Thanks man... yeah SC is an option I considered and since I want a LOT of power (well, later on) I needed the drivetrain to handle it too, and so for that much work, might as well go full turbo, ya know. Good luck with your install, and do a thread on that too... I'm sure people would be interested in your version of a more powerful 'vert also, seeing as how few SC'd '7s exist anyway.

========

Today's update:

Accomplished:
- Bleed clutch
- Install Intercooler
- Secure and wrap EM harness with reflective foil tape -- although I didn't do it up with the stock clips since for some reason I couldn't get them to work the same way, plus they are annoying... I just went ahead and used one of those stock ziptie-to-plastic-clip things and a flexible metal loop bracket on the shock tower. I didn't secure it to the frame rail as its pretty stiff, and is already snugly between the heater core return pipe and the wheel well. It didn't seem to need much more securing down there and I can't figure out what clips go where anyway so I think its fine.
- Complete dash plastics -- she looks nice again inside! Needs a MAJOR cleaning + armor all + vacuuming though...
- Install battery -- left the negative cable disconnected for now though as I will do a thorough check of the wiring to make sure everything looks right before I go plugging stuff together. Plus the headlights need to be installed...
- Install AFM and the rest of the turbo intake piping -- I had to get some 3" hose clamps from Home Depot and use a dremel on them to cut the little slits which align the intake piping. Other than that everything went smoothly here. I'm waiting for my Bonez and Apexi air intakes to dry before I re-oil and install one of them. I'm leaning towards the Bonez since its a wee bit smaller although still far more than adequate for the airflow requirements. The apex'i is just bulky, and the back part of it is dirty and for some reason won't come completely clean... I think the plastic is discolored or something. So I might be selling a clean Apex'i air intake for a good price...

I need to order the demister grilles (lost one) and the defogger grilles (both of them shattered completely when I went to put back the metal panel that holds them. A $75 order from mazdatrix I think... gonna check a few other options first. I also need a new shift boot which I'm going to order from http://www.redlinegoods.com as they seem to provide very nice quality with good prices. If anybody knows where to get authentic momo inexpensively please let me know via PM.

My garage is a wreck... I need to clean it up too and find all the tools and parts that got scattered on the ground and now covered by boxes and the sand that is STILL coming out of the car, the walls, the cabinets, the shelves... everywhere. This garage will never be rid of it I'm afraid.

Anyway, with everything I was able to get done today, she should be pretty much ready to crank as soon as I give her some coolant, oil, and P/S fluid. I have to say, with the P/S pump off and completely empty of fluid, the rack turns SO easily... I'm tempted to lose the P/S later on. I've been threatening to do so, I just don't want to do it and wish I hadn't later.

The last major thing left is to get the exhaust fabbed, and I'm hoping we can work that in early this week. The sooner, the better.

I'll get some good pics up of the progress tomorrow I think. I'm too tired to do it today.

 

Well, I've been promising some pics... but you'll have to wait again! I went out to the shop today hoping to clean it up after a brief check of the electrical system.

I connected the battery after verifying that there were no visible wiring problems. All was good except my radio didn't work. *sigh* Take apart center dash panels, pull radio out, put multimeter on power wire. 3.2V??? WTF? So I said screw this and rather than troubleshoot the stupid audio wiring bus which I don't give a crap about anyway and has always given me problems, I went ahead and ran a new line for the battery power to the radio from the ignition switch.

Radio worked perfectly, but then I noticed the left door speaker wasn't working. *sigh again*... take apart left door panels without breaking any more plastics (done this many many times... the door panel was crappy to begin with and is now at the point of threatening to disintegrate at the slightest excuse)... pull out speaker, notice that it was not plugged in from the last time we had the door panels pulled apart.. plug it in... still no sound. Long story short, the radio needed to be reset as it detects which speakers are present during startup and activates or deactivates those amplifier channels accordingly. Figuring out that it was not the wiring harness's fault took another 30 min.

