Nars GSL-SE the 'White Comet'
 

So here it is, my latest rotary project. For those of you who don't know about my other ones... check out my intro thread...

It's an 85 GSL-SE with 195,000 miles.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5489/9...a64abb1c_t.jpghttp://farm8.staticflickr.com/7324/9...5aeff0e5_t.jpg

The car has has some issues... I've got my work cut out with this one. For example, this is the kind of shoddy wiring I've got to contend with...

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5508/9...9160aa58_t.jpg

My buddy just recently rebuilt the engine and we just got it running yesterday. Not exactly running perfect yet though... for example, the timing isn't quite right. The main pulley is set right, but as far as the distributor goes if we set it right on the dot, it only runs on the orange 'trailing' mark when its turned fully retarded. Or, if we set the distributor off one tooth it runs on the yellow 'leading' mark when its fully advanced. Nothing in between.

It idles better on the orange mark so for now that's where it set.

I like the white. I have been accused of being somewhat biased when it comes to 1stgens though.:) Are you planning a stock restoration or doing some modifications?

I plan on some pretty extreme modifications actually. I'd like to make it a caged, widebody, semi-racecar. But that will probably be sometime down the road. I'll work up to that, but for now I am gonna keep upgrading it slowly, learning more about the car as I go until I'm familiar enough with it to plan the big projects better.

I'm very fond of driving, so you can be sure I will be using this car on the street (and probably the track too eventually) as much as possible.

Oh... duh... I know why its not set right. We were assuming TDC was the yellow 'leading' mark on the front pulley. We have to set TDC with the flywheel.

glass sunroof?

Update
 

Yessir for now its glass, but I also have the original metal one... except its got a hole through it from rust :/ hopefully it can be repaired. I also like the glass though.

Also update, reset the timing per the flywheel and it idles/runs much much better. Still need to set the TPS properly though.

Also on the sooner-than-later to-do list:

-Replace blown illumina shock (shipped defective)
-Install Poly bushings
-Fix shoddy wiring/electrical gremlins
-Install speed-bleeders, overhaul brakes. (eventually upgrade pads/rotors)
-Fix strange 'clanking' sound from somewhere under car when releasing clutch
-Fix vibration from rear end. (Gonna upgrade to Kia Sportage gears)

I can't wait to see her all done up. When do you think she'll be track ready?

where is antioch from Santa Rosa?

Update
 

Heh, well here's some more pics of more wiring issues. The whole ignition switch had to be rebuilt. I think the really corroded wire is for the starter which is probably why it had trouble engaging to the flywheel sometimes.

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I pretty much spend all my free time in the garage so I will be making steady progress. If I were to predict when I'd feel it was track ready probably springtime... I'm pretty particular about what I consider 'track ready'. Especially when it comes to brakes.

I had a scary experience with brake fade in my bridgeported FB on the downhill in the mountains. Also in my FC I boiled my brake fluid charging into turn 10 at Thunderhill on my first track day. Not something I want to repeat lol.

I need more seat time in this FB before I can really ascertain what it needs. It won't be track ready as far as I'm concerned until I'm completely confident of its abilities and character at the limit. Like how I used to feel about my 2nd FC... after two years of tuning it I could drive that car at 11/10th's and still enjoy myself.

It's about 70 miles away or so. If you do end up moving there I can introduce you to the rotary-gang around here :)

I've heard that the OEM FB brakes weren't up to the task of extended track days in heat. How were you going to tackle that in the long run? I saw in a previous post that you said pads and rotors. Did you ever think about the TII subframe swap to get the thicker and larger rotors/caliper? It's a somewhat economical (i'm a heap A$$ :lol: ) swap, and people that have done it said they'd never look back. i haven't done it personally, just looking for input from people that have done it, or are considering it.

One of these days, I will drive thunderhill. I've always heard a lot about that track from here in FL. Many enduro's run there. Maybe you can coach me if we ever meet up there :naughty:

Yeah I don't doubt that FB brakes won't handle track days. It blew my mind when I learned (from this forum) that I could swap an FC subframe over. That's a good option because I looove FC brakes. The rack-and-pinion would be nice too.

