NP...good luck. I hope it works out for you. I got the idea from DivinDriver. Saved my 7 from an early sale.

fm

 

Yeah, depending on tire sizing and if you've rolled your fenders. 15x7 +20 is a very popular size for stock bodied fb's, and these are a +13, so just a little more lip. They are a flush size for stock fenders. You have coil overs and camber plates yes? Would be no issue

 

Changed clutch master and slave cylinder in about 30 minutes. Just need a friend, or a 6 foot long left arm to bleed it.

Waiting for my hatch lift struts, and -5 offset 15x8s to come in now .

 

I considered that

 

Tried gravity bleeding?

Or a vacuum pump?

 

I'm still waiting on my wheels, and a battery, so there is no rush. My buddy is coming over on Saturday to help me start moving, and to work on cars.

 

Jibaro_12A, don't give up just yet.

This evening, I pulled the watts links off the car to get the spherical bearings measured for new bushings. I also pulled the choke cable, which is now useless as it is too short to fit the cold start mech on the Weber and it can't be fitted to the mounting post on the carb as it's just not the right type of cable. I'm taking it to a bicycle shop tomorrow to see if they can make one up for me that will work. In the process, I busted the lower dash trim panel. Guess I have another maroon interior piece to source.

I was going to try removing the choke switch, but the dash wiring under the driver's kick panel is a real pain in the *** to get around. The air ducts are in the way and you can't see or move anything. There's got to be an easier way to deal with it. How do you guys deal with that? I ended up opening up the choke switch box and pulling the cable/rod mech out because I couldn't get to the other end of the 3 wires that plug into the harness or fuse panel.

fm

 

I'm taking the turbo plunge now.

Yesterday the NA exhaust came off. As did the restudded NO manifold. I'm sad to see if go because it was a fine working setup. But what I swapped in was another NO manifold that's been boost prepped (all emissions nipples capped, PCV replaced by a fitting with a little brass nipple to hook to a boost gauge!). The carb came off to fix an anoying jet plug-bolt fuel leak. Turns out the old copper crush washers weren't quite up to the job, so I scrounged some new ones out of the same bag I found a set of other aluminum crush washers for the upper fuel inlet banjo bolts. I didn't actually buy a rebuild kit for this. It's good to have pile of parts to search through, but it gets smaller all the time.

All the carb nipples and the ones on the spacer was capped with short lengths of stock vacuum hose with a broken drill bit piece inside. Then a set of zip ties went on and tightened until they would almost break. I have an interesting tool for this to get them way tighter than you could do by hand. This should keep them on under boost and they'll never degrade like those cheap rubber caps always do.

Got the turbo in there. Kind of an interesting way to do it, using four FD studs, a 7/16" steel spacer and two inlet gaskets to clear the NO manifold, which had to have a bunch of aluminum ground away with an angle grinder. By the way, it is an S5 turbo. If you 12A guys have access to a 79 intake manifold, it can be trimmed after you get rid of the ACV, so the turbo will fit. Just slot the rotor housing stud holes 5mm and use a washer. Maybe clearance the holes in the manifold too using a gasket as a guide. An FB intake manifold won't work as the water jacket is a lot longer. By the way I have brass freeze plugs in the rotor housings but they're not a guarantee against coolant leaks so gotta keep the water jacket of the intake manifold intact. I also always put quick steel in the ACV port as the 79 and NO manifolds don't cover this port on the intermediate iron.

Figured out an oil return line into the front cover. Gotta decide how to do the oil feed line from the filter pedestal...

 

AFIK, the last time i did it, i just undid the nut that holds the whole thing in, and it'll just slide out?

 

Oh, it slides out fine. It's just that it's connected to the wiring harness (presumably for the magnetic switch that engages/disengages the choke when the car warms up to a certain temp). That wiring is connected behind ducting and other wiring blocks and I wasn't able to easily get to it. I just ended up disassembling the switch as it was dangling from that wiring harness so I could pull the cable out of the switch.

fm

 

Finished patching up some rusted area!

 

I went with an RB blue anodized oil filter pressure and temp adaptor for my oil feed. It turned out far easier than trying to get an AN fitting down on the vertical section between the filter and the engine (using a tall style pedstal here). How would I get a wrench down there? The solution was the RB doodad.

Next the carb and carb hat went on. Turned out to be almost too tall. I can't use a wing nut and the stud I extended was too long. So I swapped to the other slightly shorter stud meant for an RB spun aluminum filter assembly (tested the longer stud with the RB filter and it fits fine! Even looks good!).

