New Guy with 89 Rx7 NOT stock

[sciff5]

Hey guys just wanted to check in. I found out about this place from Reklessracing.net although I have yet to meet anyone over there. I am just trying to find some locals who enjoy cars as much as I do.

I have an 89 GTU that I've been working on , on and off for 2 years. Its been a hell of a journey and I just took it for its first spin the other day and took a vid. It idles rough because I lost a couple rotors.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/Ls1-Rx7-First-Drive-Open_186941.htm

[MaxTitration]

to put it simply- Bad Ass.

[d3ad1ysp0rk]

Hahahah ****in sick man!

[NHPorsche]

^ What he said.


I love that body style RX-7. My cousin used to have a 7, twin turbo setup. I think it was the older body style but I was little so I don't remember. I've heard stories about it though lol.

Let's see some more vids?

[g20sleeperjdm]

thats sick dude

[RichGTS]

very nice! welcome!

[JDM_J0kER]

sweeet seven welcome to the forum

[sciff5]

thanks guys, this is the only vid I really have of the car so far. Like I said what you saw on the vid is the only time I've driven it.

If everything goes well I'll be bringing it to get the exhaust done on thursday

But even so I still have lots of stuff to do before it'll be on the road driving around.

[NHPorsche]

Bah, you can't let little things like having no exhaust bother you

Keep us updated man, I wanna see some real pulls when this is done!

[AmmoCan]

i just got a woody

[Matt Musto]

welcome!

[sciff5]

The only other vids I have of the car are these

First start up

http://www.race2ube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=af599e06ad9bf1ba03cb&page=1&viewtype=&category=mr

And an out take from that same day when I posted the first video. I took this vid and the car wouldent start. Turned out the maf wasnt tightened onto the intake and fell off.. with no input from MAF the car doesnt like to idle.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/Couldent-keep-the-ls1-rx7_186940.htm

[OVRBST]

Cool car for sure. Welcome!

[FCRX7]

So what is the story of you putting an LS1 in your FC?

[sciff5]

So what is the story of you putting an LS1 in your FC?

Well not too exciting prob for most of you guys and longwinded but I was looking for a performance toy for a while and wanted to learn a lot about cars at the same time. At that point I had only done the suspension/brakes on my daily driver (which is the car that you see first in both vids) but I wanted to learn a lot more and really get more experience as well as having a bad bish of a car.

This was about 3 years ago. I was I think a sop#!#!#!#!re in college and I was looking at MR2 turbos and Fieros with V8 swaps and then I found out there was a swap for porsche 944s to put ls1s in them. I did a ton of research and realized that the parts were too expensive and the transaxles were weak but it also got me familiar with the ls1 and I realized that for the money it was probably one of the best performance platforms for the dollar and has capabilities to produce as much power as I'de ever want. So I started looking into other swap and found the ls1 rx7 again as I did more research the cost was half of the porsche swap and pretty much everything about the car reliable up till about 500whp, which is pretty amazing seeing as most of these cars came with a little over 100whp from the factory.

Once I decided on the Ls1 rx7 swap my next step was to drive an Rx7 and see if I even liked the thing so I found the closest NA rotary rx7 and took it for 20 minutes and really liked it. It was a lot of fun and I figured if I could have this much fun with whats probably 90whp I could have a whole hell of a lot of fun with 300+ at the very least. Within 2 weeks I found a rolling rx7 shell on the internet and went and picked it up in maine. (deff the worst decision in the entire process wiring was hacked up, had rust issues, but it looked good and had suspension work already done. So I figured I'de save money by not having to do suspension work, plis it had some cool goodies like a nice radiator/fan and a fuel cell.

From there the car sat for quite a while as I went to school and contined to try and scrap together money to make my next move. It was probably about a year later that I ended up getting the engine/tranny. I found a car in New hampshire this time, it was a 2000 trans am Ws6 with 21K miles on it that had gone off the road and backwards into a guard rail/tree (I'm not really sure which). It said I could buy the engine tranny for 3500 or the whole car for 5k. If I spent every penny I had I'de still be short about 1000$ if I bought the engine/tranny but I went up and looked at it cause it sounded like a good deal. I got up there saw the interior and front end were still in really good condition and if you know trans ams and camaros you know the WS6 stuff commands big money especially the WS6 hood/front end. I knew if I bought the whole car I could sell the parts off and make most of my money back and get the engine tranny for much cheaper in the long run.. SO I called my dad and talked him into it lending me the money. He said it would be a test to see if I really believed in what I was doing and if I really knew what I was doing. Well it worked out, but took forever to sell the stuff off, a little over a year later. I am just finnishing paying my dad back and the car is coming together.

I ended up finding a guy locally who was parting out his ls1 swapped rx7 and I got all his turbo 2 stuff. I got the hood from him, a T2 diff, the brakes and I picked up another spare T2 diff just in case (I figure I'll blow them when I start spraying the Nitrous )

Mechanically the car went together in about 2 weeks.. its everything else on the car that took forever.. and I can promise that damn near everything on the car was a challenge. Simple jobs turned into week long adventures.

You know its been a trip when you have your local autoparts stores number memorized because you've called it so many times. Everyone in the local auto parts stores recognize you and some know your name and they know what your building and When you have your credit card information memorized because you've ordered so many things offline.

Things still left to do include wiring up the tail lights. Brake lights and reverse lights dont work although I believe the blinkers do. The guages are wired in so that they illuminate with the rest of the guages but they arent hooked up to the senders. Then I need to repair one of the boots on the steering rack, and also need to fix a steering issue that I ran into that day when I took that video. After we shot that vid, we figured out the brake booster wasnt getting proper vacume from the intake and fixed it teporarily. So we ended up fixing that and I was psyched cause I figured now that I have brakes I can do some WOT flybys. That should sould pretty nasty on camera, because when I was on the road in the first vid and I hit the gas that was only about 1/2 throttle. So I take the car out again only a few blocks down the road just to see how its acting and everything seems good to go, but then I pull into someones driveway to do a 3 point turn and come back and for some reason on the way back the steering wheel is crooked like 70 degrees.. I'm like Wtf. So I'm trying to figure out what the deal is with the steering wheel. I hope its something with the steering shaft or the wheel because I dont want to lift the motor if I have to pull the rack out. I just made an appointment to get the exhaust done thursday morning.