I don't think 13" wheels are necessarily the problem but the available tire selection. I see BFG Radial T/As are available now but it's either that or a competition type like Toyo R888.

 

The BFGs look cool with the RWL and period correct and all but as a tire they suck.

 

Leg vs arm spacing is odd at 6 foot plus. When I'm really getting down on it I always end up jamming my right knee in the V part the dash.
The honda civic/crx which the R&P is from had 175/70 R13-195/60 R14 tires. Tires are available like the Yokohama A539 175/60 R13.

 

Looks great!
Have you tried 2.5 negative camber? 20 years ago Jim Susko of G-Force Engineering told me that's the magic number for this chassis. I agree and never changed it.
I run 225/45-16 Toyo proxes r1r

 

Good points. 100% agree that my current 185/70 single ply poly sidewall tires are mushy donuts, and I'll swap to higher performance, perhaps even competition, rubber. I'd prefer to keep the 13" OEM wheels for originality, but for the same cost I could get 15" wheels AND decent tire options.

I cut the steering shaft three inches longer than instructed for the R&P conversion, then rewelded the shaft mounting bracket 3" further down. Sandwiched ~1/4" spacers on the bolts between the shaft and dashboard to "lower" the steering wheel. The bracket and fasteners are designed to fail/collapse in a font collision. So, if anyone follows what I did, make sure you keep the same orientation and geometry.

 

I haven't messed with it since the alignment but I'll keep that in mind. I've been getting used to and enjoying the extra grip of an actual summer tire since upgrading from 14" all-seasons on my old wheels.

 

$995, confirmed for PS cars only at this time. I asked them about the flange-end on their column and how that comes in to the picture with the rag joint and rack both being pinch bolts.

edit- looking back at my pictures, the rag joint will split in two.

 

Dang that's cheap I feel. Tempting to get it since I have a PS car lol.

 

I'm curious to see more details and feedback on this kit. At first glance it looks good but unsure how it compares to the gold standard ie MTheory. And I do agree that not all T3 parts are winners, especially the overly constrained upper and lower rear heim joints.

I presume T3 will need to do some more development work to accommodate the manual steering cars. I am assuming the larger market is for manual boxes. I presume you could hunt down the power steering column but at first glance on ebay, i see none!

 

Makes me feel lucky that I have a PS car, even if the pump is broken. I guess that means I could justify this as a repair lol

 

They have a knack for one size fits everything mentality and particularly with the first gen rx7 they have zero understanding of its idiosyncrasies. Thats why we see things like bent panhard bars and ae86 "heavy duty" ball joints that raise the knuckles up, for those that don't know you want to raise the strut to adjust roll center not introduce bump steer by raising the knuckle.
Not to mention they heim joint everything including tie rods which isn't what you want for street/highway use.
Mazda had specific instructions on how to reinforce the connection points they used heims at for race cars.

 

A GSL-SE P/S column dont just bolt into a non P/S 79-83 without hacking up the firewall.
The OEM P/S lower column support is kinda wonky that requires cutting a large hole in the firewall, if anyone has ever tried to cut a large diameter hole without a pilot hole it's not going to look pretty without disassembling half the car and even then the saw will still walk on you.

 

Hole is the same (at least for 84&85) but there are different brackets at the firewall behind the pedals.
Non PS has a flat bracket and rubber grommet. PS has a plate (pictured on desk) which clamps the piece in that necks down and clamps the lower half of the PS column (circled in red).

 

Surprised how cheap it is. Only thing I'm not to sure of is the way the cradle mounts. Mostly because there are very limited pictures of the kit. But looks like it mounts under the frame with bolt on arms that go up??

 

Based on this image, it looks like it picks up on L&R subframe mounts (rear bolts on frame rails) and the two support 'braces' pick up on the steering box (L) and idler arm (R) mounting points.

 

Not sure I like the way it mounts to those locations. Seems fragile to me. I've seen the solution @MTheoryInc has and it's solidly mounted to some existing points on the frame.

 

I agree, Also, it looks a little crowded on the right side, Im wondering if would have sufficient clearance for a header or for a turbo?

MTheory's setup seems to work well for any setup, stock/modded engine/exhaust, A/C, no A/C, 12A, 13B etc. . Scott spent years tweaking his setup in a very thoughtful way, and as long as you follow his instructions for installation and alignment specs you can be assured to have good results.
I have two of his sets, one is on a totally stock FB that belongs to my daughter, I would put it up against any modern car in the area of steering feel and responsiveness. The other one is on a highly modded SA that has nothing stock at all as far as front suspension. It runs lots of camber , plenty of caster and Zero toe, Drives totally different than the stock version of course, but Scotts steering kit performs just as well on it as it does on the stock FB. Feels right at home at the track. Not one iota of steering play on either car. I had the Re-Speed setup before and it was better than the stock setup, did ok at the track, but had several compromises, I didnt care for the engine mount arrangement, the steering effort was high, and because it was front steer the lack of ackerman made driving on the street and making tight turns very annoying. It taught me the importance of Ackerman steering geometry.

