Lord Bro

As long as I have been looking for cars I've wanted an FD.
And finally I was in the position to get one, so the search was on.
After months and months of looking, a few false starts, flying to California with cash in hand only to be mislead, and more searching, I was introduced to a car that fit the bill. It had a nice mod list, and was in my price range:



1993 VR Base

• Built by A-Spec w/ 3mm Apex seals
• PowerFC tuned by Steve Kan in December of 2012. Made 350-400 whp at 15psi.
• ~17K on motor, ~130K on chassis. Emissions are blocked off, as is omp. Runs premix.

Power Adders/Engine Bay/Drivetrain

• GT35R turbo
• TurboXS SMIC
• Pettit Racing duct
• Greddy type-s BOV
• Greddy Profec-b boost controller
• Tial 44mm external wastegate
• RX7store.net 3" downpipe and turbo manifold
• Racing Beat Dual Tip catback exhaust and presilencer

• Aeromotive FPR
• Bosch 850cc primary, 1680cc fuel injectors w/resistors
• Rx7.com fuel pump upgrade
• Braided SS oil cooler lines
• Koyo N flow radiator
• ACV, AST, and EGR blocked off

• GM 3 Bar map sensor
• Simplified single turbo wiring harness w/ emissions delete
• PC680 battery with custom aluminum tray
• Ignition coils relocated to driver's frame rail
• Magnecor (mazdatrix) 8mm ignition wires
• HKS TwinPower ignition amplifier

• Stock Flywheel with ACT Xtreme Clutch.
• JDM 5-speed transmission

Suspension

• Tokico Illumina shocks
• Eibach springs
• RB Sway bar reinforcer support bar
• ST sway bars

Exterior

• Shine Auto Carbon-Fiber FEED style front spoiler, rear spoiler, and side skirts
• Forgeline two piece Ultra-light 17 x 8" Front, 17 x 9.5" Rear
• Kumho Ecsta 235/45/17 front 275/40 rear tires

Interior:

• Auto-meter boost gauge
• Innovate lm-1 wideband O2 gauge
• Apexi Power FC Commander
• Custom black suede headliner and a-pillars
• Katzkins two tone leather and suede seats (black with grey suede insert)
• RX-8 Steering wheel
• RX-8 5-speed shift ****.
• JDM Rear Seats
• Pioneer AVIC F90BT Double din GPS Headunit
• Kenwood 4" door speakers
• Infinity 6x8 b pillar speakers
• Crutchfield 10" powered subwoofer hidden in rear hatch

My wife and I flew down to Florida to hang out with some friends for a couple of days while I check everything out.
The only real issue appeared to be that the dash gauge cluster wasn't working properly. The tach and speedometer weren't working reliably, but I was hopeful it wouldn't be that hard to fix. The previous owner had the guages sent out to be rebuilt, so I should just have to find a break in a ground or something. The car looked really great other than that, and I knew this was the one I was taking home. Over the weekend we drove back from Florida to Chicago, and all was good.



On the way back to Chicago I came up with a few things I wanted to do with the car, plus some more I wanted to do in the future to ensure the longevity of the engine. My plan was to have a car I could take to auto-x and track day events, but still drive on the street without any trouble. I wanted to be able to go on vacation in this car and not hate myself. As soon as I could I wanted to get the car up on a lift so I could check everything for play and see which bushings I needed to replace.

Things to fix

• Interior trim pieces which are not secure and rattle
• Mirror adjustment switches inoperative
• Speedometer and tach inoperative, except when the steering wheel is loaded to about 30 degrees
• Glovebox door is coming apart and needs to be replaced
• Cig lighter socket seems loose
• Chips in the paint to touch up (not many)
• Wheel rub in the front fender liner @ full lock
• I need a front plate mount

To install soon:

• Hood struts, as the support does not fit over the intercooler
• FC Commander holder bracket for the interior
• Cabin fire extinguisher
• New wheels, and sell the old ones

Cool stuff to do later:

• Water/Methanol Injection, for safety
• Car computer

Lord Bro

I ordered some hood struts, and a bracket to hold the Commander module. First mods!

