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So I added coolant, added oil and then primed the system a few times. Went over everything once more and gave her a crank. She fired up first try! Came alive with that nice brap sounding better than ever. Oh and what a smoke show! Fire extinguisher ready lol.
At first I thought it was all the assembly lube, vaseline, and extra hylomar burning up and out. I'm sure a lot of it was, but after the car idled for over an hour, it was still smoking! A steady puff was coming out with every brap. There has to be something wrong. At this point it was either oil control rings were installed wrong/backwards or the turbo was leaking oil into the exhaust and it was burning up there. Hopefully it would be the latter of the two.
She still looks damn good though!
Oh and I finally took my s5 parts car to the junker. It was a 1990 GTU model with a hardtop. It supplied me with a lot of parts for both my old N/A and my current T2, even up to this day!
So the car didn't smoke on cold startups, only after idling for about 10 minutes. Pulled off the turbo and manifold and even started the car to be sure... Loud as F*#% but no smoke! Here are some pics of the bad turbonetics 60-1 hi-fi.
You can see where oil was leaking on the hotside near the turbine. Upon full inspection I found that when the main bearing spun and filled my oil system with copper, copper flakes also got into my turbo and trashed those bearings too! Dammit. But at least there wasn't anything wrong with the motor and my first rotary engine build worked like it's supposed to!
Here's a comparison pic of the trashed turbo bearing on the left, and how a journal bearing is supposed to look. (right)
So I also found a local used turbo that would bolt to my existing setup with absolutely zero modifications needed. It was a low miles Turbonetics Benita. This turbo is huuuuuuge. Big compressor wheel (78mm), big turbine (68mm)! Too big for my build, but the only reason I picked it up is because the guy selling it gave me a killer deal and it would bolt to my downpipe and manifold no problem. t4 undivided hotside with the 3inch vband. Oh, plus it wouldn't smoke and it'd get my car on the road.
Comparison with the old 60-1 hi-fi.
Here's a pic of the benita mounted and spinning! She sure does look great.
Gotta ziptie the bumper back together before I can take this thing for a cruise!
100 miles on the rebuild with no problems and no smoke!!!
Now that she was being driven on the daily, had to snap pics at every opportunity.
Installed an aluminum belly under pan that came on s4 sport models. This thing is pretty rare and lowers the drag coefficient of the FC. Not to be confused with the stock plastic undertray, this thing sits after the subframe and covers the oil pan. Pretty cool little thing.
Thanks badsvt1, I ran that turbo for all of the break in miles and after about 1000 I started getting into boost pretty good. The turbo would come online at about 4000 rpm and would hit full boost, (a whopping 5psi during break in) at about 5000 rpm maybe sooner. It's been a while since then.
^yup you know what they say, "better safe than sorry". It's not worth taking the chance. Below is the last pic I have with the old bent EMUSA intercooler. I chose to replace it with the exact same size Mishimoto core.
An awesome little badge that my father got me for my bday. It'll add a little bit of flavor to the outside of the car and the red will also match the accents in my bay.
The background of that last pic gave a little sneak peak to this... Everyone knows that a cool rotary is a happy one. Decided to add an AEM water/meth kit to aid in keeping the intake charge cool, prevent carbon build up, and also prevent detonation. The only downside of running water meth is that if you're tuned for it and the system fails, the lack of that extra fuel (methanol) means you can run the car lean and blow it up. In order to prevent this, I opted for the additional failsafe system that adds a flow gauge to the mix. This gauge sets a series of parameters on a healthy flowing system and logs them. If there's ever a high flow (leak in the line flowing excess w/m) or a low flow (clog in the line preventing flow of w/m) then the system can be wired to cut ignition and save your engine. (the kit can be wired to do a number of things other than cut ignition. It can cut fuel or even retard timing. I like ignition cut the most.) This will get installed eventually.
A couple pics of the intercooler install...
I couldn't find a filter to fit over the massive benita compressor inlet so a mesh screen will have to do for now. This material is screen door material found at any home depot or lowes in the racecar section.
I also added a jocobs FC1000 ignition box which bumps up the spark on the primary or leading coilpack. Throttle response and going through the revs seemed a lot "crisper" or smoother. Great addition and benefit for the price.
