1984 RX7 12a turbo GT

derek · **Posted:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:39 am

great looking refresh!

question for you: is there a way to tell the difference between the turbo transmission and the non turbo transmission for this car/engine?

Orion · **Posted:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 3:09 pm

derek wrote:

is there a way to tell the difference between the turbo transmission and the non turbo transmission for this car/engine?

12AT gearboxes have a vent on the bellhousing, similar to the later 13B turbo ones.

jdmrx2 · **Posted:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 3:29 pm

Did you just clean up the fan, or paint it? Or is it NOS one.engine looks good enough to eat off!

derek · **Posted:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 5:24 pm

Thanks orion. Unfortunately the trans that came with my 12at has no vent. Just a grommet at the bottom.

rx4rx7 · **Posted:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:31 pm

As per what Orion said, there's a vent on the side

and no the fan isn't new it's just in very good nic and had a good clean
and i have given the viscous a very light bead blast so it looks like natural alloy,

i've now stripped one side of the engine bay of all things that can be plated or painted,
needs a serious clean now!

and another box of bits off to plating

derek · **Posted:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:36 pm

nuts. my trans def doesnt have that.
oh well..

great build btw

rx4rx7 · **Posted:** Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:03 pm

nothing major has happened by i thought i'd put up an update anyway.
i'm waiting on a number of bits to come back from painting before i can continue.
box of bits back from plating

cleaned up and installed

The pic's don't look very good but i've tried to clean up the rubber components the best i could
but i was getting no where, so the last thing i tried worked, made them come up like new(ish)

before

after

next was to open the gearbox and find out what the gold dust was in the oil,
here's what happened

the rear driveshaft support bearing got chewed out by the yoke!

so the plan now is to put that one in the spare's department and use a much better
one, this is why i have many parts, you never know when you will need them!

rx4rx7 · **Posted:** Mon Dec 03, 2012 12:24 pm

i've been waiting on parts, painting and plating to come back so i can continue and try to get this back together by the end of the year, and i think i will get about 90% done with the rest over the holiday break.

The spare gearbox wasn't as good as i had thought it to be, so i pulled apart the original and it turned out to be not so bad after all, a few new bearings and swapped the rear support bearing, new seals and it's all done.

and some bits for plating

i don't know what this thing does but i couldn't leave it like that

and i had a go at restoring some other stuff

these are the original oil cooler hose

thats all for now, still waiting on one engine mount and then it will all go together,
in the mean time i have started on this

thanks for looking, should have some complete pics soon

mattallac · **Posted:** Mon Dec 03, 2012 6:21 pm

great build , love 12a turbos.

rx4rx7 · **Posted:** Sun Dec 09, 2012 12:13 pm

i've got a few more things done in the past week or so, i thought the throttle body could be a bit tricky but it turn out not to bad, looks harder than it is (to me anyway)

next up is for the new engine to meet it's resting place, sitting on new engine mounts as well, the mounts are not the same, the left hand is about 10mm taller than the other and if you have one you will find that it is stuffed and hitting the safety bump stop

that's it for now, just changing the fuel filter before i forget and then i'm off to have knee surgery, so not much is going to happen in the next few weeks.
Thanks for looking, if you want pics of anything else just post a reply

banzaitoyota · **Posted:** Sun Dec 09, 2012 8:24 pm

Looking good

rx4rx7 · **Posted:** Wed Dec 19, 2012 10:26 pm

thanks for that,
just putting everything back together, changed the fuel filter which is at least 5 years old and was very black inside,
should be ready to start very soon, just need to finish off a few things.

yes there is an engine under there somewhere!

rx-7 chris · **Posted:** Wed Dec 26, 2012 2:38 pm

That is very impressive. I never realized how close the motor is to the 84-85 GSL-SE.

Camshaft · **Posted:** Thu Dec 27, 2012 5:49 pm

Nothing I love more than a super clean engine bay.

Nice work so far!

beans161 · **Posted:** Sun Dec 30, 2012 2:47 pm

So neat!! Love it.

Can I ask what you did to refresh the plenum to get it so orange and no chips in the wrinkle paint.. I have a couple for my car and want it looking like new if I can?
Cheers in advance

rx4rx7 · **Posted:** Sun Dec 30, 2012 7:14 pm

Thanks for the good comments guy's.
beans: this is the original one from this engine and it has some paint missing that you can't see in the pics, all i've done is cleaned it with some household cleaner and hoped for the best, i'm working on getting some wrinkle paint made up but it is becoming very hard to do.

As it stands now the engine bay is complete, everything is done but it won't start!
i have gone over everything three times and cannot find the problem, it has spark and a fresh battery, the dizzy is working, there's fuel in the tank but it is getting to much fuel (flooding) i've changed the fuel pressure regs and the injectors are reco'd but i still don't know!
can anyone help?

jace · **Posted:** Tue Jan 01, 2013 4:31 am

can't help. just wanted to say how amazing this is and i'm stoked to see you going for total OEM purity. It's a thing of beauty (and probably greater expense than modifying!)

with all that plating you had done you may as well have bought yourself a plating kit. I have a Caswell electro-plating kit in the shed that i'm yet to set up, i bought it to do black passivate Zinc-plating on bolts for 2/3-piece wheels that need extra protection. it'll be handy to have for all facets of restoration though i think.

I can relate on the whole "why the f*ck isn't it starting?!" thing, i've been there many times and it usually comes down to something simple and just requires perseverance.

keep it up and thanks for sharing!

gypsy · **Posted:** Wed Jan 02, 2013 3:38 am

Not sure if this helps you but I had the seat belt metal covers power coated in a wrinkle finish to match the original plastic coating (which was removed). I can't see why you couldn't do the same on the plenum. Take a look at my seat belt update. You'd get it pretty close to original looking.

rx-7 chris · **Posted:** Wed Jan 02, 2013 9:02 am

rx4rx7 wrote:

As it stands now the engine bay is complete, everything is done but it won't start!
i have gone over everything three times and cannot find the problem, it has spark and a fresh battery, the dizzy is working, there's fuel in the tank but it is getting to much fuel (flooding) i've changed the fuel pressure regs and the injectors are reco'd but i still don't know!
can anyone help?

It sounds like either the reco injectors are sticking open or the computer is telling them to stay open.

rx4rx7 · **Posted:** Wed Jan 02, 2013 3:24 pm

Thanks guy's for the help,

gypsy: i have never thought of powder coating, i will check it out tho

rx-7 chris: i am hoping that it isn't the injectors, to remove them i need to remove the whole engine because they are trapped by the inlet manifold which is trapped by the turbo which is trapped by the steering box, so it can't be worked on in the car, but thanks for your help, is there anything else you can think of?

1984 RX7 12a turbo GT

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