The Monday after getting back I drove out a ways outside of the city to visit some friends and show off. I had done it! I found one! It was chilly out so I couldn't really drive too quickly due to lack of grip, but it was still fun to take my car when we went out and grabbed food, play with the radio, stare at the weird looking engine, etc.
I needed a jump start the next morning because of the tiny battery, but made it home just fine. I finally figured out what all the functions were on the radio, but I was a little disappointed to confirm that there was no bluetooth music playback with this unit. It moved the car computer project a little farther up the list of things to start in on.

As my first big new-rotary-owner mistake, I started the car up to move it and then shut it off not long afterwards, probably flooding the engine. The next time I tried to start the car so I could go get supplies for an oil change it cranked but would not start, and my heart sank.
I tried everything I could over the next week or so to get the car started again. It was cold outside, windy, and the first snow had arrived before my car cover arrived in the mail. In the end I just couldn't get the car started, and felt like I didn't know enough to figure out what was wrong on my own.

I did manage to get the hood struts and PFC Commander holder installed while I was trying to get running again, so I felt like I had made a little progress.



Also serves as a nice engine bay shot of course



I chose to bend the bracket slightly to make the orientation of the Commander screen a bit more comfortable for me.

In the middle of this mess where I couldn't get the car to start, still within the first week of me owning it, I got an ominous knock on the door...
I went down the front steps and opened the door to find my downstairs neighbor (not the first floor neighbors, they're cool; this was the middle unit) standing there with an unrecognizable expression.
"Oh hi I just wanted to come tell you I parked my car and when I opened my door the wind caught it. I hit your nice new red car."

NO! Aaaaah no way!
This is why we have nice reserved spots in an area where we don't have to deal with the awful "oh parallel parking is just like bumper cars" ******** who who have to park on the street!
Nooooooo

"Well..." I took a breath, "I guess you better go get your insurance information for me."
And then I didn't push them down the next flight of stairs.
I got their insurance info and it's getting paid for, but man was I pissed.



A couple days later right before Thanksgiving I got a tow out to a shop, still hopeful that I was just flooded and too much of a noob to do anything about it. I hoped that I could drop the car off and head out of town for a long weekend to visit family, and then upon my return have a wonderful working rx7.

Spalato

iTrader: (33)

So whats the conclusion? What happened? Was it just flooded or ? The suspense is killing me...You can't leave us hanging like that bro

Lord Bro

The first piece of bad news I got was that the fuel pump was dead.
I went with the car to the shop to see where it would be kept, meet who would work on it, and see if liked them. While I was there it was noted that when you turned the key to prime the fuel system you could see the pressure increase and then drop off on the FPR gauge, but I couldn't have seen that on my own. When I got a call later in the evening it was to hear that fuel pressure would build when you turned the car on, but the pump wasn't working well enough for it to provide fuel when cranking, and the pressure would drop. Swapping in a new pump to test with eliminated the issue, but the car wasn't starting so they wanted to do a compression test.

Not long after, I got THE CALL
They had done a compression test, and the news wasn't good. Compression was down on all faces, below 50 psi. I got sent some crappy cell phone videos where you couldn't even see the numbers on the face of the tester gauge, but I could tell that the needle consistently fell below the 60 psi mark on every face.

I had some choices to make.
I searched long and hard to find a clean RX-7 without any problems, to avoid a situation exactly like this. I saved my good money so I could get a car that worked correctly when I bought it, instead of broken in various ways like my previous cars. That was if something broke I knew it was my fault and I could fix it.
I was upset knowing that none of the options I had were very good.
If I tried to sell the car I would take a big hit and lose a lot of money because the car wasn't running, and I would have to save for a while more before trying again. If I chose to do a rebuild I would be spending even more, but then I would have a running car on my hands. Selling the rebuilt car would result in similar loss.

There would be other benefits to doing a build on the car. I would be able to fix any small issues immediately, and I would know exactly what was on the car and what it was capable of. After a night of thought I grudgingly made the call to pull the engine out of the car and go ahead with everything necessary to get the car back on the road again. I hate not having good options, so it's taken a couple weeks for me to get excited about this instead of just feeling sick about it.

Add to the list:

• Get the car running again
• Fix anything else broken
• Come up with more stuff for the list
• Sell some stuff

I told them to pull the engine so I could get it rebuilt, and start to dig into what was inside the rest of the car. I like to work on my own cars if I can, but I'm not afraid to take the car somewhere to get things done for me if I'm not comfortable. If you're a great mechanic then doing things yourself can save a ton of money, but if you're like me there are some projects where the DIY approach would do more harm than good.

