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I'm being hounded into doing a build thread for my car, so here it is. I started posting in the "What I did to my SA/FB today..." thread shortly after getting my car in October of 2012. I'm going to bring together and summarize these postings. I'll hit the major points and include the pics where I have them.
Prologue
In mid-October of 2012, hunting for a 12-sec quarter mile, I spun a bearing at Sacramento Speedway doing a test and tune on my '92 Civic hatch. That was the last straw...I was done. Done with driving it 3-1/2 hours to the nearest drag strip. Done with trying to get it to handle in auto-x but still having my @ss handed to me by stock Miatas. Done with dropping cash into a car that I had to sequester in my garage and rarely drive for fear of it being stolen. I loved that car, but I thought, "I'm getting too old for this". I sold the shell and (mostly) blown engine to an acquaintance and didn't look back.
Two weeks later, my friend, who owned a 10AE FC, forwarded an ad in the Santa Cruz Craigslist. An '85 base model RX-7. $1800. Pics looked good. I was itching to get a new project and I'd always loved his FC, so I decided to answer that ad and venture into the mysterious world of the rotary engine. I got the car for $1600, but there were back fees and some complications due to the fact that the car was in the name of the husband of the 80-year-old widow I bought it from. That sorted out, my friend drove it home for me (I had to pick my wife and daughter up at the airport). I washed it that weekend and this is how she looked:
The car looked remarkably good for an almost 30-year-old car. The woman I'd bought it from babied it. Her husband bought it for her new in '85. The only thing I noticed, cosmetically, was a spot near the rear hatch that looked like bondo cracking. I figured it must have had some work in the past, but the rest of the car looked good, so I decided I'd have to address that sometime in the future. But not right away.
Last edited by Fungus Mungus; 07-26-15 at 01:08 AM.
Although the car looked really good, it was not without its problems. The one thing that plagued me for the first few months of the car was the maddening flooding issue I had. I got so used to dumping ATF in the carb to get the thing started that it almost became routine, but really, something had to be done. After reading my favorite thread (mentioned in the prologue), Divin' Diver talked about a fix for his flooding problem...replacing the charcoal canister.
Now it just so happened that I stumbled upon a Pacific widebody 1st gen at the local Pick-n-Pull.
I pulled the whale tale off and got a few bits and pieces from it (no, the rest of the body kit wasn't really in good enough shape to salvage), but one of the things I decided might be a good idea to get is the charcoal canister. The car only had 85K on the clock (mine had over 300K). Sadly, the widebody didn't have it's original turbocharged engine in it (that would have been a dream come true for me). But I got my goodies and went home and replaced my charcoal canister. My flooding went away instantly. I went from seriously doubting my decision to buy a 30-year-old rotary car to being elated!
fm
Last edited by Fungus Mungus; 07-26-15 at 02:24 AM.
While I was sorting out the flooding issues, I started working on why the steering was, well...sloppy. 4" plus slop in both directions did not inspire confidence.
Reading through forum posts and other online DIY sites, I came up with a couple things I could do to tighten up steering, in order of pain-in-the-@ssiness:
replace worn out bushings, including idler arm bushing
tighten that giant nut on the worn steering box
replace worn steering box
So I replaced all of the worn out bushings with urethane bushings. I replaced all the tie rods, the lower control arms, idler arm, etc. Everything in the front end that could possibly be worn. Installed an RB sway bar while I was under there. 3 agonizing weeks of nights. This had a negligible effect.
I not attempt to adjust the giant nut on the steering box as I didn't have that giant wrench you need to do so. So I decided to just toss some money at the car and buy a new steering box. This was the first big expense, ringing in at $550 or so. I had a shop do this as I'd been working under the car for 3 weeks of nights and was DONE with it for awhile. Amazing improvement. Like new steering, although they screwed it up by manhandling it trying to get it in. Mazda warns about this....you can't be too rough with it or you'll break the pins that are designed to break in an accident so that the column collapses. Well, they did break them and I research how to fix it and tell them how (using aluminum rivets).
So the steering box replaced and all front bushings replaced, I took her out for her first auto-x and managed times better than I'd ever gotten in my 220 whp Civic hatch. On stock 185/70/13 steelies. I knew I had something good here.
fm
Last edited by Fungus Mungus; 07-26-15 at 02:26 AM.
So with the new bushing and sway bar it wasnt much of a difference?
No, there was a marginal improvement with the bushing replacement. The sway bar was just replaced because it made sense to do it while I was under there, not because I thought it would fix the steering problem. The main problem was with the steering box, which very well could have had 300K+ mile on it.
