ian65

Bought a complete Elford Turbo suck through system to go into my 12a road car....
these give 165bhp and are a very simple setup.
Elford converted around 500 1st gens back in the 80's and only around 15 cars are known to survive in the UK today.
Got mine from a car being parted out and it included the turbo, exhaust, engine, gearbox, rad, oil cooler, engine management box.
I'm using my own gearbox and 12a engine as I know they are strong and transferring the Elford stuff onto them.

Here's the car it's going into.... a 1984 UK series 3 running the standard 12a engine, with a stainless sports exhaust system and headers and twin MR2 electric fans run by an Autocool controller....




Started the conversion last week..... first I labelled everything up...



and then dropped the bonnet off ready to lift the engine...



after disconnecting everything and undoing the engine mounts I lifted the engine out...





the empty bay waiting for the turbocharged engine...



the complete 12a...





stripped off the inlet, emission control junk & beehive oil cooler, non of which is needed and gave the engine a clean up...







then took the standard sump off ready to fit the modified Elford sump...

OneRotor

iTrader: (3)

Very cool. Keep us updated.

ian65

ETL ( Elford Turbo Ltd) used the standard 12a engine, same rotors and compression to give good off boost performance but modified the oil pan to incorporate a separator on the oil return line to remove any air and froth from the oil before it went back into the oil pan so that it doesn't affect the operation / efficiency of the OMP

This is the original engine converted by ETL...





I took this off this oil pan and bonded it onto my engine with RTV silicone...

I then changed the clutch and pilot bearing...



and put a new release bearing on the input shaft...



then bolted up the inlet and sprayed and put the insulating foam on my oil cooler...









here's my turbo ready to go on...








Bolted up the engine to the gearbox and got ready to lift it back in...




It went in surprisingly easily....





.

ian65

On Sunday and yesterday I started building this back up in the car...

I bolted the manifold and turbo on....



then put on the wastegate, pressure switches and carb mount...






then put on the carb and started putting in the oil lines....



put in my bargain £5 series 2 radiator off ebay....







top of the engine looks a lot cleaner without all the solenoids and wiring



next up... the propshaft, exhaust, oil cooler, fans, fuel oil and vac lines and then the wiring puzzle.

ETL used a black box that retarded the ignition as the boost increased as a backup to the turbo wastegate and to protect the engine against detonation...



I took the cover off this Micro Dynamics control module to make sure it hadn’t suffered from water ingress and fried and it looks sound as.
It the date 14.08.83 written inside it, I presume from when it was made, so that gives some idea of the age of the parts.

Just need to figure out how to wire it up now!

JoeNoble

iTrader: (6)

if you dont mind me asking how much did you pay for the setup and whered you find it?

ian65

I bought it off Ebay for £200.
It included the turbo'd engine, gearbox, stainless downpipe and exhaust, rad, oil cooler, ignition control unit and loom.
I always intended to use my own engine as I know it's good so the fact that I got an engine in with this package was a bonus.

I've also bought the Elford rear spoiler but at the moment I'm struggling to find the front spoiler.

JoeNoble

iTrader: (6)

ebay.co.uk?

ian65

yeah, sorry, ebay.co.uk

they come up from time to time. A mate bought one last week off ebay for £100 but only got the turbo'd engine, nothing else.... but that's all you need really.

It only uses a standard 12a so to keep shipping down, you could get a seller just to take off the actual Elford turbo parts and use your own engine.

The kit was £1250.00 new in 1983

ian65

after one of these for my conversion....

A factory built-in boost gauge out of a 12a JDM RX7 Savanna Turbo






Just need to swap out the kmh speedo for a mph clock
There was one on ebay last week but too expensive at £170

rx71king

iTrader: (6)

that kit is old skool...good luck...what is the gas like in the uk ? we have 10% ethanol

Directfreak

iTrader: (2)

Nice Find with the JDM gauges.
I never realized the SU Carb of the Elford kits mounted so remotely.

Keep on updating!

Naegleria_Fowleri

The carb setup caught me off guard as well. Very cool setup, and I wish you the best of luck with it.

RX-7 Chris

iTrader: (19)

cool setup.

ziereisboy91

how much boost can u run with this set up

Jeff20B

iTrader: (13)

That is so old school. They even used the PCV valve common on S1 and older intake manifolds. Very interesting setup.

Sgt Fox

iTrader: (3)

Really really cool. I would love to see some pictures of inside the controller. How does the OMP linkage hook up?

cosmicbang

Good luck with it. There always seemed to be a couple of them--and Janspeeds--at Eamon's shop back in the day. He wasn't a fan of turbocharged rotary engines; said no one had gotten it right.

Being a packrat, I might still have some of those parts somewhere. Did the donor car have Elfords air dam and spoiler?

Hyper4mance2k

iTrader: (40)

love this thread. I would really like to get my hands on one of those when I eventually build a 12A car.

ian65

It's been a while since I've had chance to update this thread....

Ha, Ha! my creation..... IT'S ALIVE, IT'S ALIVE!!






Put the oil cooler on and connected up the breathers and vac lines and the coolant hoses then unplugged the fuel pump and spun it over to get the oil pressure up.
Put the old slave cylinder back on and bled the clutch then plugged the fuel pump back in and fired it up.
Took a bit of fiddling to get the carb settings roughly right so that it would tick over but sorted now.

Left it on tickover for about 5 mins then my bargain £15 oil cooler leaked!
What a b*******!
On the positive side, the engine sounds as sweet as a nut so I just need to track down a T2 oil cooler now.
I'd already decided to put the larger S3 rad back in and go for a T2 cooler up front but hoped to run the S2 setup for the time being. Oh well, not to worry!

The 1st RX7 I ever saw back in 1984 was an Elford down in Bournemouth in the south of England where they made them and I've wanted one ever since.
I managed to drive to the bottom of my drive and back to test the clutch so after waiting 26 years, my 1st drive in an Elford lasted about 100 yards and wasn't quite how I envisaged it but hey, what the hell, I now officially own an Elford Turbo!

I'll post up some pics of the inside of the control unit and the OMP linkage when I get chance...
Re. the posts above, the seller did have the spoilers but they were badly damaged. I have already got the rear spoiler from elsewhere.... still looking for the front spoiler.....
The standard boost is set at 6psi but some guys are running up up to 14psi with mods.