The only issue I knowingly bought the car with was that the gauges were't working correctly, even after the previous owner sent them to be rebuilt and tested. That meant I didn't have a speedometer or tachometer when driving, but I was hopeful that it was just a grounding issue that I would be able to fix quickly. The couple of times I got to drive the car and on the drive back from Florida I used the PFC Commander as a tachometer, and I used the GPS head unit as a speedometer.



Soon it became apparent that there were some other issues besides the Fuel pump
Aside from the fuel pump itself being dead, there were some other problems in the fuel delivery system. The fuel filter itself was very small, and had been on the car for years. If that filter ever had to do its job I get the feeling it would clog instantly and act as a potential point of restriction. The fittings used to split the fuel lines after the FPR were small, and not rated for fuel. The secondary injectors looked good, but the primary injectors were of who knows what brand from eBay.

Add to list

• New fuel pump
• Different fuel filter with more media area
• Correctly rated connectors and fittings for the fuel system
• Some number of injectors

Before I bought the car the transmission was replaced with a presumably lower mileage JDM transmission. On the drive home it felt great, so I didn't think anything was wrong. When The engine came out it appeared that something was up with the clutch. There were bolts partially backed out from the pressure plate, and didn't appear to be evenly bolted down. It seemed possible parts were mismatched, but I would have to wait and see if maybe I would need to replace either the pressure plate or the clutch disk.

Add to list

• some number of clutch related things. Hopefully not many.

On the engine all of the emissions were blocked off, along with some other things such as the air separator tank. Most of what was blocked off was done with some nice block off kit, but there were some other blocked off spots that were not as nice. This type of deal where you terminate a hose with a bolt and a clamp is just another leak of some sort waiting to happen. If I could I'd like to get that fixed up a bit as well. Let's not even get started about how there's an obviously broken wire in that picture.

Add to list

• Weld shut all areas that I want blocked off

When the wiring harness came off the car there were some obvious problems near the area where the harness exited the engine bay of the car. Oil and dirt, along with the adhesive from the factory insulation had created a slimy mess covering the harness wires, and a few of the wires were clearly broken. Hopefully fixing the problems with the harness would fix the gauges once the car was back together.

So where does that put me as far as things which need to be done:
Engine Builder

• Rebuild...

For the shop to do

• Get the car running again
• New fuel pump
• Different fuel filter with more media area
• Correctly rated connectors and fittings for the fuel system
• Some number of injectors
• some number of clutch related things. Hopefully not many.
• New AST
• Weld shut all areas that I want blocked off
• Fix wiring harness and get my gauges working

Things for me to fix

• Interior trim pieces which are not secure and rattle
• Mirror adjustment switches inoperative
• Glovebox door is coming apart and needs to be replaced
• Cig lighter socket seems loose
• Chips in the paint to touch up (not many)
• Wheel rub in the front fender liner @ full lock
• I need a front plate mount

For me to do:

• Sell the stock steering wheel
• Get cabin fire extinguisher
• New wheels, and sell the old ones

Cool stuff to do later:

• Water/Methanol Injection, for safety
• Car computer

Mazderati

iTrader: (3)

At least it's only up from here?

Lord Bro

That's what I'm hoping. My biggest comfort is knowing that once this is all done I really will have something rock solid under me. I've got to take a big loss on this no matter what I do, so I choose the fun way

7speed

It's sad how common this type of story is. It's a good thing you're persistent. Car is very nice, and shouldn't be tooo long before you can really enjoy it.

Lord Bro

I'm having Howard Coleman CPR rebuild the engine.
Last weekend I had the opportunity to go up to Howard's place and see the initial teardown of the engine. I was hopeful that I would get some answers about why my compression numbers were so low. Luckily there didn't seem to be any oil burned on to the bottom of the block. This was nice because it meant that there had likely never been a bad overheating incident, so I wouldn't have to worry about warped housings.



The oil pump also looked in great shape. It was entirely possible that the oil pump was replaced in a previous rebuild, which was fine with me. Receipts indicated that the last rebuild the engine had wasn't the only rebuild it had ever had, so a lot of what could be inside was a mystery.



Now that was what I wanted to see! The rotating dorito! The wobbly tirangles that were supposed to make the car move! It was really cool to see the engine disassembled piece by piece in person, and it gave me a better understanding of how exactly everything works.