Scotts setup is solid, mounts without making serious mods to the chassis and maintains the original rear steer setup. I love it and thank him for his dedication to these cars.

 

Agreed, the RE-speed kit had too many compromises - ultimately why I went with FC subframes on my cars (I had 2 re-speed kits back in the day). If MTheory's kit were available in 2011 (when I went FC subframe for the first time) I would have gone that route - seems like the best setup for 99% of us from the looks of it.

Also will second the comments above that T3's approach to product development for the first gen is.... passive for lack of a better term. Seems like they are using just one car as a development mule while ignoring the fact that there are numerous yearly differences that have a big impact on the fitment of their parts. The 83 and earlier cars have a completely different setup where the steering passes through the firewall - they do not have those 4 studs like the 84/85 cars do, which makes attaching a lower column mount much more of an ordeal. Also ,the heim joint rear links is a terrible idea as others have said.

This will sound sarcastic, but isn't meant to be - Kudos to T3 for trying - it's nice to see development for a niche car such as ours, but they are not doing a very good job... I am happy with the coilovers I got from them (I got parts from them and assembled myself to suit the FB/FC combo I am running) but otherwise I wouldn't recommend most of their catalog...

 

I agree that MTheory's kit is the gold standard. It is expensive but I wouldn’t ask a penny less if I was putting out the product he is.

I hit order on the T3 kit as soon as I saw it launch. For the price I paid, any improvement over my current steering situation would be worth it. I disagree on the mounting points being fragile. The heavy-wall tubing cradle is connected to the rear engine subframe bolts and through the frame at the steering box and idler arm locations as stated above. There was absolutely no slop in the assembly. Total install time was ~4 hours, but this included me removing a manual steering assembly and reinstalling my power steering column. My preferred alignment shop can’t get me in until next week so I quickly set the toe and took it for a spin. Night-and-day difference, steering with two fingers on the wheel and absolutely zero play. I have attached some pictures- forgive the filth, it was a rough winter under the cover.

 

Thank you for posting pics.
The tie rod to control arm angles are completely out of whack suggesting that they possibly don't understand or don't care about correct suspension angles. While this setup on the cover offers R&P at a basement bargain price it most likely introduces more issues than it solves. It's no surprise based on their other products like the useless panhard bar they sell.
I also think it's mounted in a way that will cause issues, putting such a small footprint with high load in the area of the steering box/Idler mount is a no go. Mazda comp wanted a steel plate welded in that area to reinforce it means they probably saw metal fatigue there and I definitely dont want to add steering loads to my subframe mounts or run heim joint tie rods on a street car.
I hope the roads are glass smooth in your area.

 

From Mazda comp setup

 

No problem.
The picture from the front makes the tie rod angle look much more extreme than in person. Still, it is not parallel with (eyeballing) a line from pivot to ball joint on the control arm. I'm going to dig into this more and see if a bumpsteer correction kit would even it out. We'll see on the mounting points- not a smooth road in sight up here. I've only put 1200 miles on the car in the last 2 years, but I'm going to drive the hell out of it for the next few months and will give an honest review of how it holds up.
Who doesn't love a basement bargain?

 

Thank you Robert! You are the reason everyone else is actually able to buy my steering kit. When I first showed you the new kit I had no intention to build it other than for myself.
The largest difference between me and the other guy making kits is that I'm a 27 year Rx7 steward of this historically important sports car that isn't centered on making money.
For me the SA/FB is the only Rx7s with the intention on producing high quality parts that compliment and take nothing away from its heritage or diminish its value.

 

Yeah there's gonna be a fair bit of bumpsteer in that setup from the looks of it.... I'll be interested to see what your long term thoughts on this thing are. Also curious what the rack is actually from, and what the ratio is.

 

Is the steering rack now the lowest part on the front of the car? Maybe it is an optical illusion.

On both my RX7 and my Fox Body, I spent the money to put the cars on a Hunter alignment rack and had them cycle the cars through droop and bump to figure out how far off things were. A few spacers between the rod end and the spindle fixed things up. For the record, my Fox Body didn't look as bad the car pictured above but it really drove terrible until I got that fixed.

Thanks for posting up the pics and the testing you are doing.