1989 Mazda RX-7 with 350 Chev power

[Biker Dude]

I've been working on this car for awhile now on and off as I have the time and money and today I finally got it running good enough to take it for a test beat. It goes pretty good and the 700R4 trans matches well with the 4.10 gears in the car. It will chirp second and is quite impressive for a stock 185 hp TBI motor. Anyway, I got a little cocky and wanted to try whipping it around in an intersection and that didn't go so well. It spun for a few feet and then the wheel heeled over and it plowed towards the ditch. I got out and looked and the top of the drivers side tire was out about 3 inches so I carefully backed it up and gingerly drove it back to the shop to see what had bent or broke.

The entire strut mount has ripped almost completely off of the strut! There is only the tiniest tab of rusty metal holding the spindle onto that strut and when I saw that I fell to my knees and praised Jesus for saving me from the disastrous consequences of my stupidity. If it had broken completely it could have trashed that whole corner of the car. The sad thing is that I know better than to thrash a car like that without a thorough inspection first but I was so excited to be driving it I acted stupidly. So now It's time to check over every inch of the suspension and replace the rusty stuff before I can go out for another drive.
Don't you just hate when that happens?

 

[wigglesworth]

DUDE!!!! God is good to you. That would have been death if you was rolling down the highway. God is good.

 

[Biker Dude]

Well I got her back together again and it looks like both struts were rusted almost all the way through so It's a good thing it broke 1/4 mile from my shop while sitting still instead of on the highway. Here's what she looks like.

I still need to put some heavier springs under the front end but at least I can drive her over the weekend.

 

[warjohn]

You are gonna have fun with that car. My son built one with an LT1 350 and 150 shot of nitrous. It was incredible to drive. Unfortunately he sold it to fund a 67 chevy pickup which he never finished. He started regretting selling it as soon as it left the driveway.

 

[Biker Dude]

I'm already having fun with it! There is a point in any big project when you are so sick of working on it that you have to push yourself onward. That was me before my first test drive but now I have been driving it around I'm psyched to work on it. Just today I cleaned up the wiring and put it all in loom, got all the gauges working, and wired up a heated oxygen sensor so it can stay in closed loop at idle. Tomorrow I'll massage the floor pan a little because the header flanges hit while under acceleration transferring some annoying vibrations into the cabin. Next on the agenda is mating the GM trans to the Mazda speedo cable and changing the Mazda vehicle speed sensor signal to interface with the GM computer. Then it's on to shorter tires up front and new heavier springs to give me some front suspension travel. It still has a long way to go yet but being able to drive it is worth all the effort. I couldn't imagine an LT1 with a 150 NOS shot, a 230 horse RX-7 is plenty enough for me.

 

[warjohn]

It is a lot easier to stay motivated when you can drive it some and not just work on it.

 

[boltonranger]

Glad you're ok!

Looks like a fun project BDude!
Enjoy.
-br

 

[Biker Dude]

Thanks, I am definitely liking it as I work out all the kinks and bugs and get her purring down the road. I showed it to a buddy of mine this morning and he said he had a set of vortec heads he would give me to help wake the motor up a bit. In order to use them I'll need to buy an aftermarket vortec intake and matching cam to go with it but that should add 30 more horse and it will give me the excuse to get a new chip made for the TBI computer. This is really starting to get fun!

Here's the engine compartment after cleaning up the wiring and putting it all in loom.

 

[Wildman1024]

Gotta get the shoe horn to get that thing in there! I prefer to keep the rotary in my rx-7's.

 

[Biker Dude]

Yeah, me too until it spits an apex seal out the exhaust and I have to spend a grand in parts to rebuild it AGAIN!

I love the rotary as long as it is running good but the S4/S5 motor is pretty touchy to keep running reliably for any period of time and forget getting more than 100K miles out of a T2 motor.

There is way more room in my 7 than there is in a Camaro with an LT-1.

 

[pete355]

That's looking like it's going to be a real fun toy. I built a couple of V-8 Vegas years ago and that RX-7 is just a sportier looking, higher tech version of them. I'm working on an old school style street/strip '69 Nova now, but I would love to build another Vega, or anything small for that matter with a V-8. Nothing quite like surprising someone with gobs of tire smoke in what they thought was a slow car.
Do yourself one favor though...ditch that aircleaner before it burns your car to the ground. I almost lost a '68 Camaro to one of those, and then I didn't learn my lesson the first time and almost lost a Vega as well. They are nice because they fit in tight spaces, but they are notorious for catching fire. It would be a shame to put that much work into it and have anything happen to it.

 

[Biker Dude]

There was a senior in high school who had a 350 powered vega when I was a sophomore and he was the king of cool in the parking lot. His girlfriend rode my bus and she was a cutie for sure. One night he rolled the car into the ditch at 100 mph plus and killed his girlfriend and from then on V8 vegas scared the hell out of me. I built one with a Buick V6 in it and it went pretty good until the unibody rusted out.