On a brief initial inspection it looked like the side seals didn't have effective springs behind them, which would explain why I had low compression on all faces.



None of the surfaces had any visible scratches or gouges in them, which was good news as far as usable original parts.



The eccentric shaft was also in great shape, perfectly straight.
It was a great experience to see this initial inspection of everything, I kind of wish I could get my hands on a totally destroyed engine just to take it apart and put it together again.

After I went home and let a few days pass I got a little more information back:

• 5 apex seals either stuck or not able to move freely, possibly because the 3mm apex seal groove was not machined wide enough.
• 1 broken apex seal
• 1 broken corner seal
• most of the side seals not making good contact with the housing, bad springs

ZE Power MX6

iTrader: (157)

That sucks, but looks like you are heading the right direction, can't wait to see more FD roam around Chicago next summer!

Lord Bro

I'm also excited to meet up with people when the weather gets nice. Right now it seems like the best tuning options near here open up in May, but if I put enough break-in miles on the engine before then maybe I'll have to do a road trip as the last leg of my break in period.

ZE Power MX6

iTrader: (157)

Yeah, we have tuning session pretty much every Spring, that's also a good time to meet a lot of local folks.

Lord Bro

So the engine was frustrated with its own existence before I bought the car, and there were some other things that I couldn't see or didn't know about that were in need of attention. There were some slow oil leaks in a couple of places, one of which had consistently soaked a coolant hose which was now on the edge of failure. I'm getting the feeling I was lucky to make it back home at all.

It seemed likely that improper fuel delivery was a contributor to the death of the engine, among many other possible things. I was already going to be replacing the pump, injectors, and some lines and AN fittings so...
screw it. Let's do all the fuel things.


The shop has been great about sending pictures of everything they're doing for me, which is nice.

I'm a firm believer in doing an upgrade if you have to replace something.
Add to list

• New fuel lines + fittings
• New fuel rails
• All new injectors
• new fuel pressure regulator

I'll have some core parts I'll be able to resell, and turn the rest of the pieces into ornaments for the Christmas tree. The old secondary injectors, fuel rails, and FPR should all still be usable, so I'll recoup a little bit of my cost when I list them in the classifieds.



The stainless line is replacing all of the solid pieces of the fuel delivery system from the gas tank forward. Black everything.

Along with this work I've decided to move the in car computer/head unit up the list.
The subwoofer sounds pretty good, but that's never been something I've really wanted in my car. I'm perfectly happy with good quality sound from the regular speakers so I can have something to listen to when I want, so the sub and it's capacitor will be coming out. I'll be removing the current double-din head unit as well, along with all it's gps antenna and other wiring. The sub sits behind the piece of plastic in the hatch that would house a rear washer fluid tank. That spare tire + washer tank area in the back is precious to me, as I'd like to keep all my interior space clear for luggage.

I should be able to get all the functionality I want with a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian: bluetooth connectivity, gps and maps, amplified quad-channel output for in-car tunes, am/fm radio tuner, video play back, video game emulation (for driving while you're driving), etc. Plus it should be easy to keep the entire project under the $300 mark, so I won't be losing any money by getting rid of the current system.
An added bonus of having a usable computer in the dash is it's logging capability. I've seen a couple of mentions of people using custom electronics to get information from a datalogit over some generic serial connection. If that's true then I should be able to use the in-dash computer to log data to file, and display some useful diagnostic data to the screen.


One thing I would have seen to already if the car was actually running is my leg-room and head clearance issues in the car. I'm about 6'1", and proportioned in such a way that my knees intersect with the space occupied by the steering wheel.
It's not a huge problem driving normally, I didn't have any problems on the way back from Florida, but there's no way I can heel-toe. I had done some research before buying one of these cars, and come to the conclusion that no matter what I would need a bucket seat and a steering wheel to fit comfortably, and still have room to wear a helmet. This was also why it was important I find an RX-7 with no sunroof.

EDIT: just got a call from the shop and clarified that the clutch disk is for an FC.

Engine Builder

• Rebuild...

