I love the old GTX's. I had one in college and learned a ton about working on cars the 5 years I drove it. It was so much fun on old dirt roads hanging the backend out. Parts availability was a bit of pain, but not too bad. Being my only car, I drove it for 2 weeks with the diff locked and no driveshaft (FWD) while I waited for a new driveshaft to be shipped across country (center bearing failed). Ahh the memories...

 

The tranny's will definitely blow if you abuse them enough then you will spend the rest of your life trying to find a good one.

 

I would say no and you aren’t going to go to the local salvage yard to find replacement parts if they do brake. Some rare parts on these beasts.

There is quite a number of BP swaps showing up available imported from 90-93models which were never sold in north america but the 1.8 swap is much more involved than a 1.8 swap in a miata. Transmission motor mounts and engine placement are all different 1.6 to 1.8.

Bob

 

Survived its first Autox. The all seasons took a massive beating... but who cares

 

how did it do?

 

I think middle of the pack against STIs and such? Had some weird bucking under boost to fix, not sure if it was rhytmic suspension issue or boost/fuel cut/ignition something. The all seasons were painful to drive on, no steering response and just made the stiff suspension borderline useless.

Still fun though

 

The stock fuel cut kicks in at 11psi or so. It's simply a matter of disconnecting the sensor on the firewall to disconnect it. IIRC, it's cylidrical and will have a vacuum hose coming in one end and a plug in the other end. You will want to make sure you have some sort of method of adding extra fuel though.

 

Car has Reich ecu. 16psi capable.
I'm just not turning the boost all the way up until a few little things are addressed. Along with porting turbine housing to lower boost creep with the upgraded downpipe.

 

Megasquirt it.

 

F that. Factory boosted car is a waste of a MS and a MAJOR waste of my time. It is happy doing everything with 0 hiccups and 0 work.

 

The GTX in somewhat stock internal power form with suspension mods fits nicely in the ST class running on street tires. It will be tough to beat the kryptonite powered super light civics but along with a Subaru 2.5 RS it could be competitive in that class however. I know I beat some top level ST guys times with my stockish chipped powered one running on old RA-1's which are probably equivalent to some of the street tires that are now available.

Since my Miata isn’t quite setup for SSM but is more of a track day car I have considered running ST with the GTX. The other option is SM but I think it would take quite a bit a tweaks and a lot more money to fit 275/35/15 Hoosiers on it and make sure it had enough power to be competitive in SM.

Bob

 

Figured I would just post my pics in this thread rather than make a new one. This came home last night. Thanks again for doing most of the work getting it here Bob.







Only serious spot of rust I can find so far.


Going to wash it thursday and push it into the garage for a couple weeks to swap the tranny. Needs a couple of other things before its drivable like a new master cylinder and brake lines. I also plan on getting a stock hood to replace the one with the silly vents.

 

Complete with the HKS mushroom filter...love it! Brings back old memories. The rocket powered phone booth that got me a fist full of tickets. Had one, loaded with all the HKS stuff available. I went through transmissions like corn chips....eventually used a 626 Trans.

 

Details on this just to document for future reference?

 

That thing is awesome. Now what's going on with the 245 in the background...?

 

I think my neighbor just bought that for his daughter's first car. Not sure what the deal is with it. Just a beater I presume.

I am indeed affraid of going through transmissions since i'd be lucky just to find another one. I'm pretty excited about this car overall though. For now i'm just going to get the new transmission in and get some hoses and seals replaced and get it back on the road. Next summer I plan on replacing the engine and cleaning/repainting the engine bay. Eventually i'd like to do a near full restore on it to make it a nice daily driver.

 

Sorry, hardly recall what I ate for lunch today....let alone a trans swap I did over 20 years ago! I vaguely recall that it was the only beefed up trans that Mazda had at the time and we got it from a wrecked Mazda 626. But I don't recall what mods, if any, it took to install it. I do remember that it was a popular swap for the GTX guys back in the day. Therefore, I imagine some Google searches might get you some documentation on that swap from somebody.

 

I wasn't aware that there were AWD 626s!

 

I know the front member needs to be modified but I see a lot of guys doing 4wd celica tranny swaps in these. Supposedly the celica tranny is much beefier thus the need to modify the cross member.

 

Its crazy to know there is a place in Puerto Rico called JR Connection and for the price of a boosted gtx engine here in the states, they will include the awd train. At least back in the island nobody wants them, only way to get parts besides that place would be overseas.