Thing is I already got a full bushing kit, Illumina shocks and RB springs for the FB setup so I will use that for the time being. When I get ready to weld in a cage, that will probably be the time to pull the motor and do a more thorough suspension upgrade because I will want to tie the cage into reinforcements to the chassis under the hood.

I say this because the unibody frame-rails that run by the bottom of the front strut towers are usually pretty weak. When I flipped the RX3, the cage in that car didn't reinforce those areas and they cracked. I intend to design a much better cage for the FB.

I also have another Mazda in mind to borrow parts from. I think it might be neat to swap over the suspension off a Miata unto an FB. I'm sure a lot of custom fabrication would be required, but I think it would be worth it because I was very impressed after driving a Miata a bit recently. It would be nice to have some of the balance and grip inherent in that delightful little car.

Also, the Miata and its suspension are pretty compact so it should be easier to fit it in an FB.

As far as Thunderhill goes, I would be happy to give you some tips or even accompany you along on a track day to help you dial in your tire pressures and the like. None of my bum friends ever work up the nerve to actually go to the track so it'd be nice to get out there more often :p

I'm closer to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and Sears Point now though. I have some ride-along experience on Laguna Seca because I was training to be a NASA instructor there. I would like to broaden my track experience as much as possible which also puts Willow Springs on my list of tracks I plan to use.

Indeed. I also have the TII subframe planned for my FB as well, but that won't be until next year if all goes well. I have the same issue, where I have a new tokiko shocks and springs for mine so i want to beat up on the car a little prior to changing it. Though, the TII swap makes for more wheel options too. choices! :lol:

I think, per capita, this forum has the most completely custom FB's than any other forum i've found, and all of them have write ups! One guy has a meticulous build thread in the 1st gen section called, "it seemed easy at first" . . . gives me so many ideas and inspiration. his suspension makes my pants tight. . . :rofl: all rewelded and refabbed. almost nothing OEM in there (just don't tell him I love his car, i'll never hear the end of it LOL).

edit: found the thread

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...ad.php?t=15585

I plan on having a shop in that is also a supporting/contributing vendor on here do the subframe swap for me, as that's well beyond my skill level. The shop is in southern CA and it's owner, Glenn (Mazpower on this forum) is a guru and great peoples.


that had to be SUPER scary. Glad it all came out ok and you're here!

Actually, my best friend's significant other installed a Miata subframe into an FB for one of their FB race cars. he said it was a very good and cost effective swap, mainly bc the Miata donors are a dime a dozen, has all sorts of cheap parts for it that are pretty well, and race teams are always getting rid of/upgrading parts which makes hand-me-downs cheap for primo parts

So if you choose that route and run into questions, i'd be more than happy to tap their shoulder for you/get you in touch with him


I live in FL. . . but one of these days I will make it out there and greatly appreciate the offer!! :cheers2: :D :D I'm different. I have the nerve to go, it's just the non-running rotary part that plagues all rotaries at one point or another in their lifetime :rofl: :lol:

Laguna Seca is pretty much my west coast Mecca. Everyone that has driven it, says the corkscrew can't be described. TV, video games, youtube videos. . . all of them do it zero justice :D Out here, I love some Sebring Intnational action :D :D

well if you want, once I move this month, my two FBs are both FC subframe cars. You can check it out for yourself.

Yeah I was very interested in that build as well, I commented on it.

I don't have video of the actual flip, but here is a clip of one of the runs and what the car looked like afterward...

http://youtu.be/vrJcJOHridE
http://youtu.be/OLsNY4-czEc

It was rather scary but not really anything to worry about. The car was fully caged and I was strapped in with a harness and a helmet. I Instinctively reached up to brace myself as the car was sliding on the roof and the steel got so hot from the friction that it burned my palms. That's the only injury that came from it.

Fuel leaking out of the webers had me worried though so as soon as I unstrapped myself I got out and yelled for help to flip the car over again. Then the track paramedics showed up just as a perfunctory gesture. But I drove the car home with a smashed windshield and all... It wasn't until the next day that I noticed the cracking in the unibody framing and decided it wasn't fixable.

If you want to talk about scary moments at the track, locking up the rear brakes coming into turn 10 was far worse. That's a downhill entry into a left hairpin with very little runoff before a wall lol.

Excellent, glad to know that thanks.