For the shop to do

• Get the car running again
• New fuel lines + fittings
• New fuel rails
• All new injectors
• New fuel pressure regulator
• New fuel pump
• New fuel filter with more media area
• New AST
• New clutch disk
• Weld shut all areas that I want blocked off
• Fix wiring harness and get my gauges working

Things for me to fix

• Interior trim pieces which are not secure and rattle
• Mirror adjustment switches inoperative
• Glovebox door is coming apart and needs to be replaced
• Cig lighter socket seems loose
• Chips in the paint to touch up (not many)
• Wheel rub in the front fender liner @ full lock
• I need a front plate mount

For me to do:

• Get cabin fire extinguisher
• New wheels, and sell the old ones
• New driver's seat, maybe passenger seat as well
• New steering wheel
• Sell the stock steering wheel, and the rx8 steering wheel
• Remove sub, capacitor, head unit, and all wiring. Sell it
• Sell the old FPR, fuel rails, good injectors, fittings
• Sell the stock seat(s)
• Sell FC clutch

Cool stuff to do later:

• Water/Methanol Injection, for safety
• Car computer (raspberri pi, all supporting things for a car computer)
• Radar detector...

Balefire

good luck!
re: license plate
unless you live downtown, i'd consider a magnetic front license plate holder instead of a permanent one
Magnetically Held Front License Plate | TeslaTap

re: paint
i've used dr colorchip with good success on my last classic car adventure.

04G35S

iTrader: (10)

This is very close to how my adventure started with my RX7. I had my engine rebuilt by Howard as well. He does a great job and will stand behind his work!

Good luck, it is a very clean car to start with that's for sure!

Lord Bro

Thanks for the good luck wishes.

@Balefire:
I like the magnetic license plate idea as it would make it easy to remove the plate whenever I wanted. I do live juuust south of downtown though, so without the car being covered or in a garage 100% of the time I still have to worry about random unsolicited tickets. Once I have the car back I'll probably try and make a bracket.

@04G35S:
Thanks, and it's always nice to hear good stories about the guy working on your engine
I'm looking forward to finally having a solid base under me once everything is done.


I'm going out to the shop tomorrow to take some more pictures of the progress, and some measurements of the interior.

Some welding work came back, so I'm excited to check that stuff out.
In addition to getting my blocked-off areas welded shut, I've had a couple of other things done too.
- I had some exhaust welding re-done, both to help things fit better and my wife would just never stand for subpar welds.
- Some work on my intake tube to accommodate a new/better/larger/real blow-off valve.
- On my turbo some pipe had been welded on to the compressor outlet with a smaller inner diameter than that of the compressor outlet tube

Friends, don't let friends confuse inner and outer diameters.

I've had that cut off and a 90 degree bend put in its place to direct that compressed air towards the intercooler, without having to climb any stairs.


While I'm there I'll be taking some measurements of the dash area as well.
Since I'll be selling the current infotainment system and creating/installing my own I need to know how much space I really have to work with. As we all know the stereo opening on these cars isn't a 2DIN space, but instead 2 single height spaces with a bracket, so any 2DIN install will need some sort of mounting bracket to fit, plus a bezel to fill up the extra space around the head unit.
If I'm making my own unit I can use all of that space, but I can't actually find out how big that is anywhere...

I've ordered a bluetooth dongle and a gps module for my Raspberry Pi, so once those arrive I'll let the testing commence. First order of business will be to verify the bluetooth connectivity: I want to be able to stream audio from my phone using A2DP, and I want to be able to use the Pi as a bluetooth headset for calls.
Next up I'll have to verify I can get my GPS position from the installed GPS module, for use in navigation.
I have a usb WiFi adapter, and know that I can feed the system data by pairing it with my phone, so no testing required here.

Lord Bro

Time to pay for all those nice parts.
All that braided -6 fuel line and sets of AN connectors add up fast! The rest doesn't help:

• Walbro 485 fuel pump
• Aeromotive fuel filter, black…
• Aeromotive fuel pressure regulator, black with black gauge
• Full Function Engineering fuel rails, black
• Injector Dynamics 850cc and 2200cc injectors

All of the fuel stuff that has arrived got mocked up at one point, but this was my first time seeing the parts in person.
The FPR will get mounted to the bracket at the top, and the gauge should be readily visible with the hood open for testing.



Everything should look really cool in black. I'll be selling the FPR that came with the car along with a bunch of other stuff once I get it back.
I figure a few extra dollars for a cool look and a little piece of mind is worth it. After this if something goes wrong I'll know where not look.



Emissions equipment is for the weak.



