rrluthi

Bout 10 years ago or so, I started on a crazy RX-7 journey. I lived in a fairly rural area (Paso Robles, CA) and couldn't find one anywhere nearby. I was also pretty broke. I bought a 1985 base model, got some issues sorted out with it, rebuilt the carb, had some fun but ultimately sold it. I was enamored with the SA, more retro style, and I wanted a more ambitious project. I expanded my craigslist searches, and ended up buying not 1, but 3 RX-7's. One was a wrecked GSL-SE with a freshly rebuilt and ported motor, the other was a 83 parts car, and lastly, was a fairly pristine, one owner 1980 SA that had been sitting for about 10 years and about 50k on the chassis. I was told it ran, but I didn't even try to start it. Over the course of one summer I stripped the 5-letter and installed all of its good bits on the SA. I took it to the smog referee in CA, got it passed with the stock GSL-SE ecu, and then installed a megasquirt, Racing Beat exhaust, and stripped most of the emissions equipment. I changed the interior from burgundy to black, installed CP-Racing headlight buckets, RB springs, a stereo, and it was pretty sweet.

Problem was, I could never get it tuned right. I took the plunge to move to Los Angeles and go back to school. I took the car, but it never did idle. The tune kept getting way off from one drive to the next. I knew the problem was likely the $30 Fuel Pressure Regulator I got from China, but I was renting a room for $400 a month and didn't have time or money to work on the car. Fast forward a few months, I was completely broke, didn't have a job, and I did this:

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generati...ena-ca-805841/

Fortunately it never sold, I parked it at my parents back in Paso for a year or so, it baked in the sun, my leather 10th AE seats fried, the rear carpet faded, and it got really dusty. I started driving a Buick. After a year or so, I came to my senses and stored the car indoors in a family member's warehouse, where it has been sitting for about 8 or 9 years. I forgot about the car, got a career, started a family, and life had moved on. Recently I got a message and some photos of the car, with the caption "We need more space in our warehouse, come get this out of here or I'm going to sell it for scrap."

And with that, I had the bug again.

The fateful photo:


State of filthiness under the hood:





I had the car hauled back to LA, and since then I've been busy. Mostly spending money that I didn't have the first time.

Coming down off the trailer:
http://gdriv.es/rudy-rx7/IMG_2265.jpg

rrluthi

Things accomplished on the car so far:

1. It's at a shop, known to some forum members, to some fondly, others not so much. While I'd normally prefer to do as much as possible on my own, I didn't want it to show up at my rented house in non-running condition and get me evicted. Plus, Robert really knows these cars, and we get along well.

2. Sent off the injectors to get rebuilt at RC Engineering.

3. Bought Walbro FP, Aeromotive FPR

4. Bought new Innovative wideband ... turns out these have gotten a bit better and cheaper in the last 10 years.

5. Bought Enkei Compe wheels, Dunlop Direzza DZ102 tires.





They need way way more low. Likely a coilover setup front and rear. Not sure exactly what yet.

6. New radiator incoming

7. I'm in the middle of a complete rewire of my original crappy MS1 harness. Using Tefzel wire, shrink tube, bulkhead connector, relocating the battery to the back, installing relays and breakers, and tucking everything possible out of sight. I'm actually creating a wiring diagram for the new harness, since it's going to replace the stock one entirely from the firewall forward. I figured it would be great for documentation, troubleshooting, and perhaps even help someone else. I'll post it when it's complete.

8. I'm going to use an Adaptronic 440 ECU. I kind of wanted to go MS3, but I've heard good things on here about the Adaptronic, so we'll see how that goes. It is nicely packaged, and support seems good.

9. Got my 10th AE seats reupholstered. Originally bought them from someone here, I fetched them from Davis CA. I'm doing something a little different. Went with a high quality automotive vinyl and an expensive houndstooth center fabric, old-school porsche style.



10. I bought the Z-car fender flares, but probably won't install those for a while. Also have a Kamei-style front lip coming from FibreMaz in Australia, but that won't be here for months, in all likelihood.

My goals for the car are: Awesome street car, white on black, aggressive appearance, low as practical, decent stereo, 250-300 reliable and drivable horsepower. First step, get it running well NA, then add the water-intercooled turbo sometime in the fall. There's going to be lots of restoration happening as well.

Freeskier7791

Great story, this should turn out good. I am piecing together coilover style front suspension for my 85. Should be cheaper than what the others want for a premade set. The rear you can just use 5" springs in the proper length. Those seats turned out good, was the kamei lip super expensive with shipping?

rrluthi

Group buy link is here: https://www.facebook.com/Rx7-1st-Gen...5785052897773/

The Kamei lip is $280 shipped to the dock in California, he has an arrangement with a shop there. I live in LA so I'll pick it up.