So, having sorted out the wayward front suspension and steering, I started thinking about wheel options. I was really discouraged by the range of choice for wheels. I was originally thinking of some nice 15" light alloy wheels, but the 4x110 bolt pattern was frustratingly difficult to find. In the end, I decided to get more ambitious and go for the 4x114.3 GSL-SE conversion (front knuckles, rear axle) and get the LSD to boot.
So after 2-3 months of searching, I managed to find a GSL-SE rear end from Washington and a pair of front knuckles from the SF Bay Area. These sat in the garage for about 2 months while I sourced new brake pads, calipers, rotors, bearings, shocks, springs, GC coilover sleeves, and camber plates. Once I had everything in hand (or thought I had everything), I got to work on the front end.
The GC coilover sleeve kit requires that you cut off your stock perches and weld on the supplied perch. I pulled both front spindles and cut off the perches, managing to cut through the tube on one of my shock tubes. Luckily the local radiator shop was able to repair the tube while welding on the new perches. Narrowly escaped disaster on that one! I gave the newly welded tubes a lick of paint and started assembling the coilovers:
While I was at it, I put in the new GC camber plates. I decided I didn't need to go crazy with camber, so I didn't cut the towers:
The Tokico MR2 Illuminas (probably the last set found in the wild) were taken to a local machinist to be turned on a lathe so that the camber plates would fit.
Having done that, it was time to do the rear axle.
Before I did that, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do about the rear links. I had heard about the Ge-force tri-link and how it was all that and a bag of potato chips, but since they stopped making them, it proved to be unobtainium. So I decided to settle for some updates to the existing 4-link/watts link setup.
More to come in the next post.
fm
Last edited by Fungus Mungus; 07-28-15 at 02:12 AM.
I'd read about things that could be done about the rear links. The conventional wisdom was that I shouldn't use the Energy Suspension polyurethane bushings in the rear as they would make binding worse and cause the car to get more tail-happy, especially once the car was lowered. I read up PB&J Racing's write-up on how to make the stock links work for you and decided to do sort of a hybrid of his methods and heim joint links.
MFR sold heim joint watts links and lower links back in the day. I figured if MFR sold them, they were probably safe to use. j9fd3s drew up a heim joint link setup for both the watts links and the lower links in Solidworks and sent me a pic along with suggestions on how I could build them. That sent me onto lefthanderchassis.com to buy some Coleman heim joints and trailing arms. I got very good measurements from j9fd3s and picked up a full set to make the two watts links and the two lower links:
I didn't do the upper links as I was advised that the could tear out the upper mounting points. About the time I got the links installed, I finally managed to score a set of wheels that I thought would work with my setup. I picked up a set of first-gen Volk Rays TE-37 16x7 wheels from a guy who used them on an Accord. They had been refinished by him in a champagne/bronze color. I wasn't sure about 16s on an FB, but 15s weren't popping up anywhere, so I went for them.
Around that same time, I also managed to pick up a used Racing Beat Street Port exhaust, complete with 13B uncollected header. While I couldn't use the header with the 12A, the rest of the exhaust would be plug-n-play. I picked up a new 12A header from RB and stored the 13B header for later. My plan was to swap out the exhaust at the same time I did the rear axle.
I also picked up a set of new Bilstein AE-86 shocks and a set of Pro7 Eibach springs for the rear and installed them. Once I got the links ready, I called one of my buddies to come over and help me get the axle swapped. I managed to pull the old axle off myself, after having removed the exhaust. We got the axle on and bolted on. We pulled the rear sway bar off to make the car more predictable. After putting on the axle, we discovered that the union for the soft brake lines and hard lines on the rear axle was missing. Unamused, I spent the next week sourcing one. Luckily, a forum member came through for me and within a week, I had the part needed. I'd also discovered that Black Dragon had sent me the wrong soft brake line for the rear axle, so I ordered one locally and had it in a day.
A couple of evenings later, I undertook the frustrating task of putting the RB exhaust on myself. Started at about 8 in the evening and finished at about 1am. Covered with dirt, oil, and sweat, I called it a night and went to bed. The next morning, I dropped the car onto the ground and started her up with her new exhaust and took a ride in her new shoes:
fm
Last edited by Fungus Mungus; 07-28-15 at 02:16 AM.
While all of this was going on, I was in buying and selling mode, attempting to pay for all of this. I'd gotten a windfall of eBay bucks and used them to buy a Holley w/RB intake for my 12A. Then my first major score came a week after the Holley arrived: a 12A pulled from an SCCA SA22C that was being sold along with a 48IDA carb and RX-7 tranny w/Miata gear set for $1000. I decided to sell the Holley and go with the 12A w/Weber. Then about 3 weeks later, a local guy sold me FIVE 12As and a 13B GSL-SE, plus engine stand for $600. He threw in a modified Nikki and a Weber 45 DCOE sidedraft as well. My little 1.5 car garage was wall-to-wall with rotary engines and parts. My wife was not amused.
