Diy modifications (those of us on a budget)
 

I wanted to start this thread because I know the majority out there like myself our on a real tight budget. Those of us that can barely afford a new or used performance part without having to save a couple months of wages. So all my fellow 7 owners out there lets see those great ideas you have come up with, using very few or no dollars at all.
Heres one that I came up with using a piece of sheet metal , to make a bracket to hold my 2nd gen fuse box.
Amount invested, zero, time invested, 1/2 hr

Attachment 479654

Attachment 479653j

The factory fuse box bracket works fine with little trimming

Thats sounds great! So have you built anything?

lol, yeah he has

it would be appreciated if he would share something he has built

RX-7 owners come and go, but ol' schoolers last a lifetime.
75 RX-3 (light blue) = small bumpers and SP tailights (sold!)
73 RX-3 (midnite blue) = SS9 best old school
73 RX-3 (jet black) = took longer than expected to complete
RIP Goofyrotor/Sidepex Norman

not enough?

He's got 14K post, I think he shared quite a bit. Try searching.

Thanks for sharing, your help was "greatly" appreciated.

lol, im just trying to figure out what you are going at with the thread. most members (especially 1st gen owners) are self taught fabricators and modifiers. So by definition what you had asked him is irrelevant.

And since you are trying to find other things. I will list a few

1978 Mazda RX7: Complete disassemble of the car. complete change over to modern parts. custom motor mounts utilizing the respeed R&P kit to fit a 5.7l all aluminum motor with a T56 transmission and a the famous 8.8 solid rear. I have FD brakes at the corners and a custom made roll bar (by me). Thats just the beginning, every nut, bolt, wire, etc was removed from the car and replaced with something better. And that is a brief overview

2005 SV650s: the most heavily modified SV on the planet. It won SVotm in 2010 and was runner up to SVoty of the same year. Trust me, cutting and welding a japanese sport bike frame is not easy.

2001 Saturn SC2: started with 85whp and sold it with a huge freakin turbo, as well as ever imaginable modification to it.

Or how about my first tuner car 1989 shelby daytona: Pulled the motor (2.2T) and swapped it with the 2.5l and kept the turbos on it running MS to contol it all.

I think we are good bro.

:lol::lol::lol:
I believe I have done lots of fabrication, utilizing mostly FB mechanical parts for my old school since I cant buy old school parts off the shelf or from a catalog

Lol, I apologize I should have been more specific. Lets see your low budget, on the cheap parts that you have built for your 7's not chopped up sport bikes, unlimited funding thousand horsepower turbo showcar mustangs, just cheap parts, modifications, not full restored cars wit new parts or bolts or wiring, just low dollar parts, for those of us with no money lol, and plz pics wit some description

oh, ok. sorry man. I was initially busting your balls till you clarified.

here are some things I made myself then

Nice work dream, what is pic 674?

I got the honda s2000 starter button and it wouldnt work. I had to take it apart and fix it. that pic is my solution.

first pic is the R&P kit I mentioned. that was draft one. I upgraded the design when I seen a minor flex in one of the mounts. It is ten times stronger now at least.

second pic shows how I had to cut the frame up and fab new radiator mounts. It was relatively easy to do. I think taking the header panel off took more time than the radiator install

4th pic is the shifter surround I made. the stock SA22c piece has the shifter up top and coin holders under it. the T56 shifter ended up being 4" further back than the stock 12a 5 speed.

and the last pic was how I got the heat out of the cabin since there was a huge gaping hole there.

I got tons of pics and tons of projects. That is why we kinda flamed you a bit for being vague on your request. These cars require tons of custom on the cheap work. If I had started with a FD, I woulda finished a year ago and it woulda cost a bit less to do what I wanted. Ironic how that works,.