I've traveled to Florida before... you can keep it! lol, joking... yeah the corkscrew is amazing. It wasn't so fun though to be sitting in the passenger seat of an 240sx when it starts to do tank-slappers as soon as it crests the 'table' before the corkscrew. Then it just looks like a cliff you are about to do barrel rolls over lol. That was also scary.

Yes please! I'm sure my friends will be just as eager to see that. When I mentioned the FC subframe swap after learning about it from this forum they couldn't believe it lol.

Yup my gslse and rally car are fc subframed. Threads are in this section. Actually my rx2 is also

Argh... I can't make the gauge cluster lights work. I've even removed the cluster itself and applied power to it and still nothing. I guess I just have to admit its bad and get another one because I disassembled it and couldn't see anything wrong with it.

Update
 

I was having real trouble with the gauge-cluster illumination lights. My car didn't have a dimmer switch, so I was going to just rewire it without one. But after doing so I kept blowing fuses trying to run a parallel circuit so I had to cut into the gauge-harness and route a new isolated circuit to feed power to the gauge lights.

And I thought attaching the speedo cable in the FC was hard. FB's are worse! lol

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2876/9...4cab169c_t.jpg

Since I won't be using the spot for the dimmer switch, I've decided to run toggle switches there for foglights and auxiliary driving lights. Luckily for me, FC toggle-light switches fit perfectly. Always cool to find a use for another FC part in my collection. :)

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I bet your undertray doesn't look this clean ;)

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7421/9...2375e315_t.jpg

One thing I was considering was using an FC cluster. i've seen a few FB's running around with them, and they looked pretty flush. Have you seen that? If not, I can dig them up and post a few pictures. Just an idea :)

No I haven't seen that, by all means. I wouldn't mind the 9k tach and the 160mph speedo :)

This one is from Gunny's car:

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6046/7...537fc206_c.jpg

I did mine because I used the FC harnesses when I did the engine/trans/fuel system swap. I figured it was probably easier and more reliable to just plug in the stock cluster. The extra gauges were a nice benny.

I don't know how others have done this swap, but mine took a fair amount of fabrication to pull off. Nothing extreme, but a bit of a pain nonetheless. I had to use angle pieces off the support beam in the dash to make mounts for the FC cluster mounts. I had to trim and glue the facing from the FC bezel to the SA surround to pull it off.

I was wishing that I had used the S5 cluster after I finished it, much better looking cluster IMO. The cluster is a right pain in the a** to get in and out now though, not that it wasn't before. :)

Update
 

I'm getting a constant on-throttle or in neutral but not while car is rolling vibration. It's gotta be the transmission so car is going under the knife again. Gonna swap in an S4 FC Turbo II transmission and likely Kia Sportage gears.

Update
 

Here's the transmission options. On the left is the GSL-SE, in the middle is the non-turbo FC and on the right is the S4 FC Turbo TII.

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http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7436/9...0afb0924_t.jpg

Now I've been reading up about swapping FC transmissions into an FB. They all seem to say that you can swap the rear tail section from an GSL-SE transmission unto an FC transmission to make it sit properly.

Well after visualizing and measuring them up against each other I can tell you this is not required. The FC transmission tail-section and shifter location is exactly the same as the GSL-SE transmission. Only difference is the gear ratio's.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3687/9...1c25dbef_t.jpg

You can see that the shifter location on the TII transmission is about an Inch further back then that of the non-turbo FC or FB transmissions. There is an option to shorten the shifter housing on the TII transmission to make it fit as demonstrated by this video... (note: in the video he's talking about modifying it to fit into RX2's and RX3's that use the older SA style transmission which is much shorter. For use in an FB, A TII shifter housing only has to shorted by 1 inch.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=b_kUr5ZcaH8

Bolting the tail-section of the FB tranny unto a TII transmission is not an option as you can see here from the bolt pattern on the casing.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7452/9...54e81f2f_t.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5541/9...70f34eba_t.jpg

Not to mention the difference in the output shafts. Turbo's have a thicker one with 23 splines... non turbo's have a thinner one with 22 splines. It would be possible to make a custom driveshaft to match the turbo output shaft with a non turbo driveshaft.

However, modifying the TII shifter housing and making a custom driveshaft isn't something I feel like doing right now. Down the road if I'm making enough power to warrant the need for a TII transmission I will. But for now, a non turbo FC transmission will suffice.