I broke down the four of the 12As for practice. Most of them didn't have usable parts...the housings were shot, sadly. I did a compression test on the fifth 12A, a mild street port, and it was in great condition. The 13B also had excellent compression. So I had a bunch of engine parts, a Miata tranny, 2 good 12As and a good 13B on an engine stand. I eventually sold off what I didn't need, which went to pay for much of the stuff I needed to do my GSL-SE suspension swap.
I went from wanting put a Holley on my stock 12A, to wanting to put in the street ported 12A w/48IDA, then to settling on the GSL-SE 13B. The problem was, the SE had no intake manifold or any of the other FI goodies necessary to make it work. So I spent the next couple of months sourcing the FI parts I would need to fully prep the 13B 6-port. Over the next few months, I had almost everything I needed...oil injectors, front cover, OMP, oil pan, upper/lower intake manifold, throttle body, air box, ECU, fuel injectors and rails.
During this time, I ran a few more autocrosses with the new wheels/exhaust. My times started to get a little faster, but I still wasn't where I wanted to be. Too many Miatas were killing me. Something I intended to fix soon.
fm
Last edited by Fungus Mungus; 07-28-15 at 02:31 AM.
I would be interested in your alignment stories with this build. My track team has plenty of experience with S-30 Datsuns, but we are only starting with the FB RX7 chassis. The Rx7 has bite and cornering prowess, but the steering feel and turn-in is strange((1/16" total TOE OUT)). LSD carrier, Koni, coilovers, camber/caster plates, heim on Watt links. 15x9" with 245/40/15 200-UTQG tires. full cage with tower bridge. I only have 4degrees of caster and camber is limited to -1.5degrees due to slightly out of square front end. Fixable to get 5 caster and -2.5" camber which may be more of an issue than I thought.
My team had a similar stance to yours with coilovers and Koni adjustables. It has great grip, but we are trying to address understeer. O We are going to try raising the rear and resetting front toe. Stiffening the rear shocks alone did not help understeer. We already relocated battery behind passenger seat for weight dist.
Unfortunately we have no spring information unless they have a stamp in the flats upon-dismantling. In shake down the car seems very compliant but does not heel over or dive under braking. The 200-UTQG tires and factory front/rear discs will not heave the car around but so hard... Opinions are welcome, looking for ideas before purchasing.
Unfortunately we have no spring information unless they have a stamp in the flats upon-dismantling. In shake down the car seems very compliant but does not heel over or dive under braking. The 200-UTQG tires and factory front/rear discs will not heave the car around but so hard... Opinions are welcome, looking for ideas before purchasing.
I would look into getting some roll center correcting blocks and trying to tune the bump steer after that:
I would be interested in your alignment stories with this build. My track team has plenty of experience with S-30 Datsuns, but we are only starting with the FB RX7 chassis. The Rx7 has bite and cornering prowess, but the steering feel and turn-in is strange((1/16" total TOE OUT)). LSD carrier, Koni, coilovers, camber/caster plates, heim on Watt links. 15x9" with 245/40/15 200-UTQG tires. full cage with tower bridge. I only have 4degrees of caster and camber is limited to -1.5degrees due to slightly out of square front end. Fixable to get 5 caster and -2.5" camber which may be more of an issue than I thought.
My team had a similar stance to yours with coilovers and Koni adjustables. It has great grip, but we are trying to address understeer. O We are going to try raising the rear and resetting front toe. Stiffening the rear shocks alone did not help understeer. We already relocated battery behind passenger seat for weight dist.
I haven't had a chance to play much with the camber yet. I'm running a pretty conservative neg camber right now...maybe 1.5"? I do get mild understeer, but from what I understand, that's to be expected with an LSD-equipped 1st gen. I plan on going -2.5" to see what happens there. Understand that the above is from over a year ago. The car setup has changed and will be documented further. Stay tuned...
the watts link stuff has me wondering what i've got in my car? lol
Yeah, the guys from Battle Garage really liked it...spotted the 5-spoke old-school TE-37s right away when I went to one of the last NorCal UFO Auto-x events.
The problem is I didn't really have the power or gearing for those wheels. Smaller wheels were more appropriate for that setup. But it did look really good. I thought 16s would be too big, but they looked just about right.
