(TURBO) The Chronicles of a Turbo II Swap
 

Well I’ve been on this forum for over a year now and thought I could contribute something for others pursuing a Turbo II swap into a GSL-SE. For the last year I have been planning how to do this swap, getting parts, and slowly getting ready for that day when the motor goes in—it’s finally here. My goal is to have a mostly stock TII engine that is emissions legal with improved exhaust and intake system (TID + filter)—hoping to get somewhere in the 200-220 hp range. The good/bad/ugly of it all with as many pics as I can put up.

A little history to how I got to where I’m at right now. I started by finding a cheap donor car that had a blown engine. By cheap that means one that was under $1000 and probably looks like crap inside and out. Well I ended up getting a beat up 10 AE that had a bad engine and ended up costing about $460 including the tow rental and taxes.

Here is what I took from the donor car: full long block engine, transmission with mounts, drive shaft (don’t need), front and engine wiring harness’s, air flow meter, ECU, knock control box, main fuse box, power steering pump, A/C compressor, all exhaust back to the Y-pipe, brake master check valve, clutch slave and master, throttle cable, cruise control (not sure if needed), both ignition coils with brackets, intercooler with hood gasket. After parting out the rest of the stuff and selling the car, it all cost $115 net and I still have some stuff to sell off.

I stripped down the engine and sent it off to Rotary Resurrection (Kevin Landers) for a rebuild. This engine was rough and dirty—the guy before me had let an oil leak go for forever and you know the rest. The engine had a real bad failure and ended up spinning a rotor bearing and cracking one of the plates. Here's a pic of the engine before teardown.
http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...re_rebuild.jpg

Rebuild cost was $1535 including round trip shipping, new front and rear oil seals, install modified SE front cover, and extra parts to replace the broken core parts. Kevin was great to work with and has spent some good time on the phone talking to me about the engine and other things. I would definitely go back to Kevin to have work done and he has the best prices in the US. Most important of all, I trust Kevin and his advice is sound—he’ll tell you like it is—no sugar coating.

Here is the short block after Kevin shipped it to me.
http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...er_rebuild.jpg

Spent many hours working on the SE and TII wiring diagrams (special thanks to www.iluvmyrx7.com FSM). I now have a very good understanding of these systems and feel very confident everything will work OK and not blow something up. Actually the work is not that bad—it was just figuring out how and what to do. Soon I will have finalized the wiring diagrams and plug connections for the conversion. I even figured out how to wire in the A/C and P/S to utilize the TII Air Supply Valve (ASV)—much like the SE uses the ASV. Later I’ll probably devote a post to just talking about the wiring mods. I have unwrapped and checked both the Front and EM wiring harness’s. The Front was OK as is, however, the EM needed much work. Probably spent a good 30 hours on this but it’s done right. Had broken wires, wires missing insulation, broken connectors, wires with too much resistance (bad connection) and crumble in your hand injector connectors. Fixed and replaced it all with soldered and heat shrink connections. Bought new female spade terminals and they work OK but have a tendency to push back out of the connectors. Just need to be careful to push them all the way on from the back of the connector—then they hold on just fine. Also beefed up the grounds on both harness’s.

More to follow soon.

Scott

Work I’ve already done
 

The long block has been built up stock except for three things. I decided to use an S5 turbo so I had to get an extra gasket for the manifold to turbo connection. The OMP system has been removed as I will use premix. To block off the oil injectors I bought some 10X1.25 socket head screws. These screws fit real nice in the small area allowed, however, I did have to shorten them a little bit.

Also, the front cover was drilled out for a turbo oil drain, here’s a close-up of it.
http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...turbodrain.jpg

Installed the fuel pump relay resistor unit on the passenger side firewall where the sub-zero tank was. That sub-zero crap can safely be removed as I don’t think anyone needs it—especially me in Houston, TX—it rarely gets below 32 F. This location proved to be optimum in regards to wiring and an open space. Don’t think you must have this but I feel it will improve the fuel economy under cruise conditions. It basically lowers the fuel pump voltage which lowers the fuel pump output pressure—but only when you are cruising. Under acceleration or boost it returns the voltage/pressure back up to maximum. I would guess that to some extent the O2 sensor/ECU can also tune the injector pulses for optimum A/F ratio. I’ll definitely run some bigger wires back to the pump to try and get full voltage when it is needed.

