, you'd think it wouldn't be too hard to post

I'm leaning towards the nzefi coils as they're cheap, local, and do away with the ignitor as well. Just gotta work out where they'd fit! and whether the power FC will be cool with them 

It's worth asking about shipping even though the auction says pick up only, from their feedback it seems like they send things.

What's the worst that can happen?

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the FD coils are decent coil for what they do, and can squeeze decent power before needing to change. yes stock location sucks ass, again, the reason for ditching all the shit under the mani and going link with single churbro 

 

LOL 

getting old yet? 

but these are alll the problems. so much dumb shit has happened with their design but the good news is, with a few blanking plates, vacuum plugs and a bit of time and a bit more cash you can fix it all easily LOL

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1 hour ago, 440bbm said:

the FD coils are decent coil for what they do, and can squeeze decent power before needing to change. yes stock location sucks ass, again, the reason for ditching all the shit under the mani and going link with single churbro 

 

LOL 

getting old yet? 

but these are alll the problems. so much dumb shit has happened with their design but the good news is, with a few blanking plates, vacuum plugs and a bit of time and a bit more cash you can fix it all easily LOL

it really is a bit of an endless rabbit hole right now. $700 for NZEFI coils, but will a powerFC run them? the dwell is different and from 30 seconds of googling it looks like power FC can't adjust dwell. But that's OK, because you can reflash the FC so it can ($$$), oh but the program to allow it only does it through a datalogit ($$$). much easier to just leave it in bits and do something else...

1 hour ago, Nominal said:

It's worth asking about shipping even though the auction says pick up only, from their feedback it seems like they send things.

What's the worst that can happen?

The price is right, I was just hoping to have a set and forget solution rather than hoarding parts of unknown parentage but I'm starting to think it's not worth it, the FD coils ARE good. I've asked him, let's let him decide what I do

As mentioned maybe I will just put my effort into relocating the coils so at least if they crap out and I'm forced to swap and change between old parts of unknown quality, it's a two minute job

 

The typical thing is that you go and spend all this time and money on all these tried-and-true upgrades to get weak links out of the system increase reliability and quality of life, only for a potential buyer to come along one day, kick the tyres and moan that it's barely worth buying because it's been "messed with"

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The shit thing about owning a rotary/any classic car is you inevitably come to a point where you have decide to either go the full Monty or pull back and give it up. Do you like it enough to go the full Monty. Is this FD worth it?

  

You could upgrade from the Power FC to a Link and get smart coils. This also future proofs the car for later mods? All costs $$$

 

 

 

*The series 5 Rx-7 had a (stock) function that if you started the car with your foot flat to the floor on the accelerator it would disable the fuel pump to make it easier to start if it was flooding? Apparently flooding was a huge fault of the Series 4.
Do FD’s have this or is that negated the moment you install an aftermarket computer such as your Power FC?

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36 minutes ago, kiwi808 said:

The shit thing about owning a rotary/any classic car is you inevitably come to a point where you have decide to either go the full Monty or pull back and give it up. Do you like it enough to go the full Monty. Is this FD worth it?

  

You could upgrade from the Power FC to a Link and get smart coils. This also future proofs the car for later mods? All costs $$$

 

 

 

*The series 5 Rx-7 had a (stock) function that if you started the car with your foot flat to the floor on the accelerator it would disable the fuel pump to make it easier to start if it was flooding? Apparently flooding was a huge fault of the Series 4.
Do FD’s have this or is that negated the moment you install an aftermarket computer such as your Power FC?

Factory suggestion since ages ago...

20211007_193310.thumb.jpg.7a9baba6fbd391d1e963a1aaf6937589.jpg

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2 hours ago, kiwi808 said:

The shit thing about owning a rotary/any classic car is you inevitably come to a point where you have decide to either go the full Monty or pull back and give it up. Do you like it enough to go the full Monty. Is this FD worth it?

I'm kinda trying to toe the line, it's already been messed with by virtue of the bodykit so it'll never be a concours machine. But most modifications are also serious upgrades well beyond what I need or want. Even the coil upgrades are touted as being for people who have hit the limits of the stock coils, which again is much faster than I want to be. I just want the car to last, and not be a huge bitch to work on.

ie I started with the wrong car!

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