13b-re cosmo swap into FC project impressions and cost
 

After about two months, my RE swap project is JUST about complete. Basically everything works and all I have left to do is some final tuning under heavy load. (need to find somewhere low key to do it). My driving impressions so far have been really good. It drives real smooth. Compared to an S5 NA, the throttle response is downright scary. Since I haven't done any final tuning, I haven't pushed it beyond 4.5K RPMs so I don't know what it's like up high, but puttering around between 1k and 4k.... I can just tell its going to pull hard up top.

In terms of difficulty, I would rate this project at about a 6/10. I say 6 because the swap requires so little fabrication (some people can get away with none). The most fab-heavy tools I had to use were an angle grinder and a drill to make some brackets. Not one joint needed welding. Other than that, everything is fairly straight forward providing you do your homework and read up some info on these forums. Before this swap, the most complex thing I had ever done was removing an engine, so I pretty much did this whole project starting from scratch. A few things that stand out in my mind as being HUGE PITAs:

1. Lining up transmission to engine while NOT breaking the pilot bearing seal. I even did this while the engine was out of the car and I still had a bitch of a time making it line up.
2. Lining up transmission crossmember underneath car. I am not entirely sure what wasn’t the right size, but there is some problem with the combination of the cosmo motor, cosmo motor mounts from Banzai, and TII transmission that made the engine sit too far back in the engine bay. I had to use a winch to pull the engine forward enough to make the crossmember line up.
3. CAS. STAB YOUR CAS PROPERLY! I just shoved the cas into the front cover without thinking and for a while the car ran like crap and I had no idea why. Turns out I was running it off by about 45 degrees! I am amazed the car even ran. You need to line up the yellow mark on the main pulley to the pointer first, and then remove the crank angle sensor and line up the pointer with the dot on the gear, and then re-insert it without letting the gear turn. When it did that, the car hasn’t misfired or backfired, or stalled once.
4. ECU/ Engine wiring. This was probably the most time consuming part of the swap hands down. I used banzai’s wiring conversion diagrams, but not all the necessary wiring is there, and it is easy to make mistakes, so you end up soldering, and re soldering and re re soldering… My advice is buy the banzai harness and make your life a lot easier. Also, if you want to run the cosmo turbos (or 3rd gen fd turbos) in sequential mode, you need to do more wiring, and modify your existing engine harness on the engine bay side.

Some other recommendations are:
- Put PB blaster on EVERYTHING. Not WD-40. Its not the same.
- Make sure you don’t tear your starter cable unless you want to melt your starter.
- Don’t get old tranny fluid on your face. Probably the worst thing ever.


I also wanted to outline the total cost of this project for anyone who is planning to do the swap. I have read a lot of people who say it costs 15K++ and wanted to show that the swap is entirely possible for a fraction of that cost, providing you do all your own labour. I have listed the actual price that I was able to purchase all of my parts for. This price may be less or more than what you can get parts for, but this is what I paid, and includes shipping where applicable. Many parts were purchased from other forum members. All prices are in Canadian dollars.

• 13b-re cosmo motor - 750
• s5 Turbo II transmission - 150
• custom TII -> Na Driveshaft - 100
• Cosmo motor mounts - 150
• Mazdatrix SS oil lines - 150
• eBay FMIC + piping - 200
• BOV - 100
• 13b-rew turbos + FD downpipe - 300
• 13b-rew intake piping and TID - 120
• Battery relocation equip. - 50
• PowerFC + Commander - 750
• Datalogit - 250
• MSD 6a ignition box - 150
• FD Radiator and fans - 120
• FD IAT and MAP sensor - 50
• FD turbo solenoids - 30
• innovate Lm-1 wideband - 150
• LED lights, glue and patience - 20

TOTAL : $3,590

This is how that last 20$ got spent:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/i...gstuff2007.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/i...tuff2008-1.jpg




Most people can get everything on that list for the same price except for the engine probably. I was lucky with the engine as someone local to me was really frustrated with his builder and needed the cash. This price doesn’t include the cost of fluids, tools, consuamables like grindwheels, sandpaper, drill bits, blades, cleaners etc… I am sure all that stuff will add another hundred or so to the total. But this just goes to show you CAN do an RE cosmo swap into an FC (an NA, too) for under 5 grand. If you don’t do your own labor, and you get someone else to tune it, then you can probably double that price.

I threw in a few pics too. Not the best looking thing in the world, but gets the job done :) I still need to clean up the vac lines and wires and install the 2 new cone filters. Overall it was an awesome project and I am glad I did it. I can’t wait to do the final tuning and take it out for some autoX action.


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Sounds Like you were trying to use the N/A crossmember on the TII trans.

very cool, you should be proud for seeing the project through.

I hate you for getting the engine that cheap, I dont know what the canadian dollar is worth to american dollars but $750 is crazy cheap.

This is what hot rodding is all about, high dollar extremely detailed cars are awesome, but so is a guy who ripped into the car and built something on a budget by combining parts and his labor.

I like how the radiator and IC are in the bay like that, will be intersted to hear how your car cools, I assume you are not running AC?

yea seriously on that price
where did you get your engine for $750?

