Eastman51's Toyota Museum + Rotary Power

[Eastman51]

New developments…

(TLDR at the bottom of this section)

The RX-7 is out of commission, again. Yet another fuel problem, smh. My leading vac advance solenoid broke at the plastic tube piece, and I began to have all sorts of problems around the same time (may or may not be related to the vacuum leak, I’m not sure). I checked the spark plugs, and they were bad, but I cleaned them off and put them back in; car started right up. I got brand new plugs and the car was running even better, but about 24 hours after the new plugs went in (maybe 2 hours maximum of driving in that time period), the car developed the same symptoms experienced before. I took out the plugs, and they were black. I am told by people on discord that this means I am running super duper rich; so I cleaned off the plugs, and grabbed a screwdriver to start adjusting the carburetor. However, even with the plugs wiped off, the car still had the same misfire and lopey idle symptoms. I just gave up on that and ordered another set of plugs, a set of wires, a new distributor cap, and a new distributor rotor. I figured I may as well go all in on the ignition system to eliminate any other potential variables, and then tune the carburetor starting from maximum lean to get proper idle. While I await my ignition components, I bought a ton of vacuum line and am going through the exceedingly painful and boring task of laboriously replacing all of the vacuum lines. I am also going to get some strong super glue and see if I can repair the broken tube on the leading vac advance solenoid. With re-run vac lines there should not be any leaks, eliminating yet another variable that could prevent me from tuning the carburetor; the repaired solenoid should also allow vac advance to function and improve driveability/economy. I may also just bypass the vac advance solenoids and run vac advance at idle (the solenoids drop vac advance at idle, and bring it in under throttle).

Also, the bearing noise from the old alternator disappeared, but I already received the new alternator in the mail, so decided to install it and upgrade from 50amps to 83amps anyways.

Sorry for the wall of text.
TLDR; ignition system decided to start breaking, carburetor was found to have been running hella rich for some reason. New S4 alternator installed. Also re-running all vacuum lines to eliminate leaks.

Here, have some pictures

The broken solenoid

New plugs vs old plugs (I do not have a picture of how the new plugs look now, but it is similar to how the old ones look)

New S4 alternator looks nice, and voltage is locked to 14v; a lot stronger that the barely sustained 12.5-13.5 of the old one.

Shoutout to this tool. Very helpful for reaching in and grabbing hard to get vacuum lines and pull them out.

Vacuum line replacement part one: solenoid connections are redone.

The ignition/carb tune problems couldn’t have appeared at a better time though. The same day I discovered the hyper rich tune, the shop finally called me and said the Prius was ready!

Now introducing…
My daily!

This is my 2009 Toyota Prius, the last year of the second generation. It is a base model, but was ahead of it’s time in some ways; such as the backup camera and touch screen center console.

Here is the story of this car:
Back in 2008, my dad was still driving around his circa 2002 Hyundai Sonata (I remember it was a dark blue) and it was starting to shit the bed. One day, late august/early september, the Sonata died while he was merging on the highway; and that was all it had left, the Sonata I had remembered for years was now gone. The very same day, my dad signed the paperwork on a brand new 2009 model year Prius. It’s been with us ever since.

About 4 and a half years ago, my dad was rear-ended in a parking lot. Fortunately it was at fairly low speed, and no one was injured; and the Prius rolled away to a shop for repairs. About 3 years ago, I got my learner’s permit and learned how to drive on the car; about the same time, my dad upgraded himself to a 2015 Ford Fusion in anticipation of me getting my full up license. Not long after I got my license, the title was turned over to me, and I became the second owner; the car had about 72k miles on the clock at that time, if I remember correctly. I was dinged by a distracted driver while backing out of a parking spot about 6 months after that, but the damage amounted to a small dent no larger than the hail dents on the roof.

Fast forward to 2019, the car has been running fantastic as it always has. It’s clear that it’s an 11 year old car, but it’s in excellent shape and maintenance has been regular. A couple weeks ago however, I ended up in an accident where I rear ended an SUV. Basically sums up to me being tired from a long, busy work shift, and one of the most poorly designed intersections I’ve ever seen; oh, and it was nearing rush hour too. The SUV took minimal damage, one side of the exhaust popped off the hanger, a plastic trim piece popped out a bit, and the bash bar may have been dented slightly (I never found out the full extent of the damage on that car). Sadly, the Prius did not fare very well at all. The damage was fairly minimal, but quite severe in the affected area. Fortunately, the radiator (nor any other essential equipment) was not damaged and I was able to make it home. This was my first real accident, and it was an experience I hope to never repeat; I’ve also decided to take an alternate route to the one that passes through the scene as I have now realized how dangerous that intersection actually is.

I talked to my insurance and got the car scheduled to be taken in to a body shop for repairs (this is when I found out how extensive the damage was). The hood, bumper, and radiator, as well as some miscellaneous support structures were damaged beyond repair (the radiator was not punctured, but was damaged). Thanks to my deductible, my wallet escaped unscathed, and the Prius is looking as if it rolled into the garage back in late 2008 for the first time. The fresh paint on the front end, and the new headlight assemblies make it look quite sharp. And boy am I glad she’s back home.

Picking up from the body shop

I plan on starting to take care of maintenance myself as much as I can now that I have gained some experience from working on the RX-7 (I am in IT by trade, cars is a new hobby). I would also like to drive this car until it can’t drive anymore, and then possibly converting it into some kind of swap candidate project car (if possible) once that day arrives. In the meantime though, she runs great, and is still driving stronk at 97k miles approaching 98k.

Some miscellaneous pictures

Prius next to my dad’s “new” Lexus HS250h, purchased used in anticipation of my brother getting his license soon

Back in September after getting the Mazda’s fuel pump running

Sometime in October

[Eastman51]

Woot! More stuff!

The RX-7 is back at it again, in a good way this time. Brand new ignition components is now giving the mighty 12A some stronk spark; and a proper carb tune is running it leaner and cleaner. I also bypassed the vac advance solenoids and am now running vac advance at idle as well as under load (a little nicer to drive, and should get better economy).

New distributor cap, rotor, new spark plug wires, and another set of brand new NGK BR8EQ14 spark plugs.

Smoking out the neighborhood as I wait for the engine to warm up before tuning it.

Some happy braps
https://streamable.com/i1kn4

On the Prius side, I only have one thing to report:

We hit 98k miles!

That’s it for this report. Next time I should have a new clutch master cylinder on the Mazda, and hopefully new rear drums and shoes.

[Eastman51]

Me and my excessive updates and posts, smh.

RX-7 is still running, leaning out the carb is keeping the spark plugs nice and clean. It’s also driving really nicely with the stronk spark; bypassing the vac advance solenoids makes starting a whole lot easier, and I figured out what tube is the idle compensator (cruise valve) so it coasts a lot nicer (while in gear) and turning the headlights on doesn’t drop the idle speed anymore, lul.

I took both the Mazda and the Prius out for a drive, grabbed a few pictures, and discovered a couple other decent photo op locations. One of these days I’d like to take my parents’ cars out for some photo shoots and make a post about them here; I’d also like to do this with my friends’ cars. But that’s for another day; for now, enjoy some more pictures of not broken cars!

RX-7

Prius

[Eastman51]

It’s been a while since my last post.

And not much has changed.
I did finally do a real oil change on the RX-7, rather than just adding oil. Kinda mad I didn’t just do it earlier, its so easy on these cars. The oil filter is up top, in the engine bay, so you only have to crawl under the car to get the drain plug off and back on.

She seems a bit happier now that any remaining old/bad oil is gone. The transmission on the other hand, keeps telling me it wants new fluid; the feel in gear changes has never been worse. I’ll be doing that on Monday, and I’ll take a look at the handbrake tensioner while I’m under there (handbrake is super loose. It was nice and tight when I got the car, but one of my buddies yanked it too hard).

Hopefully brakes and diff fluid will follow shortly after, but I’m about to get slapped in the face by finals, so we’ll see how much time I have for car stuff.

This last week I haven’t done anything to the car besides checking/adding oil as part of rotary life. Still driving great, aside from the chunky and awkward feeling in the shifter. I have grabbed a few more videos to share, and that’s about it, lol.

vids

https://streamable.com/qawr6
https://streamable.com/uareg
small edit: cold starts usually aren’t like this, normally it will fire up quite quickly; I suspect that the leaner tune on the carburetor is the culprit. I might richen it a tad bit, but I don’t want to risk running too rich and fouling plugs again
https://streamable.com/acvxe
And at the request of a user on the Automation discord (who is not here on the forums afaik), the boringest startup ever
https://streamable.com/u5hxr

Today was kinda fun though, me and a couple buddies hung out for a while and played some games. My friend also decided to take his mom’s NC Miata out for a drive, since it hadn’t been driven in a while (she rarely drives it, especially this time of year). Because it barely sees asphalt, the battery was, of course, dead.
And so we resurrected the Miata with none other than the Queen of Unreliability herself: the RX-7.

