Mazda Savanna RX-7 - Series 3 turbo

rx4rx7 · **Posted:** Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:57 pm

look's good Ed, just need to sort that rubber wing some how! why rebuild the cylinder's?
autostop have them on the shelf

Nar · **Posted:** Tue Jun 12, 2012 3:40 pm

Dude i love your car! Such and epic build thread. Glad you stuck with it man, good luck with the spoiler! :tu:

beans161 · **Posted:** Wed Jun 13, 2012 2:25 am

Could we see some shots of the engine bay if it is still in stardard form? :wink:

Orion · **Posted:** Thu Jun 28, 2012 12:41 am

Nar wrote:

Dude i love your car! Such and epic build thread. Glad you stuck with it man, good luck with the spoiler! :tu:

Cheers! This has been a long time coming. But at long last the Rx is properly road legal.

Happy Ed is happy. Just need to find an excuse to take it out of the shed more often.

Next on the cards is to give it a service since it hasn't actually had one yet. Headed down to my local BNT to purchase four new spark plugs. Even after valued customer discount I still got stung $19.50 each... geez, bloody rotaries and their expensive consumables!

I'm thinking a comprehensive service is in order, i.e. belts/fluids/oil/filters, posibly diff and gearbox oils if I feel exceptionally generous. Although... maybe I should do the pompous thing and take it to the Mazda dealer ?

It'd sure look good on paper! "Meticulously dealer serviced", etc etc.

rx4rx7 wrote:

look's good Ed, just need to sort that rubber wing some how! why rebuild the cylinder's?
autostop have them on the shelf

Do they? That's awesome, might give them a call. BNT said my best bet was to have the cylinders rebuilt as their system lists them as NLA.

I was thinking of dropping by the plastic repair place which fixed up the front valance on my MR2 to see if they had any ideas. How bad is the spoiler on your S3?

beans161 wrote:

Could we see some shots of the engine bay if it is still in stardard form? :wink:

Sure, I'll grab some next time I'm out in the shed. Although the most common thing you'll notice is the over-abundance of vacuum lines... :lol:

Camshaft · **Posted:** Thu Jun 28, 2012 11:01 am

Yay! Now get some pictures of it out on the road to prove that it really is legal after all this time. :wink:

rx4rx7 · **Posted:** Thu Jun 28, 2012 12:57 pm

Give Morgan a call at otahuhu, make sure you get the correct thread, there's fine and course threads to choose from.
as for the spoiler my painter thinks a rubberised paint of some kind might work, mine has a rough broken surface, it hasn't been vandalised like yours

rx7cblink · **Posted:** Sat Sep 01, 2012 1:46 am

Orion wrote:

That's a shame about the GSL-SE rx7cblink - I guess the photos made it look tidier than it actually was!

As for mine, the carpet clampdown rail arrived from Rotary Response (one of the wreckers I tried the other week).

here it is with the rear carpet section.

But there's a slight problem with the rail. Can you tell what it is?

Turns out the 1979-80 rail differs in length from the 1981-85 North American models, which is a bit infuriating/my fault for not checking it out with the seller beforehand. Time to find the correct part (which won't be easy) and figure out what to do with the wrong one. Could almost be forced to resell it on eBay as virtually no one in NZ will be needing one

In the meantime, I've been tinkering late into the night over the last few weeks with the audio build and it's now just about done. Made a passive attenuator circuit to bring the auxiliary input down to a manageable level, and assembled everything together yesterday afternoon.

Final bench test:

Started pulling apart more of the interior today; took some measurements for stereo brackets, found a couple of hidey holes for the amps, and ensured the cabling wouldn't get in the way of anything. Also removed most of the existing stereo plugs/wiring which I will re-crimp and tidy up during the week.

Made up some brackets to hold the components in the centre console; attempted a trial fit:

I think that'll do nicely.

Hey Orion here are some updated pics of what i have done so far.

http://i718.photobucket.com/albums/ww18 ... G_2973.jpg

amber88 · **Joined:** Wed Oct 17, 2012 8:34 pm **Posts:** 1

Hi, I noticed the last post was a few months ago but I thought Id ask anyway, my 84 12a Turbo is missing a couple of the original badges and also the original rubbery spoiler. Any idea where I can pick some up? I thought Japan since it was only really released there although I did try last time I was up there and no one really knew what I was on about..more to the point though I dont even know which one are the correct badges for my car, I found the old Japanese brochure online but Ive no clue if its the turbo GT, turbo GTX, turbo SE-Limited, 6PI GT, 6PI GTX or 6PI SE-Limited. Im sure it must be either a GT or SE-limited as thats what most people have said but no one seems to know for sure, any help would be great, thanks!!

Orion · **Posted:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 3:01 pm

amber88 wrote:

Hi, I noticed the last post was a few months ago but I thought Id ask anyway, my 84 12a Turbo is missing a couple of the original badges and also the original rubbery spoiler. Any idea where I can pick some up? I thought Japan since it was only really released there although I did try last time I was up there and no one really knew what I was on about..more to the point though I dont even know which one are the correct badges for my car, I found the old Japanese brochure online but Ive no clue if its the turbo GT, turbo GTX, turbo SE-Limited, 6PI GT, 6PI GTX or 6PI SE-Limited. Im sure it must be either a GT or SE-limited as thats what most people have said but no one seems to know for sure, any help would be great, thanks!!