Update
 

And this is likely the cause of my horrible vibration... a bad transmission crossmember mount. You can see the rubber has totally detached from its mount.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3825/9...affc67f1_t.jpg

Update
 

So I installed the FC transmission with a good transmission mount and it shifts great (thanks to Redline) but there was still a vibration issue. So I decided to re-lash the rear end but when I removed the driveshaft again I saw this...

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3690/9...27f95e30_t.jpg

So time for a new driveshaft. The rear end does have a little play in it also so I will be adjusting that as well. (Until I find 4.78 gears sometime soon I hope.)

In case you didn't know. The stock 83 and up driveshafts do not have replaceable universal joints. I ended up buying a new driveshaft from MazdaTrix that does have replaceable U-joints because my old one did not fit the new 85 GSL-SE rear flange. It ran about $300.

Be mindful if you do the fc subframe and using the stock engine mounts. Your going to have stuff move a little

Mazda RX7 Competition Preparation and Service Manual
 

I found something good to read :biggthumpup:

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3689/9...bd569dc768.jpg

Update
 

So I installed a mechanical oil pressure gauge (in addition to the stock electronic gauge) and an oil temperature gauge. These are old school gauges pretty period correct for this car actually. And they were brand new in box, work great :)

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Woa! where did you get those gauges from?! I like how throwback they look. they deffo match the era, even from someone not as in tune with the era as me.

that looks VERY trick!!

Thanks, I almost forgot I had these they were hidden away in an old parts bin for a few years along with my nitrous kit. I won't be running these gauges for too long though. Eventually my whole dash will be replaced with a fabricated one featuring a custom gauge/switch panel like I used to have in my RX3 (ala old school race car). I'm sure when that time comes I'll get a whole set of matching gauges. However for the time being I wanted to run these to help monitor the rebuilt engine.

So far so good in that regard. It has excellent oil pressure its about time to start doing some freeway pulls to wind it up through its powerband under load and check the operation of the 6 ports to make sure they're working.

when you decide to get rid of the gauges for a custom one off unit. . . please do keep me in mind. I wouldn't mind buying them off of you :D :D Unless someone else has spoken for them, but I definitely want them

but yes . . . those look AMAZING.

very nice! are you adding any exterior flares for larger tires or anything? or going to keep her pretty much stock body?

You are the first person to ask about em so yeah when the day comes I'll try and remember that.

I want wider tires so flares (and likely spacers) will be necessary. I'm thinking 15x8" wheels with at least a 225 series tire in the near future. When I'm ready for the cage and the custom widebody kit down the road I may run even wider wheels. Not sure yet. I know good street rubber is getting hard to find in a 15" wheel but I wouldn't want to go much bigger than that on a 1st gen.

I prefer to run old school wheels and old school parts and keep the car looking period-correct as much as it is functional to do so. Wheels like this I think suite the FB the best. I drool over 2 piece BBS or 3 piece Hayashi's

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3750/9...45c98de4_z.jpg
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3671/9...bb1e5c3e_z.jpg
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3748/9...1da784f2a6.jpg

Update
 

So replaced the driveshaft today. Boy what a difference! Car is sooo smooth now, no vibrations at all. Runs perfectly, very comfortable and easy to drive.

Break in period is over so time for its first freeway pull! I'll let you know how that goes.

Also, more upgrades coming soon!

Update
 

So the car pulls nice and hard on the freeway. It's got power, but I can't wait to build a custom exhaust for it. The stock exhaust is restrictive and leaks a lot. Also just got done pressure washing the undercarriage.

Update
 

So today I added some more grounds, just because... I placed one from the alternator directly to the negative battery terminal and another from the negative battery terminal to the strut tower.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7370/9...36e2ea4b_z.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5349/9...c73a7a31_z.jpg

looking good Nar! Glad to see another classic car back on the road!
- M. Vodak

Update
 

It smogged today so the stock exhaust will soon get chucked into the weeds. I also installed a 330mm Nardi steering wheel and hub.

Thanks Vodak! I appreciate the encouragement. You should swing by more often we still have to plan more aero mock-up prototype stuff. I want a custom nosecone for this FB :)