RGHTBrainDesign

Thank you for that! I'll put my deposit down for one now.

Freeskier7791

I wish I lived in CA, thats a cool deal

RGHTBrainDesign

It's still 5hrs away from me (going into Pomona). So I either as family that lives down there to pick it up for me and store it, ship it up to San Jose, or drive my *** down to LA and pick it up.

rrluthi

If you want, I can pick yours up at the same time as mine and store it either in Pomona at my in-laws or else in my garage (Culver City)

rrluthi

This diagram is INCOMPLETE: don't use it if you see it 10 years from now. I'm posting this up to get feedback from anyone else going Adaptronic.

RGHTBrainDesign

Nicely done! I'll be going with a M6000 Universal unit for my build.

rrluthi

I really want one of those, but I already paid for the 440, and got denied on the trade-up. Kind of annoying since I haven't even plugged it in to a laptop yet. Still minty in the box.

woodmv

iTrader: (8)

I've always been old school and the current trend of dark wheels hasn't really grown on me yet, but I have to say that these look WAY cool on your car. I love it! I really like the way the seats turned out also. I may have to do something similar down the road with mine, so thanks for the idea! Good luck with your project, I'll be keeping up with it!

RGHTBrainDesign

That's a phenomenal ECU and for the price, the BEST option on the market. Don't fool yourself into paying more for features you'll never use!

Have you seen my build? I'm pretty much trying to complicate **** at this point... I want to maximize the amount of electronics I can put into a 30yr old car for ***** and giggles.

rrluthi

I get it, I am a programmer for a living. I would do more if I could get away with it. At some point though I want to start enjoying the car, and there are definitely diminishing returns. I have seen your thread, and I'm going to definitely be stealing a couple of your ideas here and there as I move forward. I'm not doing any subframe swaps though

Your Integra handles unbelievably well for a street car, I watched a couple of your vids. Where do you think your RX-7 will end up? Is your goal to beat the Teg?

RGHTBrainDesign

Just corner balanced the Integra this week at 2888# with me and half a tank of fuel (bahaha, such a fatty!), so the refinement and comfort in cabin is still top priority for both cars. It'll be tough to dial in a McPherson strut, solid axle car well enough to compare to my double wishbone Integra without compromise (alignment has to be more aggressive and geometry has to be DIALED), but yea, that's the idea.

The Integra is getting an entire aero package and FC seats installed soon, so it'll be a totally different monster. Even more comfortable, and less aero problems at higher speeds.

Don't laugh, but since the 195/55-15 All Season video with Sharkwerks, the mods have been extensive and that setup is SO SLOW compared to where I'm at now. Full bronze bushings/sphericals throughout (still a great ride quality and silent), beefier front brake setup, ST43 pads, rear LCA (sphericals), raised ride height (altered RC rake), and aero coming soon. This setup will be even harder to match in the Rx7, but we'll have to wait and see what magic I can perform on it.

rrluthi

I was thinking of measuring out a dana 44 corvette IRS, to see what that swap would involve. I know hot rodders use them a lot, they are really simple and self-contained. The vette track is about 5" wider than the 1st gens and would need to be narrowed or run with fat flares. Also there's the jag IRS that comes in a few different widths, and the factory-five subframe, which is tough to find measurements on, but I have seen a complete walkthrough online on installing it into an old truck.

As far as the front wishbones, there's a couple racers that have converted FC fronts to double-A using circle track parts. Just an idea.

RGHTBrainDesign

Not worth it for the time being. I went ahead with some custom FC bits already and want to optimize that first.

As for the Dana 44 HD (Corvette C4 Rear Geometry) I used to work at Lucra Cars in San Diego and could tell you that the Roll Center and Anti-Squat values are TERRIBLE, as well as the monoleaf, once pushed hard. On the street, they're great and very compliant. As far as the differential itself, the ratios are great for a boosted rotary (very low in comparison), and the LSDs aren't half bad. It's a great idea if you really want to go independent rear suspension in a "subframe-like" setup.

Being that you're going to graft it into the FB chassis anyways, you can fix that geometry... easy peasy. Swedged rods and quality rod ends (QSComponents FTW!) are easy to come by on the cheap.

rrluthi

Good knowledge. From my superficial research, it seems like it wouldn't be too much harder than all the other solid axle rear end swaps I see on here. A tad bit more on the fabrication side of things but not too much more. I'm overlooking things I'm sure. My instinct on projects like this is to go as far as I can if I go down that road at all.

I did find that there's a pin-drive IRS kit from factory-five with a 54" track which isn't bad at all, could mount some really dished wheels and still fit them. Pin Drive IRS - Factory Five Parts Catalog

Would be a fun project. I volunteer you :P

RGHTBrainDesign

No, I'm fairly content hacking up a pristine '83 to mock up a Toyota 8" solid axle with LONG 4-link with great geometry.