Finally, I go to check the dash illumination as I have new gauge faces and put in a custom-rigged UV illumination system for the needles... the "wash" front lighting was ugly on the silver reverse indiglo faces I have, so I had taken out all the bulbs except the turn and high beam indicators, and fabbed up two UV cold-cathode tubes in the front illumination ports on the gauge bezel. Well, one of those apparently had its ground get wiggled during installation. So I had to take apart the entire gauge cluster. During testing I found out that my battery was already pretty low on power so the inverter which provides power to the CCD tubes was also not getting enough juice, causing their operation to be intermittent at best. I soldered all the connections, tweaked the installation, and will go get the battery fully conditioned at pep boys tomorrow (well, today technically) and re-test before reassembling everything.

I'm hoping there are no slow drains on the battery in the system. When everything was shut off, and the doors closed, there was no measurable conductivity between the ground and the positive connectors, so I'm thinking its all right, but who knows the accuracy of a radio shack DMM anyway.

Basically, this means that since I didn't get around to cleaning up and my dash is now in pieces again instead of looking "nice" I'm not taking pics until I get the situation rectified and you can see the results of this current round of labor.

BUT it also means I've got some damn good pics in store for you. Keep checking back!

--------------------

Finally, a brief rant. I make mistakes sometimes. Okay, a lot of times. I'm not the smartest person out there, and I'm a lot smarter than I let myself act most often, which means I can be pretty stupid and not really mean to be. So I make a gaffe in a post answering somebody else. They wanted to know if the steering column surround on a 'vert is the same as on a coupe. Well, I happen to have a steering column on MY vert (go figure) and I also ripped the one off the Jspec front clip I bought for the turbo conversion. I happen to be using that same JDM surround (from a coupe) since it was in better shape than the one I had. So I reply that they are, in fact, the same, from personal experience. So I get slammed by a certain mod (whom I used to have a lot of respect for, I might add), for being incorrect and not knowing what the heck I'm doing. And I reply that I was, technically, correct, if airbags were not part of the equation. But my gaffe was really that I thought I had mentioned that I have an '89, which had no option for airbags anyway. And I further screwed up by "forgetting" that only 'verts had airbags (which I'm still not entirely convinced is true since I am basing this conclusion on anecdotal evidence). IF the coupes did have airbags, then they probably would have the same surround as the 'verts with airbags since the steering column is all identical, so I was still correct, given that if you have an airbag and you get a column from another '7 with an airbag, it doesn't matter if one is a 'vert or not. Even mazdatrix does not differentiate 'vert surrounds from coupe surrounds, just airbag from no airbag (if airbag is by definition 'vert they certainly don't say so). So its a very very minor point since it would be assumed by any sane, experienced car person of any ilk, that if you have an airbag you get parts for the steering wheel that are from another car also with an airbag. But no, I get FURTHER slammed for having forgotten that I didn't post my model year (its in my sig which somehow didn't go up) AND (here's what really caused this rant) that I am not to post if I don't know what I'm talking about.

Thanks. I really have no ******* clue what I'm talking about. I've only got the damn parts practically in my hands as I wrote that. And that I was tired and forgot to be painfully accurate and say "well, now, timmy, if you have an airbag you'll need to get parts from another car with an airbag, which I would assume means only another 'vert". That would be posting **** I don't know. I do know that I tried to help a guy out. Excuse me for posting what I do know. There's enough total BS on these forums... some truth with an honest mistake (about something that should basically be self-evident anyway) is not worth berating a person for -- that's the point of a FORUM and not a "write the expert" type gig.

Sorry. I will no longer post about things I am not 100% sure of, which means I will probably not post anything anymore, since I'm not sure about things I MISS -- which by definition means I'm not ever certain of anything. And I was looking forward to giving back to a community which has helped me out a lot, even with a lot of honest mistakes (and a lot of total BS) thrown in.

