Well Sean, you don't want me to comment! I just wish I had the free cash to do what you do, or that massively impressive garage you have to do the mad scientist work you do!

 

Wow that is amazing your a mad man im so jealous i wish i had the time to do all that to my SE. 1 year to go and ill be out of the navy then my projects begine keep it up.

 

Nicely done ... who's trilink is that? sorry might of missed that part. Does the end where it bolts up in the tranny tunnel come predrilled or do you have to drill them up yourself? Also can you take some shots from the inside where the bolts are? I would like to see where exactly it ends up on the inside.

 

Both the Panhard bar and tri link are from G force engineering. The bracket itself is already drilled, you simply hold it in place, drill the 3 holes down the center, bolt it in place (temporarily) and drill the rest of the holes. I'll take a picture from inside later on and post it for you.

 

Here's a pic of where the bolts come through for the tri link bracket. Obviously still much painting and cleaning to do inside the car....

 

I haven't visiited thread since I 1st replied, and I must say, I'm even more impressed now than I was the 1st time.

More details, pics, pricing, thoughts, etc., on the the panhard/tri-link set up. I'm debating on what to do with my rearend. I can beef up the stock one, go with a setup like your's or a Ford 8.8, which I have a line on. Whatever I do, I need to change the bolt pattern to the FC 5 lug so I can mount the SSRs. 15X10" tires and wheels will fill the wide fenders nicely.

 

Thanks! I appreciate the kind words, it means a lot to me.

What kind of pics would you lke to see Scott (it is scott right?) I have many more on my harddrive, and could take anything you want to see. the panhard and tri link cost $289 a piece, and while I can't comment on how they affect handling (my guess is quite a bit) but Jim's customer service, and overall quality of parts is outstanding. The installation directions are also straightforward, I didn't have much troulble putting it altogether.
I'm not sure what kind of power you plan on running, but I'm figuring with my setup (the hybrid turbo, 3" exhaust, and FMIC) I should be in the 250 range, maybe more, but well short of 300. I'll be picking up a set of moser axles with the 5x114.3 pattern from respeed so they will take the power. i'm still debating whether to go with the KAAZ diff or not, i'll probably see how the gsl diff holds up first....
Just let me know what pics you'd like to see and i'll post them up

 

Awsome job Sean! You are really ambitous. Where did you get the repair piece for the rear drip channel? Nice job on the jungle gym. Even with the trilink that area seems to be not very rigid and stiffening it up cant be bad. I think Mazda dropped the braces for the FB for probably cost reasons, not because it was stiff enough without them. Somewhere theres a bad home movie of that area on a rusted out 1st gen while on the road. The flexing I saw made my jaw drop.

FYI Yes you can run a swaybar with the trilink and panhard. Jims book shows you how to make the stockers adjustable as well. BUY IT!

 

Yea his book is very detailed, the "smart" sway bar design he has for the front sway bar looks very interesting, I might try it sometime.
The patch for the rain channel came off a parts car I had long ago, the whole thing was a rusted mess, except that area oddly enough, so i cut the back of the car off and saved it knowing I'd need it someday for this car.
I will be posting pics of my modified gas tank soon, maybe today for those interested.

 

Keep it up.


We need to get everyone in the habit of posting a work log on their cars.

 

Here are some pics of the tank I modified. For those unfamiliar I've taken the slosh cup (inside the tank), pump assembly and mounting ring from a FC tank and used them to make a fuel injection tank out of my FB tank. Pretty straightforward, just some cutting and welding and some sealer and undercoating. For those interested in doing this a S4 tank is the easier one to get, I got a S5 tank, and the pump assembly is 1/2" too tall and I had to shorten it (also shown in a picture) The rubber hose on the feed line is just to make sure my welds don't leak, hence the bulge in the middle of the hose. I used some tank sealer to keep the welds from rusting and it is taking its sweet time drying, so I haven't put the pump in the tank, or the tank in the car yet, but I did finish running all my hardlines down the bottom of the car.
I have more "in progress" shots of the tank mod if anyone wants to see them.
Thanks for looking!

 

Very nice work especially the welding..... I was in the same boat as you... I re-did the entire wheel wells in stainless and I had to re make the upper control arm brackets aswell.

Great stuff hope to see this project finished, mine should be ready near the end of summer

 

Yea I remember seeing your threads a while back with the stainless work, I was considering that, but ended up going with mild steel and just coating the hell out of it. Should last a good long while, my other FB (which I did the same thing too a few years ago) is still holding up nicely. I can't wait to fire this thing up, not to much more to do before I can turn it over. Still much to do though, body work, and suspension.... Ugh it seems endless....

 

Nice job.Those are the pictures I should have taken, when I did mine.......oh well.

 

Haha, no worries Steve, between me and renns there are plenty of pictures up now about it.
Oh, one thing I will mention about it is that on the 81-83 tanks the vapor return/vent line is right in the middle of where the mounting ring goes, rather than going through the hassle of putting the FC's vent setup on there (requires welding another small ring on and bolting a plastic piece too, which broke on me) I just bent up a new piece of brake line and welded it in behind the pump ring, as seen in the picture.

 

nicely done ... what pump do you intend on useing?

 

I have a FD pump that some kid that used to live in town gave me when he got out of rx7's (he had two fc's) and it works, I tested it. So at least initially I'll use that pump, but the twin turbo supra pumps supposedly put out more fuel than the FD pump, if i come across one of those for the right price i'll get one...
I've gotton varying estimates on what kind of power this setup should be putting out, so I'm not exactly sure how much fuel I'm gonna need...

 

Man that looks great!
One question though. Is the panmhard required if I wanted to convert to a tri-link? I'm thinking of doing this to eliminate the upper control arm to save my wheel wells.

Thanks, Ed

 

Sean, you know me! So I will not say anything!

 

Thanks! In order to run the tri link you need the panhard bar as well, not only are they designed to work together, but the tri link would interfere with the watts link. You're in New York right? You'll have to see this thing in person someday....

 

Wow, looking good. Someone said that we all should log our projects, well so far mine would be 5 years old.

 

Cool! I'm planning to shoot down to Jersey sometime this month.
Keep up the good work!

 

Nice job! especially the rust repair. I just got an SA that needs the same rear drip edge replacment.
Did you stitch weld all that with a wire feed welder?

I don't know how this thread got past me earlier.
Very inspirational.

 

Yea I did all of this with cutoff wheels and a wire feed welder (flux cored filler wire) so no fancy tools here! I have been meaning to invest in some more body/metal working tools, but so far I've been able to get the results I'm after without anything too special.
If you want more pictures of the rain channel replacement I have a few more on here, and could give a more detailed description of how i did it....

 

Sure, more pics and details would be great, esp the left side, where it looks like you got closer or into where there are more than one layer/peices of steel.
Thanks,

Steve.