For air tightness on the top of the hat, I cut out a simple piece of gasket paper, popped a hole in it and will use it under a regular 12mm nut from like an intake manifold or something. I wanted or would have prefered the easy wing nut, but turns out I get a better seal when I wrench down on the nut. Also it's less likely to self loosen over time. I even have a small hole through the stud for a cotter pin if I so desire.

The air filter is on. Just a used one for now, for testing.

The down pipe is fitted. The main muffler is in. Just gotta connect the dots.

Speaking of connecting stuff, none of the vaccum/boost lines have been run yet. I have to hook up the BOV, fuel pressure reg, a boost gauge, and probably something else. Too tired to think about that stuff right now. Anything I should be aware of?

 

Test fired the setup. No nipples are hooked up yet. I just wanted to test run it for a minute to make sure stuff is working so far. It's just a downpipe so kinda loud. But yep, it runs.

Also took off the air filter to look at the compressor wheel. It kinda rotates at 500rpm (yeah, low idle - it was cold). It would speed up when you rev it.

 

I'm going about the turbo/carby soon hear myself. Except I'm going Webber and 13B. Although, I'm a few months behind you. I've gotta build and break in my Tii engine first with my trusty Edelbrock.

I've heard that pressure fuel hoses are prefered over vacuume hoses.

 

Cool! I personally wouldn't do a weber after the experience fellow forum user PercentSevenC had with one. He used an S5 turbo (the same one I have now). I'm hoping to correct all the problems his setup had, using a Nikki and other choice parts.

It just occurred to me. I don't have an actual build thread. I wonder if I should make one? So far I just have the boost prep a nikki thread. No pics, just info.

Hey what size pressure fuel hoses? So far I've used a combination of stock vacuum line and a bit of 1/4" fuel line. The mallory fpr has a small nipple the same size as our typical vacuum fittings.

 

I use old school VW fabric braided 1/8" vacuum line. It will not squish or pinch and it resists abrasion. For the love of GOD, whatever you do... Do not use a wing nut! It cost me 2 dents in the hood when it backfired while tuning!

 

Thanks ArmyOfOne. The wing nut did push up on the hood but didn't leave any dents. Just a small scratch. I was considering swapping in a thin phenolic spacer to gain a little more hood clearance. At the moment you can push on the hood and feel the top of the stud pretty easily.

I didn't consider backfiring. More of a reason to go for the thin spacer!

My baja had some of that fabric covered hose used to block a vacuum nipple. The hose cracked and let in air causing a vacuum leak. I swapped in some Mazda hose. Problem solved!

 

Last summer I noticed the M on the MAZDA badge on the right rear of the car had a crack where it connected to the A. I took it off the car and found that the two pin MAZDA badge is unobtanium as a new part. I glued it but was never happy with the appearance so it never got put back on the car. I spent about 4 hours fixing it up so I can pull a mold from it. I will post pics after a couple more evenings of effort.

I've been thinking of making one out of clear and inserting LED's through the mounting post holes and then connecting them to the running lights. The boring version would be black like the original and a more interesting variant would be a carbon fiber base with clear raised lettering.

 

You can still get the rear badge from Mazda, but it will cost you $28

ORNAMENTS. Fits: 1985 Mazda RX-7 | Jim Ellis Mazda

 

Ok... Well I haven't nailed down a carb yet, but Webber was the latest whim. Just because I could use the S5 LIM I have and I wouldn't have to put adaptors to increase the block to turbo space.

What kind of problems did he run into? I'm probably gonna search his thread after this.

I might end up with the standard Holley setup.

 

Drove my fb for the first time in months!!!!!

 

Changed my hatch struts. Best $33 I've spent.

Also, 1 down, 3 to go.

 

Interesting as Mazdatrix shows them as no longer available. And Black Dragon show them as $34.95 in the printed catalog and the online catalog seems to think they have them. I have noticed that Black Dragon will have parts still in stock but the price tends to escalate when they get low as you would expect. I wonder if Jim Ellis Mazda can actually get them or if this is just an entry in a database.

I never even think to try the Mazda Dealership as they are a little lame.

Thanks for the link.

 

Jim Ellis has it if it's on the website. That's where I got mine.

 

GOODNESS SPOONS?!?!?!

HF sells a manual tire mounting stand. Its actually not half bad. My freinds home shop has one, and I've mounted many a tire on that thing.

HF also sells a static balencer thats pretty cheap.