Do yourself one favor though...ditch that aircleaner before it burns your car to the ground.

Yep, I'm with you on that one. It is just a temporary patch so that I can drive the car for now. I intend to fab up an intake snorkel and a remote K&N cone filter in a cold air box where the battery sits now but I have to relocate the battery to the back first.

She is sitting in the shop on jack stands right now because I sent the driveshaft out to be rebalanced and I'm adjusting the drive-line angles to remove a vibration I have above 45 mph. I just scored a posi carrier off of feebay for cheap and I'm going to put it in my spare diff and swap it into the car. That should help me hook up immensely or at least make drifting a lot easier.

I'm working on an old school style street/strip '69 Nova now.

Oldschool Novas are cool, any pics? There was blown 72 running around St Croix a couple of years back and he showed up to a couple of street racing meets we had out in the country. He wouldn't race anyone but he did runs all by himself and when that 6-71 blower spooled up I got goose bumps!

 

[wood4heat]

This thread brings back memories. I once stuffed a 350 in an '87 toyota 4X4. I also had an RX7 at one time. Sold and miss both but sometimes still over the Chevota.

 

[pete355]

That's a bummer about your friend...I lost a few buddies due to fast cars or fast bikes and driving/riding over their heads. My Vegas were evil handling as well...it's amazing what a few more inches of wheelbase will acomplish.

Here are the only pics of the Nova I have on my computer right now...she's not much to look at but she is fast and fun.

I built a 355" small block with old 2.02 Corvette heads, a .550 Comp Cam, Victor Jr. intake, Holley 650, Hooker Super Comp headers and an NOS plate system. It's got a Turbo 350 with a Trans-Go shift kit and adjustable modulator and a TCI 3500 converter. The rear end is a 12 bolt out of a Chevelle with an Eaton posi, Richmond 3.73 pro Gears and a Strange Engineering C-clip eliminator kit. I had to cut the leaf spring mounts off the Nova's original 10 bolt and weld them onto the 12 bolt, and I welded the axle tubes to the center section too. It's got a full 3" exhaust with Flowmaster Deltaflow 40 mufflers and a crossover pipe.
Now I need to do the body and paint...not looking forward to that!

 

[Biker Dude]

Yeah baby, Yeah!
That is 1 tuff looking Nova but I gotta say you need to lose those rims. There was a Federal law passed that said you could only run Keystone Classics, Cragar SS, or aluminum slots on built Novas. If you put a set of slots on that baby it would be just like high school again. I love that classic muscle as much as I love a good ricer stomping sleeper, maybe even more.

If I was going to do up an old muscle car it would have to be a 1st gen Monte Carlo, I have always liked the flow of those cars.

Almost as cool as the 69 Eldorado but rear wheel drive for better powerslides

This thread brings back memories. I once stuffed a 350 in an '87 toyota 4X4. I also had an RX7 at one time. Sold and miss both but sometimes still cry over the Chevota.

I would have liked to see the Chevota in action, I'll bet you flung some merciless mud with that unit. How in the world did you keep the drivetrain from exploding?

 

[pete355]

I had a set of Cragars I wanted to run on here, but I lent them to a buddy who managed to launch his car over a curb...it wiped out 1 rear and 1 front rim.
I also have a set of black nascar style American Racing rims that look like the ones on that Monte Carlo you posted. They give it a mean road racer look, but they only have 205's on them so it lowers the gear ratio a bunch.
Montes are cool...I just built a 350/TH350 combo for a friends '70 Monte. It's a sweet ride, power everything, gold with a black vinyl top.

 

[wood4heat]

I would have liked to see the Chevota in action, I'll bet you flung some merciless mud with that unit. How in the world did you keep the drivetrain from exploding?

It was a sand rig, had it in the snow a couple times but the most fun was at the dunes. Drop the tires down to 14psi and point it up the hills, had paddles on it a few times as well. Damn I miss the sound of that motor wound up and sand flying 100' behind me! And I miss the parking lots, you're gonna love seeing peoples heads snap around when you fire up your little rice burner and it goes BRAAAP BAP BAP BAP BAP!!!

It had a turbo350 tranny and shortened Ford 9" rear end. The transfer case and front axle were both stock Toyota but held up well.

 

[Chris Crouse]

Are those Mustang wheels? I like them on the RX-7. They are different and look really nice. I hate those wheels on the Mustang though.

 

[Biker Dude]

1996 Mustang GT wheels, at least that was what I was told. I like them too but I would rather have plain center caps instead of horsey ones. I'm sure they are available but that's pretty low on the priorities list. I still have to figure out how to mate the Mazda speedo cable to the GM trans and get a VSS signal to my computer. I got the driveshaft back from the balance shop this afternoon so Tomorrow morning I'll get to see if the balancing and driveline angle tweaking got rid of the vibration.