The Mishimoto core is great quality at an excellent price. Even on this big *** snail, boost came online faster compared with the old intercooler. This leads me to believe that there is less pressure drop with this core. Really stoked on that. Plus it looks a lot more badass.
I'm loving the Jacobs igntion. Car runs a whole lot better now. When testing the system initially I compared spark by cranking the car with the spark plug wire pulled off of the coil and positioned about an inch away so it could still make contact. The trailing coil gave off a weak little spark that was almost hard to see even at night. The leading coil under the same circumstance gave off a PURPLE LIGHTNING BOLT and made a zzZZAPPpp sound. It works awesome!!! The only complaint I have is the size of the box. Pretty big and bulky. Luckily, it's hidden quite well underneath my corksport radiator cooling panel.
so your running 3' ic piping ? thinking bout upping my piping size on the cold side first to 3" . just dont want lag . also do you still have a stock alt ? if so switch to a tauras alt. i swear my spark got better just from that . build looking good man
So after the rebuild I installed a set of aftermarket gauges to keep an eye on everything. A "watch the f*$% out of everything" setup. I wanted to monitor boost, oil pressure, oil temp, and water temp. Already have an aem wideband and now a water meth flow gauge. I chose to try HDi gauges. An Australian company that makes these cool gauges that have an analog (needle) readout and also a little digital screen that displays the value in a different type of pressure measurement. For example; the boost gauge needle reads the pressure in bar, while the digital gives the equivalent psi value. Not exactly necessary, but pretty cool. That way when someone asks, how much bar? (or Fahrenheit vs Celsius on temps) I don't have to do the conversion.
The problem is that the gauges are white faced with orange/red needles. SO I would need to experiment with a white face cluster and get it to match as best I could. Something that isn't ricey but at least matches. I hate that the stock FC cluster is so hard to match aftermarket gauges to.. I wish I couldve done that but time and money didn't permit.
Here's a few pics. If you're interested in seeing all the modifications that went into my gauge setup there's a complete writeup and walkthrough in my other thread ---> https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-generati...-mods-1059088/
^That white face cluster was the original face I was going to use but I ended up going with a different one. Slight different color that matches my Hdi gauges better. Below is how they would be positioned. Aem water meth gauge and wideband on the a pillar, boost on the steering column, and water temp, oil temp, and oil pressure would be in front of the idiot cluster.
Thought it might be worth noting that I am now running an NA s5 9k redline cluster. All I had to do was re-pin the s4 cluster harness following Icemarks writeup. Then plug it into the s5 cluster and enjoy the working volt gauge in my factory turbo FC.
So at this point my interior was half black, half Ron Jeremy maroon. After having the sun faded maroon for about 2 1/2 to 3 years, I really couldn't stand it anymore. It's time to go FULL BLACK! Threw the ugly *** old maroon headliner material in the thrash and re did it in black. Got the headliner material at a fabric store for pretty cheap, and the glue wasn't too pricey either. Hardest part was scraping all of the old foam off of the headliner board without cracking it. Patience is key. Got it nice and clean, sprayed on a bunch of adhesive and applied the new headliner material. Got it in all the indentations and cut away the excess. Viola, black s4 headliner. Beats paying over $100 for an old one out of a 10th ae.
Had some leftover leather from my dads FD seats and decided to use that for the door cards. Again, pretty easy process. Cutting the holes for the handle was a little tricky. Measure twice, cut once. Interior pieces such as the dash, door panels, b pillars and even the rear side carpets were all sprayed with flat black Duplicolor vinyl and fabric paint. The flat black matched the original black better than the gloss. For the carpet, I sprayed, scrubbed it in, and repeated about four times. Only the rear sides needed to be painted as I already had black front and rear carpet. For the dash and other interior pieces, they were all prepped thoroughly and then sprayed with adhesion promotor, then the duplicolor.
The last two pictures are what I believe to be one of the last sets of brand new replacement 10ae A pillars. Big shoutout to Ray Crowe at Malloy Mazda for sourcing a set for me. Sorry but I don't know if I have a pic of them outside of the box, and not installed. If I find one I'll post it.