Here is a pic of the fuel pump relay resistor installed.
http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...ayresistor.jpg

Fabricated a bracket to hold the double ignition coil in the stock S4 location. One S4 bracket was used to mount it on the driver fender wall and the fabricated bracket was used to hold it along the driver shock tower. Relocation of all the relays was necessary, I actually think they came out better than stock. Fortunately no wiring mods were necessary. One relay for the S3 ACV will be removed—yeah—as it’s not needed for the new system. I did have to trim away the body metal that holds the relays in place—it would interfere with the double coil. Believe it or not I used a hammer and screwdriver to cut the metal—cut it off just like a can opener with a real clean cut.

Here's a pic of the double coil fit-up, also note the relay locations and the check valve in the master brake vacuum line.
http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...doublecoil.jpg

The fusible link setup for the S3 was also replaced with the S4 unit. Both the S3 and S4 units mount in the same location. The S4 unit is much cleaner and you can actually get the fuses at an auto store—try finding a link. I was able to use the S4 bracket and one pre-made bolt hole on the S3 fender wall. One additional hole was drilled in the drivers side shock tower. The wires were just cut off and crimped to some larger female spade terminals. I’ll probably come back later and solder/heat shrink new terminals—I’m not happy with just crimps. Otherwise looks just fine to me.

Here's a pic of the S4 fuse block mounted.
http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/.../fuseblock.jpg

As noted earlier, the master brake cylinder hose was modified to use a check valve that is removed from the S4. Just install it in the same location and make sure the arrow points to the engine. This check valve s necessary to prevent boost pressure from feeding back into the brake master and forcing your brake fluid out into the engine bay—this would be bad since you’ll loose brakes and the brake fluid eats paint.

Here is where I’m at right now. The long block is built up and ready for install.
http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/.../longblock.jpg

I think tomorrow is the big day, pull the perfectly good engine/tranny from my GSL-SE.

looks great i cant wait to see how the swap goes. im about to do my swap. i think i have every thing i need. i dont know to much about the wiring harness's tho. so this will help.

gj

nice

Thanks for the great read man, look forward to the rest.

Voted 5.

Looks great,

Your wiring issues are why I decided to go with a webber blow thru set up and just go old-school.

Good work.

Great work, keep the info and pics coming!

Some progress today
 

Well, today I didn't make as much progress as hoped.

Ended up my wife's vehicle needed an oil change and I discovered a transmission cooler leak. Had to remove like 12 freaken bolts and a cross member just to get at the stinking hose clamp. I hate front wheel drives.

Anyway, back to the 7. I took the TII transmission apart to see what I would be up against as far as shifter tube modifications. Getting the dowel pin out of the end of the shifter tube was a PITA. Tried punching it out--that didn't work. Ended up just drilling the sucker out. I thought the tube was hollow but it is actually a solid bar of steel. While I could possibly make the cut and drill it myself, I think I'll have a professional machinist do this. Why--cause the hole location and radial position are critical to the correct operation of shifting--screw it up and your hosed. If anyone KNOWS the correct length to cut off the shaft please let me know. When I get this figured out a drawing is going up that will solve this problem once and for all.

As far as the car, got her up on jacks, drained engine/tranny oils, removed the hood, cooling fan, coils, afm, battery, wiper fluid container, and started disconnecting a bunch of wires and hoses.

I did take her for a spin before the knockdown. Damn I like that 13b--still running real good and strong.

Had to have at least one pic. Here's one of her during that last drive before knockdown.
http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...ideofgslse.jpg

Cool! When do you plan on havin 'er back on the road again?

Well I'm targeting the 5th of January but it'll probably be the 12th--I hope (gulp).

Scott

Wow, I look forward to reading the rest of this project. Best of luck to you. Hope you have a nicely running TII powered FB by early-mid January :)

Engine/tranny ready to pull out!
 

Wanted to really get that engine out today but had a few snags, nothing major.

Took a few measurements for the driveshaft. Made some markings for the new tranny output shaft location--wanted to make sure the output shaft was in the exact same horizontal elevation.

Put in the TII ECU and atmos pressure transducer.

Right now it's all ready to pull out along with the tranny.

Think I'm gonna get my radiator refurbed while it's out.