Thank all of you whose advice, honest mistakes and all, has helped a total car newbie do a complete engine swap and partial restoration of his '89 vert less than a year (including the six months I've been doing this swap) after learning the first thing about how a vehicle even works. You guys rock, and you've given me a lot of courage. I'd name names but I'd be sure to miss as many as I name, and that's not fair (nor would I be certain of my list, now would I?) so I won't. But you know who you are.

To those who have attitudes and want to shove mistakes in people's faces, oh well. I'll either do what you want and not post anything, or I'll just post whatever the hell I want. I've a mind to do the latter, but since I was low on time anyway I'll probably end up doing the former.

If you are a newbie or have Q's about 'verts or what I've done and I don't seem to be around anymore or nobody is paying attention to you, feel free to drop me a PM or an email. I'll be glad to help if I can. Of course, keep in mind I'm a complete idiot and will probably give you completely unreliable information. Don't trust a thing I say.

Okay that was a long rant but I'm sorry, I had to get it off my chest. I'd rather talk about it than keep it silent and let it simmer down under.

-------------------

Speaking of down under, Autospeed.com is a pretty cool mag for like $3 US a month. I've enjoyed it a lot. And I thought I had subscribed to RX Tuner (even got a confirmation email) but never got any later email updates and didn't get the magazine itself. So, whatever. I'd love to get it but until some organization begins to become apparent on the distribution side I've given up hope of actually seeing anything.

Well, I'm off to bed. Its 6am, and I have to go shopping for a few random things before I get my custom mid-pipe and cat-pipes welded up on wednesday.

Peace...

 

Once again it looks like I'm talking to the wind...

Well, the saga certainly continues. Today in our soap opera, the '7 was actually put on the ground on her own wheels for the first time in 6 months!! She rolled about 6" onto a flatbed truck, then was driven 30 miles to a buddy's exhaust shop where she was fitted with a temporary 3" welded straight pipe for break-in runs. Once those are completed, she will be kitted with a mandrel-bent stainless straight pipe, and a mandrel-bent 3" stainless cat pipe using my bonez 3" highflow cat. Wideband O2 bungs will be placed in each pipe, as far back from the engine as possible. The wideband sensor is already run through the shift boot into the trans. tunnel just in front of the shifter between the transmission bracket and the tunnel brace - no moving parts to get in the way, and several feet behind the engine -- should be a decent location for a wideband. She should be towed back to me about 8am this morning, we'll see how she goes.

On a more slightly devastating note, the radiator I had placed in her (and spent about an hour and a half straightening the fins with a screwdriver and razor blade) was discovered to be leaking massively from the top plastic end tank where it joins the aluminum. What a surprise for sure. Well, I went ahead and broke the bank (well, overcharged a credit card) and bought a Fluidyne high performance radiator. Should be here Monday at the latest... I'm hoping Friday but these hopes rarely happen. All this after I realized that I had forgotten to torque the large banjo bolt on the outside of the turbo holding the outer coolant feed on. It scared me a lot but the other turbo bolts I could get a wrench on seemed tight enough. Here's to hoping. Now I have to reclaim the 2 gallons of distilled water, water wetter, and prestone I added just before the unpleasant discovery of the leaks.

To add insult to injury, also just before I was hoping to start her up for the first time, her battery decided it was on its way out too. I had it charged and tested twice and it failed miserably both times. So I am now the proud owner of a new Optima Red Top battery as well. Go me.

BUT, good news for you guys. I've posted some new pics to my rx-7 page (link in my sig or in previous posts here) and you can see some of what she looked like just before she rolled out the door today. Some of them aren't the best quality - I haven't yet gone through and weeded the bad ones out. But there are pictures of various components, an underbody shot showing clearly where I did and where I did not bother blasting and cleaning, and a nice peaceful shot as I was turning the lights out that evening.

So that's the latest. Oh, I bought a bunch more stainless hardware too in my quest to replace as much stock steel hardware as possible with stainless. I have enough for the exhaust systems, heat shields, various engine bay brackets and retaining screws, and a few to spare, plus I ordered a large quantity of those pesky M10x1.25 and M12x1.5 nuts in 18-8 (A2) stainless. I forgot to get M12 lock washers and flat washers again, though.

