Hey guys,

I've got two RX-7s at the moment, an 86 base and an 86 GXL. The base was running, but the body is badly rusted, trans was shot, and driveshaft was broken. I drove it for a summer and then parted it out, with the intentions of throwing the engine and other parts into the GXL.

I bought the GXL with 4 bins of parts and 4 extra alloys and a clean title for $400. It's been sitting in a garage for 6 years, the brake lines are bone dry. Here's what I plan on doing:

Engine/power
S5 intake swap/airpump VDI activation
Custom 3" cold air intake/cold air box
SAFC-II
Racingbeat Road race header into 3" single exit
Stock 6 ports running off ACV
65-75-ish wet shot
Mostly gutted, minus dash and heater controls
Wideband o2
EGT gauge
Vacuum gauge
Emissions/OMP removal

Suspension/Brakes
New master cylinder
Rebuild all 4 calipers
Slotted/crossdrill rotors
Hawk pads
Coilovers
Manual steering swap

Appearance
Use aluminum hood off of silver car to make custom cowl hood
Possibly repaint, although the purple is starting to grow on me...lol
Racing seats and racing wheel from silver car.

Maintenance
All new fuel lines/brake lines
Drop and clean out fuel tank
Undercoating?
Replace busted ign switch
Replace all vacuum lines and hoses


Here's how I sit right now. Silver car is getting hauled off tomorrow, engine is in pieces, i'm about half done with the S5 swap. I haven't turned a wrench on the purple car yet, although I hope to dig in pretty soon and see where I'm at.








I just realized I polished the wrong side. ****!









rawr!


I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with everything and all the questions I have so I figured I could start this thread and just kinda go from here...

1. I'd like to get the engine into the purple car soon, but how much work should I do on it out of car? I figure it will take a couple of days to run vaccuum lines and stuff, how hard is that going to be in-car?

2. I plan on using the airpump outlet to power the VDI, maybe with an RPM switch. I was going to ditch the ACV, but I just read that the dump opens jsut about perfectly to power the 6 ports. Any comments on this?

3. I have a ton of places on the intake where there WAS a gasket but now there is not. (between 3 intake sections, around VDI activation, etc....can I just use blue RTV on top of the stock gasket? Or should I scrape off the paper gasket and then RTV it? I would think to leave the gasket and just put a thin layer down anyways.

4. Is running nitrous+premix a problem? Does premix go through a solenoid/fogger okay?

I think that's it for now...let me know what you think and I'm sure I'll be back with more questions later

 

She's gone

 

wait....1 day and its gone? what happened?

 

I'm sorry....the silver car was the car I drove all summer and then parted out this week...the project car is the purple one in the first post.

Bought an electric angle grinder, holy ****....makes me a little angry I wasted almost 2 hours with the dremel last night....when I cut more in about 3 seconds today

 

I would rebuild the engine and port it while it's out.

What is the point of the S5 intake swap?

Why not just run the 5/6 ports off the exhuast? I tried myself to get predictable activation from the acv and couldn't.

 

The engine has good compression on both rotors right now. I'm on a very limited budget, and I can't justify spending rebuild money on an N/A motor. I plan on buying a turbo engine and rebuilding it when I have money...or at least buying a turbo engine if this one blows up.

The S5 intake has the variable dynamic chamber that allows the intake pulses to cross over between the rotors after it is open (above 5k or so). Dyno proven 10-12 hp gain, raises the redline from 7k to 8k.

I'm concerned with the 3" exhaust I won't have enough backpressure to open them. Thanks for the input, I may end up running those off the air pump too somehow :/

ALSO: The car didn't feel too bad before, but I think my aux ports are prolly working at about 25% capacity. The one actuator is frozen up and the other one is leaking...and one of the rods is hard to turn. I have new actuators, but I'm seriously considering wiring em open. I guess that can be question 5...

