'80 13BT Series 1

[biznatch]

Rx3 coupe?! That's a rare find in these parts, rock &roll!!

[Lucky]

Ooooh, jealous of that '3, Timmers! Where the hell did you unearth that from?

[Chud]

It was the result of a few months of advice given to the son of the owner who originally wanted to restore it - Matty was the only person who gave advice rather than bombarding them with offers to buy so thanks to karma, when they decided to just sell as they didn't have the resources to restore they offered it to Matty. So it's now part of the Chuzz3n holding group.

[JayoM]

The second RX-3 to make its way to a new home in the UK recently! Fair play, well jealous! Good to see that karma worked with this one

[Chud]

It's been a hectic couple of weeks but some progress has been made. Boost piping is all sorted now, just needs clamping - had to relocate the trailing coils to allow space but aside we're all good. Radiator pipes ordered along with all the other random bits and bobs that you seem to need/lose.

Tank is mounted, Alex made a cradle setup so the tank itself didn't have to be welded to and eliminates the risk of welds cracking from the 10 gallons of fuel bouncing around. Need to get a different breather valve as that one is a waste of time - it is just a ball bearing inside an allow housing which if I were to run out of talent (likely) and end upside down it'd allow fuel to pour everywhere. Anyway, it's all replumbed now and the fittings changed on the FPR along side the new Bosch filter so it all looks a bit posh for my liking. Might have to throw some mud at it.

Heres some piccies....







MOT Tuesday.

LOL

[ian65]

inspirational stuff, good luck with the test
Those braided lines and the fuel setup looks the biz....

did you keep the BAC valve set up on yours or doesn't the Microtech run it ? ......and have you done the throttle body mod?

[Chud]

Cheers Ian,

I binned the BAC setup right in the beginning when I did NEV, picked up some pineapple racing blanks for the UIM and capped it all off. The throttle body did have a dremel waved at it too yeah and got shot of the coolant flowing through it etc.

[Chud]

Spent the afternoon at Tim's yesterday in an effort to do the last push for MOT, all was going a bit too splendidly and before you knew it we had the Bosch 044 mounted pretty much in the stock pump location (anyone got a stock pump shield) and all was rewired and plumbed in....



The filler neck was a bit awkward but we got it in the end after copious amounts of grunting and liberal use of prybars/screwdrivers/lube/blood it was in.

At this point and feeling quite smug about life, we opted to do a leak test before putting the throttle body and UIM on and thats where it all went pretty tits up. I gleefully slung a gallon of fuel in but my boyish enthusiasm would soon be quashed by the rapidly growing puddle of fuel on the floor. The tank, it would seem, had a leak. In reality it was just unfortunate, and was the smallest of pin pricks in the weld but it was enough to ruin my evening so out of the pram the toys went, into the boot went the scattered aftermath of our efforts that afternoon and I, sans tank, disappeared into the gloomy night. Fortunately Alex was on hand to ease my pain as much as he could knowing that my MOT dreams were in tatters and he dutifully fixed the leak after some quite comical scenes of us purging the tank with water seeing as we wanted to retain our eyebrows - we tested the situation outside with a blow torch (secretly hoping for something remotely impressive to happen) but alas it didn't we were to remain disappointed. I must add that anyone thinking about doing Stoptober whilst carrying out work on their disgruntled RX7 should either go back to drink immediately or leave the 7 till November where you can carry out the work with a daft moustache instead.

One consolation though was that one of the 90degree fittings on the end of one of the fuel rails was duff and also had no seal qualities at all so regardless of the tank hiccup - it still wouldn't have made the MOT.

The tank was dropped off again this morning and at around midday much to my surprise received a text informing me that 'it's alive!', apparently all that was required was a 45% trim of the mixture map to allow for the bigger injectors (short term fix) and literally three cranks and we had life. Odds and sods will be sorted up till the end of the week and I'll go and collect on Saturday - although it seems likely that I'll be trailering him up to the Pod as my MOT man isn't a believer in doing anything whatsoever on a Saturday.

[Chud]

Well, where were we? Oh yes thats right - I was balls deep in fuel tank. I didn't make Japshow, mainly because the wife wasn't well but it also didn't really seem right showing what is an unfinished car to the masses and in reality, when it is finished it wouldn't look alot different, I'd just know that it was actually done. If that makes sense.

Anyhoo - onto whats been done today instead. Those of you at the front that are still awake may recall the blue doobrey on top of the tank that was masquerading as a breather fitting that would close up in the event of a mishap. Well it turned out that it worked in completely opposite manner and shut when it was meant to be letting the tank breathe so in the bin that went. In its place went this little snazzy device.


It's a one way valve, and will allow the tank to suck air in but hopefully not vice versa. It looks a little bit like this, although excuse the picture.



With that sorted, all thats left to do at the tank end is connect the fuel gauge but via a smart little box from a company called carbuildersolutions.co.uk that allows you to calibrate an alien fuel level sender to whatever gauge you want - which in my case is the standard gauge. I did buy a variable resistor and was going to knock something up myself but this sold state unit will probably offer better reliability than the 5 minutes mine would probably last.

I did a bit of plumbing after that, and dealt with the radiator.



You'll have to excuse the blue VAC pipe from the FPR - it's all I had today. The trouble now is, I've been well and truly bitten by the braided hose/JIC fitting bug so I've now put in an order for pipe and fittings to replace the smaller coolant lines for the turbo, the turbo oil feed and the breather hoses.

Also on the order is a modern fuse box with circuit breakers, I'm not gonna be that bloke at the side of the road staring helplessly at my burning car.

Here it is thus far anyway. Bit of a mess at the mo but it works.

Heres a turbo.



And after a serious de-flooding session, heres a running 7.



Left it idling for a good while, I'm well happy with the radiator.



So, a week late granted - but it's ready for MOT. Apart from the number plate perhaps.

[KiwiDave]

Just out of interest, did you purchase a fuel level sender from CBS? If so, which one? That fuel guage matcher looks trick.

Am considering replacing the factory level sender with a nice new aftermarket one.