The Miata’s battery is new-ish, so it shouldn’t need a new one yet; but with how often it doesn’t get driven it probably will. But it was good for it to get out and stretch its legs.

Miatt

(And the sad little rust bucket of an 89 Crown Victoria owned by same friend’s dad, however it is only up at his house for some maintenance as his dad lives an hour away)

More Miata

I took the long way home from hangin with the bois, and spotted a spot that looked promising for some nighttime photos. Only had my phone on me, but I think they turned out alright. Did some experimenting and used the 16:9 mode, but I feel like the quality is too low, idk. Here they are if you would like to take a look

Nighttime Aesthetic Pics

Side note on the Prius.

I figured out why the rear hatch is so hard to open. The little rubber thing that goes over the handle has melted and deformed at some point in it’s near 11 year lifespan. This makes it hard to actually actuate the handle and release the latch.

Will have to see about fixing this. I’ve been avoiding use of the hatch, but it’s nice to have a 4 door daily that can also carry some cargo. Not to mention that my ice scraper is back there, lol.

[Eastman51]

Just a minor update here before some major work gets done on the RX-7.

It’s starting to have some difficulties getting into gear, but I do not think that it is transmission related as it will go into gear smoother than silk if I jam the clutch into the floor, starting to think the clutch master cylinder (and/or the clutch slave cylinder) are finally biting the dust. Luckily, I’m replacing both.

All of the parts I’ve ordered are finally here, including some miscellaneous other things; such as a new air cleaner, new defrost switch, and a new driver’s side tail light so I can get the outer lens back. All rear brake components have arrived and it’s now time to get to work.

I’m still a big noob when it comes to this kind of stuff, so a work buddy is going to help me out and teach me how to service drum brakes and service clutch cylinders. Should have an update on that stuff tomorrow or sunday as we are meeting up to work on stuff tomorrow. edit: My work buddy texted me earlier stating that, due to personal reasons, we will have to postpone the meeting until a later date. In the meantime I will likely change the diff fluid and possibly replace the clutch cylinders on my own, but the brakes will have to wait

The new air cleaner (“air cleaner” is ‘carburetor’ speak for “air filter”) actually seems to have netted an improvement. Not necessarily any yields in torque/power, but it is misfiring at warm idle less and holds a more consistent idle speed. Probably just my imagination, but she sounds a little happier now that air is clean and less restricted from the ancient and dirty cleaner.

I’m not sure if I ever mentioned it earlier, but at some point the outer lens/cover for the driver’s side tail light fell off while driving around one day. So it looks a little tacky right now and is missing a rear reflector. In the SA/FB RX-7 discord there’s a guy who races FBs and has like 11 parts cars; he doesn’t need interior bits and has more cars than he’ll need for lights and stuff, so he hooked me up with a driver’s tail light off one of his parts cars (the outer lens isn’t cracked, which is actually pretty rare) and he just happened to have an S2 with enough interior left to have a rear defrost switch.

My defrost switch had melted at some point (don’t think these cars have an automatic turn off for the rear defrost, so you have to remember to turn it off at some point) and so the electrical part of my original switch was missing. We got the new switch installed and rear defrost is now fully functional! Makes me feel better about driving in the dark and when it’s cold/raining as I now have better rear visibility (the side mirrors on these cars are borderline useless, so the interior mirror is basically the only viable way to see behind you).

And I of course had another small photo shoot. I love taking pictures of this car.

Yet more pictures

The defrost at work!

Yesterday we took a trip to a local junkyard to look for a middle row seatbelt and a rear bench for my friend’s Astro. Due to various reasons, we could not take the Astro with us, so we had to take my Prius. Somehow, we did manage to make the rear bench fit and we were able to upgrade the Astro to 8 person carrying capacity.

We found a 1995 (same year as the Astro) GMC Sierra that was fairly new to the junkyard. The rear bench was in great shape and we salvaged a middle row seat belt attachment that we retrofitted to the driver’s side of the middle bench so he can now have 3 people with seatbelts in the middle row. We also grabbed floor mats from that Sierra, but they were filthy and are going to get cleaned before they go in the Astro.

Crap quality, but aesthetic pic from the rear bench:

Stay tuned for updates on the RX-7!

[Eastman51]

sigh
I’m going to be hanging out with my work buddy this Saturday, weather permitting, to do the brakes and clutch cylinders. Still haven’t done diff fluid, lol, and idk when I’ll get around to it. But I did accomplish something since the last post.

But before I get to that, it snowed again. And I just so happened to have been driving the RX-7. sigh
Luckily, I beat the salt trucks, for the most part. I got stuck about a mile behind a single truck, but he exited the highway at the next exit and I had a good 10-15 miles of salt free snowy highway after that. Being paranoid, I still went and got a car wash to clear away any potential rust gremlins.
I had been hanging out with a friend all day, and it started snowing when we went out to get some dinner; I ate up quickly and left early to avoid worsening roads, and of course road salt.

Southbound on the highway was basically empty, which was nice (and let me take this pic, and don’t worry I was watching the road not my phone; took a blind pic).

Snowy girl

Getting up a snow covered driveway in a RWD sports car… Let’s just say that I managed to do it without hitting either of my dad’s cars…

And an ice covered Prius.

Ok, now on to the accomplished task.

As I’ve mentioned previously, the driver’s side outer lens fell off at some point. Car looks pretty tacky without it, and the reflector is gone because it’s part of that lens. As you can see in the picture above, it’s not pretty and my tape job to keep the inner lenses from falling out (mostly a paranoid thing, they were totally fine) didn’t help. I finally went out and got a heat gun and some adhesive sealant to get the passenger lens off for resealing and to get the lens off my “new” spare tail light to slap on the driver’s side tail light.

The spare tail light’s adhesive had actually already broken off, and that made it pretty easy to remove, besides the stupid plastic clip I broke off in the process of doing so. Not a big deal as the clip isn’t technically necessary. The passenger outer lens didn’t come off as easy, I melted the plastic a bit trying to get the adhesive to break loose in one spot, and the clip decided to be an asshole and broke a part of the lens off.

However, it didn’t break into the actual lens part, and it still sealed up nicely with the new adhesive; just looks kinda eh, and the melted plastic doesn’t help.

Took both tail light assemblies out to make it easier to seal the lenses on.

I cleaned both lenses with dish soap and warm water. Took all the dirt out of the inside and outside. They look pretty minty now.

My ghetto solution to clamping the lens on to make the adhesive stick properly. It worked pretty well though, lol.

And both done after drying for 2 hours! They’ll still need 24 hours to fully cure, but 2 hours was enough to make them stick pretty strongly.

Hell yea! They’re both looking great, nice and minty. No longer tacky, and I’ve got both reflectors.
As customary, more photo shoot stuff:

Minty Pics

And…it’s bedtime. Next time should hopefully be with new brakes and new clutch cylinders.

[Eastman51]

Now that the Christmas festivities are over, time for an update. Hope y’all had a Merry Chrysler and got good presents.

Me being me, I didn’t take any pictures while we were working on the brakes (so you’re stuck with text wall), but I’ve got both good and bad news. Fortunately, the bad news isn’t detrimental, but it did put a halt to the work on the brakes.

The passenger side drum had a leaky wheel cylinder, which is where my brake fluid leak was. I’ve been driving the car about every day since we replaced it and my brake master is still full. While we’re on the topic of the passenger side rear brakes, I found out why my handbrake sucks. The shoe self-adjuster screw is stripped, so the ratcheting nut thing can’t go out any farther; so basically only the driver’s side wheel is locked when the handbrake is pulled. I have not been able to find any of these screws for sale online, so I may be stuck with this; unless I get one from a guy on Discord or change rear axles. I’ve been living with it like this for some time, so I wouldn’t say its the end of the world.

On the driver’s side, the wheel cylinder is seized. We tried to get the brake lines off of it, but one of them is stuck to the wheel cylinder. We can’t replace the wheel cylinder without breaking that line. Because the cylinder is seized, the shoes are stuck out and rub constantly. One of the guys on Discord still has his old drum rear axle and therefore has the exact brake line I need (it is a hard line). It’s off a California car, and he says that it came off easily and is not clogged. So once I get that brake line we can replace the driver’s side wheel cylinder and finish the brake service.