No problemo @ busting my balls, im glad you did so I could get a thread going showing the work that all of us can do to our cars, and hopefully inspire others to not be afraid of working on their cars either. I also have done many things to my fb, but jus wanted to put that simple little bracket up as an example and a start to what I thought would be a great thread to read. Thx for your input

My weekend project was this vacuum disto box I made for the Old School HKS BOV's This style has 2 vacuum lines each and I didnt want 4 lines running all over to find a vacuum reference. Still waiting on some 1/4 inch barbs.

wasnt the point of this thread to list cheap and or free mods? :scratch:

this is coming from a guy whose never built shit lol

cheapest mod ive done was using a bread tie to wire my secondaries. :icon_tup::nod::icon_tup:

rebuilt and ported my own engine. All I paid for were seals and a engine stand

not my invention but I believe that best one is a "sawsall or reciprocating" saw....from carpentry to junking a RX-7 shell to trimming or pruning the trees on your backyard. of course, you have to change the blade:lol::lol:

I've took a recipricating saw to about 9 FB's :egrin:

how hard was it to port your engine in think in about doing it but never have:(

Attachment 480730

Attachment 480729
heres a bracket I made out of sheet metal, painted it and mounted my msd 6al to it.
cost me nothing but time lol, and its got a clean look to it

Here's one of mine. I was prepping the car for paint and decided I wanted to do something semi-unique to help the car breathe a bit.


https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1352174949

Yes, a litter box is a great way to add performance to your car. Material cost was less than 20 bucks, not including paint.

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1352174949

Hand-laid fiberglass using the litter box as a mold.

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1352174949

Cut a nice chunk out of the hood. The markings are where the factory carb lines up. The goal was to bring air in just ahead of the carb, which had one of those edelbrock air filters on it. I cut up the rubber part of a plunger to make an adapter to seal the filter to the stock carb. And no worries, no toilet germs went into my engine. I bought a new plunger for the project :gwink:

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1352174949


https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1352174949

I used resin to mold it straight to the bare steel. I scuffed the bare metal with 80 grit paper so the resin would bond and hold.

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1352174949

More pics coming in the next post, stay tuned...

A lot of sanding, and a lot of bondo to smooth it all out:

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1352176331

Primer:

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1352176331

Paint! I added in some wood spars to add integrity. Coated them in fiberglass resin and then molded them in place. I was surprised by how strong the thing was. You can literally lift the hood open with it.

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1352176331

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1352176331

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1352176331

The first pics were taken in the summer of 2010, while the last couple are recent. As you can see, it's held up perfectly. Even after a couple icy winters, a legendary hail storm, and 105 degree temps over this summer it hasn't shown any sign of cracking. I had originally planned to make a box to surround the filter and duct in the air, but I decided to go turbo. I'm using a FMIC but I'm toying with the idea of making a heatsink for the carb hat to make use of the airflow. My next fiberglass experiment will be something for that bumperless front end :gwink:

Thats pretty slick lizardfc

Fiberglass efan shroud
Attachment 692203


Vented hood
Attachment 692204


MAF air filter adapter
Attachment 692205


Hockey puck motor mounts
Attachment 692206

Xxxj, what material did you make the motor mounts out of? Are they solid, or soft?

Thanks. Some nice stuff XXXJ, I especially like that hood.

They are made from hockey pucks with some large washers to get the right thickness. I used the original cup that sandwich them. You drill a hole all the way through and use a long bolt. They are pretty solid, not as bad as aluminum or steel mounts.


Thanks

Is that directed at me or rotaryjunkee? I cut mine with a cutting wheel. If you're bending the metal, you want to use something behind it like a metal pipe so you can gently roll the metal in a uniform curve. There's a lot of good videos on youtube about sheet metal fab and shaping.

Couldnt be directed at me, because I havent modified my hood on my 7.

Backyard "competition" style transmount. Filled the gap between square section and plate with some sikaflex-227 i had left over and a couple pieces of 4mm rubber sheet. levered it open a bit to get it in, let it go, all the goo squeeses out, tight as a drum. just smeared the excess all over the rubber mount. Took all of 2min and 0$. Should have a bit less movement now!!

Hey, that's a good idea. I've already had one go bad once, if it goes again I might try that.

My bad, I meant XXXJ. I think he was asking about his hood... it's a vent, not a scoop. Air flows through the front and out the vent on the hood. Helps with cooling.

Lol its all good lizardfc, although I wouldnt mind having a hoodscoop. I havent ever worked with fiberglass so it would definetely be a worthy challenge.

Its not for induction, it works as a heat extractor.


Youre are just about most of the time bound to get some kind of dent or crease. It can be done without it happening though. Comes down to skill and patience.

I just used cutoff wheel to cut my hood. You have to cut some of the hood bracing out to make the bend. So what I did at where the bend starts is take some 1/4" round stock and spot welded it across the hood and to the bracing, this gave me a solid point to bend from with out much sheet metal flex. Then I clamped a piece of flat bar to the cut side to give me a solid flats surface to pull on the metal with by hand. I have.

