This one might work as well. I haven't used it on an FB yet, but it worked well on the '95 Corolla I serviced for a friend recently:
Tool Aid 61900 Tie Rod End/Ball Joint Lifter

 

New RB exhaust installed. SWEET! Thank you RB! Opted to let my son-in-law's brother take off the old system as he has his own shop and I don't have a lift. Excellent decision as one of the four bolts holding the old header broke off. He had to do the old drill/tap to remove it. Fortunately no damage to the block. Told him I was glad it was him and not me :-)

 

I don't know about being a hero but I do know that if we want to keep driving our ICE vehicles we need to get a lot more people driving electrics. At some point we simply wont be able to afford the gasoline what with the drain on the oil supplies by China and India that we are going to be seeing over the next few years. We won't actually ever run out of oil. You can make it from water and electricity if you have enough electricity. I suspect it would cost several hundred dollars per gallon to make like this but it could be done. I can't see outlawing motors below a certain efficiency as being something that would actually fly politically.

My conversion seemed like a good idea on a lot of levels. It wasn't until I got to driving it that I realized that being more fun to drive than the original car headed up the list. It is after all still an FB and more fun to drive than humans should be allowed to have.

 

Installed a pair of MSD blaster 2's.

 

Tool arrived as promised yesterday - gotta love Amazon Prime.

Planning on giving it a tryout tonight.

 

I took the smoking S5 turbo off the white car and swapped in a simple exhaust manifold mated to the existing 3" exhaust. More bass and droning, but it still had more power than the red car which had a header. So an NA 2" exhaust manifold is more powerfull than a header?

So I swapped in a better intake manifold and a full RB exhaust on the red car. A bit more power and quieter than before, but the Nikki is the restriction now. And now the brown car needs an exhaust. I could throw in the crappy 2" exhaust from the red car or start test fitting the S5 turbo. Which would you do? Exactly.

 

Auto-x vid from last Sunday at the NorcalUFO Marina event. This was my best time. I wasn't near pushing the car to its limits as I was paranoid about spinning out since the car is so new to me with the current suspension setup. Next time I intend on pushing it to the point of spinning out just so I know where I am. I'll never get any faster if I don't.

Excuse the radio-less console...ioTus is working his magic on my GSL-SE stereo so I'll have aux-in goodness. Until this vid, I had no idea how nice my headliner was. Next event, I'll mount the GoPro on the front of the windshield, or maybe on the side of the car...still deciding.

Anyway, here it is:

Norcal UFO Marina auto-x 9-8-2013 - '85 Mazda RX-7 - YouTube

 

Today, I took her out for some exercise with a friend and weighed her. When she was bone stock, 13" steelies, full interior and A/C and no spare tire, she weighed in at 2400 lbs flat. Now, with full interior, GSL-SE suspension, RB exhaust, Miata hybrid tranny, and 16" 5-spoke Volk TE-37s, and NO A/C, she weighs in at 2320 lbs. I'm happy with that as I expected to pick up weight with the SE suspension. The ultra-light wheels and losing the A/C more than offset the difference. A pair of Bride racing buckets should bring her down to about 2275 and give me more head-room.

My wife and daughter went over to a friend's house for a play date, so I had a little extra time. I decided to take care of a little thing that has been bugging me about the car since I got it: the University of the Pacific sticker in the back hatch. Apologies to U of P alumn, but I'm not an alumn, so this had to go.

Dug up my hair dryer, a razor blade, and a can of 3M adhesive remover.





15 minutes was all it took to go from this:





Ah...that's better!

Once my GSL-SE stereo comes back, I'll be putting that along with the rear interior plastics back in.

fm

 

Good show, Fungus. It may seem silly, but something like this may be worth a couple hundredths, maybe even a tenth of a second.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B005ADFLV0?vs=1

 

^Not silly at all. I'd like to get a 35mm Momo or Personal steering wheel so I'm not bumping my legs on the wheel all the time. I prefer the gripping area over the stock RX-7 wheel.

fm

 

That's why I cut the back of the OE steering wheel off and spaced it back about three finger-widths. Legroom galore now!

As a bonus, it feels slightly more like driving a late 60s/early 70s Ford, which I'm convinced have the best driving position ever. Knees bent up and steering wheel in your lap

 

^ Genius defined.

 

Anyone have pictures of an FC without the moldings on the door?

 

I changed the rear fuel hoses and fuel filter friday. Yesterday I stalled in traffic twice. I wasn't getting fuel to the carb. Got under the car the second stall (in a construction zone mind you) and after some poking around discovered that I had pinched the main outlet (after the pump to the engine) line between the body and the pump mounting bracket...DOH! I was 49 minutes late and covered in leaves and smelled of gas. It was a good day!

Strange it made it 15 miles before acting up...

 

FB or FC? FC is hideous without moldings. SA/FB looks good if the paint is fresh with some clean wheels.

 

Pulled my front suspension and control arms.

Going to swap out the original loosey goosey ball joints, throw in poly control arm bushings, and swap back to Eibachs instead of my Respeed coilovers and camber plates. Time to docile it down and make my life easier. Plus, Atlanta streets suck, hard.

 

Hit 200k on the chassis.

Replaced front wheel bearings and seals. It's starting to feel like a real car again!

 

+1 FC looks horrendous without side moldings, the FB is ok, and the SA is actually arguably nicer without

 

Today: finally got the TPS bracket and sensor in! that only took 4 months *sigh* fabricators can be a PITA to deal with. I'm not even certain it will work - it barely has any engagement with the throttle shaft. we'll see.

I started/finished the aux-in modification for Fungus_mungus' tape deck - he now has GPS, streaming digital radio, and whatever else his digital devices may have in store, all through the factory system!

When i was testing out the unit, i decided to try to eliminate my stereo shut-down pop by adding in a "4k resistor" as per what the audio shop guy told me. The only thing that accomplished was preventing the entire system from turning on. I'll have to see what the hell he was talking about.

While I was poking around in there, I noticed that my CO2 tank had completely drained apparently I have a leak somewhere in the 6port / VDI system - i have a strong feeling its the OEM rats nest solenoids I was using. I know they were leaking a little bit last week, so I pulled the hoses and added some spring clamps. perhaps that wasn't enough - perhaps the solenoids themselves are leaking.

Enough for tonight - time to clock in my night shift for a bit and crash out.

 

Dropped in the LSD today. Not easy work by yourself on the ground. I need a crawler next time.

 

I dropped some LSD in the car too...

Wait you mean the rear end.

 

^lmao

 

crawlers n ****. not my chair not my problem, thats what i say.

 

Picking up a 12a for the sa. 800 mile trip....

 

So I was having seepage issues with the OEM rats nest solenoids for the 6ports and VDI, which ended up draining my entire CO2 tank. Shazbot! I added little hose clamps over the solenoids and everything!

They were chintzy at best, i could sit there and tap the solenoid and hear co2 go PSST PSST. I called around looking for some replacement solenoids, none of them had an exhaust port, and all of them were at least $60+ each, which then would require a pressure relief valve in addition to vent back pressure when the solenoid closes. Yikes, complex lots of wires n relays. So instead I went on the internets and ebays and found these, ordered two:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300697883136