Even after the one wheel cylinder replacement and bleeding the brakes, the pedal feels a lot nicer and does not pulsate under braking. The car slows smoother and I’m more confident in it’s ability to stop, but that driver’s side drum makes the car pull to the left under heavy braking and still sketches me out a little.

I tensioned the alternator belts again, typical service as the belts break in. I’ve been checking my oil before cold starts and/or after letting it cool off for at least an hour after a drive. Been topping off the oil when it gets down to the top of the cross hatches. I checked my tire pressure and let a bunch of air out, recommended tire pressure is 27psi, the tire shop had filled them to like 31 when they put them on. Car seems to handle a little bit better thanks to that. My fuel economy seems to have improved lately, but it may have been me forgetting to reset the trip meter when I filled up once, so we’ll see. I do expect a small improvement once we fix that rubbing on the brakes.

Prius tire pressures were checked, perfect. Probably should check the oil soon, she’s probably about due for a change as well. At 98k miles, I’m also thinking that it’s probably time to change the spark plugs, so I’ll have to see if I have an extension long enough to reach down those deep wells. The Lexus probably needs new spark plugs as well since it is at about 99k miles iirc.

The Lexus had the TPS light come on again. The tires were each at least 5 psi off from where they are supposed to be. I filled the tires back when it started getting cold, so I’m not sure why they are already this low again. The car doesn’t get driven that much, but I doubt that’s the problem. My dad says that if the TPS light comes on again he’ll just get new tires; after all, the tread is pretty low and they’d need replacing by spring anyways. The previous owner told us he got these tires put on when he bought the car and they have not been changed since (previous owner bought it in 2012 iirc).

My dad scheduled the Fusion for a service at the Ford dealership, and he’s making me take it in. So tomorrow I will be in charge of it. Probably will take some pictures and things to post on here. He’ll be taking the Lexus to work, which is good since it needs to get out and move.

My parents got me some cassette tapes from the late 70s, 80s, and early 90s for Christmas. I haven’t tried them all out yet, but the ones I’ve tried work and have some pretty decent tunes on them. Really makes me want to get the front speakers in the RX-7 wired up.
I also got the Haynes Repair Manual for the RX-7, so with that and the Mazda Workshop Manual I have I should be able to fix/repair/replace just about anything.

I found the window sticker again when I cleaned out the RX-7. Took some pictures of it since I thought some of you guys might like to see some of the features it has.

Original window sticker

I will mention that the illuminated ignition key cylinder does not work, nor does the light off reminder chime or the ignition key reminder (though idk what the ignition key reminder is even supposed to do). My power antenna doesn’t work, and the mast broke somewhat recently anyways (I’m going to replace it with a non-retractable rubber one eventually).

And I feel like I should mention that the shift buzzer doesn’t work either (light and buzzer that come on when the tach reaches 7k rpm); but I have heard that this actually happens fairly often. The light will burn out, and then the buzzer will not sound; but if you replace the light it will work again. Unfortunately though, the whole shift buzzer and light are on the back of the gauge cluster so it would be a process to fix it. I also wonder if I could fix the other things that don’t work while I’m at it though…

Also small note, the door light sensors are either missing or broken because setting the dome light to “door” doesn’t do anything even when the doors are open.

[Eastman51]

Oh my. It’s been a couple weeks since my last post. And its been a rough two weeks.

Nothing really new has happened to the RX-7, besides a 140+ mile drive that she handled flawlessly (and got an impressive 23mpg on). I got my new brake hardline and I think we can retrofit a new set of self-adjuster screws to the drums, which is good. Oh, I did have a run in with the mystery “oil flooding” issue, but it seems to have disappeared after I tightened the spark plugs down (they were literally only hand tight, yikes on that one past self).

and she passed 72k miles on the way into work this morning!

I really want to get the clutch master and slave changed out, but unfortunately I’m going to have to wait. The Prius has developed an unidentifiable problem (at least I have not been able to figure it out).

Last weekend the Maintenance light came on in the Prius, signifying that I needed an oil change (which I was overdue anyways). So I did an oil change. After the change, the engine was misfiring a bit at idle and low throttle. I also happened to notice that the oil got overfilled a bit somehow (I measured it out to be below the capacity listed online, but whatever).

Due to the misfire, I decided to check my spark plugs. The first plug came out alright, and I noticed that the ceramic was cracked, probably part of my misfire. The second plug’s ceramic broke and exploded while I was loosening it; I used a combination of a vacuum and air compressor to retrieve as many of the ceramic pieces from the spark plug well as I could before extracting the spark plug. I changed the other two plugs without a hitch, and they came out undamaged. However, when I started the car back up, the engine was shaking and rattling, as if something was pinging around inside a cylinder; it seems like I missed a ceramic piece. The piece did leave the engine and out the exhaust, and based on my research, the engine should not have suffered much, if any, internal damage. After the ceramic piece left the engine, it sounded great and perfectly normal. But then on my shakedown drive, I began to notice a strange noise. I changed oil filters, thinking maybe the Fram filter I put on was junk; and also dropped the oil level back down to just under full in the process. However, even with the oil level corrected and an OEM Toyota/Denso oil filter, the noise persists. To me it sounds like piston slap, but I can’t really tell if it is or not; for all I know it could be a timing issue. Perhaps the timing chain jumped a tooth, or the tensioner broke loose, when the engine rattled and shook with the ceramic piece…

Regardless of what the issue is, I don’t have the knowledge or experience to diagnose or fix it myself. As much as I want to avoid a big repair bill or diagnostic bill, I am going to take the Prius to either the Toyota dealership or a local shop. I may be chasing ghosts, but I’d rather chase a ghost and pay a bit now than wonder why my engine died and have to fork up a lot of cash later.

I’ll include some pictures and videos in a section below if you want to see the old plugs and the well with the broken plug. Videos you can take a listen to the noise yourself. I’ve been avoiding driving it in case this is a big problem, so don’t worry. The RX-7 has been behaving like a good girl since last weekend, so I’m in good hands until the Prius can get diagnosed and/or fixed. Of course, it is January, so I would like to get the Prius roadworthy ASAP in case it decides to snow out of nowhere again.

Thanks, as always, for reading my text walls.

PS: I would say that at this stage, it’s a little too early for 'F’s in the chat, but feel free to do so if you want.

Prius incident

This video was taken the day of the ceramic incident and prior to the new oil filter.
Tap/Rattle
This video was taken after the new oil filter.
https://streamable.com/a98fx

And just so I can end on a positive note, here’s a video of a nice, successful cold start of the RX-7.
1983 Mazda RX-7 GS Cold Start - YouTube

I probably won’t post back until one of two things happen:
-I get an update on the Prius
or
-The rear brakes on the RX-7 get fully serviced and repaired.
or both.

Until next time.

[Eastman51]

And it is time. For (hopefully not) another text wall.

I took the Prius in to a local shop that is like 3 minutes from my house. They stuck a bore-scope down into the cylinder, and lo and behold, there was still ceramic in there. They attempted to extract the pieces with some adhesive on the end of their bore-scope, but the ceramic pieces were stuck. The shop concluded that they wouldn’t cause any long term damage, and the engine is still running good; just keep on driving it and the pieces may break free. They recommended I add Seafoam to the gas, and I may do the Seafoam spray treatment as well.

And after having driven it for a few days; she’s doing a bit better. It’s still there, but she’s running and sounding a bit better. I put some Seafoam in the gas, and I think that’s part of why it runs better. Probably going to add another can before my next fill up. Once it warms up a bit (so I can actually exist outside without freezing to death), I will see about running that Seafoam spray treatment; will be interesting since the computer likes to turn off the motor and dislikes revving in neutral/park.

My mom had me run her van to the dealership for an oil change. I didn’t do a crazy write up like I did with my dad’s car. I did take a couple photos, and a video of plugging it in…

2018 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid

Video of plugging in the van, lol.
https://streamable.com/c50wz

I am itching to drive the RX-7, desperately. But, they salted all the roads and it’s snowing right now. Now that the Prius is back (again) and running ok, literally no excuse for dragging the rotary onto salt and risking rust.

The Prius is a little…salty.

And…

We hit 99k miles! Raise your glasses, and lets hope the ceramic goes away before we hit 100k.

And, obligatory photo shoot:

Pictures, but it's not a rotary

[Eastman51]

Update on the RX-7:
Rear brakes are done. For the final time. New wheel cylinder is in on the drivers side. No more rub. New brake soft line and a new brake hard line. The car feels faster and smoother now that the rub is gone, and braking is much improved.

Update on the Prius:
Still rattling. Now you can only hear it when the engine is cold, however, so it is improving. Still want to try Seafoam spray, but the weather has been trash lately.