You can see there is a piece of pipe welded on to the turbo with a similar outer diameter as the compressor outlet tube, this is what will be cut off to eliminate a large inner lip.
Redoing some of this tubing allows for a couple of nice things. The intercooler will get shifted a couple inches to the left, eliminating some clearance issues with radiator hoses. This will also put the Intercooler directly in line with the ducting that is already installed. I'll be able to make a surround out of some material to make the intercooler fit even better with the ducting.



Some of the silicone tubing will get eliminated, and the new BOV will get attached to the new aluminum tube between the intercooler and the intake.
The area where the old BOV was located on the Greddy intake tube has been welded shut and smoothed over, which is fine by me. If I ever get the car on the road and run out of problems I can go back and polish up all of the intake for fun. When I install a water/methanol kit I’ll probably put the nozzle in the intake tube.

Now I’ve just got to get my engine back.

Force_Inducted

iTrader: (5)

threads like these make me very nervous to dig into my newly acquired FD. Looks like you're doing a great job!

Lord Bro

Thanks! Just get everything checked out by someone you trust as soon as you can, and keep up with your maintenance and you should be fine. I would hope that a situation just like mine is an uncommon one.


I got some good news today that the work to my wiring harness has been completed.



There were some broken wires in the harness essentially being held in place with gunk and adhesive, so the harness definitely needed to be gone over. Since the main issue I thought I was buying the car with was the non-functioning gauges, I'm hopeful that by having all these broken connections in the engine harness fixed my gauges will just spring to life once the engine is back in the car and turns over. It was actually a bit of a relief to see that there were some obvious problems with the harness, hopefully they weren't just hiding monsters more difficult to slay.

The ignition harness turned out to be in bad shape as well. I was able to inspect this myself, and found that there were multiple frayed wires near to breaking at the connectors.
I can only imagine the issues this would have caused down the line if it's not partially responsible for the engine failure



The cat is out of the bag, it's Elite Rotary doing the work on the car. So far their work and communication has been great, and I expect that to continue. Plus you can't beat having a rotary shop only 30 minutes or so from where you live.
The ignition harness was replaced with a working used one, and cleaned up to match the work done on...



The engine wiring harness. It's a complete transformation from the slimy mess it was before into this nice looking piece of tidiness.
Among other things, I'm looking forward to the engine bay not being a mess when I go to do some work on it in the future. I'll have to make sure to have at least one good engine bay cleaning session a year, but I'm sure my job will be easier without more than 20 years of road grime built up in places.

celkc

iTrader: (3)

Unfortunately I don't think it is that uncommon. I had a similar story where I bought a car that drove decently well on the test drive and passed a pre-purchase "inspection" by an independent shop. I suspect they didn't actually inspect anything and just took my money, because the car started showing evidence of serious issues after I got it home. Was burning a lot of coolant due to both housings being cracked, bad turbos, etc.

It has been a nightmare for about two years, but I finally have a reliable car that is in great condition. If it is any consolation I'm glad I stuck with it and did not sell the car, because it has been really enjoyable since everything got un-f***ed.

Lord Bro

Yep.

I've been looking into the car's past as much as I can to see if there's anything else I should be worried about. I'd like to take care of all of the big problems immediately if I can.
One of the things I'll be looking into when I replace the steering wheel and work on my car computer is the wheel hub and wiring. It looks like some of the audio controls were wired in using the existing wires for the clock spring, using the airbag connections. The harness wires for the airbag were spliced to get the signal to the current head unit, but I'll have to see how. My plan is to replace any missing connectors and return that airbag wiring to working condition regardless of if it will be used.

In the end I got some information that indicates the motor may not have been as rebuilt as I thought. It also seems that the car was tuned with a vacuum leak. It was later fixed, but the car was never retuned afterward.

I got some more pictures from Howard. It looks like progress on my engine rebuild is going along well, so I can look forward to getting that back with me pretty soon.




The tension bolts came out pretty gross looking. It looks like last time the engine was apart the washers weren't replaced, and some of them look pretty ragged.
When I got the car in Florida it had water + Red Line WatterWetter, which would have been fine in the warm Florida weather, but would have frozen solid here in Chicago. It looks like at some point since the last rebuild undistilled water was used as coolant.
The tension bolts are ready to go back in after a little cleaning.




My housings fresh back from Goopy, before having any other work done to them. Everything has be honed to eliminate the chatter marks, and all of the surfaces look clean including the coolant passages. New 3mm apex seals will also be going in.