And there it is! I was really pleased with how the duplicolor came out. Matched the oem 10th ae plastics that I sourced on ebay pretty closely. I'm proud to have replaced all of my broken plastic vents in the process. I'm now happy to say that my once maroon interior FC now has full black interior. It was difficult to do this in a s4 chassis because the only s4 with black interior was the 10th ae making it rare stuff. Most usdm s5 black interior like the headliner and a pillar/b pillars won't work due to the mouse belts that they had. I'll cover how I tackled black seat belts in the next post.
Hey unek, I actually had one on my old fc and really missed it as my t2 had a short one from the factory. Picked this one up about halfway through the interior job. It's perfect height for me to rest my elbow on. Check the parts section often. They shouldn't be too hard to find.
Since I first got into modifying FC's, one thing has always been clear, JAPAN had it better. They have one of the coolest tuning shops there (RE Amemiya), the coolest fc options such as window visors and digital climate controls, and even better models that rolled off the line such as the Infini. Not to mention every fc was fitted with a magical snail. (I can appreciate that being a previous NA fc owner.) Anyways, aside from being rhd, I'd like to capture some of the essence that makes these jdm rx7s so unique. Even if all that means is a few cool parts, and wangan highway rolls.
So as you can see in the last pic, I added the finishing touch to the interior in the form of FC3S dealer option aluminum pedals. These pedals were only available in Japan and are pretty rare here in the states. It's a bummer we never got them because they feel great on the feet, (except when wet!) and they add a nice aesthetic touch. The RX-7 engraving on each pedal is the cherry on top. I got these for a STEAL on ebay with the dead pedal and all. Very happy!
Sorry for the dirty carpet! So with the added foot coolness on the driver side, I decided to spice up the passenger side. Infini floorbar for the gf to brace herself against when we get into spirited driving. Now I just need to figure out how to make it work with floor mats.
Oh and an update on the engine. Running great except the benita flows a lot more air than my old turbo. At about 5psi and 6k rpm it starts to lean out so I don't push it very hard. Only going to run this turbo until the break in period is over and done with. Here's a pic that I forgot to post before switching clusters. 777 miles on the rebuilt motor with no problems whatsoever.
Last edited by brian_skotch; 06-03-15 at 05:23 PM.
FCJG15, I would love a set of the knee pads. Hopefully someday! This build thread is a little over a year behind. Still trying to catch it up on my spare time. Yup I saw the digital logicon and actually bought some cusco goodies from that seller. Stay tuned for more cool parts!
So I was also able to source an amemiya reverse hood scoop vent to replace my T2 scoop. This piece took me a little over 3 years to find and I was really happy to end up getting my hands on one. I bought it from Circuit Theory here on the forums (as well as the jdm ftps, infini floor bar, jdm window visors) and I've always had awesome experiences doing business with him. Highly recommended!
Because I have a fmic the stock scoop was pretty useless. I opted for this piece because 1. I think the style flows well with my RE-Amemiya mirrors, 2. I like the idea that it will now vent hot air out of my engine bay, and 3. It's rare as hell. Now for some daily driver pics that happened throughout the winter.
Also added an oil catch can but I'm in need of some help. I hooked up one port to the nipple coming out of the middle iron, and then the other port of the can to the nipple on the oil fill tube. It's baffled and also vented with the breather filter if that makes a difference.. Is this correct?
Last edited by brian_skotch; 06-09-15 at 03:30 PM.
The proper way to connect a catch can is to run the lower nipple on the center iron to the catch can. Then have the top connection of the catch can draw air from a little filter (standalone) or from the TID (stock ECU). The nipple in the filler neck then gets connected to a vacuum port on the intake through a PCV valve.
Also love seeing the work on this, had to stop looking at the picture thread when you mentioned a build thread!
The car ran okay but I had to keep the boost down because of the shitty tune from the old 60-1. Water meth made her happy. Probably some other things I'm forgetting but here's some flicks!
05-20-15, 03:56 PM
Hopefully it would be the latter of the two. 
Here are some pics of the bad turbonetics 60-1 hi-fi.
