1976 RX-3

I had a thread somewhere on here a while ago about the build up of my 1976 RX-3 but I'm sure I had it in the wrong place and it's probably long since dead and so far behind on updates.

My last thread left off somewhere before the car was running, so a quick refresh on everything before then.

The car had spent a number of years running in ITA throughout Southeast/FL/GA region with SCCA before it found it's way to a rotary performance/speedshop in NC where I picked it up for $2K Challenge kind of money.

Here was the car the day I picked it up:

The goal was to get the car prepped for the $2012 challenge but we fell behind short of the deadline due to personal health and family loss issues taking away several months of productivity!

I did manage to get the car cleaned up, bodywork done and paintwork completed before having to call it quits for the $2012 Challenge goal. Here are some pics to catch you up:

Car at home ready to be stripped and cleaned:

Nice score.

Some shots during the tear down and clean up phase. The car was full of bondo, patch jobs, welds, pulls, and all the glory of an ITA warrior.

Then, started to repair the shattered fenders, shaved the door locks and fuel filler door:

Then, I had to cut out and repair some rotted rocker panels:

Long story short, many months and hours were spent going around and repairing years of race damage and simply old rot. All of this done on a dime to try and stay within the budget for the challenge.

Took the car out to the family farm for building a makeshift spray booth and finally paintwork. I was so excited to get the car all in one color again after staring at shades of gray, red, brown, pink, rust for many many months.

Final wash before the spray:

In the booth:

Took any panel that would unbolt off to get better uniformed paint lines:

During the paint process:

Spot fixing areas on the doors and bumpers. It was SOOO humid that day it really sucked! I normally have full paint suits on, but not that day it was too hot. Besides, wasn't shooting clear so I wasn't too worried for the short periods in the booth I'd have to be exposed:

And like magic, it's all done:

Then, I had to start putting it all back together. Touched up the tail lights with some paint I stole from my kid's art closet :)

Nothing fancy here, just some rattle can touchups:

We got a deal on bulk carbon fiber vinyl... so this started to happen:

I want a Challenge friendly RX3!

The car had a pretty well destroyed bridge ported 12A and we needed a suitable replacement. Looked around for donor cars, and ended up with two for the price of one :) We didn't know at the time how this would play out. We were looking to just do a 12A swap again since the exhaust and fuel system was setup for it already.

We pulled the first donor cars engine:

Tore it open with thoughts of keeping the rebuild simple and reuse hard parts, only replace the o-rings we needed and give a bridge port again just as it had before:

It was the hardest 12A I've ever taken apart. It did NOT want to play nicely. Then we found this:

Caused by this:

For those who don't speak rotard... this is like a blown head gasket.. then all the coolant hangs out on the housings and sits for years at a time, then when you run the engine.. bam. No more chrome surface :(

This left a sinking feeling on the entire project. We searched around, went through several housings and never found a good set again within the budget.

Only option left was to go to donor car #2.. problem was, it was EFI and was going to be a bigger pain to install and tighten the leash on the $2k budget...

Nice, another one on the forum

Yea - I saw your post when you picked it up... before this one, I had only seen a few running around. Hopefully we can both get these guys back on the road/track again soon! Work has finally slown down enough for me to have time to get online and share with other rotards :)

After the engine fiasco, I said some choice words, turned around and began getting to work on the interior.

This car's interior was horrible. Well equipped with all we needed, but horrible because of the color and years of "because race car" fixes.

First thing it needed was a bath:

Then some left over white rattle cans and roll/brush on rustoleum white and we're back in the business again:

Meanwhile the paint/clean up was taking place, ideas for a new dash cover began materializing:

The material of choice, discarded HVAC ducting?? No idea.. was next to a commercial building dumpster.. entire roll. The things people throw out. But of course, it too was PINK!

Honestly, I liked the textured finish though. It would look good in the car. Got it mocked, cut, riveted and added some custom gauges:

After cooling off a few weeks about the dead engine... we decided to see if the other donor car's engine was even any good. As far as we were told, the car had a maybe had an engine rebuild years ago and has been sitting for four years at this point. We knew the car had a bad fuel pump at the very least, so we rigged up a fuel can and some jump boxes... then this happened:

Video of donor car start up

So after we let the engine warm up.. we yanked it. Yes, we live in the country. Deal with it:

Now, if you no rotary guru, you may not have noticed. This engine, is a 13B.. and it is fuel injected. If you also didn't know... RX3s.. are not. Usually.. this was going to be fun.