Braaaaaakes

Replacing the soft line that goes from the body hard line and into the axle hard lines. We also replaced the hard line from that soft line that goes into the wheel cylinder.

New wheel cylinder in.

And, the new drum finally fits.

As is now tradition, some pics:

Raaaaain

https://streamable.com/k7dzd
You can see steam coming off the hood after you do a few hard revs, lmao. No hood insulation, just an aluminum sheet with some bracing for structural rigidity.

[Eastman51]

Holy shit, it’s not cold outside!
Did Ohio just turn into California? Like, 60F in early February is crazy.
Well, I’m not one to complain. I got both cars washed and took the RX-7 out to stretch her legs a bit. If it really is going to be even warmer tomorrow than it is today, I know what car I’m taking to school, lol.

Ok, lets get a recap of whats gone down since my last post:
Prius - put some miles on it. Still rattling, still really only hear it when the motor is cold. I will see if I have time to try Seafoam Spray while we’ve got good weather, but I’ve been slammed with some time consuming schoolwork, so I probably won’t get a chance.

RX-7 - I finally got off my lazy ass and replaced the clutch cylinders. And my god, the car easily drives 10x better than before. Gear changes are no longer sloppy and chunky, but are smooth and consistent. Starting from a stop is greatly improved, and hill starts are waaaaaaaay easier now that the clutch engages lower on the pedal.

HydraulicWorks

The old hardline refused to break free, so I ended up having to replace it as well.

The old and crusty hydraulics are gone. The old slave seems to have been in good health, but the rubber sleeve was heavily deteriorated.

Closer look at the troublemaker. I stripped it pretty good; I tried using vice grips, a regular 10mm wrench, and one of those special line wrenches but had no luck.

I tried my best to get a picture of the new slave cylinder installed. It didn’t turn out that great.

Top down picture of the new slave installed. Also didn’t turn out that great, lol.

New master installed.

New master hooked into the new hardline.

New hardline hooked into the new softline.

And the trash tier job I did at bending the new hardline.

Complications arose when I was bleeding the clutch. The softline kept leaking out where it connects to the slave. I had to go get some thread sealant to lather on the softline to keep it from leaking.

Rotary Pics

Got some shots after I went to the car wash (for the underspray, I hand washed the Prius).

Paint is still in awful shape, but she still looks pretty good after a fresh wash.

Sunroof removal because its not cold!

Prius Pics

Yikes. That’s one dirty car.

Much better. Though you can now see all the scrapes and scratches, and you can definitely tell that the driver’s door was hit one time.

Oh yea, definitely better.

Oh, in other news: The catalytic converter on the RX-7 finally committed dead. There’s now a nice big exhaust leak at the cat, and there’s a noticeable drone in the interior now. The car is slightly louder because of this, but its definitely faster, lol. Sounds like my work buddy (same guy who helped me with the brakes) knows how to weld, so I’ll be picking up some pipe and a pre-silencer soon. We’ll be cutting the cat out and slapping in some good pipe, and the pre-silencer should keep it at street legal volumes; car will definitely sound 10x better. I do plan on at least getting a good muffler later on as well. I’m still on the fence about getting an exhaust header as I am not planning on making any carburetor or port upgrades any time soon (if at all).

Until next time.

[Eastman51]

It’s been quite some time, hasn’t it folks. Well, good news is that both cars are still alive and well.

The Prius is still a rattlecan, but is otherwise great. I think the plan is to get the headgasket replaced early, but not anytime soon. Since the mechanic said that there was no risk of long-term damage, I think it’ll be fine. I may still do Seafoam spray since its a 100k mile engine and could use a tune up, but I highly doubt that it will actually help at this stage.

WAIT WHAT!?!?!?! The Prius is over 100 thousand?

Yep.

The RX-7 is still running great. However, the brake master cylinder has developed a leak now; which I now suspect to also be the cause of the pulsation in the pedal. I will also be cleaning up the brake booster and possibly replacing the rubber lines for the front brake calipers at the same time. I also plan on draining the coolant and replacing the hoses sometime later this spring.

Since I want to at least do the brake booster while the master cylinder is off, it won’t be happening quite yet as I lack the funds necessary to get tools and paint; this should be fixed soon after I get a job to supplement my current income, but with the whole corona virus thing my job hunting has ground to a near halt due to the economical side-effects of the outbreak.

In other rotary news, the old sunroof lift/crank mechanism broke. The knob completely separated from the worm gear, rendering the sunroof unable to support itself and not close all the way. Somehow, I managed to find a replacement lift mechanism that is in like-new condition on eBay; however, this replacement is burgundy instead of black. I may paint it later, but since its on the ceiling you don’t really see it unless you look at it.

Sunroof Things

Yikes. I lubricated the worm gears on the new lifter in order to make it smoother, and potentially increase longevity (they are plastic, so…). The swap was pretty easy, and the whole thing works a lot better now.

The car is quite dirty now as well. While I do have a car cover now, it is not waterproof (unfortunately), so any grime that passes through the wet cloth gets stuck to the car. Local weather is getting warmer and warmer, so I’ve actually removed the cover now; and with the rain we’ve been getting lately, she doesn’t look as bad.

I plan on getting a set of new door seals very soon. This will fix the wind noise at high speed and fully seal the interior from the elements. Currently, the door seals are so bad that the car cannot go through an automatic wash without leaking some water. After I install the seals will likely be when I next post on here.

uhhh, lets see…I also fixed the vacuum leak. One of the vacuum rack solenoids was busted (I snapped off a brittle plastic bit when I was replacing some of the vacuum lines), so I plugged up the line on the vacuum rack that goes into the solenoid. I also just ordered some door handle covers for the interior as the original ones have been falling apart since I got the car and I got super tired of it.

This post is running super long, so I’ll keep this short. The exhaust upgrades will happen sometime after I get a job, I’m not sure if it will happen before or after the brake master cylinder. I will be re-upholstering the seats sometime late spring or early summer. I may also look into re-upholstering my door cards (or at least touching them up) as well, since I need to lubricate the manual windows as well.

Ok, enough text walls. I’ll see you in the next one

[Eastman51]

I know I said my next post would be door seals, but I’ve done a lot of things since the last post and still haven’t ordered seals yet. So here we are.

Prius Things

Still makes noises, still moves. I discovered a water leak in the rear of the car when I had to get to the 12V battery to jump the RX-7.

Here you can see the wet pavement from all the standing water I drained out from the spare tire well.

Jump Starting with a Prius

For those curious, or if you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to jump a car with a Prius, here’s some instructions for you.
(As a side note, RX-7 battery was dead because I accidentally left the lights on all day)
So the Prius Owner’s Manual will tell you that you can jump start the car by hooking up to the positive terminal in the fuse box in the engine bay and some random metal. However, the manual makes no mention of how to use the Prius itself to jump start another car.

You can most definitely use a Prius to jump another car. The key is to get to the regular 12V car battery in the right side of the trunk. The battery is hidden beneath a little panel.

This red plastic cover is preventing access to the positive terminal, which you obviously need. It is held in place by 3 clips, one on top and two on the sides. In order to access one of the clips you may have to move the brake controller next to the battery. If you have to do this, you will have to remove the floor panel and the bin beneath it (very easy, no tools required); this will reveal access to the brake controller as well as the spare tire and jack.

You’ll need a 10mm socket wrench to unbolt the brake controller bracket and slide the whole unit out of the way. Now you should be able to access the clip on the positive terminal cover. Now hook up your cables to the Prius battery and start the Prius. Since the Prius’ hybrid system likes to shut off the motor, this isn’t good since you’ll be discharging the 12V. You can leave it in Park and just hit the gas, it’ll rev up a bit; just hold it there while someone hooks up the cables to the dead car. Let it charge up for a couple minutes, and then start the dead car. Mission complete!
Disconnect the cables, replace the positive terminal cover, (remount the brake controller and reassemble the trunk if you needed to do that), replace the battery cover panel, and then you’re done.

Alright. About that water leak. I wasn’t really able to fully ascertain the cause of the standing water in the spare tire well. I think that I may have tracked it down and resolved it, but it may also have just been the trunk not closed all the way. In the event that it was not the trunk, there is a screw that goes into this green thing with a plastic washer to make some sort of seal. There was water pooling up around it, but not on the other one on the other side. I removed and tightened the screw and washer and it seemed to not be taking on water anymore. Let the car air out for a couple days and put things back together.