It's a luck thing. He said the guy he got it from was having some trouble with their builder.

I see them pop up down here every month or two in the triple digit prices.

I used the crossmember that came with the tranny. I'm not sure whether it was N/A or TII, but whatever it was, it was shitty and I do not advise it.

Thanks man. I mounted it in the engine bay because that was the only place I could get it to fit without cutting the bumper supports. The core is something like 26"x14"x3". It's 32" from tip to tip, but still fit really snugly in the engine bay. Mounting it was as easy as drilling a single hole, too. I am going to put some angle iron on the bottom for some more support, though. The GXL i swapped it into never came with AC, But as far as I can tell, you could definitely fit all the AC equipment back into the car. Hell if someone had a cheap AC system for sale id swap it in. It's getting HOT out.

It was pure luck. I found an ad for it on kijiji. I felt bad for the guy though. He had someone doing the work on his car for over a year and a half, and the engine hadn't even been taken off the pallet yet. Not only was his builder a deadbeat, but he got his gf preggers, too and needed the cash. Shitty deal for him..

The deadbeat builder stole the alt too. I went to check out the engine, and everything's there. I get it delieverd and no alt. Come on, who does that?

what about fuel supply the na pump and lines work?

I think I left out an FD fuel pump + 50$
Stock fuel lines and filter are more than adequate.

are you just selling the motor

^Why would he???

Riz.

proper man i know where there is an REW sitting for stupid cheap less than $400 but its missing the intake manifold+throttlebody

Ive been tempted to do this for a while now

Do it, you'll love it. Lots of fun to build, and even more to drive.

Plus, you could get an RE intake at a good enough price to make that deal well worth it.

Fixed.

I am also curious about how cool the engine will stay once you really open it up. It is an interesting intercooler/radiator set up though.

and does that rew runn and why is it so cheap

it obviously runs..he said he's been puttin around on it waiting to really tune it

he had the whole car for sale, as a running car.

well what he want for it man

if you click on the link in his sig that basically says :BUY MY CAR you can find out for yourself

https://www.rx7club.com/canadian-sale-wanted-classifieds-120/my-1990-gxl-twin-turbo-cosmo-swapped-fc-sale-mint-852023/

Keep up the good work and keep us up to date......

Saw your car at an autocross , looks very nice .

Any luck on the sale ?

nice bro real nice. you got class lol. i cant wait to be finished with my project... just saving up some money for the Banzai engine mounts and.... a few other things... check out the progress =)
slowmotionauto.com

maybe I'll do it over the winter ill collect parts

I put the intake manifold that i got from you to good use i turbo'd the S5 n/a keg i love the power

That's what I was going to do originally, but one of my coolant seals on my NA let go.
If I built a turbo-NA I would beat on it so hard. That's the one downside of building a car like this.. you love it for the power, but you don't want to push it so far that all your hard work goes up in flames (or should I say, comes out the exhaust in little metal bits)

I thought I might revive this thread as I have since bought the car off mike. What a great buy, solid car. Ill add what I have changed on the car.

To start, I painted it white, with black hood, sunroof, and spoilers. (I want to do carbon fiber soon, when the money comes around) What a job that was, not to interested in doing that one again, but I will if I feel the need to go black ;).

I also upgraded the clutch, it had too much power and would slip in second so that was a necessity. I bought the exedy stage 2 HD clutch and pressure plate off mazdatrix, as well as lightend allumium flywheel.

I dressed up the engine bay a little with a mazdatrix oil filler cap, and a little checkerplate to cover the top of the massive intercooler. (again, I will be changing this soon, but no money for what I really want to do, so free checker plate worked for me)

It has since lost the innovate wideband, and been changed to a techedge wideband ith screen display.

I working on doing the interior now, black and red with carbon fiber. I have the speedo surround in carbon fiber already, which will mount two of my autometer phantom gauges... I have 8 in total, but will only use some of them.

I have purchased a black front carpet, black dash, and black armrest and am still hunting for the rest before I install it all. Im also looking for t2 seats to replace the red and black slotted driver fx seats I installed.

I swapped the stock wheel with a momo wheel, and right now I have a door panel I shipped to redlinegoods.com for them to keep and make skins so we can all enjoy their newest product for us to come. I will be doing the shifter boot, armrest, and ebrake with them as well.


As far as other things I want goes.... I have a small list.. feel free to pm me if you have any of these for sale too.

-T2 seats
-black buckets and rear carpet.
-black headliner and plastics.
-Carbon hood, sunroof, door sills, shifter surround and center console.
-Mazdaspeed gear, like ebrake handle cover and other things of interest.
-Coilovers ( a must, suspension feel sloppy)
-Changing all bushings like my friend AmT_T... I helped him drop his rear end :lol: and get to be the second one of us two to do.. so I will know the trouble spots.
-Exhaust... I mean eventually I suppose, but I am satisfied right now how it is.
-HKS twin power.... to replace my 6a msd.
-Meth-alky injection... still reseaching this one, not sure, but looks like it can help if its setup properly.
-17in rims... Mike had put a set of 18s off a genesis coupe on... just a tad to large, after fender roll it was never a problem, but still too large for my taste. I swapped from those to my 15in vert rims back and forth all summer.... went through ten fucking tires last season, like I said, he built a fun car.