Also, had to put together my new engine hoist. Was like $150--rental for two days is about $100 so I just bought one and can take my time with it. Sure I'll use it sometime.

First thing tomorrow morning the engine/tranny are coming out. Then I'll test fit the new engine/tranny so I can get the rest of my driveshaft measurements and get it on order ASAP.

Tomorrow I'll have some good pics.

Scott

Re: Engine/tranny ready to pull out!
 

Just to help you out... You're not going to have a TII tranny output shaft end where the stock FB one was. If you do the shifter and engine are going to be "all out of place".

Make sure you do the TII tranny mod that Setzep was nice enough to write up (in the archives), and then get a new driveshaft made.

This way the shifter will come out in the exact same GSL-SE shifter location, and that's what you really want.

(Here's a hint - You have to measure for the driveshaft with the car on it's own weight, it can't be on jackstands).

Yea thanks for keeping an eye on me DF --but I knew about this (thanks to Setzep). I'm gonna double check the shift rod cut and make sure the dimension is right (Ya know Setzep, measure twice, cut once). When I get the TII engine/tranny in I'll go ahead and take the driveshaft length measurement. When I'm done I'll put out a drawing that spells this all out.

I was planning on using ramps for the back wheels and jack stands on the front frame rails--it's pretty level--DF think that will be OK to take that driveshaft measurement? The front engine/tranny are all rigid mount so I don't think the front wheels hanging will matter.

While you got me talking about the driveshaft, here is where I'm getting it from Thrash Driveshaft Specialists

These guys know what they are talking about. Mine is going to be about $260 shipped 3" diameter (like the TII) and all new components. Yes with common off the shelf replaceable u-joints. Price is on par with Mazdatrix.

Scott

Sounds like you got it covered. When I mesured, I just jacked up the back of the car in the center, using the differential. (I have a shop style jack). Your idea seems fine as well.

$260 shipped is good. No local shops to make it for you though? I might have to take mine to get re-balanced, and I am glad their local. At about 85+, I get a little vibration, but I'll check the tires and such first.

Looks great. All you need now is a Aftermarket ECU Haltech/Microtech/Wolf

Well I called a few local shops and one wouldn't touch metric (strange) and the other just did not give me a real good feeling about their capabilities--though they could probably do the job. The guys at Thrash had all the numbers in front of them, listed off the sizes for the different years and really gave me a good impression.

Yea I'd like that too! But the cost of the whole project was getting to be too much--and I needed to keep it emissions legal. Also, the 200-220 hp will be more than sufficient for my needs. I just want a little more get up and go. By todays standards, these 7s are way underpowered--esp. the stock 12a.

The way I'm doing it all the hardware came from a donor car for like $100 (actually I will probably break even as I have more parts to sell). All total I should be able to finish up the project for under $4500--and if I really wanted to, I could have done it for under $3000. Soon I'll be posting a cost breakdown, that should answer anyones cost questions.

Thanks for your support,

Scott

I wish i could have done my project for $3000. I just started mine about 3 days ago, it was my christmas present to myself. The driveshaft cost seems high or i just got a good deal at $155. Good luck with your swap!

I spent a touch over $300 for my shaft with all new replaceable parts, sounds like you are getting a deal. If I remember right the new driveshaft ended up being the same exact length as a FB one but with the T2 spline slip yoke.

As far as the new hole in the shift rod just follow the write up I made last year, it's been working for me and several others.

I like how you are doing your swap, it takes balls to take a part a 100% nice -se and do this to it. 200-220 should just enough fun to keep you and your rear tires happy. It's great having a ton of power to spin the rears in 3rd gear but if I were to make a daily driver I'd do what you are doing. Good job. :)

Did all you guys do the check valve thing to your brake booster? I always thought that our cars had one stock.

Mine seems to work fine without one.

Engine is Out!
 

Well it started one of those days nothing would work right--but I got through it neverless. Problems jacking up the car in the garage and clearances with the engine lift. These 7's sure can be a bitch jacking up.

Pulled the engine, had to use the jack on the tranny and the engine lift mounted to the front lift ring and the alternator bolt location on the waterpump. Damn engine lift was short on reach and ended up scratching the front plastic bumper a little. I'm gonna take that bitch back tomorrow for a refund. The web site says 48" reach but I measure only 36"--no way I can put an engine back in with that one.