On the top side you may notice that I have a small lip prior to where the vent starts, that is another piece of 1/4" round stock welded in place. When I had the "flap" bent to the angle I wanted I welded those vertical rods to the flap and to the upper horizontal rod.

From there I did my body work, finished the lip and blocked and primed the hood.

You can go a little easier route and just buy a scoop, cut your hood out and use some 3M Panel Bond(or similar glue) to glue it in place.

If you can cut your hole really precise you could use the lips that are on most scoops and glue it from the underside. This would give you a more "clean" look. If you decide to finish it out, it would require less effort and materials.

Thx for the suggestion xxxj, that sounds like something a little easier to start with, rather than go and fabricate something from scratch, and end up f&@kin up my hood lol

I don't have any pictures but my fc caught on fire going down the road one night and burnt my wiring harness. I got picked up, went back the next day and made a custom wire harness out of speaker wire and duct tape. It got me home which was about 2 hours away. This is while in college and living on a diet of Ramen noodles and the occasional free meal from working on cars.

Yeah, if I had the project to do again I would probably go with a premade scoop as well. The thought didn't occur to me until I'd already made mine. I always do stuff the hard way.

now thats what you call "git r done" do what you had to get the vehicle home, lol would have liked to see some pics of that harness

Cheapest mod?

1. Remove everything that doesn't have to be there to make the car run.
2. Clean the crap out of everything that's left.

Here's a thread detailing most of what I removed from under the hood, along with how I cleaned years of crap off the paint in the engine bay:

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-gen-arch...e-pics-441703/




.

@ kentetsu, I read your post on cleaning the car, thats great work, it inspired me to do mine

I've got a couple radio surrounds and a couple that have broken or smashed in shipping, so I made this, then painted in black.

Attachment 690133

Also bought a heat shield that I was told was 13b, it ended up being 12a. So I ceramic coated it, then made my own for 13b, copying it, and painted it high temp black.
Ended up deciding I'd rather see my intake/exhaust I also ceramic coated, so they're all sitting in my garage still.

Attachment 690134

Door cards were pretty easy to do. Found some vinyl that matched the black/brown Rx8 seats (vinyl is called Cinnamon whisper) and only took about an hour to do both doors.
Also did shift/brake boots and re-covered center console lid.

Attachment 690135
Attachment 690136

@ jhereg, howd u ceramic coat your heat shield? Is it a spraycan job or you have some specialized equipment like a powdercoating machine? Nice interior job too!

Had the exhaust blasted locally, and I did the Cerakote.
Cerakote Coatings

The smell will kill a horse at 20', but was pretty easy to use. I used their air cure, and also got some of their chromex. I did not like the way the chromes came out. I don't have access to a big enough tumbler and I didn't spend a lot of time trying to polish it myself. Once I saw the exhaust done, I did the intake with it as well. I have some of both still leftover.

A friend and I went in on some of each. He's refinishing old camp stoves with it.

Well I changed my battery cables on my Rex, I removed the stock cables and upgraded to welding cable that I had laying in the garage.
Ill have to tell you that "wow" what a difference in startability and accessories being used now. The car turns over like u wouldn't believe, I can run my high beams and the a/c blower with hardly a noticeable drop in rpms.
This is probably the best upgrade I've done to this day, i reccomend everyone do this mod

Nicely done! I'm going to be re-doing a lot of the wiring during a wire tuck this winter - thanks for the words of encouragement! I'm also looking to add a relay switch system for the headlights.

What gauge is welding wire?

It is 2/0 guage cable, best way to describe thickness is compare it to a 3/8 drive 11mm deep socket LOL.
This welding cable can transfer 250 amps of current, I'm a welder trust me I know

I decided to make more of a real CAI then what I have posted up earlier in this thread. This was pretty much free to me, but I have a pile of parts and t-bolt clamps laying around, or it would have added up.

I have braces that holds the MAF sensor and ducting in place, the filter mounts right underneath the header panel. I have driven it in the rain and didn't notice too much water around it. However since it is turning in the wet season around here I did add a water repellent prefilter. I may go back and add on of those filter universal heat shields as a splash shield until summer gets here.

Attachment 687449
Attachment 687450
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That's pretty slick, ill have to add that to my projects to do list, once I finish my 2nd Gen oil cooler install that requires no welding and my halogen with led lights etc etc, then ill take a crack at that mod