Also, a very Toyota certified bruh moment:
The RX-7’s owners manual states that the 12A engine should consume a quart of motor oil between 500 and 1000 miles. The Prius owners manual states that the 1NZ-FXE should consume no more than 1.1 quarts of motor oil per 600 miles. Apparently Toyotas are almost as bad as rotaries on oil consumption, lmfao. note, my particular Prius isn’t actually this bad on oil, this is just Toyota’s threshold

Last Prius update:
I did some spring cleaning and tidied up the glove boxes and center console, throwing away receipts and other trash. I also sorted all of the paperwork my dad left in the car. I have invoices from every single oil change, recall work, and even the invoice from when my dad was rear-ended. I sorted these invoices in chronological order and stored them neatly in the bottom glove box alongside my spare lights and owners manual.

One of the papers in there has the details on the trade-in my dad did when he got this car. His old Hyundai was a 2000 Elantra with 72k miles on it. RIP Elantra, it died early; but early 2000s Hyundais were pretty crappy anyways so almost not even surprising.

Now for the car most of you (probably) actually care about. Rotary Time.
I changed the differential fluid finally.

I had to use a jack to break the fill plug loose. And then I had to get a breaker bar and attach all of my extensions to it to get the drain plug loose. It wasn’t very fun. However, the maintenance is now done (was overdue going by the manual), and acceleration feels a bit better; especially when accelerating mid turn.

Since I don’t really have much else to do during these trying times, besides online school, anime, and video games, I’ve been driving the RX-7 damn near every day. Sometimes twice a day. We’re over 73k miles now, yay! And I noticed that the car was having some troubles when hot starting. Uh oh. Normally you’d have a big brain think and ponder why it won’t start hot; but since its a rotary, you immediately fear that the compression is low. So I got a compression tester and decided to find out for myself.

- YouTube

Well, the compression is exactly to spec. Like, exactly what is listed in both of my repair manuals. So there’s no reason for it to not hot start, right? Well, I had a think, and remembered that the ignition coils are the original ones, from 1982. Now it makes sense.

Get these crusty canisters out of here.

Looking much better.
I got some Flame Thrower canister coils. According to the peeps on Discord, the stock/OG coils are Flame Thrower, so I ended up with stock coils. Not a big deal really, since even if they’re stock, they’re brand new; anything that works is better than the old coils at this point. I also don’t really care about trying to increase power either; could always upgrade the leading coil later on if I really wanted to.
Needless to say, she starts instantly cold and hot now that spark is restored to full strength. And that screech you hear in the compression test video is gone as well. Apparently the screech was related to the coils and not the starter as I had originally thought.

Almost forgot this part. I got new door handle covers. My god, they were needed. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

Door Handles

Ah, that’s much better.

Well, that’s all for now folks. Due to lack of job, due to pandemic, I won’t be touching up the brake booster when I do the brake master cylinder. Next on the agenda is door seals and brake master cylinder. I’m not sure which will come first, but my next post will most likely include both (unless something else happens). Since I’m driving so often, I am thinking about finally wiring up front speakers too. Just have to get some speakers. I’m told the factory wires are basically speaker wire behind the proprietary connector, which will massively simplify things. Then I’ll be able to hear music while driving, even more so once the door seals are done.

Some complimentary photos from quarantine driving:

Quarantine Pics

(You can see that the Prius was fogged up from the water leaking in and condensating on the inside)

Thanks for reading!

[Eastman51]

A global pandemic can’t kill a 12A. I’m back, with a lot of major work done on the RX-7.

The Prius has barely been driven, but it now seems like the ceramic shards can only be heard at idle. The engine sounds perfectly normal at load. That’s all I have on that, moving on.

Alright, this is going to be a long post…Lets make it a bit shorter.

Brake Master Cylinder

I finally got around to swapping the brake master cylinder, which went pretty well. The brakes feel a lot better now, and I’m no longer consuming brake fluid. I have noticed a clanking in the rear brakes, as well as pulsation in the brake pedal; however I believe I know the cause. I will be addressing it shortly, I just can’t justify paying shipping on a singular bolt.

Door and Window Seals

The old seals were, uh, yikes.

Much better.

The old window seals were also pretty yikes.
I ran into a snag on the passenger window seal.

The metal piece the seal clips to almost rusted off. I used some duck tape to attach it as well as I could in the unsecured spots without taking the door panels off.

The new window seals do look pretty nice tho.

I didn’t really take any pictures, but I did wire in front speakers. It’s nice being able to hear music.

Oil Change

Finally hit 3k miles since the last one. Did a nice, quick, routine change. I tossed my leftover Seafoam into the oil about 700 miles before the change, and it seems to have helped the motor run smoother a fair bit. Also ordered a nicer oil filter than the cheapo Fram I got last time.

Something I didn’t realize at first, but read in the owner’s manual; if you punch a hole in the old oil filter when you drain the oil, it drains the oil out of the oil filter so you don’t make a mess when you change filters.

Cooling System Overhaul

Kinda wish I had more pictures, but my hands were really dirty and greasy, so… Might take some more pictures now that I’m done.
I knew I wanted to do a coolant change for a good while. At some point during lockdown, I noticed that my coolant warning buzzer was going off. So I decided to spend $200 and got a lot of good stuff. A full set of OEM hoses, an OEM 180F thermostat, thermostat gasket (ofc), and a new radiator cap. I drained the coolant and then ran a garden hose through the radiator and the heater/engine until it drained out clear. Then I went through the painstaking process of removing all the old hoses and installing the new ones. I also got new hose clamps, the old ones were really low quality and rusted themselves apart.

Then we add coolant and squeeze the hoses to test for leaks. All good? Fire it up and start bleeding the coolant. Topped off the radiator and the overflow reservoir, let the air drain out and add coolant as necessary.

Went smoothly overall. I got the clamps all tight enough on the first try, so there was no mess made. The temperature gauge seems to read lower now, so I definitely improved the cooling system’s performance. I would have liked to change the water pump out, just cause its probably the original one; however, I lack the necessary tools to remove and install a pulley. I would take it to a shop to get the pulley swapped, but with lockdown, that’s not feasible.

That’s going to be it for now. The car has very little work left to do on it at this point, so I have no idea when my next post will be. Next one will probably be exhaust, but that may not be for another month or more. That post may include a new antenna as well, but I’m not sure. Things work, so it’ll probably just let be. Might just post pictures in between if I can get some good shots, we’ll see. To close things out, here’s some assorted doritos:

Assorted Doritos

[schultzie]

hello mr. eastman

i actually have a first gen rx7 myself that was given to me for free on Christmas

problem is that it’s not in very good condition, and i doubt it’s going to be street legal

any tips?

[Eastman51]

I apologize for such a late reply, I do not often check the forums here.

Whether or not you can legally drive it on the road is likely going to be dependent upon what country or state you live in, assuming that it was not in a bad accident and is structurally sound.

Tips on getting up and running?
Do a compression test on the engine to gauge its health, you should also give it a Marvel Mystery Oil treatment to free up the apex/side seals beforehand and get things going. Of course, in order to do a compression test, the motor must be at operating temperature; so if it does not start and run then that will have to be addressed first. There are guides on rx7club.com that can give you tips on getting it running, you can also DM me on discord if you would like (DM here for my discord username, or search me on the Automation discord and @ me there; I actually am online on Discord at least 6 hours a day, 7 days a week).

Assuming it runs, compression test is very easy on these cars. While a rotary compression tester is most accurate, they are expensive; regular piston engine testers are accurate enough when employed correctly anyways.
Steps for compression testing:
1 - Warm up engine completely
2 - Remove one spark plug from each rotor and disconnect the fuel pump
3 - Crank the motor to purge fuel from the housings
4 - Insert the compression tester into the open spark plug hole
5 - Crank for peak compression, then hold the valve while cranking for pulses
6 - Change the tester to the second rotor and repeat step 5
7 - Use an online calculator to determine “real” compression numbers
8 - Reinstall spark plugs and reconnect fuel pump

Once your motor runs and you know its condition (as indicated by the compression test), you can go from there. Whether that would be finding a new shell to transfer into or fixing up what you have.

[Eastman51]

Oh man, its been a looooong time since I posted an update in here.

Well, I have a job now. Yay, parts money! Except not really cause I want to move out next year so I have space for other car stuff (like painting the RX-7 and storing other project cars). But I think I can spare a little out of the first paycheck to get a few things…

Prius has been just fine. Nothing to report.

A Few Prius Pics

One of the old tail lights burnt out. Replaced them with LEDs.

The most boring engine bay ever.

The RX-7’s old coolant needs to go.

Loaded up and ready for transport.

My mom backed into a car in the Lexus. Its not the first time she’s done this either, smh. Wish I still had a picture of the destroyed tail light lens on our old 2009 Sienna.