Here it is after removal.
http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/.../engineout.jpg

Next I decided to start work on the tranny. Here's the two of them, the SE on the left and the TII on the right.
http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...s/trannies.jpg

Best I can tell the length of the two are the same, and this matches what Setzep said earlier about the modified driveshaft being the same length as the SE driveshaft.

Now on to the extension housing modifications. When the TII shifter box was still on the extension housing, I marked the location of the rear bolts on the shifter tube. Then I installed the FB shifter box with the TII shifter tube onto the TII extension housing (got it all there). Here is what it looks like (but the shifter box is mounted offset for marking purposes).
http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...ionhousing.jpg

Note the ruler in the above photo is in english units (inches).

Then I added a mark to show the the new location of the rear bolts. The difference comes up to 2cm just like Setzep's write-up.

In this pic you can barely see the 2cm measurement.
http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...ubecutdist.jpg

The mark on the left is the new reference of the rear bolts, the one on the right is where the rear bolts were on the original setup (FC).

Well long enough of a day. Tomorrow is going to be a slow day. Hopefully I can get the shifter rod dimensions checked out.

Scott

p.s. still haven't decided what to do with the oil pressure control valve. But I know I won't buy the 80-85 psi one--not for $90. Still thinking about your shim idea DF.

Check Valve
 

Oh yea, about the check valve. I heard some guy had problems with the boost pressure feeding back into the master cylinder. Blowing out the fluid and such. Don't know for sure you really need it.

For me it was and easy thing to swap over from the TII--so I did it.

i still have the SE booster in my car and never had any problem with it. and no fluiuds are coming in the car.

wish i had something to contribute, but all i can say is this is an excellent writeup and you seem to be doing a bang-up job in building your car!

i like it a lot!

1

Re: Engine is Out!
 

This is good to know. So all you would have to do is bring your stock se driveshaft to the shop and they can make the new one without actually seeing the car since they won't need to make their own measurments? I do have a TII driveshaft here as well if I needed to bring that so they can see the "teeth" on it.

Well I haven't done much of any work today, but I did order the driveshaft.

I ordered it from Thrash Driveshaft Specialists. They have been very easy to work with and in my opinion they know what they are doing.

Here is really all you need to know to order a new driveshaft.

1) Length from transmission seal to differential pinion flange. For the GSL-SE it is 42-1/16" (and remember this is the same regardless whether you have a TII tranny or SE tranny and of course a 13b).

2) Number of teeth on the transmission yoke. The TII has 25 teeth (FYI SE has 22).

3) Differential pinion flange bolt circle diameter. For the SE this value is 3.5" (I measured 3-17/32" but their book value was 3.500")

They don't have a year by year breakdown of what each car has but they knew all the sizes available for Mazda cars (except the seal to flange length). I ordered it at 9:30 am and they had it done by noon and it shipped today. Should be here Friday.

I tried to get the sealed u-joints but they said those would not fit in the yoke. Oh well--guess I'll have to cut away the heat shield a little so I can get at the front u-joint and lube it occasionally. Total cost with shipping was $269 including: replaceable u-joints, all new parts, 3" driveshaft.

If you have both driveshafts, I presume it would be possible and probably cheaper to switch the TII yoke onto the SE shaft. A conversion u-joint would be required since the end caps are bigger on the TII yoke--but it could be done and would be cheaper. I'll call back next week and see what they say. Only thing is the SE shaft is only about 2.5" diameter and will not be as strong as a 3".

Scott

I had to cut my heatsheild also not to gain access, but the yolk they gave was bigger and was hitting the shield.

how much was your driveshaft

I still say that you shouldn't have ordered the driveshaft yet. You should wait until you have the engine and transmision properly mounted and in their exact location first.

a quarter inch here, a quarter inch there, lowering springs, etc - little differences will make a difference in the total driveshaft length. I know there is some play where it slides in, but ideally you want it as close to stock as possible.

Yea you're probably right, could have tweaked it maybe a little by waiting for the final install. But hey, got a schedule to keep--this is my daily driver and I want to get back on the road--I already miss driving it.

If anything the shaft will end up being a little longer than required. Typically about 1" is allowed for unmating the pinion flange--I've always felt like this is too much--so now maybe I'll have 3/4".

