I'll be hunting for the boxes for you, then.

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-Cam
1980 Toyota Celica
1984 Porsche 911
1988 Mazda RX7

I think... Now my memory is foggy... But I think that the North American spec '84-'85 RX-7's were available with a light grey, maroon, blue or brown interior colours. Yours look more on the black side. I know the '79-80 car were available in black. I'm not sure about the '81-83's. I'll do some digging as well. If we can narrow down what production years had black interiors over here it might help in the search.

Cheers

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Kickin' a little asphalt

1985 Mazda RX-7 GSL

http://www.themotoringenthusiastjournal.com
http://www.facebook.com/TheMotoringEnthusiastJournal

This might be a good resource for you...

http://foxed.ca/foxed/index.php?page=rx7manual#firstgen

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Kickin' a little asphalt

1985 Mazda RX-7 GSL

http://www.themotoringenthusiastjournal.com
http://www.facebook.com/TheMotoringEnthusiastJournal

Nice find! Bookmarked az

my interior trim is charcoal/dark grey. The closest matching North American colour I've seen is this '85 GSL-SE reference photo from RE4Life in "off-black"

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And so the gathering of parts for the 2-seater conversion begins...

Found a complete rear carpet section in the right colour going for cheap on eBay. Promptly bought and had it shipped down under - freight ended up costing more than the item. At least it only took 14 days to arrive:



One item down, everything else to go. A listing for a pair of rear trim panels has appeared, but the seller claims that shipping to NZ is going to be phenomenal - easily over $100US.

at the rate this is going, I don't see my car being back on the road this year unless I fly over to the States and hand pick the rest of the parts myself.

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wery nice car
im wondering, how is the power delivery on that engine? how lov does the boost/power/pull kick in? i have the choise of putting either a stock 12a turbo or an FC turbo on my 12a, but i dont know what would suit the car best.
im not going for big numbers, just more pullingpower (12a na is a bit to weak in my rx4 wagon)

The stock 12AT HT18S-BM "Impact Turbo" has great low down and midrange torque, it's fully on boost by about 2000rpm with a nice flat acceleration curve all the way to about 5500rpm but falls off dramatically after that. My car still has the stock exhaust and cat converters as well, which makes this more pronounced.

so yes to "pulling power" but definitely no to high rpm big boost numbers.

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hmm, sounds perfect for my needs then the wagon is no racecar, so capping of alittle top end rpm doesnt mather that much.
i gues the power dropoff would come in later with a free flowing straight exhaust?`
do you know if the manifold is compatible with the FC turbine? (if i should fancy som more "umpfh" down the line

A free flowing exhaust would probably lessen the sharpness of the power dropoff, and an intercooler would help as well. you'd probably still find yourself revving to 7000rpm anyway, as is usually the case with rotary engines

Yep, both the SA and FC turbos share the same T3 flange. FC turbo is watercooled for extra longevity but nothing a bypass line won't fix.

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Sad about the repair and compliance issue

but the signs were there at auction - why it had no pillar badges and bumper sticker and certainly the price was probably too good to be true for an unmolested

interior have you tried Madatrix in LA - they used to have a whole pile of 1st gens out the back

▲►▼◄

you must resist all urges to modify
at the track you will see +70”C at the intake
HKS in the day did a kit to do away with the orange top hat and allowed an intercooler to be plumbed in

▲►▼◄

12AT SOUND

▲►▼◄

Yeah the signs were there, but I took some bad advice, got burned, learnt my lesson, and now only buy parts and vehicles through a friend in Japan that I trust completely.

None of the parts places/rotary wreckers in the USA have returned any of my emails so far. Have tried to get relatives over there to contact a few wreckers directly, but they get too easily confused over what to ask, being non-car people. I think a few expensive international toll calls directly from here will be the only way to get things moving.

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I'll help out. Send me a PM. I don't mind calling people.

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-Cam
1980 Toyota Celica
1984 Porsche 911
1988 Mazda RX7

/me casts Scroll of Resurrection on this thread...

Over the last few months the starter in the RX-7 became more and more hesitant, and eventually began making a loud THACK-THACK-THACK noise instead of engaging as normal. Naturally I assumed the solenoid or the brushes had decided to crap themselves.

Final straw came when the starter wouldn't even do anything at all with the key held to START, so I ended up pulling it out at 9pm on a Sunday night in pitch black darkness with the help of a friend (thank the gods for the flashlight on my trusty HTC Desire Z)

Sent it off to get bench tested by a sparky friend, prognosis came back that it was the mintest RX-7 starter he'd ever seen and no fault could be found. Advised I should try running a juicier cable from the starter ground to the chassis, and/or cleaning the contacts.