Ill post some pics of what has changed, and I enjoy feedback, good or bad. I mean, Im still learning afterall and I want to build it so it is respectable.

Advantage of Twin Power over MSD?

Riz.

Damn Brent, I thought you'd have blown up that engine by now. I guess I built her pretty decently. I'm just glad to see she's still kickin.

So did that new clutch unlock some more power on the high end? It always slipped at around 6.5K rpms even though it was rated for 340 ft-lbs.

oh ya, pics or gtfo ;)

hey mike! your still alive! back in the rx7 game yet? here are a few... nothing of interior yet :( Im still working on her tho! the paint is yet to be clear coated or polished, so its not the nicest it can be yet.

oh the clutch is like night and day man, launches better then ever, and unlocked the high end a lot, stiff like a.. umm well im sure you can guess what i was going to say hahah ;)

oh and before anyone comments on the unpainted engine bay.... it will get done... after I blow the motor and swap it out for ummm same setup but with bnr rebuilt twins, goal is 400 whp.

Whos the maker of the lightweight flywheel?

Bought it from maxdatrix... dont recall any specific markings or labels, generic I suppose, but if they sell it, I trust it. Here is the link.

http://mazdatrix.com/getprice.asp?partnum=11449

Shiiiiiit Son! I was reading this thread and was like o-o-o-o oh my gosh! that looks like my good friend ItsFun's car but saw the thread was by flipstar. To my surprise It is ItsFun's car after all. Me likes driving that car when I'm allowed :D

haha its hard to describe the difference between our cars, yours seems to handle much nicer, but isnt as powerful. Your interior is mint... mine is.. well red :( ... for now.. I love a little friendly competition. You better be coming to the dyno with me in the spring.

thank you!!!!! I have the same one but didnt know who it was made by..good stuff!

Not a problem, and thanks!

Not sure how I feel about the homebrew diamond plate cover... but I'm diggin the Cosmo engine!

dude, the plate cover is pro. I made one out of aluminum that covered everything up to the bumper5 but it looked like ass.

Haha thanks Mike. I still need to shave a little off the side of it but I enjoyed getting the perfect bends in it... it is actually bent arouns the back of the intercooler, L style, to secure it some more... so it serves as two purposes. :nod:

Hey Brent wanna see what replaced the rx7?


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You couldn't get anything more different from the 7: this car literally weighs TWICE as much but it still drifts like a champ.

hahahah well done!!!!! looks very very nice... I should race you sometime :egrin:

You'd rape me :(


Hey I've been meaning to ask you, how are the rear wheel wells doing, rust-wise? I always wondered if my repair job would hold up, and knowing whether it does will determine if I do it again in the future!

inside or on the quarters??? I noticed some body work on the pass side at the back a little when I painted it... and some on the roof... but like I said I did mad prep work when I painted.... so if it was on the outside of the car... I doubt ill see it anytime soon..

Little update.

I have everything I need to complete the interior swap to black except for headliner and sunroof liner, as well as the plastics

Racing beat Oil Pressure and temp sensor adapter is in the mail, as well as carbon fiber center console. I am also going with redlinegood leather for shift boot, e brake boot and armrest cover.... as well as the entire door panel being custom fitted by them... I am sending himn my door panel this week to use as a prototype for our cars, so in the future we will alll be able to have this product, but ill be the first :)

Im also dealing with someone local for an OEM t2 style carbon fiber hood... damn im anxious to get this fc done the way I want it.

for this swap would it be harder to go single turbo, or easier than setting up the sequential?

I bet they are about the same build wise. Tuning wise sequential twin is harder to tune then singal. But I'm not much of a tuner yet. Just learning on a good base map that it was sold to me with. I'm looking to meet someone local to teach me the ins and outs of tuning the power fc with datalogit.. I'm sure I can inderstand it no matter how complex with a good teacher.

dude i don't even know where to start with tuning, but maybe I'll learn once i get a car i can practice on :x


but um what would you have to do to turn it single turbo?

All you have to do is read this forum enoguh and it will tell you, and you will learn so much. But basics being manifold, turbo, downpipe, boost controller, MAP depending how much boost you want to push, ECU standalone, a lot. Minimun 5 to 7 grand in parts when all is said and done....and patience, most importantly, you need to be able to not rush the job, and really understand what you are doing before you go and do it. I dont think I will ever go single turbo on this, Im hopiong to upgrade the twins I have now for some bnr`s or 99 spec.

But keep in mind I never did this swap, the previous owner did, Im just learning from what he did by reading his notes and forum posts, there are much better and more knowledgable people on this forum that can tell you a lot more then I can.

do you get any problems from the twins?

:lol:only if you mess with the setting on the pfc lol like by pushing 16 lbs of boost (had to at least try it once) other then that not a single problem, still in good shape, no smoke