Given the TII tranny and engine are pretty much the same as far as dimensions go, I feel pretty confident it will be OK. Again I get the same conclusion that Setzep already posted, the driveshafts are the same length. Also, these things are designed with the knowledge that each car will be dimensionally different--so there is some engineering slop factored in--heck, it's changing length as you drive down the road and everything is flexing and moving.

I also marked where the original tranny seal was located so I'll be able to tell if it is significantly different. Guess I'll find out.

Thanks for the concern DF.

Scott

Determining Shifter Rod Modifications
 

The last part that needs to be modified is the shifter rod (parts fiche calls it a control lever). Yesterday I took all the measurements required for this mod.

It should be noted that the idea and some of the details have been covered by Setzep's thread
Who has put a T2 trans in a FB?? (Thanks Setzep !:D).

The first thing I did was took the stock TII extension hosing, shifter rod, control box and found a point of reference to measure the difference using a TII control box and an SE control box.

Here's a pic of how I reference the shift rod end.http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...hiftrodref.jpg

Next I measured the hole locaton location of the TII shift rod in the TII shift control box. The pic below shows the location of the hole with a drill bit sticking out of it and a little white out mark on the top of the drill bit. The white out mark represents the centerline of the hole.

http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...lelocation.jpg

From the left inside of the shift control box to the white mark on the drill bit, I measure the distance to be 5.5 cm.

Then I installed the SE shift control box on the TII extension housing, set the shift rod to the reference location and determined the location of the hole. Here is a pic using the SE shift control box.

http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...lelocation.jpg

Again I measure from the left inside of the shift control box to the white out mark on the drill bit, this time I get 2.5 cm.

Thus the hole needs to move 3 cm closer to the center of the shift rod and 3 cm cut off the end of the rod. This confirms Setzep's same recommendation.

I would like to add one other recommendation although I'm not sure how necessary it is. Both of the shifter boxes appear to be identically the same however there is one difference (other than the obvious length diff). In the upper right corner of the box there is a small diameter piece of rod protruding into the inside of the SE control box. This rod contacts the control lever end.

On the TII control box this rod is ground down at an angle. Also, the mating surfaces of the control lever ends are slightly different. For this reason, I intend to use all of the parts from the SE control box during re-assembly. This means the new hole in the TII shifter rod will need to be drilled and tapped for the bolt used to hold the SE control lever end. Note the TII unit had a PITA dowel pin, not a bolt.

For reference thought I'd add a pic of the TII shifter rod.http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...s/shiftrod.jpg

Well gotta get back to work today.

Scott

Sounds like you have everything under control. Good luck!

This thread better get stickeyd when it's all done. Thanks for the pics, now I finally understand what hole you guys were talking about drillin

John

No worries.... I have my eye on it and we'll stick it in the FAQ somehow. Great thread! :bigthumb:

FWIW, I used a FB drive shaft with the transmission yokes swaped. The driveshaft is the mazdatrix replacible u-joints style. It works and fits exactly like stock. Although, It would be nice to have a stronger shaft, I've had no complaints from the FB one so far. Balancing is already perfect, it rides like on glass.

I also opted not to modify the tranny shifter, I just used the TII one. Like you noticed the TII one is only 2 cm farther back, so I had to cut the tranny tunnel about 1-2 cm, took 5 min. I actually like the new location of the shifter better than stock, it put it in a location that requires less strain to shift into 3rd and 5th.

Happy New Year
 

Well, New Years Eve was lots of family stuff so I didn't get to work much yesterday--that's ok cause I had a good time.

Mailed off the shift tube and shift rod to get modified at my brother-in-laws machine shop. Soon as I get those parts back I can mount up the tranny and install the TII engine.

Today I mostly worked on cleaning the engine bay and merging the TII and FB front wire harness's. Everything was much dirtier than I expected so I spent alot of time cleaning. Tomorrow I'll have to paint a few areas that have bare metal.

None of the wiring is very hard, just gotta rough in everything first and make sure the connectors are in the right spot. Think it is gonna look real nice when I'm done. Did end up hiding some of the FB ignition connectors under the battery tray--not visible and out of the way--just the way I like it. Will have some pictures of it tomorrow. Basically I didn't want to remove the whole front portion (the part that loops around the front of the car to the passenger side) of the front harness to remove a few dead wires. This saved me alot of work by hiding them under the battery.