5. Yeah, yeah, no torque down low? Or is it noticable? fuel milage? I've heard both sides.

 

no N/A car needs a exhaust bigger than 2.5" and 2.75 is the absolute limit. an N/A car needs some backpressure where a turbo car needs none.

you wont gain anything from a 3" that a 2.5 wouldnt do, and with a 3" you're more than likely going to lose power from flowing too much...

as far as you 5/6 ports are.... if you remove the sleeves, yes you'll lose low-end power a good deal, i've done it and it was a night and day difference, but, and you barely gain anything up top but most people say that what you lose at the bottom you'll gain back up top
as with fuel mileage i havent noticed a change to be honest

 

Well, I've already got a full 3" exhaust here off an SCCA racecar, so that's going on. I plan on re-using it when I drop the turbo engine in, so I'm not concerned with that. Plus, the nitrous should benefit greatly from the increased exhaust diameter. I think it will be just about perfect for my application.

Most of what I search tells me that it's worth it to have the 6 port actuators functioning correctly, so I'm going to carb cleaner the **** out of em and see if I can get em to slide around freely.

Just blocked off the OMP and i'm nearly finished with the S5 manifold swap (well, mechanical part, anyways). Just need to fashion a bracket, as I have removed the vaccuum tree as well. Might throw some pics up in a bit.

 

Got a ton done tonight.

Got sick of dicking around with a dremel...bought it this morning...I love it!


Manifold finally fits.


You can see the two brackets I fabbed up to support the new intake.


Test-fitting...sexy.



What is the thing above the ACV? What do I do with it? What is the port above that?


These were pretty gunked up...neither of em turned very well. they're soaking in degreaser as we speak.


There was about a half inch of oily sludge covering the OMP....scraped it off, wiped it down, and blockoff plate.


Again, what is this thing?


Looks so much nicer without the vacuum rack.


And, the finished throttle body, with the secondary plates removed and the holes filled....and the outside cleaned and polished.

 

i just wanted to mention... back pressure being good for engines is a myth. However a small amount is needed for the aux ports. If you run nitrous though i don't think you would miss the little bit of down low power if you wired them open or removed them.

 

That is the accelerated wam-up solenoid.

From what I've read (had to replace a hose going to it earlier in the year) it causes the engine to to start up at 3k rpm to warm up the cats.

I was told it could be removed or blocked off, and would cause no damage.

 

Is that the only function of the 3k start? If that's the case, I'll pull it, as I no longer have cats.

Is that the split air port above it? I think that gets blocked off too.

I am no longer running the aux ports off of exhaust pressure.

 

The BAC Valve is also part of the accelerated warmup BS. As far as I know you have to remove the BAC and AWS to get rid of the 3k startup, or get an RTEK or such.

 

Waiting for intake manifold gaskets to show up.


More block off plates.



Started cleaning out the engine bay......removed power steering bullshit hoses.


Replaced gauge cluster with one out of my old car, as it wasn't painted silver. Replaced broken ign lock.


Car rolls again! Hopefully will have engine together and at least in the frame tomorrow. Ordered new front calipers and master cylinder and rebuild kits for the rear last night, along with the intake manifold gaskets. After this weekend I go back to school and then only get to work on it once a month

 

Damn, guess that means you aren't working on the car in platteville, I just noticed this thread and was hopping you were so I could offer a hand. Right now I basically don't have **** to do in platteville, except go to class and study, boooo

Looks like its coming along for only having a few days work on it.

I wouldn't worry about the premix going through the fuel solenoid, it is in relatively low concentration anyway. I would probably open up the solenoid after you put a few bottles through it and make sure there isn't any build up on the plunger, but I wouldn't expect much of a problem. It is good practice to open up the noids every once in awhile to make sure no junk has made its way in and blow some compressed air through them, anyway.

If your still trying to figure out what things are, or need any wire/vacuum help, download the factory service manuals if you haven't already. They are available for free at...
http://www.teamfc3s.org/main/factory_service_manual/

 

That car that went to the junkyard looked better then the one your keeping. I'm confused?

 

Should have sold the other car to someone with a spare engine. That was a waste.

Anyways, I don't see any pics of the Nitrous yet.........

 

The car was parted out for the following reasons: Bad body rust underneath, busted driveshaft, shot transmission, and no title. There was really no reason to keep it. The new car has a good transmission and driveshaft, not much rust at all, better paint, all the GXL goodies...just needed an engine. It wasn't a waste, I would have never sold the first car.

The nitrous should be here this week :evil: Other parts arriving this week: Hawk brake pads, OEM rotors, comp motor mounts and DTSS elim. bushings.

