Hello, and welcome to my build thread! Someone's putting an LS into an RX7?! That's unheard of!
If you've read my introduction, you've already read what this first post is going to consist of.. Which is the story of how I've acquired the car. The first 3 paragraphs are literally copy and paste.
So the story goes that I've wanted an FD RX7 for as long as I can remember. But with all of the rotary horror stories I just wasn't ready to dump all of my money into something that's going to last 20k miles. That was until I heard about LSx swapping. I've been hooked on the idea since. Well, first I pondered back and forth if I'd rather save for a completed car or start from scratch and make the car my own. I decided to build a shell from scratch but abandoned this idea after I couldn't find a shell for a good price and near my location for the life of me.
Fast forward a year later and I decided to go onto craigslist for shits and giggles and low and behold there's an FD with the advertised title of "1992 Supercharged RX-7 like the car from Fast and Furious - $6500" (Keep in mind, the car didn't run.) It turns out, he's not 30 minutes away from where I live. so I decide to call the guy up, get some info and pictures of the car as well as agree on a fair price of $4000 then we arranged a meeting.
I show up that night, and the cars not in as good shape as the pictures made it out to be, who'd have guessed right? The car sat under a tarp for a good while, collecting moisture which made the interior pretty gross. The paints not the best, as it was repainted in its life time by someone who'd never heard of prep. But aside from that, the only actual body damage is a quarter sized dent in the passenger door. I start looking around the car, checking it out and we opened the hood to find that there's a red snake sitting there right under the hood on arch that you bolt the struts to. . That's where I got the user name from haha. Anyway back to the story.. Someone tried to get the rotary running so a few pieces were taken off and missing, such as the Apexi Pods, and battery. I used this as another way to get the price lower. After looking over the car very well thinking if I should buy it or not, I decided to throw him a low ball of $2000 which he bites, so I put the car on the trailer and haul ass.
And now we get to pictures and stuff! Sorry for the potatoish quality. These were pulled off of Instagram as I bought a new phone and lost all of the pictures I had.
That night, we drove the car home and stopped for some food and to get a glory shot of my newly acquired FD that I've sought after forever.
Here's a shot of it next to my girlfriend's Miata all cleaned up. It may not run yet but I'm just happy to have one!
The next night I decide to go and buy a battery and see if everything works and this was the first sign of life from the car, all the lights work but the left light doesn't pop up. But the electrics work so we're getting somewhere! I didn't even give it a honest try to get the rotary going. The previous owner let the car sit. Not because it broke, but because he passed away.. I'll get more to this later.
Some of these pictures I'm posting are really irrelevant but have them anyway haha.
I test fitted some CE28n Replica wheels I had lying around and hated how it looked. Here's a picture!
I also decided to re-do the brakes. I bought new front rotors, and pads. Then made the calipers look brand new. I'm actually pretty proud of how this came out being it was just something I was going to try on a whim. Here's a picture of the calipers before and after I cleaned and painted them.
Here's the last picture of the car with the rotary still inside of it. If you're a rotard.. Look away..
But if you're like me and want nothing to do with this engine, continue on reading!
And the rotary is out! My brother and I knocked this out in a short days work. The process is really shortened with some help.
The picture of my brother standing on the engine is him pulling the harness out from the firewall. Couldn't resist snapping a pic.
Also obligatory rotary-finally-out selfie.
At this point I've already ordered the Hinson Mounting kit, some coilovers (HKS Hypermax III), I picked up some wheels, and Hinsons Headers are on the way as I type this update. I ordered from Hinson without doing much research about the company which is probably pretty dumb on my part.. Shipping took ages but I didn't even have a engine yet so I'm in no rush, and the only gripe I had with them is that after complaining about the terrible way they prep their items for shipping I had no response. At all. The Driveshaft was barely in a box at all, and was packaged poorly as well as the torque arm hanging out of it's box. You'd think they would just throw some wrap around it right..? Anyway I digress.. Here's a shot of some RPF1s I picked up for a steal!
Now here's where the story got momentarily sad. Like I mentioned before, the previous owner had passed away. This meant that the title was still in his name, and an Affidavit of Heirship needed to be written up and signed by bother parties. This meant that the guy's wife, and all four of his kids had to sign a piece of paper saying that they all agree to sell the car to me. The problem is that all of the kids had full time jobs, and full time class as well as me working my full time 60+ Hr a week job. This made it REALLY hard to get everyone in the same place a the same time. Especially since the wife wasn't being very cooperative. I had almost given up and parted the car out to save face. I don't think that would have even been legal.. The car sat for 4 months until she called me out of the blue one day and asked if I was free one day of that week. I wasn't.. But I took off work so I could be. We finally got it all done, and the clean title is in my possession and the build can go on! Bonus shot of my dad's 1100 HP 67 Camaro.
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This is sort of a budget build and i'll be keeping tally on the build thread of money I've spent on the car so far.
*Below will be constantly Updated as I progress into the build.*
Parts List:
5.7L LS1 $1500
F Body Camaro LS1 Harness Modified by Hinson $300
Black Billet Door Handles $100
Hinson LSx Mounting Kit $1700
Hinson Headers $600
HKS Coilovers $800
RPF1s wrapped in 0 mile BF Goodrich Sport Comp 2's $700
Battery and new Terminals $160 (Will probably buy a smaller battery for relocation)
Front Brake revamp $150
Total: $ 8010 including the $2000 for the car.
Parts I still need to acquire:
Justin Samberg's radiator kit. (It's a bit pricey but it really looks worth it.)
4L60e (If anyone has any insight on how to build these to hold more power, it'd be appreciated.)
Seats (Be it OEM or bucket, I need new ones.)
Headlight lids
I don't have any sort of deadline, as that's how you set yourself up for failure. This will take a long time, and I'm okay with that.