Scuffed Bumper

The Pacifica Hybrid had a recall for what I think is the AC to DC converter on the charging system. Its apparently dangerous enough that the dealer is keeping it until they have a fix and the car is repaired. We have the option to get a loaner from the dealer in the meantime.

A coworker of mine, who is also a big car guy and who’s been a huge help to me on the RX-7, recently got a very clean Nissan Z32 for his wife. Its in immaculate condition and has literally never seen rain in its entire life. He is the third owner. The Previous owner got the car in circa 2003, and was an engineer. The Previous owner took this naturally aspirated model and supercharged it. Its got a pro-charger (belt driven turbo is big sad), with all custom intake and intercooler tubing. We think it makes about as much power as a stock Twin Turbo Z32 (around 300 or so). The VG30 sounds really nice. I definitely want to get a Z31 in the future, but with my rotary instincts its hard to say if it will keep its VG30…

Z32

Unfortunately I do not have engine bay pics at this time.

Now, onto the real star of the show.
Oh boy, where to begin. I guess we’ll pick up right where we left off?

Alternator Bracket

The stock alternator bracket is a real pain in the ass. It is very hard to get proper belt tension, and I was super duper tired of getting belt slip at high rpm. I ordered a Banzai Racing alternator bracket.

Ew. Looks old, crusty, and kinda crap.

After drilling out the bolt hole for the stock bracket, new bracket is on.

Waaaaay better looking. And its a lot easier to adjust tension. Though a weird quirk with this bracket is that you have to run the belts loose. Like, loose enough that they flop around when you press on them. Took me a little while to figure that out; I was really disappointed at first when my belts kept squealing. But that’s all better now.

Oh yea, and one of the old belts was rekt. Luckily I have a box of spares, lol.

Battery Hold Down

I randomly decided to get an OEM battery hold down bracket. The battery was just chillin. I do think that because the battery was loose, it is part of how the negative terminal jumped off the post back when the first fuel pump died. Well, that certainly won’t happen again now.

Chillin like a badass.

She’s not going anywhere now.

Front License Plate Delete

Ohio’s front license plate requirements went away on July 1st. I took that rusty old bracket off immediately.

It was so rusty that I snapped one of the bolts. Oof. Hopefully they won’t reinstate front plates…

She looks a lot sleeker without that thing. I even noticed a significant jump in mpg. The aerodynamic improvement certainly helped in that department. I average 20.5 combined mpg now, and that’s including hard acceleration and cruising with AC on.

Brake Drum Retaining Screws

I’ve been missing one of the retaining screws since I got the car. People told me I didn’t need them, that the wheels would hold it in place just fine. Yet even after I serviced all the brakes, replaced the master cylinder, and completely flushed the brake fluid to clean, I still had some major pulsation in my brake pedal. Very similar in feel to having really really badly warped brake rotors in the front. But I knew that the front rotors were new (and I didn’t feel like replacing wheel bearings again). I inspected the rear brakes, and they looked assembled correctly. I checked the rubber lines for twisties, and they’re straight as can be. The only thing out of place was the missing retaining screw…
I ended up ordering a full set of retaining screws (2 for each rear wheel). And lo and behold, the pulsation in my brake pedal disappeared. As it turns out, I did need those screws.

The new ones are also higher quality in my opinion. My pedal does still pulsate a little under light braking at high speed, but I chalk that up to uneven wear on the rear drums; the pedal still feels much better and I don’t feel sketched out when using the brakes anymore.

Fixed Antenna Swap

My GS model was originally equipped with a power antenna unit. However, a combination of age and the previous owner’s son’s poorly done stereo “upgrade” I could never get the power unit to function. I also snapped the antenna mast at some point lol. They don’t sell replacement power units anymore, and there’s no guarantee I could get it to work even if they did. Fixed rubber antennas are only $20, so whatever. Installation was really easy, and with an antenna cable extension I was able to hook the antenna back up to the stereo. I finally have radio again!

Its pretty short, and I think it looks kinda cool.
I also upgraded the Wally World special 5.25" rear speakers we put in when we did the radio install. Those cheapo speakers were underpowered for the rear, and with tweeters they weren’t really suited for being in the rear. The new 6.5 JBL speakers are MUCH better. I can actually hear music coming from the rear now, so much so that I had to set some front fade to hear the fronts. Sadly no pictures though.
Oh, and I figured out that when I sanded down the tombstone bezel to fit a single DIN stereo, I just barely got it to fit. At first we could never get it to stay anywhere, but that was because of how short the stock antenna cable is. But now that the antenna cable is longer, I found out that the bezel is tight enough that the stereo can stay in place and not hide inside the dash anymore.

AC Idle Adjustment

Ever since my friend fixed my AC back in September, there has always been an issue with the idle speed when the AC compressor is running. When the compressor kicked on, idle speed would drop in half; which caused me to need to set a high idle speed to compensate. After doing a little research and investigation, my AC solenoid and the AC portion of the vacuum system is indeed fully functional. The cause of the idle drop was that the throttle opener that kicks up idle speed was not adjusted correctly.

While my car’s throttle opener does not adjust the same way as indicated in the manual, it did tell me where the throttle opener was and how it works. Basically, the AC solenoid will pull the throttle opener when the compressor kicks on, which raises the arm as pictured below.

On my car (not sure about other first gens), the throttle opener can be adjusted by turning a screw on the top next to the vacuum line going into it. With a few turns of the screw, my idle now raises when the AC kicks on rather than dropping. With this fix I was then able to lower my idle speed back to 750rpm, and I also fixed my idle mix in the process; the car now hardly misfires at idle (I suspect it was running lean), and seems to have also netted a minor improvement in fuel efficiency.
Also, shout out to Asus. The Zenfone 6’s flip camera is extremely useful. I can position the phone’s screen and camera perfectly to see into tight spaces I would normally never be able to see. There’s so much stuff I’ve done on this car that would have been much more difficult if I had a different phone or camera setup. Above picture of the throttle opener arm would not have been possible with a different phone.

Electrical Gremlin Hunt, Episode 1

Looking at my window sticker, there’s some electrical functions listed that I have never seen in action. One of my closest friend’s little brother is a beginner mechanic (also smarter than me in car things, especially electrics) offered to help me figure out why that stuff doesn’t work (as well as maybe fix some stuff that did work, but doesn’t work anymore). The first time we hung out and troubleshot, we were investigating the mysterious case of the door light and ignition cylinder light. We discovered that they were both on the same circuit, of course. However, we are stumped as to why these lights don’t work. The bulbs are good, the wiring is good. But the door switches, we have no idea how they work; we don’t know if they are functional or broken. We basically got nowhere, lol. We did break my dome light in the troubleshooting process, but it was about dead anyways. Replaced it with a nice LED one, super bright. The dome light doubles as the door light, so with it working we are confused. I am going over to hang out with him again and do some more detective work. Stay tuned for Electrical Gremlin Hunt, Episode 2.

Bright Boye

Exhaust

Don’t get too excited just yet, its still got the stock exhaust. However, I am gearing up for some major upgrades. I discovered where my exhaust leak was and why my exhaust was rattling badly at low speed. Turns out that the midpipe separated from the flange where it connects to the muffler. My buddy did some band-aid tack welds so it stops rattling, but there is still big leaks. We will have to take the midpipe and muffler out to re-weld the flange back to the midpipe. We also need to replace the rear right parking brake cable, which is hidden above the exhaust heat shield over the muffler (my buddy snapped it a while ago and promised to pay for it; we’re finally doing it now since we probably need to take the muffler off anyways).

Ew, stinky boogers.

I’ve been doing a lot of research on how the emissions systems work over the last couple weeks. The best/easiest way to remove the catalytic converter, purely from exhaust work perspective, is to do a header swap. This means that the pre-silencer (fancy rotary word for resonator) will bolt directly into the exhaust in place of the catalytic converter. However, the stock exhaust manifold is hooked up to tons of vacuum lines and other things to help the emissions. When you do a header swap, there’s a lot of stuff you have to account for in order to allow the car to run right afterwards.
So, I’ve figured out all of what I need to get and have started ordering things. Its getting exciting! I ordered a complete LRB Speed 12A block off plate kit. It is meant for race cars, but most of the block off plates in the kit are extremely useful for what I am doing. I will need to block off the Air Control Valve (part of the air pump system. Air pump is finally getting yeeted!), the shutter valves, and the split air pipe (a little bung that goes into the catalytic converter to let exhaust get rerouted back into the intake for emissions). I also bought some high temp RTV to use as gaskets on the block off plates and some metal tape to plug the holes in the air cleaner where there will no longer be vacuum lines. Unfortunately, the block off plate kit will take nearly 3 weeks to arrive as they are made-by-order.
Soon, probably after the block off plate kit ships, I will order the final pieces of the puzzle. I am going to get a Racing Beat 12A header for 81-83 RX-7s, and the 81-83 Racing Beat Pre-Silencer. These will be bolt in upgrades for the stock manifold and catalytic converter. I can expect upwards of 20-25 additional horsepower at the crank, which would likely put me at 90 something at the wheels. Not to mention the catalytic converter heatshield will no longer rattle at high speeds, there won’t be anymore exhaust leaks with the repairs to the midpipe, and the car will sound 100x better. Exhaust leaks on rotaries make them sound awful. There’s also a possibility that the aftermarket header could lower temps, which would be nice but is not guaranteed. I can’t wait to start working on it!