I've pretty much decided that I need the car in 2 weeks so I'm gonna work like a dog to get this thing up and running.

Scott

Thanks for this info. When I start my swap, I think I'm gonna do like you and use the tII shifter. The less modifying I do the better.

Actually I think the shifter will be back about 1-1/4 " (3.2 cm) if you just use the stock TII shifter setup. So it's a little further than 2 cm.

I wanted it too look stock and didn't want to cut the tunnel up to get it to fit.

Hope it works for you,

Scott

That's exactly what I figured. I wanted the shifter to pop up in the right place. I didn't want to get into my car everyday and have to look at my shifter in the wrong spot.
If this was a race car though with no interior I would probably leave the T2 shifter housing in place, move the steering wheel back and my seat back.

setzep, thats what i did. i just left the shifter in the same spot and cut out maybe a 1/2 inch. im using the same center console but instead of the stock stuff i made a aluminum plate so i could put all my gauges in. i agree with DF on the driveshaft. i put everything in and then measured it up, i remember they had to shorten mine some, but total cost was $155. i hope yours fits exact for that price. good luck, and keep the thread alive.

Working Dog.
 

Lots of wiring work today.

Merged the FB transmission harness and the FC engine harness. Will end up using the TII transmission connectors and the FB connectors for the oil temp/press and starter. Had to splice in three wires from the FC harness into the FB harness (back-up lites and a ground).

Also worked on merging the FB and FC front harness's and mounting the ignition coils. Here's a pic of the work.
http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...ontharness.jpg

Note the alternator wires aren't finished. That's because I think the main power lead is going to be too short. For some reason the SE alternator power wire mounts on an isolated terminal on the air chamber and then runs to the alternator. So I left it unfinished till I get the engine in.

Guess I need to touch up that bracket. Speaking of, it's just some 1/8" flat bar and like 3/4x3/4 angle iron bent and brazed together. Here's a close-up before painting (minus one mount hole). http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...es/bracket.jpg

And the driveshaft came in today. Looks real nice. The new one is one top, GSL-SE in the middle and the TII on the bottom. Definitely beefier that the SE.
http://home.houston.rr.com/mazdarx7/...riveshafts.jpg

Overall the construction is real nice. Only thing I didn't like is it doesn't have the dust shield on the transmission yoke. The other two have them and they are welded on--oh well. Do you think it is real important to have?

Scott

Mine didn't have the dust shield either. I woulden't worry about it unless you plan on going mudding with your FB ;)

Oil Pressure Regulator and More Wiring Stuff
 

Well I installed the front cover oil pressure regulator. Decided to use a 1/16" shim to compensate for the increased oil flow from the TII oil pump. Remember the front cover and regulator are from a GSL-SE--so they are sized for that job. Just a small measure of protection and may not be necessary. Definitely won't hurt anything. More info on the oil pressure regulator decision can be found in this thread Urgent: TII Swap Oil Pressure Control Valve.

Finished wiring the dual gage pod. Installed a Stewart Warner boost gage and oil temp gage. Did a first class job installing connectors, using color coded wire and stock connectors from the scrap front harness I have. Ran the illumination circuit off the automatic transmission selector light (which isn't needed). Sucks the pressure tubing for the boost gage isn't long enough so I'll have to rig up some vacuum hose to finish it off. Even used one of the unused TII engine harness connectors to pick up the oil pan temp. Yea I know I'd rather have the oil inlet temp into the engine but the sump temp is really just as good. Mainly want to know if there are any engine temp problems and to have a good idea when the turbo is cooled off.

I'm waiting for an adapter fitting that hopefully will fit into the sub-zero temp probe location--then I'll install the sensor.

In some ways I wish I had chosen fuel pressure. Maybe in the future I'll find another location to mount a gage.

Another interesting tidbit. I had to run two power lines: one to the ECU on the battery circuit, and one to the temp gage on the ignition 1 circuit. I managed to steal all the wires off the TII wire harness with the fuse block connectors installed. And since the FB fuse block has plenty of spare fuse locations, I was able to make a real clean install of it.