Refitted starter on the weekend, followed his advice - hey presto, it engages mint! And the car no longer sounds like it has zero compression when turning over anymore. Celebrated by doing a skid/taking it for a drive for the first time in ages.

Next on the list is to replace the clutch master cylinder, which has been MacGyvering along with a plastic shim for the last year or so.

Trawl the eBay errday for the rear interior parts, still nada, zip, zilch. Actually, a rear carpet hold-down clamp just got listed (it's the thin metal rail that runs along the ridge behind the storage boxes, see last post above) but it's useless without the section that contains the boxes; will still buy it anyway if the seller quotes shipping to lil' ol' NZ and it's not phenomenally expensive.

Xmas is coming, perhaps it's time to get some new shoes? Banana still looks choice on the 15" Profs, but the tyres are eventually going to be swapped onto the Buddyclubs that are going on the AW11, so looking to downsize to 14s (if I can find some ok tyres).

Longchamps are cool but may be a little overdone already.



ooorrrrrrrrr...



/basically this?

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Probably not worthy of its own update, but I purchased and fitted a stock Series 3 front number plate mount.

Gives it far less of a "toothy grin" look, but I'm still not 100% sure whether I prefer it this way or not.



versus



It'll probably grow on me!

So basically I could buy a brand new clutch master tomorrow, install it, change the diff oil, re-gas the A/C, and drive this thing over summer... but the lack of rear storage bin componentry which hinders its ability to get a WOF is the one major setback to the plan.

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Well I don't know if this helps your situation but here is a rear carpet kit. Unfortunately no storage bins...

http://www.blackdragonauto.com/icatalog/zr/full.aspx?Page=76

Good luck!

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Kickin' a little asphalt

1985 Mazda RX-7 GSL

http://www.themotoringenthusiastjournal.com
http://www.facebook.com/TheMotoringEnthusiastJournal

Thanks for the link, but I already have the carpet.

It's everything else that I still need.

have managed to get photos of all the correct parts, just a matter of finding a place that has enough brains/initiative to collect and send them.

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WHAT IS THIS? an update?

Towards the end of last year I found a listing on ebay for the rear storage compartments, and immediately hit "buy now" as I was fairly sure I wouldn't get another chance for an eternity. After some to-ing and fro-ing between myself and the seller, and a couple of long distance phone calls, I convinced him to sell me the rest of the rear interior parts, and he seemed to understand exactly which items I was after, so fingers crossed he a) actually goes thru with the deal and b) sends all the parts!

of course the next hurdle is getting all the items to NZ without spending a metric crapton on shipping!



Got back from holiday this week and none of my friends seemed interested in hanging out, so I went down to the lockup and started readying the RX-7 for the eventual 2-seater conversion.

First, out came the rear seats (and boot floor carpet, which I didn't take a photo of). Trust me, you wouldn't want to sit in the back anyway:



Carpet and seats out. The luggage straps come in handy. Also, look at that little space saver tyre



then I removed the seat retaining clips. You guys in the States never got these obviously!



then the rear boot panels/wheel arch covers. Again, different from USDM spec in that they contain cutouts with a rubber gasket for the retaining clip mounts.



It was at this point that I discovered the previous owner had screwed the speakers directly to the boot panels instead of to the mounting points on the body of the vehicle ergo, some careful cutting and re-soldering of the wiring will take place once I purchase some bullet connectors.

in this photo you can also see where the rear seat retaining clips bolt to the body.



in the end I just decided to leave the boot panels for the nonce. Voila, one (mostly) stripped RX-7 rear interior.



observant folks will notice the front seats aren't factory. the original driver's side requires some upholstery repair, so I found some FC3S Infini II seats for a reasonable price and installed them instead.

Contrary to initial apprehension, the FC seats don't look as out of place as I feared - the colour blends in well enough with the grey vinyl, and the fabric trim pattern is generic enough to be unobtrusive

I'd like to think my next update will be with the 2-seater interior all fitted and the car completely road-legal, but we shall see. Made some good progress with my vintage audio AUX-in project over the break, so I have a good feeling it will be ready for installation before the interior parts arrive.

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Well after being ripped off on eBay, I'm seriously considering cutting my losses, putting the standard 4-seater interior back into this, and selling up.

It's unbelievable how utterly frustrating it can be trying to deal with people on that site when you're not actually based in North America.

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