The badges and spoiler come up for sale (second hand) very rarely on Yahoo Auctions Japan. Fellow forum member rx4rx7 bought a spoiler which was listed a few months back, and I bought some badges in good condition - check one of my earlier posts in this thread - about two years ago but haven't seen any since. Other than that I don't really have any suggestions, they're NLA from Mazda, and nothing usually comes up on eBay. What country are you based in?

The trim grade of your Rx-7 will be determined by a number of things, as a guideline here are the main differences, although some vehicles will have had extras optioned from the factory:

GT = grey interior, vinyl and cloth seats, flat vinyl door cards, wind-up windows, no rear wiper.
GT-X = grey or maroon interior, full cloth/suede seats, moulded vinyl and cloth door cards, electric windows, rear wiper.
SE-Ltd = brown interior, full leather seats, moulded leather door cards, electric windows, rear wiper.

Sunroof was optional on GT-X and SE-Ltd as far as I can remember, and other little extras such as cruise control. Also the turbo and 6PI are distinctly different engines (the former has a 4-port intake and the latter is 6-port)

otherwise post some photos and/or start a thread and I'm sure we can identify it. Hope this helps

jdmrx2 · **Posted:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 3:27 pm

Great job on finding all the bits to make up the period correct audio system. Those components suit the car beautifully and I bet it sounds great with the huge tuning scope available with the equaliser. Love it !!

Orion · **Posted:** Sun Nov 04, 2012 1:03 am

Gave the RX-7 a service (new oil, plugs and filters) before our club's weekend cruise to Leadfoot Ranch, home of the legendary Rod Millen, championship winning racecar driver (and erstwhile rotary pilot!)

Had a minor heart attack when the BUR9EQ trailing plugs turned out to not be the correct ones for the car, due to the solid tip terminals which were too large for the factory ignition leads - but thanks to the quick action of another club member, a pair of BR9EQ-14s with stud-type terminals was sourced post-haste from a crowd up here in Auckland and the car was ready for the cruise with plenty of time to spare by the end of Friday.

Cheers Chris! (and I feel slightly embarrassed after skiting about how easy it supposedly was to find plugs for this thing...)

Here are the BR9EQ-14s with removable terminals... apparently some of the very last in the country. I got the part number, therefore stockpiling a few more is in order!

The Leadfoot Cruise turned out to be a trouble-free and ridiculously fun (albeit thirsty) round trip and weekend away, and also the car's first proper open road outing since the run to Taupo in 2010 for the RR trackday, which gave me a chance to identify whether anything else required looking at on the car.

And the answer is... wheel alignment. Then it will really shine on the twisty Coromandel roads.

A couple of rolling photos of the car on the cruise down. Cheers to Automotive Culture for these!

You can also see my DR30 Skyline coupe further along in the convoy, being piloted by a friend for the weekend.

I had the privilege of briefly speaking to Rod himself at the Leadfoot Ranch, and while I never actually got around to asking him any technical questions about the 4WD setup in his famous SA22C RX-7 (which successfully competed in the 1980s SCCA Pro Rally Championship series), it was nevertheless awesome and somewhat humbling to see him taking the time to answer various questions and shoot the breeze with so many of us!

The RX-7 in question:

One highlight of the Leadfoot Cruise was the chance to take our cars for a quick fang along Rod's famous mile-long driveway, featuring a neat little hillclimb section. Here's my effort:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 2BC7HrcVLg

And a quick snap back at our accommodation along the beachfront in Tairua later that evening:

Looking forward to crossing off the remaining few items on the list-o'-shit-to-do before summer is in full swing.

Orion · **Posted:** Sat Mar 16, 2013 2:52 pm

No one seems to be paying attention, but sometimes it's fixing the little things that count:

Yes, the air-conditioning lives again. Took it around to an A/C guy recommended by a friend who re-lubricated the compressor and re-gassed it with R-12 (yes, you can still do that here) and it came right within 20 minutes.

Lush!

Still to be done:

timmy201 · **Posted:** Tue Mar 19, 2013 1:25 am

I really like the rear beaver panel. Pretty much the ideal RX7!

errolae92 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:06 pm

nice mazda!!

great condition of this RX7

ioTus · **Posted:** Thu Apr 18, 2013 11:41 am

Love that stereo! Well love the entire build actually.

I have an '84 GSL-SE, came with no stereo. I found a factory Clarion stack with the tuner, tape deck, and EQ. I haxored in 2 RCA line-level inputs into the tape deck, and wired up some 6-pin DIN-to-RCA outputs to connect it all to a 700w 5-channel JL amp. I only listen to music on my iPhone, so this works great!

To anyone that claims old school stereo equipment sucks - you're wrong

this is the loudest, clearest sound system i've ever heard - and looks bone stock!

There's a reason that you can go into stereo hifi shops and pay $250 for a used amplifier from the 70's or 80's.... yeah they really were / are that good. Sure, today's equipment may be more efficient, with a bit less circuitry / line noise, but audio quality has been around for quite some time now.

Mazda Savanna RX-7 - Series 3 turbo

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