Miscellaneous Pics/Updates

One of my friends absolutely destroyed the Astro van’s front left tire. He punctured it on the steering rack, which is precariously barely attached to the car on the left side. They are probably going to scrap the Astro relatively soon, but its got a new tire in the meantime.

Same guy who destroyed the Astro’s tire just bought a Crown Victoria Police Interceptor. Its actually in fairly decent shape. Its got some battlescars from its police days, the previous owners welded the diff and cut off the exhaust after the cats, and its got almost 200k miles. But it runs and drives just fine, and it was cheap. He also finally replaced the nonexistent clutch in his BMW; the Slipmobile is no more.

Press F to pay respects. One of the vacuum advance solenoids on the RX-7 broke off of the vacuum rack. I was already bypassing them, so its not a problem.

I upgraded to LED side marker bulbs and cleaned/repaired the lenses. LED tail lights soon tm. Also thinking about fog lights.

I finally met up with one of the bois on the rotary discord I’m in. He lives only 40 or so minutes away, so we will likely hang out again in the nearish future. His blue RX-8 is quite fast, and sounds amazing. Also shoots some nice flames.

And now for random pics of the RX-7.

Some videos of a walkaround and a 60mph sprint.
https://streamable.com/d90op2
https://streamable.com/59ghc7

Hope y’all enjoyed at least something in this massively long post. Stay tuned for juicy exhaust upgrades and whatever else happens.

[Eastman51]

Been another long hiatus.

Ironically, the RX-7’s exhaust still isn’t done; however the exhaust leak has been more permanently repaired.

Also, the title has been updated. I bought another car.
I picked up a 1995 Toyota Corolla DX I saw on facebook marketplace. I took a look at it and test drove it, it was good. Bought it for $280, 178k miles. Reason for being sold: clutch failing. Actual problem: needs a new drive axle and motor mounts. Still drives well, and drives straight.

Corolla Gang

The car runs and is in pretty good shape for its mileage. Kind of surprising it even runs though, considering how old the spark plugs are. They are really really bad, waiting on new ones to come in. Also going to be doing oil changes on the motor, transmission, and differential.

Being a DX trim, it has the 1.8L 7A-FE and a 5 speed manual; she’s an oil burning queen, naturally. No oil leaks though, so all blow by and valve seals. It also has power steering, power windows, power locks, AC, and somehow still has a working original tape deck/radio.

The car was disgustingly filthy when I bought it. The interior clearly hadn’t been cleaned in years. I remedied that. The interior looks really nice now, and thanks to some carpet cleaner it doesn’t smell like a weird combination of cigarettes and weed anymore. Not to mention, with cleaned windows you can actually see in all directions.

Can of Seafoam to run through the gas when it eventually gets low on gas. I’ve driven it 200 miles, and its still just under a half tank. Not sure how accurate the fuel gauge is yet, but if its accurate, this thing is godly in range/economy. It is rated for 35 highway, 28 city; so I can probably go almost 400 miles. Pretty insane kit for under $300.

And the car isn’t very rusty either. Does have a pretty nice meme exhaust leak. The flex pipe in the pipe coming off the header and into the catalytic converter is dead; massive leak. Somehow sounds pretty good. Not sure if I will fix yet, but I’ll get to that later.

As you undoubtedly noticed, the car has mismatched tail lights. That’s not the only cosmetic flaw. It was clearly in some kind of front end collision; the left front fender and front bumper are black, the driver’s door has a big dent in it, and the right parking lamp assembly is shattered and broken.

We took a trip to a local scrapyard today, they had a 1993 sedan. I took a tail light assembly off of it, the mismatched one on the right was off of a 96 or 97. I also took an oil filler cap since mine was no longer readable, and I grabbed some floor mats as I only had a front passenger floor mat.

Much improved. Sadly the scrapyard car did not have a parking lamp assembly, and we broke the mirror glass from the mirror on it in an attempt to remove it (my passenger side mirror glass is broken). The scrapyard car does have some very cool wheels. They look like knock off BBS mesh wheels, but are clearly almost guaranteed stock. I intend to return to the scrapyard to grab those wheels as they would make a cool second set. The scrapyard car also has a factory wing, but I am not sure if my car has the wiring for it; and it would need to be paint matched or sprayed black.
Got a new bulb in the driver’s side parking lamp. Looks better on that side now that there is the full amount of intended light.

I kind of bought this car on a whim, I happened to be browsing marketplace and stumbled across it. The price was right, and the previous owner was going to scrap it if it didn’t sell. I saw how nice it was and just had to rescue it from the same fate as the whacky looking 93 I saw today. I’m really starting to fall in love with it, and I will likely keep it for a while yet. I’ve been wanting a car to go auto crossing in, but with the RX-7’s oil leaks and it being something I’d rather not beat on too hard I haven’t really been able to. But I think the Corolla will make a fun little autox car. I will likely autox it stock for a while, but I do want to put some grippier tires on the fake BBS from the scrapyard car to make it a little quicker. Maybe do some suspension and brakes later down the line. There’s a good possibility as well that I may be picking up a single rotor engine early next year that I was considering swapping into it. A naturally aspirated single rotor would only be about as powerful as the stock 7A, but would definitely be fun to keep at high revs on an autox course. Not to mention the weight savings. But I am not sure if I will go through with that swap yet or not; afterall, I’m not guaranteed that motor and I might fall too much in love to yoink the 7A out. However, I was thinking that if I were to rotary swap, I could rebuild the 7A and find a Corolla wagon or an Accord with popups to drop it in to keep it alive in spirit.

To address the exhaust leak, if I rotary swap, then I’m obviously completely rebuilding the exhaust. An ebay race header would include a new pipe for $92. A factory replacement pipe is $80. Obviously, the pipe alone is a bad buy. I could just buy the header and run that until I rotary swap, or I would already have it on there in case I don’t. Would be a cheap and fairly easy project to maybe get some extra horses and better noise from.

There’s always the possibility I get the single rotor, don’t want to put it in the Corolla, and then find another car to swap it into.

Anyways, that’s all a long ways off. For now I’m just going to keep breathing life into it. After I get new spark plugs in, I’ll be taking it in to have the axle and motor mounts replaced to fix the clunking and shuddering on gear change.

Prius Life

Not a whole lot to say here. Its my reliable daily driver.
However, quite big climax to the mystery noise. Turns out the valves were messed up by the ceramic. And I also discovered a lot of metal flake in the oil. A couple of shops confirmed the death sentence, and so I actually ended up getting a 86k mile engine swapped in. Big hit to my house funds, but was worth it to ensure the car won’t poop out; this was before the Corolla as well, so I would’ve been left with just the RX-7.
I’ll need to replace the spark plugs on this new engine soon. I don’t want a repeat of last time…
But yea, other than that, the Prius is just doing its thing and ferrying me around.

Rotary Things

You know, not much has happened since the last time I posted, to be honest.
We finally fixed the handbrake.

Replaced the front cable. The rear left cable broke on us while replacing the front cable. I happened to have a rear right cable on hand, but that cable is too short. We pulled a redneck and made a little adapter plate to get the handbrake functional; I’ll order a new rear left cable eventually, but I haven’t seen any for sale on ebay or rockauto, so who knows when that’ll happen.

I discovered a crack in the RX-7’s dash a few weeks ago. My heart sank. Its not a horrible crack, but its still a crack. I decided to order a dash mat to hide the crack and prevent any more from forming under the unforgiving UV rays of the sun. I also got one for the Prius, and will likely get one for the Corolla as well. I like the aesthetic it adds, and makes the interior feel a little more cozy.

Due to carb issues, I decided to replace the soft fuel lines in the engine bay and add a secondary inline fuel filter; I also went ham on fuel system cleaner. I don’t think the carb was actually rebuilt, and I would like to put off rebuilding it as long as possible.

I also did some painting. Painted the side mirrors, the A pillars, and windshield wipers. The car looks soooo much better with just that. And I haven’t even repainted all of the crappy exterior trim.