Here's my thing with IRS vs. Solid Axle. A crappy SA will outhandle a poorly designed IRS. An IRS that is really well thought out and designed usually can't stay that way with power. SAs are simple and with GREAT geometry can easily match the best IRS systems out there, all while holding "true" and handling the power.

Their standard width is 59". Fender flaring alone could hide that! That's damn near the Toyota 8" width (58"?).

rrluthi

I completed my diagram, caught a bunch of mistakes once I started building.

Here's the finished harness diagram:



Some progress on the actual wiring:
First I depinned all the wires from the adaptronic plug that I won't be using (I bought the flying lead harness). Near the top of this picture you can see the carcass of my megasquirt harness, I'm using it to judge approximate lengths rather than run back to the car constantly. I'm using the 22 pin weather pack bulkhead connector. Not quite mil-spec, but should suit my needs. You may notice some soldering supplies, but all my connectors are getting crimped. I used the solder to reinforce the sensor-ground to CAS shielding splice.



Here's the finished bulkhead connector (engine bay side). I need to figure out how I'm going to boot it, or if I actually need to.


Here's all the wire I pulled out of the flying lead harness:

There's lots of I/O left for expansion obviously, but I'm out of pins on my bulkhead connector. I will likely add another one in the future when I add a boost controller, EGT sensor, speed sensor & electronic cruise control, or other such goodies.
All the extra wire I bought is Tefzel. The flying lead harness came with more standard wire, but it should be good. I bought extra wire in these colors: red, white, black, red / blue, black / green. I'm going to use this for my headlights & rad fan, extra length for my sensor wires, and connecting up all the relays & fuses. I bought a small Bussmann RTMR to run power to everything in the engine bay. I should have 2 extra relays and several extra fuses for future expansion.

rrluthi

Hey I was hosting the images on google drive and using their static hosting to make them publicly available, but they disabled that ability. I went ahead and bit the bullet and hosted them all on Amazon S3 with Cloudfront delivery, I guess I'll pay the $.30 a month they will charge, lol. However it looks like since the previous posts were quoted, editing is disabled. How can I convince someone to fix the broken images? Or should I start a new thread?

RGHTBrainDesign

NICE! I'm going to have a wiring party when we start doing mine. A bunch of Zaya Rum, Costco Pizza, and good company.

rrluthi

Sounds like you're a great friend, lol. Actually, I really like electronics and wiring, but more the theory of it than the repetitive crimping and pinning and depinning and crimping and repinning. I had a blast doing my diagram, researching parts etc. Now I'm to the dreaded part where I have to crimp on the order of 1000 terminals. I'm about 75 in now. Just 925 to go.

For my engine bay wiring, I'm running all the power distribution off of a Bussmann RTMR. I found a great write-up of methods and parts needed. It's aimed at the 4x4 community for lights / winches, etc but the parts list is very similar for my purposes.
Here's the link to the page with the parts list and where to buy: DIY Bussmann RTMR Fuse Block, Part 2 ? Parts | Bodenzord Incredibly helpful... tracking down parts on a site like Mouser or Waytek wire can be very tedious.

I am mounting the RTMR and the Adaptronic on a sheet of aluminum. I just own one tool capable of cutting the aluminum, it's an angle grinder - not exactly a precision implement. I've gotten pretty good at using it though.


Here's the mounted RTMR. Next up, lots of crimping.


I think it's going to live in the back of my glove box.

My goal is to have most of this done by next weekend so I can focus on getting the car running for the first time in 10 years. I'm also doing a battery relocation behind the passenger bin, which has the structural brace (SA), so I have to figure that out as well. I am thinking of mounting a big breaker for the starter, plus all my relays for the power windows back there with the battery, so I'm probably going to be building another aluminum bracket for all that stuff.

RGHTBrainDesign

VERY nice selection of parts! I was planning on going this route, but nothing could handle all my high-amperage circuits. My setup isn't going to be as clean or space efficient, but it should be able to handle the 100A inrush to the HUGE 16" SPAL fan (with the highest torque on the market), a bunch of other accessories, and keep my engine happy.

BlueSea Circuit Breaker ftw!

rrluthi

I haven't figured out what fan to run yet. I was operating on the assumption that there's no fan on earth that draws more than 30 / 40 amps, but apparently I'm wrong. I was thinking of using a Taurus fan, no idea what they flow.

I googled for 16" spal fan and found some that are about 2.3k cfm but their spec sheets say they draw in the mid 20's. I understand that starting the fan at zero RPM will momentarily cause extra current draw, but a 35A relay should be ok with it, and if it's not, then I can bolt an additional high amp relay to my board.

Once I get my board built, I'll probably crinkle coat it black. I don't think i'll have the energy to file, sand and polish it.