Decided to post this up as I am getting close to the end with it.

I've been working on this car, for a buddy, for a little over a year now. A lot of waiting on parts that really extended the project.
Also changing things here and there added to that. Had fun and also a lot of frustration from a 30+ year old car. This has been a 10+
year project for him. It was put together with a bunch of mismatched parts and fasteners. Not ideal but worked through most of it.

I don't know much about this platform so I may not be able to name brands of some of these items. My buddy ordered the parts
and just had them shipped to my house.





FD RX7
LS6
T56

Originally, I was supposed to do a new intake manifold, Holley ECU install, fuel system, and clean up a few things here and there.
Knocked out the radium fuel system with the integrated surge tank in the factory tank. His original tank was pretty rusty, so he sourced
a new replacement. Installed a bone stock MSD intake manifold and Holley 102mm TB. Got the Holley Terminator installed and got the car running.
Started road tuning the car. Idle and cruise were dialed in and I was working on the WOT fueling. First pull in 2nd and it spit coolant everywhere.
Finally found the issue to why it was doing that at WOT only. Whoever assembled the engine prior, didn't torque ANY of the head bolts. They were all
pretty much hand tight.






At this point, he decided to have a new engine built for the car. The LS6 that was in it, also had some lower than ideal oil pressure. Along with that
he wanted to do a 8.8 diff swap and new suspension.

While waiting for the engine to be done, got started on the 8.8 swap. Welded the Ronin brace on the stock rear subframe. He had a aluminum 8.8 built
with, I believe, a 3.50 gear. Got that buttoned up and installed on the car. He ordered full adjustable rear suspension and new sway bars. He also
found someone parting out their build and picked up a pair of DSS upgraded axles.




Got the shortblock in. He ordered some AFR Mongoose heads and custom cam from cam motion. Got the heads on and torqued down. Everything else on and
assembled and threw it back in the car. He wanted to rev the engine over 7000, so we got a BTR trinity intake for it. That intake didn't clear the hood
so ended up getting a LS3 intake manifold with the rod mod and ported. Stepped down to a 90mm TB.







He ordered a titanium axle-back that we waited months for. When that came in, I built a new exhaust from the headers back to the 3.5" titanium exhaust.
I gotta say, that was worth the wait because that thing is SUPER nice and it sounds great!

 

Did you cuss and throw parts while installing that radium surge tank? I broke my level sender and about lost it lol. The ronin swap parts are top notch and I was surprised how easy the 8.8 rear was get all lined up. Did you guys ever get a weight for it?

 

Never did a RX7 LS swap but it's such a great body style IMO.

 

From what I remember, the surge tank install went smooth.. Once you've done a few Fore fuel systems on the C6 vettes, everything else is kinda of a breeze, LOL.

Yeah, the Ronin kit was nice. Barely had to do anything to it. Pretty much ready to go out of the box.

We didn't weigh it. Its going to mostly be a toy for the owner. Not much of a racer, most likely end up as a cruiser with some spirited driving here and there.

 

I love the body style, but this car kind of killed the want to actually own one. Everything is so tight in the bay, old wiring, old plastics that fall apart if you look at them wrong, small interior size (I'm a bigger guy 6'3" 275lbs). Still love them.... from afar, lol.

 

My buddy also owns one of these exact cars but he kept the garage rotary engine in and boy oh boy has he ever spent a ton of money on the thing. Like you said it's a nice car but I'd never own one

 

My buddy hit me up this weekend and said he was going to sell the car once it's done. He ended up buying a cherry, low mileage S2000 that he wants to invest in.

 

Finally got this one pretty much wrapped up. Had it picked up for a tune earlier today. It made a solid 520whp and sounded great with the Ti exhaust on there.