I'm 38 and grew up as a DSM/Evo guy, but I've always wanted an FD RX7 since I was a youngin'. In 2024, I decided that if I didn't get one now, I'd probably never be able to get one.
As someone absolutely obsessed with Initial D, I was originally looking for a yellow one, and of course, I had planned to do the RE Amemiya kit from the get-go. While browsing Goo-net one day, I came across this '99 Type-RS (Series 8, last generation of the FD, only sold in japan). It was clearly track prepped (bracing everywhere, emphasis on suspension, etc...) and the motor had (allegedly) been rebuild 36k KM ago. The dealer had videos of it running and driving and I was a little taken aback by the quality of the build. As anyone who spends a lot of time around japanese cars would know, most japanese builds are.... not of the highest quality. But the craftsmanship and part choices of this particular car were honestly top notch. Plus, it already had half of the RE Amemiya kit on it already.
I decided to have someone go take a look at it in person and to my surprise, there was literally 0 rust on it. The car came with full documentation of everything as well, which is pretty cool. I decided this was the perfect base for me and pulled the trigger.
I had previously imported an Evo 4 myself so I had the know-how, but honestly, it's a massive pita, so I hit up a local company called The Import Guys to see if they could take care of the shipping for me. They charged me 10% of the cost of the car and took care of everything. Showed up on a tow truck at my door. Beats having to deal with import/export paperwork, customs, towing, etc... Highly recommend.
Anyway, a friend of mine here in Washington owns a pretty big JDM tuner shop, mostly focusing on GTRs and Rotaries, but can really do anything JDM. When I brought the car buy to be checked over, we found something interesting when going through the car's documentation. The shop that built this car was the very same shop in Japan that taught my friend how to tune. A cool little full circle moment for the friend group.
The care was in fantastic shape, and rand amazing, but like any jdm care the first thing I did was have it tuned for american gas Went through and did a full Radium fuel system (hanger, lines, fuel rails, FPR, puls damper. the works) along with bigger injectors and new fuel pumps, hard-wired with a relay to ensure reliable voltage. After that I just wanted to enjoy it as it was while I planned the build for the following year... At least, that was the initial plan... Reality had a different idea.
About a month after getting it road-worthy, I was driving with a friend when I saw a bunch of smoke from the engine bay. I pulled over and saw oil spat all over the firewall. Didn't take long to find the culprit.
Most people with RX7s know of the infamous OMP that is prone to failure (The series 8 OMP, like the RX8 one, is actually pretty solid and not really a concern like the older ones, but I digress), but few people talk about how the oil lines that go from the OMP to the oil squirters on top of the engine are just... plastic. Strange choice, especially for how hot rotaries get. One of the plastic lines, which have been treated to 25 years of high temeparures at this point, decided it had enough and broken, sending oil all over my firewall.
This job is easiest with the engine out and I had the space, know-how, and tools to do it all myself so I threw the car onto my lift and tore into it.
With the motor removed, I very quickly succumbed to the "while you're in there" disease. Turning what should have been a quick weeks worth of work to a full year long build.
Ended up replacing every bolt and hose I could, replaced every sensor that I could, cerekoted everything I could, replaced or upgraded a bunch of parts that were just old and crusty, nothing was left untouched--except for cracking the keg itself. I even had my friend who is a professional autobody painter, paint the engine bay while the motor was out. So of course, literally everything was pulled from the bay. Everything. Fun.
A year and around 20k or so dollars later, the car was back together and the last step was to swap out the dated PowerFC and tune the car on a new Haltech S3.
However fate would not be done with me yet. While on the dyno, the turbo, which i had JUST had rebuilt (It didnt even really need rebuilt. It was perfectly fine, but I figured it was old, so might as well while everything was apart) decided to shift itself. More shaft play than a Japanese Soap Land. While trying to figure out what to do, my friend (who I mentioned previously) brought up the fact that the president of Greddy USA was wanting to prototype a new turbo and asked if Id be interested. Initially he told me he could have it done in a few weeks so I said sure why not. It's already been a year, so what's another 3 weeks. But the turb they were prototyping was planned to have a VBand exhaust housing, and my car had a custom intercooler setup, with a elbow welded onto the old turbo to work with it. I told him I didnt want to do a ton of fab to make the new turbo work. He offered to do a custom 1/1 unit that ran a T3 flanged exhaust housing and told me to send in my old turbo and hed weld on an elbow to match.
4 months or so later (a bit longer than the original 3 week timeline lol) the new turbo arrived and it looked siiick. Tossed that bad boy in and got it tuned. The setup I have now is good for 800whp or so, however from what we could tell, the motor had stock internals, which is only really good for around 400whp, so to be safe, we capped the boost at 16 PSI which put us right at the 400whp mark.
I should also note that while I did swap in IGN1A coils, I got lazy and wired them for the factory wasted spark setup instead of for direct fire, which is more work. Coincidentally, we reached the limit of the factory wasted spark setup at about the 400whp mark as well, so if I ever want more (which I honestly don't really. 400whp is more than enough for a street car + weekend track warrior imo), I would also need to rewire the coils for direct fire. Not a huge deal, but enough work to make me kinda not care.
Anyway, car has been incredible since then.
I drive it all the time, rain or shine and have been racking up km after km on. Car will be on display at Wekfest 2026 in Seattle showing off the new turbo for Greddy, so if you're in the area, come check it out. :)
One final note. Now that I have my Fuji speedway license and go to japan multiple times a year, I wanted to pick up a car to keep in japan that I can use while im there and take to track days. I needed something relatively cheap, with easy to get parts, good aftermarket support, and cheap to fix if things break. I settle on an series 2 RX8, which I picked up earlier this year and took on its maiden voyage. Fantastic car. Ive been enjoying the rotary life so much that I am even selling my Evo 4 now. But anyway, that's the store for a different build thread. For now, suffice it to say that I've fully converted from an Evo head to a rotary head. What a evolution (lol pun).
