Hello all,

I've had a project on my mind for about 2 years now and it is now finally coming together. I'm preparing to swap my 87 RX-7 with 70,000 original miles. Here is a little background on the project... not that I've secured an engine I feel like starting a build thread.

The car is in excellent condition, I searched for about a year before it came along, found it out in a small town in PA (I''m in NJ)

looked like this when I bought it:




Not too much to look at -but the price was right and it was unmolested.

To not make this post excessively long I'll give the short version, this is how she sits now:





Brakes and hubs swapped to TII parts (5lug 4 piston calipers)
Stance AL+pro Coilovers 16 way dampening and aluminum body
Enkei NTO3+M
Front: 17X8 +35 w/ Falken RT615 tires(225-45-17)
Rear: 18X9.5 +27 w/ 60% tread on tires (255/4018)
Custom Magnaflow exhaust
OS Giken 1.5 way diff in a TII rear

and some other basics, seat steering wheel, gauges ect...





Sumped tank









Original plans were to do a LS1 swap -but I stumbled onto a good deal on a LS2 from an 05 GTO and could not say no... 1900 miles on it. I bought the longblock plus a few extras.

I have most of the swap parts already and will get things moving at the end of this season, expect a build thread.

here is the donor car, the owner is swapping in a LS3 stroker engine...







quick video:


Thanks for reading, I'll document my progress.

 

Nice!

I am in the midst of this conversion right now. I have two machines under the knife to hopefully make one good one!

 

more pics of that gto cluster please!

 

Bought a clutch set up

Custom RPS from Carolina Clutches:

RPS Twin friction ultra light aluminum and steel pressure plate rated at 2900 pounnds. The disc is carbon and miba linings. Light weight steel fly wheel. Total weight is 30 pounds.

 

Thats the only one I have!

 

for those curious the flares go out a full 2" in the rear


Made some progress today!











There is a ton of work involved... time consuming yet not that difficult... welding involved... I'm beat... I write more later


this install is NOT for the faint of heart... and NOT a beginner install. If I was charging a customer for this it would be in the neighborhood of $600 just in labor.... PITA








I also welded then inner and outter fender together after cutting... seam sealer, undercoating... it came out nice.

This also gave me the opportunity to cut out the only bit of body rust on the car.

They are painted flat black and will stay that way....

today I'm installing my ARP extended studs and a like 50mm spacer to test sizing...







Also just ordered this LS6 manifold loaded with inj, sensors, TB the whole nine yards... I'm ditching the drive by wire so this just made sense and the price was right!

 

Nice progress. More info on them flares!

 

Figured I'll post over here and keep you all up to speed...

The plan:

LS2 with 2000 miles on it 400hp/400tq
LS6 Intake manifold
1-3/4" Ceramic coated longtube headers, X-pipe, 3" out the back, no mufflers
DSS custom driveshaft
LS1 PCM and wiring harness, ditching the drive by wire
G-Force GF4A Transmission
4-speed, clutchless upshift dogbox from a NASCAR Truck will hold 1000hp/800ftlb
1st=60mph, 2nd=95mph, 3rd=132mph, 4th will be a .75 overdrive for the highway
Sumped fuel tank with Aeromotive goodies and SS line
Very basic 6pt cage
I'm keeping full interior, this will be a street/drift car
Custom cooling stuff
Accusump goodies...
the list goes on and on
Just started the deconstruction yesterday:

This is how she was sitting before:




I'll document the progress... should have the rotary out tomorrow, still waiting on the trans and some other parts, it will not be a short build, I'm thinking mid spring it will be done.

Someone buy my 13b na engine right meow

Someone asked me why the 4 speed and how much is it:

The G4a Trans goes for $8900 new I got one used -but rebuilt for $2500
Main reason I chose this route is because I already have a ton of $ into the rear end set-up I'm running and there really is no gear options for the FC... just 4.11 and 4.33. The T56 trans has short gears as is and after people are swapping the main complaint is shifting all the time... the 4A has pretty much any gears you want available... that compounded with the fact that people are asking $1300 or so for a T56 with 100,000 miles...
**** it let's get baller.


10-3
Made some progress today!

Engine is all ready to come out! I may have cut a few things that did not necessarily NEED to be cut -but it sure was easier :bowrofl:
I had to buy a hoist and load leveler because I did not have one :yay: Sharing a garage with someone is cool because we spilt the cost of major tool that we both use. All the bolts I had laying around were too thick to fit through the links in the chain provided with the load leveler otherwise the engine would be out right now. I'll run out and pick up the bolts on the way to the shop tomorrow, I have 1,000,000 other things I need to get done (no car related) today.






Someone asked what are my other plans outside of the drivetrain:


Keeping the TII rear, I have a OS Giken diff in there. I have solid diff bushings installed, I have solid subframe bushing, AWR toe arms, DTSS elim, Spherical control arm bushings and a camber kit for the rear that need to be installed. I'm going to buy a new rear subframe from Nick that is clean... no rust. I'm building the cage, really simple and basic 6pt. Removing all the AC **** -but keeping heat/PS. That's it really, the car will look pretty much the same from the outside... except I just bought 17x8 and 17x10 RPF1 in black. I have a set with 315/35/17 Mickey Thomson Drag Radials for the street then for drifting I'll run 265/35/17 I plan on buying 4 more 17x10 so I don't have to fool around changing tires as much... and I might put a tow hitch on it so I can pull a trailer to the track with all my junk -**** trailering the car, I wanna drive it.

10-4

OK! Rotary is out! wow is the engine bay a mess! I'm going to spend the next few days just cleaning and removing unneeded crap. Sold my Engine/trans for $500 -not bad, that will go toward my headers.



sorry about bad quality, phone pics.




here's some grass from the landscaping I did at the last event




going for this set-up:

 

Nice project! Does someone make the intake system, or is it all custom?

 

what intake is that!??

 

looks like it might work on a 3rd gen huh?

 

Not sure who makes that intake... the owner of that car found it out of box at a shop.

this was the best pic I could find of it:



Made some progress... oil cooler and all that rotary garbage is out. It's tough because I do not have much time during the week -but I'm trying to get an hour or 2 in a night.
I found tons of little surface rust and areas literally stripped of paint due to leaking fluids... I'm thinking to blast the engine bay and paint it.

 

Rotary puke damage:





Getting there! cleaned up pretty good! I sold the wheels Friday so I was unable to push the car outside to give it a good wash and degrease. My new wheels will be here Monday so I'll throw them on and go from there. I don't really wanna pay someone to paint the engine bay... I'm going to look into alteratives.

 

yeah ill make it fit in the thidgen . lol

 

looking good.... dang those are some gangsta front spacers you got there...

 

yeah holy crap

 

Where did you end up purchasing the ls6 manifold from with all the goodies?

 

SMC performance in MI

great guys helped me out with some tech questions as well.

 

I'm lovin your build man! I have a thing for FCs, had an '87 a couple years back, had to get rid of it.
Thinking about taking an LS1 swap on in one next year... I'll have an extra LS1 sitting around with no home... Lol. Always wanted to, just never had the means.
Good luck, and keep us posted!

 

got some new wheels... I'll post pics tonight. 315/35/17 om the rear... they are no joke.