I just noticed the forum is now auto-starring out cusswords. ****ers. Damn bastards. Mother****ing goddamn *******s. Let's see how many of those got starred out. I'll be glad to edit this post and remove this bit of sarcastic humor if the mods prefer. I'm just curious to see what the Machine does.

Anywho, that's the saga. Any comments on the Fluidyne radiators? I never bothered to search, I always wanted either those or the Koyos and the Fluidynes were easy to get (NOPI) so that's what I got. I'll keep you guys posted as the car keeps causing trouble.

 

Okay, more pics are on the way... I'll post 'em as soon as I finish this write-up. Basically, the engine is assembled. I *will* have to pop the intercooler off to tweak the idle speed up which I forgot to adjust before I put it on. I get the feeling that this intercooler is going to go on and off more than a few times :-/ ... FMIC is a long way away from a budget perspective right now - my priorities for this car go something like : full Racing Beat stainless exhaust setup + custom cat arrangement, then paint (black or dark grey metallic, show quality), then wheels, then a Haltech E6X or similar. After that comes FMIC and turbo upgrades.

Okay, enough about the future of this car... she hasn't even run under her own power yet! So let's discuss what's been done and what needs to be done.

I put the Fluidyne radiator in her today... this thing is very very nice, a completely solid unit and much thicker than stock. As advertised, it bolted pretty much right up (needed the original rubber isolators but other than that it was fine)... it came with the hose barb for the overflow tube. Was pretty much a half hour job. Afterwards I broke out a roll of 3/8" x 7/16" rubber foam weatherstripping and use it to fill in the gaps between the radiator, the frame, and the shroud. Should be a lot better sealed than stock as well.

The electrical system appears to function correctly - as far as I can tell without actually starting the engine. Radio, dash, illumination, and aftermarket gauges all work. However, when the key is left in RUN I get a number of warning lights... fuel, wiper, oil, coolant, and overheated exhaust. The check engine light does not come on, though. I am not sure if it would and its burned out or if it has no need for coming on. Tomorrow I am going to thoroughly check the sender circuits for each of these lights, as there is oil, coolant, and fuel in the car and the exhaust isn't even hot. I know that if there is an alternator problem all the idiot lights go on, but not all of them went on (ecu and brake are notably missing), and the engine was not started, which would preclude this condition I think. If anybody has any pertinant information I'd love to hear it before I get caught up in futile troubleshooting.

Speaking of futile troubleshooting... I pulled the EGI fuse and went to spin the starter a bit to make sure the starter circuit worked and the engine would spin nicely. Turn the key to start, nothing. Not even a click. *sigh*. Rip apart steering column, check ignition switch. Its okay. Proceed to starter cut relay. Connection between ignition and relay is good. Bypass the relay to see if its the problem. Nope. Still nothing. Go back to FSM... what's this interlock switch thing? I need to check it next. Oh that's the clutch interlock. OH... Let's just say its been too damn long since I've gotten back in a manual transmissioned vehicle. Hit the clutch, turn the key. Spun right up. That Optima is one hell of a powerful battery. 920 cranking amps versus my old battery's 650 (and it was at the end of its life with me).

I had a brief scare when priming the fuel system. Somehow this basic act sounds different every time I do it. This time it sounded like fuel was spraying out of the rail around the injectors, or the injectors were locked open spraying fuel into the engine... it was this LOUD spraying gurgling sound... my NA never did that -- come to think of it my NA never sounded like it was flowing anything really. The rewired walbro flows an insane amount of fuel compared... my fuel pressure gauge showed the proper 3 kg/cm^3, so its good to know my FPR works... regardless, once I figured out there was no leak my heart rate returned to normal. However, the fuel pressure sensor (visible in at least one of the pictures on my site, between the fuel filter and the hard rail on top of the engine) was leaking a small amount of fuel. I tightened it up as much as I dared, since it and the bung its put in are both aluminum. It has teflon tape on its threads but I won't know if the leak has stopped until tomorrow when I repressurize the fuel system again. I don't know how this fuel system priming procedure scares the <expletive> out of me every time I do it, but that's just my paranoia coming out. Hehe... trust me, when I go to roll my car out and start her for the first time I'll have my 3lb. Halon 1211 fire extinguisher in hand or close to it.