By July of '13, I'd decided it was time to get that RX-7/Miata hybrid transmission up off the ground and get it in the car. The existing transmission mount was shot and made a racket under hard acceleration, so I picked up a new mount, called my buddy again and had him help me swap the transmission. I wasn't able to rent a decent air compressor, so I ended up getting an electric impact gun to get the flywheel off. I was really lucky...that nut did not want to come off, but eventually succumbed after persistent brapping from the impact.
It wasn't terribly difficult. Just awkward working on the floor of my garage with the car up on jack stands. A lift would have been really nice for this job. Once we got the tranny out, we took the flywheel out for resurfacing and got lunch. Came back and put it, along with a new ACT Stage 1 clutch in, and then proceeded to put the new tranny in. We fought that thing for 30 minutes trying to get it to line up, but it did NOT want to go in. We finally took a dinner break, went out there and it just slipped right on. Go figure.
The funny thing is that I'd had that same tranny on 5 different engines (outside of the car) and never had a problem getting it to line up with the spines. But when you're on the floor trying to do it, it's a different story. Anyway, we finally got it lined up and bolted on. Put everything thing back together and took her out for a test drive.
It drove great. It was wonderful to have that *snick* *snick* shifting that you get from a fresh Miata box. The only thing was that the speedo wasn't working. My friend figured we accidentally pulled it out of the back of the speedo when reinstalling the cable into the tranny. It was a couple of days later when we got the car on a lift that we realized that whoever did the tranny conversion didn't bother to put the speedo driver gear back in. It was a Miata tranny going into an SA originally. Incompatible speedo gear, so they just left it off. ARRRRGHH! I was NOT going to pull the tranny, take it apart, and put a new gear in. It would have to wait.
I took apart my old RX-7 transmission and pulled the speedo gear out of it for safe keeping. It was pretty old and worn, so I kept the bell housing so I could do compression test on any new kegs that may happen to land in my lap.
I took her back out again for another auto-x run and she did better. About the middle of the pack at NorCal UFO. Very pleased with the results. I figured with a 13B putting out about 30-40% more power, I'd be in a really nice spot.
So after the all of the dirty, oily work of the July transmission swap, I decided to do something easy. Swap my non-functioning factory analog radio for a GSL-SE stereo. ioTus did a very thorough writeup of converting a GSL-SE stereo to allow for standard AUX-IN so that you could plug an ipod/iphone into it. I thought it was really slick, but I suck at soldering components, so I asked him if he'd be willing to mod my stereo. He agreed and within a month, I had a GSL-SE stereo w/ AUX IN jacks. The cool thing is that to engage the aux-in, you pop a cassette tape in. Only there is no belt to drive the tape anymore, so no noise. It just acts as a switch to turn on the aux-in. Very cool.
You'd think this would be an easy install, but it proved to be a pain in the @ss. I had to figure out the wiring using the manual, which wasn't too bad. At first I couldn't get it to work, but I checked the wiring diagrams in the FSM and finally got it working.
Then a day later, I pulled it to check something, put it back in and it wouldn't power on. I checked things over and over again and couldn't figure it out. Finally took the stereo to the shop and they couldn't figure it out. They were ready to throw in the towel when I mentioned the that I checked the fuse in the stereo.
Shop: "There are fuses in the stereo????"
Me: "Uh, yeah, but I checked that..."
Shop: "Hold on a sec..."
They proceeded to extract the blown fuse from the tape deck and in 10 minutes, I had a working stereo. With AUX-IN. w00t! Who f'kin knew? Probably ioTus did, but I certainly didn't.
fm
Last edited by Fungus Mungus; 07-29-15 at 12:19 AM.
Up until now, I'd paid absolutely no attention to the body. It was in decent shape, but I was reasonably sure it had had a shunt in the past due to the exposed, cracked bondo near the rear hatch, suspiciously close to where the plugged(!) drain holes were.
I'd been mulling about the idea of doing some IMSA Daytona stripes on the car. I wasn't sure how it would look, but I knew one thing....before I could do anything like that, the pin stripes and side molding would have to go.
I spent a couple of nights with a heat gun and a razor blade removing the maroon pin striping. This is when my suspicion that the car had been partially repainted was confirmed...the pinstriping on the rear half of the car had been masked off and the rear repainted. When I went to take that pinstriping off, it left an ugly step in the paint. The front all the way past the doors came off looking great. The rear, not so much.
I also took that opportunity to have a go at repairing the crack in my rear bumper. That turned out to be a disaster. It was clear to me that this was not going to do.
And that bondo in the rear passenger corner always bugged me, so I decided that it was time to start thinking about body work and paint for real. My original idea was to just lay some stripes over the existing paint, but it was clear that the stepping/chipping in the paint, along with the screwed-up bumper was going to look too ugly. I wasn't going to half-*** it like that.
07-26-15, 12:58 AM
