How I got the car:
I found the car on craigslist under “parting out RX7 Turbo”. It had a bunch of vague modifications listed, like “greddy turbo, stage 4 clutch, exhaust, etc.” I asked if the seller was interested in selling it as a whole. The response: “$1000 takes the whole car”. To keep the story concise, I called and found out the car belonged to a towing company somewhere way up in NH. The car originally belonged to a student, some kid that totally took it for granted. He modified it (and did some very shotty work – almost everything is held together by zip ties and duct tape). One night he tried running from the police, and they arrested him and had the car towed.
Well the kid didn’t pick it up in 30 days, so the car then belonged to the towing company. (I don’t know how long it was sitting for, but it seemed to me like years. The last valid registration in the car was from 2011). The tow company owner said it wasn’t running – and here’s where the story got a little confusing. He said it was running when parked, however, the kid came back and took some parts out of it. He said there was some fancy computer in the glove box that the kid wanted, and he let the kid take it. It should run, he said, if I replaced the “computer doohickey”.
So for $1000 (and free delivery), I rationalized that even if I couldn’t get it running, I could always part it out and make my money back. It was 140 miles away, and I couldn’t go look at it. I used a friend’s AAA card and had it towed right to my house, sight unseen.
(The only photo I was given prior to buying the car)
I had mixed feelings when it rolled off the flatbed. It was dirty, needed some body work, and had two flats in the front and a set of NT555 extreme drag radials in the back. After giving it a good cleaning and a thorough once over, I put it up on my lift (I have an old benwil 7,000 twin post) and let it sit for most of the winter while I researched, schemed, and collected parts. I checked the compression and it had good numbers on the front and rear rotors. The car has 216,000 miles (yikes!) so I’m guessing it was rebuilt at some point. A carfax shows the car was south of the rust belt for most of its life, and it shows. Minimal rust for such an old car.
(the vitamin water catch can zip tied to a loose bracket was not a confidence builder)
Oh – and one more side note. The car came with a lot of paperwork from the towing company. I can title and register it if I feel so inclined. It all seems very legit, the numbers match and I am not worried about the car being stolen, as some have suggested to me.
It has a lot of mods – a front mount IC and hard pipes, a greddy BOV, a fairly nice magnaflow 3” exhaust that someone made, polyurethane mounts, stainless braided brake lines, and a lot of weight reduction. No emissions stuff, manual rack+pinion conversion, no heater, no A/C. Oh yeah, and a HUGE turbo. It doesn’t have any markings and I’ve had trouble identifying it. The hot side looks stock, but the compressor side is much bigger than the Hitachi H18 that comes stock on S4 RX7s. I measured the compressor inducer wheel diam. And it’s 2.2” (compared to 1.7” stock). The cold side outlet is 1.75”.
My Build so far:
I learned that the missing ECU was a microtech LT10S, a standalone that retails for $1,000. No wonder the kid took it with him. I got a used LT10S on ebay, picked up some factory coils, and rewired most of the kid’s shotty crimped and zip-tied wires. (the car was wired for direct fire, and I didn’t want to mess with that. So it’s back to factory sequential fire for now).
The first time I turned it over, I noticed a fuel leak at the rail. I saw it had non-stock injectors, so I pulled the rails, replaced them with stock 550s, and eliminated the pulsation dampener. I checked the serial #s and found out he put in 720cc primaries and 1000cc secondaries. I may put them back in when I get it tuned, but I wanted to get it running on stockers.
It took a while to get started – the tune was all wrong and it wasn’t getting enough fuel. I got a special microtech adapter and connected the microtech to a laptop. Fiddled with the maps until I finally got it to sputter. Some more tinkering and it revved, then died out. I ended up adding a 55% increase in fuel across the map before I got it to hold an idle. Took it for a drive around the block. It actually drives pretty nice, except for the rusted brakes that are practically non functioning. I’ll do a total brake job soon.
So most of my work so far has been cleaning up the engine bay, dismantling the interior, fixing the kid’s mistakes, and making sure the car is in good mechanical order.
(engine bay before and after. note the filthy firewall and mess of loose wires everywhere!)
Oh, I also picked up some rims off a 2000 mustang GT. They’re 17x8s (16x7 stock). I’m pretty certain I’m going to run Hankook Ventus RS3s for tires. No suspension mods yet, I might do a front/rear strut tower bar though.
my plans for the car:
I already have a car that goes fast in a straight line. I have a 3000GT VR4 that I’ve been building for 5 or 6 years, with a slew of go fast goodies. It’s comfortable and I can daily it- but I don’t want to use it for a hillclimb car. For one, I would hate myself if I wrecked it. And two, I love the 3s platform - but they’re not exactly corner carvers. Very wide, kinda heavy and prone to understeer. So I got the RX7 to build a dedicated hillclimb car. Something with a cage, street slicks, and shitty paint that I can hammer on and not feel bad about.
I’m going to take it to synaptic 3 tuning in NH and get the kinks worked out on a dyno. The car doesn’t even have an 02 sensor!!! I’ll probably put the big injectors back in and shoot for 300-350whp. I’m not concerned with big numbers; this isn’t a drag car.
like this from Jeg's 
) just wanted to be 100% sure i needed an SA. I've seen some open face SA2010s going for $150-$200. 
IIRC, rotaries crank pretty easy.