Lord Bro

Once the rotors had been cleaned up it looked like there were a couple more issues presented by a previous engine rebuild. I feel like that's just the story of the whole car at this point: each thing that needs fixing just uncovers another issue or piece of work by a previous owner that needs to be undone.




So in the end the motor was an awful ticking time bomb when I got it. A rebuild had been done at least once at some point to get the apex seal grooves up to 3mm, but there still wasn't enough actual clearance for the 3mm seals to move freely. One of the original rotors was likely discarded and replaced at that time, but the weights weren't checked as one is 130g heavier than the other, and the bearing on it is done for.

With all the information I've got I would believe that the last time the engine was rebuilt was three owners ago, somewhere in Florida.... No rebuild 17k ago, and my own fault for not demanding a compression test in front of me in the parking lot before I left.



Since the one rotor was in such bad shape I've opted to just replace the rotors with nice used ones where all the surfaces look good. I'll sell the one good rotor I'll have left over, and keep the det dented rotor as a souvenir. These new to me rotors are pretty cool at 8g weight difference, 4324g vs 4332g, and I'll be able to use 2mm seals all around and be nice to my newly honed housings.
Once the new set of 2mm corner and apex seals arrive it should be smooth sailing from there .

In addition to the new rotors, I got some news the other day that some more of my parts arrived:

• New TiAL BOV
• New Exedy clutch
• New AEM Wideband setup

Now that the holiday season is over I'm looking forward to making progress on on everything. I'll have some time to work on the Raspberry Pi stereo system, and hopefully be able to put it in the car quickly after getting it back. I ordered a faster microSD card to speed up my boot times, and the next items I'll need to decide on are a touchscreen, amp, usb sound card, and powered usb hub.
I'm still not sure what I'll be using to house all the components, so I'll need to find a dead head unit to gut or something premade somewhere.

04G35S

iTrader: (10)

I love how well Howard documents his work. I got a huge spec sheet and tons of photos when he did my engine. Now that your engine is in a holding pattern I hope he can get mine done, its been there since October! :-)

Lord Bro

Yeah I'm looking forward to getting all of the specs back on everything, plus all the pictures.

I was kind of hoping to have the car up and running by my birthday in a week or so, but when there are unseen forces working against you... I've been hearing a lot of:
"I've never seen it done that way before",
"You're tied for having the worst ever of this thing, here's a picture of what failure looks like",
and now the new one "So there's just a hole through your car."

I got some pictures of what was found by following the old wideband cables, run down under the carpet, under the driver's seat, and into one of the holes in the bracing in the area.



That's some light shining through from under the car. If light can get there, so can water.

So you can get an idea of where that is, from https://www.rx7club.com/interior-ext...things-665949/
and from there the cables continue directly outside



Once I have the car back I'll clean it up and weld a plate back in place there and spray it with underbody coating to prevent rust.
I'm going to be getting a bucket seat at least for the driver's side, and if any welding needs to be done to make it fit I'll do it all at once.

When I get the car back the radio will be in my box of residual parts, so I won't be able to jump in and start playing some tunes. I've been experimenting with the available software for my raspberry pi and was directed to the cool https://www.rx7club.com/power-fc-for...iewer-1052741/ project by SonicRaT. This spells hope for my desire to use the pi car computer for data logging!

In an effort to get up and running quickly once I get the car back I ordered:

• 7" 1280x800 display w/ touch screen input
• Raspberry Pi 2 Model B
• A couple of small heatsinks for the Pi
• 1' hdmi cable

There's an effort to get Android Auto fully functional on the Pi 2, and the bump in power will make my efforts to get other things working less stressful anyway. I have other projects I'll be able to us my B+ for, so nothing goes to waste.
I still have to decide on an enclosure, but plan on making a faceplate to fill up all the available space, so as long as I can attach everything securely I should be fine. I look forward to undoubtedly soldering stereo plug wires back in place.

ZE Power MX6

iTrader: (157)

That's a new way to run wires out of the cabin, and apparently a 2x2 hole is needed

Hopefully the surprises stop here for you.

04G35S

iTrader: (10)

Man whoever built that car before you had ZERO idea what they were doing! Keep up the good work, it will all be worth it in the end!

Side Note: I went up to see Howard about 3 weeks ago and he was telling me about your engine and the awful ports that were in it!