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