The new running engine and car spend the night together. It's sort of like an arranged marriage, but I think this will work out:

Engine bay prepped for the install. Obviously, you can tell I'm leaving a lot of photos and timeline out of this as the last time you saw the engine bay.. it had nothing :)

I'd like to say the engine just fell right into place. I'd be a liar.

It does fit so nicely once it's in though:

It does require some modifications to the front engine bracket and we're running a GSL-SE starter with the REPU transmission the car came with, but that's it.. pretty simply right?

Kinda have to sub to this being a fellow rotard, but I'm in love of the idea of an ITA RX3!

Swank Force One wrote: I want a Challenge friendly RX3!

Trust me, photos make this thing look like a $5k challenge car.. I ensure you, it is not that nice :) Probably the ugliest, bitchiest, rustiest (although a lot less rusty now) RX car I own. But I do still love it :)

Once the engine was back in, I was able to turn around and finish the interior cleanup. I love fresh paint on interior, but it NEVER lasts!

With interior work getting closer to completion...went back into the engine bay where most of my nights after work, looked like this:

After sorting the engine front harness wiring, the fuel system needed attention. The former carb setup was pretty slick, but totally useless for EFI. We kept 90% of the system with the biggest replacement being the fuel pump. Another hit to the budget, but no choice. Also had to add a return line fitting to the bulk head as well. While working the fuel system, I couldn't leave the trunk looking like it did.. so some more cleaning, rattle cans from the shelf and voila:

Great progress, this is going to be so cool

After the challenge, what class are you looking to run?

Honestly, after the challenge... I have no idea what we're doing with this car, lol. Because of the EFI engine swap, it pretty much screws me for any formal racing classes with NASA or SCCA in our region.

A good segway for this - I keep saying "I" in this build thread, but the reality is I'm building this car with a good friend and fellow rotard so the decision of what happens after the challenge is only 50% mine. He and I would like to see if we can run it in the GRM Ultimate Track Car shootout after this year's $2k challenge.. it would be fun to run both GRM events.

After that, some local autocrosses and track days is probably all this will see until it finds a new owner most likely. We both have other cars that are more purpose built and need more of our attention. Someday I'd like to get another RX3 or RX4 and do a street worthy restoration...

I wish I hadn't sold my rx4.

Updates will have to wait a bit as apparently I thought I had more photos on this PC, but... I don't. I'll have to get them uploaded to our website to share them here.

Getting ready to take the family Mazda CX-5 on a 6500+ mile road trip for the next few weeks.. this should give me some time away from the RX3. We get back with plenty of time to wrap it up and get it to FL though :)

This is an awesome car. I wish they hadn't all turned to dust here a long time ago. 13B was probably the right choice. What front cover is on the 13B to make it "work" with the mounts?

When I first saw the pink I was going to say, hey, looks like Mazda and Ford had the same red paint supplier in the 70s. Then I thought a little bit more about why the interior would be pink and the sun-drenched part would be red...

yes yes YES!

ssswitch wrote: This is an awesome car. I wish they hadn't all turned to dust here a long time ago. 13B was probably the right choice. What front cover is on the 13B to make it "work" with the mounts? When I first saw the pink I was going to say, hey, looks like Mazda and Ford had the same red paint supplier in the 70s. Then I thought a little bit more about why the interior would be pink and the sun-drenched part would be red...

Yea, I thought the entire car would have been pink at some time in it's life, but I did not find pink on the exterior while doing bodywork. I found red, orange, yellow, white, green, blue and purple... the car was originally that sort of sea green Mazda loved so much. I think they called it Pearl Green Poly or similar..

For the engine, its all a stock 84/85 GSL-SE block so it is using the OEM front cover. Any early model front cover would work though as long as you match the oil pan to it as well. Our oil pan clears pretty well in this chassis. No modification to the subframe needed.