| Year: | 1990 |
| Make: | Mazda |
| Model: | Rx-7 GTU/TII |
| Bought: | June 2002 |
| Horsepower: | 200hp @6500rpm |
| Torque: | 196ft-lbs @3500rpm |
| Weight: | 2850lbs |
This is the first car I bought and I paid way too much for it. It had more than a few hidden problems with the body, and to make it worse I eventually discovered that it was a non-turbo Rx7 with only the turbo engine and transmission swapped in. The stock rear-end from the non-turbo car was still in it and had been sloppily re-drilled to work with the turbo driveshaft. To top it off the paint was terrible thanks to a bad respray.
In between short stretches of driving it and long stretches of parking it, I’ve attempted to fix most of what was wrong and complete the conversion to the to turbo model of the car. I rebuilt the engine once after the coolant seals started leaking and replaced it a second time due to tuning problems which left the rear rotor with no compression.
The dyno charts show the story of the 2nd engine destruction, it was running very lean at the time. I managed to enrich it somewhat with an Apexi S-AFC, but I could only add so much fuel before the afm reading was maxed out. I eventually found out the lean condition was due to a bad fuel pump rewire, and once fixed, the car seemed to run normally. This time however, I tuned the safc without a wideband and my engine died in the middle of New Hampshire.
I eventually put a junkyard engine in it get it going, but never drove it much as some of my more questionable modifications caught up with me. It was stored outside in Nh for 8 years until I finally brought it Co where I’m living. The plan now is to set things right and get it on the street again.
