1983 RX-7 GSL "FB" gets it's new lease on life

[P71]

As almost all of you know I bought an 83 RX-7 GSL from the nephew of it's original owner back in February. It's a Sunrise Red Metallic FB with every option except leather. I have the metal and glass tops, and everything works including the rear wiper and A/C. It has 232K miles on the original engine and trans with NO rebuilds! It got hurt in a hit-and-run and now it needs a driver's door. So since I'll actually modify something beyond wheels/tires in 2009 I decided a build thread was in order.

Here's some pics of me and "Blinky" autocrossing last year where after some practice and a set of fresh Falken Azenis Rt-615's we started running with Porsche Boxter's!









Here's the only real mod to happen so far, a set of 14" LE Meshies that I restored over 2 days by hand sanding and hand polishing the lips and painting the centers bronze. I also added an NOS set of "+" center caps to replace the hideous meshie plastic ones and new Falken Azenis RT-615's in 195/60/14.



Here's the damage:



And here's the new door as I'm sanding:



Here's just how good this thing looked before the hit (this was taken after the hit, it's just the passenger side):



Blinky saw more then just a dozen autocrosses (93 runs!), it also hit the drag strip a few times and helped me secure my first Drag Racing Season Championship!



Overall it was a great year and I met a ton of cool people. Here's Blinks with Josh's killer LS1 FC and Adam's Track-Attack winning FD. We were all the scourge of the Porsche Club Autocrosses along with Jared's FD.




To go along with the wheels/tires I also had to do some other stuff last year. I replaced the ailing clutch with an SCCA stock-replacement legal Zoom MU-series clutch kit from Mazda. A massive driveline failure drag racing caused me to backdate to an SA driveshaft with new u-joints. The gear oil in the trans and rear end were both changed to Royal Purple. I restored the battery tray, installed a new battery, a new starter, and restored the radiator intakes. I changed the plugs with NGK's and upgraded the wires to Magnecor SV85 Competition ones. I also installed FC seats and new brake pads.

Right now the poor thing is buried in snow, but in the garage is a Racing Beat header, Magnaflow Resonator, and Summit fully-welded race muffler to go with a shiny new stainless dual-outlet tip. I will have it all custom installed by the same shop that did the exhaust on my P71 cop car. I also have a COMPLETE black interior to replace the faded maroon. I'm also slowly doing the bodywork in preparation of painting the car myself this spring. I hope to have everything done for the opening autocross in late March. It's a tall order as I also want to upgrade the suspension and cooling system during the downtime. I already have a new thermostat and electric fan.

Well, that's all for now. Any questions or comments would be appreciated and I will hopefully be updating this every few weeks.