Well, at this rate if my O2 sensor hole plugs come in tomorrow as expected, I should be able to get her started and at least idling for a while. I doubt I'll drive her for a day or so, while I check for leaks, let her build compression, and just do general diagnostics. I'm desperately hoping there are no vaccuum leaks... you never know if you forgot a manifold line or not though. Plus, if I'm gonna drive her around, I'll have to put the undertray back on and the front plastic shrouds and I dont' wanna do that until I know for sure she doesn't leak.

Well, that's the update for the day. Check my site for the new pictures (usually sort towards the end). I'll get it all organized soon.

 

Nice work so far- I am liking the yellow accents on the irons, vac lines, brake pots, etc. Very nice! I wish my 88 vert was half as clean as that! Our dash setups look very close (sans boost gauges for me).

You have inspired me to attempt a similar project, however since she is my primary (read ONLY) transportation, and school & 40 hrs of work leave me little time, it may take me a bit longer. Know that I am watching your progress, and taking close notes!

 

Thanks! Its nice to know that some people enjoy this thread. I know exactly what you mean. This car *is* actually my only transport... I've been bumming rides around for six months. It sucks. BTW, document your project too... I'd love to see what you do differently. EVERY 'vert should be a turbo, IMO. Keep me in the loop as your project commences too, and good luck on it!

 

Hey man I just read your post today, damn took me damn near 3 hours to finish reading it completely... man I cant believe all the **** you did... I guess it was worth it in your point of view, but the undercarrage???? that's insane... your **** looks lot more complicated than my swap, but then again you didnt just do a simple swapp.. hey man good luck keep us posted.........

 

Very cool, I hope to do the same to my car, eventually...

 

All right... we've tried to start her several times now. She's all but started every time. Pops, then goes back to cranking. Unflooded, pulled and replaced the plugs, tried oil in the chambers (worked the best), inspected for spark (replaced the trailing coils when one was found dead on the first set - all four now spark happily), inspected the fuel lines for correct order ( its a Jspec but for some reason the FPR is on the secondary rail as per Aspec arrangement, so the lines run from the front pipe, to the primary rail, to the secondary rail, to the rear pipe, as they should) ... fuel pressure is bang on 3.0 kg/cm^2 ... bejbis here on the forum recommended I set the TPS again, so in the process I needed to yank the entire throttle body to get at the screws (were being stubborn when installed ) and in the process I yanked the stupid thermowax assembly on the TB. Fixed the TPS (was a bitch, I had to tweak the position of the sensor platform as well as bend the full range bracket slightly to make them come into spec), and reinstalled.

Since the battery was low I put a starter / charger on it, set it for start, and gave my baby a spin again. She started!!! Then I took the battery charger off and she quit. Tried a restart with the battery charger back on it, worked again, no problems. Quit again when it was removed, even with my foot on the throttle. So there is still some gremlin in there that needs to be checked out. The battery is on a fast charge right now and I'm gonna go out and try to start her with a solid battery in a few minutes. Just wanted to post what I did before I forgot it all.