Going home this weekend to work on it. The engine is in the car, but needs vaccuum/fuel lines run and all that jazz. I hope to install the new master cylinder, new front calipers, and new brakes all this weekend as well.

 

I lined up the LIM onto the block. I was able to use the aux port actuators to turn the sleeves by hand. After bolting it down, the whole assembly was seized up and I was unable to turn them. I think I installed the sleeves backwards >.<

That would explain some things. The sleeves are pushed out by the actuators, right?

 

Before you get silly with the juice I would start off really small and monitor it with a wideband. reason being that I question how well fuel is going to stay suspended in the airstream as it goes through all of those turns in the manifold. If a lot of it starts sticking or hanging up somewhere you could find yourself lean at the wrong time. Would be a shame to do all of that work just to earn a popped motor.


Honestly, since you already have the manifold off why not drill and tap the secondaries for a direct port set up? You will remove the worries (my worry) of the fuel staying suspended, it will be a cleaner install, and you will be set up to go to a higher shot. The only significant difference between a wet shot in the tube and a DP in the secondaries will be a few lines and an extra nozzle.

Just a thought.


BC

 

the sleeves are spun.

 

+1

IMO, the only reason wet kits are generally preferred over dry is because the factory EFI system in older cars is not as reliable or tunable as more modern and aftermarket systems. The nozzle can only atomize the fuel so well, and being that the intake manifold was designed as dry(not ment to flow fuel through it) you will get the heavier droplets of fuel puddling in the intake manifold and this could potentially make a big boom.

Considering you don't have a cheap easy means of tuning for a dry shot, and because the bigger injectors would cost more money, a direct port would probably turn out being cheapest and easiest method.

Not exactly sure what your plan for the nitrous has been all along, I was going to ask next time I see you.

 

Backpressure is bad, however you need the right size exhaust to keep the velocity of the exiting exhaust gasses up.

Dont wire the ports open, remove the sleeves and actuators.

 

Thanks for bringing that up, that's something I hadn't thought of....that is an awful lot of manifold to go through. That's not a bad idea at all. Where exactly am I tapping? I'm going to have to do some more reading, never done a DP setup before...planning on running a 65-75 shot right now, didn't know I could go higher with a DP.

I've got nitrous experience before and my exhaust manifold is already tapped for a wideband which I also already have No biggie if the motor pops, I will be turbo swapping eventually.



I've got an SAFC, but I wouldn't feel comfortable relying on that to add fuel with nitrous. Also not sure what to do with the stock injectors.

Single fogger will be cheapest and easiest, but you're entirely correct, a DP setup is going to be much safer. I'm going to start looking into that.


Well, I'm going to be removing the intake manifold to do some drilling and tapping, as well as fixing whatever I fucked up with those 6 ports...

I'm debating alot on whether to just remove the sleeves or retain stock activation.

I know that I won't gain anything up top either way, but I'm just really hoping that pulling the sleeves won't kill my bottom end. Aaron preaches very strongly against removing the sleeves, he says it'll make the car slower overall, and I can believe that, so I don't know what I'm going to do yet.

 

Personally I would tap the runners to the center iron (primary ports) since they dont have the Aux sleeves in the way to cause turbulence. Turbulence and manifold gasket lips are going to be what causes fuel to drop out of suspension. Its unlikely that fuel would drop out of suspension JUST because of the Aux sleeves, but for the time being better safe than sorry. I would port match your gasket to the intake manifold, and then tap the primary runners just as they go straight before the final turn into the engine. Besides having less of a chance of pooling higher in the manifold you will get a more equal spread to both rotor/housings.


If you want to get really creative tap all four runners, and cap the secondary runners. Use the primaries until you are happy (want to go faster) with the system and your fuel system, and then you can add two more nozzles down the line. If you have a full exhaust and an RTEK to control timing then theres really no good reason why you couldnt run four 35 shot nozzles. (One in each runner) Then if you wanted to play with it further down the line you could do a two stage setup, or just run them all at over 4k, if you can get traction.

Direct port is going to be the most effective and safest way to run nitrous on a rotary. I would definitely start out with at least one step higher fuel restricter, maybe two, so that you can be CERTAIN you are running rish while you get the car tuned. Changing a resticter pill is easy, replacing an engine isnt. With timing control and careful attention to fuel management I cant see any good reason why you cant run over 150 total shot.


BC