What is this?

Oh yea, its a set of Sylvania Halogen fog lights. For the RX-7 of course. They look cool, and they add so much light. Its crazy. I am going to get fog lights for the Prius now because of this, and because the Prius high beams are garbage; it really needs the extra light.

Thanks to said fog lights, power draw at idle is…quite high. So LED tail lights to the rescue. Had to wire in some resistors to get the “STOP LAMP” warning on the dash to go away. However, power draw is considerably less, and I am kinda regretting not going LED tails forever ago because they have so much more light than incandescent bulbs. The factory tail light design just bleeds away so much light.

Power draw with the turn signal on at idle is still pretty high. I am researching/investigating a conversion to a modern 3 pin solid state electronic flasher so that I can slap LED turn signals in without wiring resistors again.

AH, yes, how could I forget.
Electrical Gremlins Part 2: The Conclusion.
IT ALL WORKS!!
The pin for the door switches on the body harness connector separating front to back was corroded horribly. Soldered it outside the connector. Everything works. The door light, the light off reminder, the door buzzer, everything. Its awesome. Only things that still don’t work are the dash dimmer and the cigarette lighter. To be honest, I can’t really be bothered to tear everything apart to investigate, so… whatever. I’ll eventually convert the dash lights to LED anyways, the stock incandescent lights are pretty dim even at max brightness.

Beyond that, the RX-7 has been running well. She treated me nicely while the Prius was away getting a new motor. And now the weather is getting cold and she’ll be getting put to bed for hibernation at the first sign of snow/salt. I now have the Corolla for a winter project/winter fun car.

How about we end on more misc pictures?

Pics

Posing with my buddy’s E46

Posing with my friend’s MkIII Supra

Some more shots of the fogs and LED tails.

The Corolla meeting the Prius for the first time. The Corolla and the RX-7 haven’t met yet. The Corolla is currently parked where the RX-7 used to be when I first got it.

Getting a look under the hood for the first time.

[Eastman51]

I’m back.

Prius

I retrofitted fog lights to the Prius. The cheap halogen bulbs that came with the kit weren’t great, so I upgraded them with some Alla Lighting LEDs. I thought about getting yellow LEDs, but ended up getting white ones instead. I also replaced my headlights with new Sylvania bulbs as the cheap bulbs the body shop put in last year already burnt out.

The switch that came with the eBay kit did not fit in the stock switch panel, so I had a jank setup until I found a compatible switch.

New switch fit like a glove, but I installed it upside down. I do fix it later during a second wiring job.

This was when the second cheapo bulb burnt out. The passenger side one burnt out first, but I still had my old original bulb from before the accident when one of the original bulbs burnt out and I replaced them both. When the driver’s bulb burnt out I decided to just replace them both with new ones.

And here we upgrade the fog lights to LEDs.

The LEDs made a world of difference. The fog lights actually provide more light and give me what I was expecting.

The first oil change on the new motor!

Fresh Castrol Edge High Mileage 5W30 + a OEM Toyota Denso oil filter. Ran a can of Seafoam through the old oil, and the new oil is still clean af after a 100 or so miles.
I also went on an LED light buying spree; and updated the reverse lights, courtesy lights, dome lights, and cargo light. I didn’t upgrade the map lights since I never use them, and didn’t bother with the glove box light.

It feels so much more modern now, I love it.

And the last, and most recent thing I’ve done. Bluetooth.
While I was looking for a new fog light switch, I stumbled across a Bluetooth to Aux adapter that fits in the stock switch panel. I figured why not, since my next smartphone probably won’t have a aux port.
Wiring it started out poorly. I decided to wire into the 12v outlets, and the wire I cut first happened to be the hot side of the fuse box, so the module was always on. Obviously no bueno. Ended up unbolting the front seats so I could remove the center console and splice directly into the 12v outlet’s wiring. Now its ignition switched. Beyond the initial hiccup, the wiring itself went well.

Heatshrink time

Right after getting it back together.

And during the following test drive.

The Bluetooth is working great, and with its addition, the Prius feels very modern now. Its running great with the new motor still. Soon I will be replacing the spark plugs and coil packs, this time making sure there’s not a repeat of last time…

Corolla

Bought an owner’s manual on eBay since the car did not have one.

New spark plugs.

New NGK wires and a Bosch (iirc) rotor. The cap was pretty new so I did not replace it. I may reroute the wires as they are done haphazardly as is lol.

New Fuel filter. The fuel that came out of the old one was black. Yikes…

New used passenger mirror assembly ordered from eBay.

New Passenger parking lamp assembly.

Transmission gear oil change. The old oil was pretty grey and probably original. Replaced with Lucas Synthetic 75W90 gear oil.
It took forever to arrive, but I ordered a “16 VALVE EFI” valve cover sticker off of eBay as well. These stickers were exclusive to the 4A-FE on the lower trim cars, but the 7A-FE looks pretty plain and boring without it.

Junkyard trip part 2
Wanted to take the factory wing, but the trunk was closed and we couldn’t get it open. We will return in the future to either crawl in through the back or just pry the sucker open.
However, all was not lost.

Took a nice set of 14x6 4x100 wheels off the car. From what little I can find online, they are Cheviot Mirages; some kind of Australian wheel from the late 80s/early 90s. They seem to be pretty rare, so its pretty neat.

Loading them up to get the tires swapped out. I put new tires on the factory steelies, so I want them switched to the new alloy wheels. The dry rotted tires on the alloys are also too bad to be used.

Fresh back from the tire shop.

New speakers front and back. It’s bumpin now. The tape deck part of the factory radio doesn’t work, and I can’t be asked to take it out to rebuild it; so I got a Bluetooth FM transmitter instead.

LED reverse lights. Tail lights and turn signals soon to follow.

LED cargo light and dome light. I can actually see!

Removed the stickers and gave it it’s first pressure wash. Also used some industrial wheel cleaner on the new wheels, and they are looking damn fine despite the scuffed lip and flaking white paint.

Not sure if I’ve mentioned this yet or not. I did an oil change on it about 1k miles ago, and after about 300 miles the new oil was already quite dark. Going to do the next oil change in 1k miles and give it a Seafoam treatment. Hopefully it shouldn’t get near black after a few hundred miles again.

I don’t really have much else planned for the Corolla, besides fog lights; which will be interesting as there’s no factory mounts. I think you need a special bumper to use OEM style. I’ll figure something out. Not sure about the exhaust yet as the eBay race headers don’t seem to have the right O2 sensor bung. I will eventually get coilovers to stiffen it, but I don’t plan on lowering it much, if at all.

RX-7

After my last post, the RX-7 met the Corolla. And then winter came in full force. I’ve maybe driven it 3 times since then, in-between spurts of snow and after multiple days of rain washed away road salt.

Due to the current economy, its not looking like I’ll be able to afford a house anytime soon. I am quickly outgrowing what little space I have at my parents, so I do desperately need to move out. As much as I hate to do it, I will have to rent a house. If things go according to plan, I should be getting a move-in date within the next month.

Unrelated to my RX-7, but RX-7 related (and related to moving out), I found a convertible FC for sale somewhat nearby. The listing has been up for a little while, claims the car runs, and is at a good price (plus it looks immaculate in the pictures). Its bone stock (except for an aftermarket radio), and even has OEM Bosch fog lights and covers. Assuming the seller hasn’t already sold it and just hasn’t updated the listing, and it does run well enough to drive an hour home, I plan to buy it once I move out. I should also have parking space to also buy a minivan like I’ve been wanting, even if I get the convertible FC, so that should also be happening this year. Aiming for a clean AWD Previa, would prefer supercharged but will take NA if I can’t find an unmolested supercharged one. If I can’t find any good Previas, I’ll look at clean gen 1 Siennas. I can always sell a Sienna later and get a Previa.

And per tradition, misc pics:

Pics

Quick trip an hour north to visit a few boys from the rotary community.

A friend of a friend recently bought a Z31. Naturally we had to gather the 80s wedges and take pictures.

Trying out my fog light covers.

Washing the cars before winter hibernation.

After I installed the fog lights. My friend has also just tinted his BMW’s fog lights yellow.

One of the few times I got to drive the RX-7 over the last few months.

The slightly higher offset of the new wheels give a nicer fitment.

We encountered a friend of a friend’s Corolla IM.

The bois all lined up.

My friend (BMW one) joined LED gang on his daily. LED yellow fog lights, LED amber front signal bulbs, LED brake/turn signals in the rear, and LED reverse lights. I have yet to convince him to get LED dome lights.

[missionsystem]

owners manual is very familiar. looks like a nice corolla