Also, some of the TII ECU wiring is going to tap off of existing FB circuits (almost all of them on the FB X-07 connector). Since one of the X-07 connectors is on the FB engine, I had to find one off the TII harness--got it and all the pins to make a sweet adapter between the TII ECU wiring and the existing FB wiring. Later on I'll have some nice pics of this.

I'm ready to install the wiring around the ECU but I'm gonna wait till I get the engine in to see how it all measures up.

Hopefully get them tranny parts back this week and install the engine next weekend.

Uhh, gotta go back to work tomorrow.

Scott

Fuel Pump
 

Oh yea, forgot to mention the fuel pump. Spent alot of time researching the fuel pump issue. Basically here's the scoop--somebody pipe in if you think I am wrong.

I have seem some threads on the 1st gen forum suggest that the GSL-SE fuel pump will be sufficient for use with a TII engine. And to that I have to say--I dont' think so. The pump is lacking in both pressure and flow. A quick look at the specs will show that:

TII pump = 71-92 psi and 132-198 lph
GSL-SE pump = 50-71 psi and 102 lph (min)

Go look in the 2nd gen section and you'll see one of the first mods recommended is an upgraded fuel pump (Walbro 255 lph is common). Basically if you don't have enough fuel, you run lean and can cause pre-detonation, which can easily destroy your engine. Unfortunately, the ECU has no way to know exactly how much fuel is actually getting delivered. It kind of assumes based upon the injector pulses it sends out. If your fuel pressure is low, the engine won't be getting the fuel the ECU thinks it is sending in (running lean). So a good fuel rail pressure under all loads is critical. I presume the worst case is the last 30% of the power band.

I do plan on breaking in the engine with the GSL-SE fuel pump, talking no more than 4000 rpm and keep the boost way down (one big mod at a time). Then very quickly I'll be adding the Walbro and after that a new fuel pressure regulator. I've heard the stock TII regulator is overrun by the Walbro--we'll see.

Scott

Post some clear day and nite pictures of the Stewart Warner gauges. I almost went with those originally, and am still considering them for my truck.

Particularly because they (the street performance series) are lit from behind, and not perimeter lighting like the ones I currently have installed.

I just ordered all new "Cobalt" series Autometers to replace my Ultra-lights, because I did not like how dim they were at night, even with High intensity LED replacement bulbs.

P.S. = There's plenty of spots for gauges.

http://www.teamfc3s.org/forum/member...hp?img_id=4924

I GSL-SE pump is fine for a Blow-Through turbo application, not for a Turbo F.I. setup. A Walbro is a good idea, along with a new regulator. Your stock fuel lines (and pick-up) will be fine for about to 400 rwhp, so don't mess with them.

Man DF, you sure are picky about gages--jk. Try flying a 60's Cessna at night some time, hell even I complain about those gages. Just a red overhead light on the freaking instrument panel!

Yea I'll put up some pics, but as you know it may be a little while as I probably won't have any power running till next weekend or the week after that.

Scott

p.s. Damn, just saw the pic with your gages--awesome.

Waiting for parts
 

Still waiting for the tranny parts to be modified. I think they were done today and should be in the mail tomorrow. My brother-in-law said the mods are no problem. Hopefully I'll get them back by friday. I will post the drawings of how to do the mods so anyone can take the parts into a reputable machine shop and have them modified.

Been cleaning up the engine bay, priming and painting anything with bare metal. Just getting ready for the install.

Looking over some exhaust options and I like the rx7.com downpipe and high flow turbo cat. The magnaflow mufflers look nice but will need a custom install.

Scott

Getting closer to the engine install.
 

First off a question. I put in some new engine mounts, no problem there, however I see quite a bit of variability in the right side mount. The cross member has a slotted "L" that the mount bolts into. It looks like this is for some kind of engine/tranny alignment--only thing is I don't know how to align the engine and saw nothing in the FSM about it. You guys have any suggestions on engine alignment? Note that I am installing the engine and tranny together as a unit.

Also put in new front and rear transmission seals. Rear one is pretty easy, front one took a trick. Punched a small, shallow hole into the seal and screwed in a sheet metal screw--then just pulled on the screw and out it came.

Installed the GSL-SE power steering pump on the TII engine. Really didn't want to use the SE one, would rather have the TII unit--it's much nicer. Just don't have the time to get hoses made up--good future mod.

Scott