There is so much not stock with this car, though, that its hard to troubleshoot everything since there are so many unknowns. :-/ If I can't get her to hold a very stable 1500 rpm idle tonight I'll take her to Mazcare and let them take a look. I suck at troubleshooting the running issues with these cars, and mazcare is pretty competent. But if you have any suggestions for me, here's what I do KNOW:

1. Spark is good
2. Fuel is as presumed good as possible without actually stripping the injectors off the block, running longer hoses, and watching them work. They were cleaned and blueprinted by Cruzin' Performance before installation so I don't expect them to be a major problem.
3. Fuel pressure is a solid 3.0 kg/cm^2 which is "proper" I believe, and indicates the FPR is working. The fuel lines are physically in the correct arrangement. The fuel filter is brand new. The fuel pump is brand new, with a new sock on it. When I looked into the fuel tank during replacement of it, I did not see any crud, sediment, or rust to be concerned about.
4. The engine HAS cranked up and run, for about 30 seconds to a minute, with my foot holding the idle at about 1500 rpm, but only with the starter/charger still hooked up. Still not sure why she has needed that, with a brand new alternator and battery.

See my sig for more details.

 

if it goes any lower than 1500 it shuts off??? I was looking at your sig and I noticed that you have an safc.. is it wired up now???? if so, is everything at 0??? the battery problem, all I can think of is the battery being faulty or not being proper cranking amps.. Other than that it should be the tps, but the car will run w/o the tps connected...


Edit* didnt realize you had a new battery

 

Yeah, it actually is normal for a rebuild to not run well below 1500 rpm for a while, but abnormal for it to require a battery charger to be connected in order to properly function.

The SAFC is currently performing no correction to the airflow signal, so I don't believe that's the problem.

 

my rebuild required a few starts for it to run fine, but it did like after 20 mins of it running. What happens when you remove the charger while the car is running???

 

It dies, which is the problem.

 

Update :: she's been running for 2+ hours now!!! Smooth 1700ish rpm idle, noisy but not unbearably so (the 3" midpipe probably), and so far everything but the A/C blower motor (and A/C system which needs a custom pipe fabbed) works AFAIK.

If she holds up this well I'll take her for a spin after letting her cool down so I can add more coolant (buzzer is going off due to system bleeding air, but temperature is steady around 88 deg. C). Her brakes feel soft, but they've always surprised me at how soft they feel whenever I have driven somebody else's car. I'll be really careful first out, though.

Oh, what made her run? Well my mom prayed, and my car started up and ran with only the initial boost from the unit... I disconnected it after an hour (and found that I had it off already instead of switching it to charge) and voila! She runs! Prayer works, yo.

 

Congrats, I'm glad you got it running. Now go take her for a spin, there's nothing like the feeling of a turbo vert.

 

damn you. Your car has run longer than mine has!

My conversion took 7 months and I have only run it for 1 1/2 hours so far. I set the idle to about 1250 and it purrrrrrs

Looking good!

 

Congrats bro, sorry I couldnt be of better help, but glad you got it running....

 

Thanks guys! Digit7ech, yeah mine is going on 7 months, and I got about 4 hours of idling and 10 miles driven on her today. I only quit when the fast idle cam which I neglected to remove along with the thermowax started jamming the throttle open to about 4-5k which is obviously not good for a fresh rebuild so I killed the engine as soon as I noticed it and have since removed the fast idle cam as well as the spring that moves it. Should be no prob. tomorrow.

I found that having a properly adjusted TPS is CRUCIAL to getting these beasts to start and idle nicely. I set mine via resistance, so on a series 5 with both narrow and full range sensors, the A-B resistance (narrow range) should be 0.8-1.0 kOhms, and the E-D resistance (full) should be 0.6-0.9 kOhms at the idle (throttle "closed") position. I jockied mine to somewhere around 0.845 and 0.856 but anywhere in that range should be just fine. Just don't go over 1k on the narrow and 0.9 k on the full... 1.1 doesn't work. Trust me.

She floods VERY easily though, it takes a lot of pedal work to get her to start up. But its getting better each time I try it. I hope that now that the thermowax bit has been fixed, she can be very drivable. She was already boosting atmospheric at 2k rpm under load, and I had to really watch what I did with my right foot to keep her out of boost - and that's with a wastegate linked straight to the compressor output - no bleed off.

So, there's a lot of tuning and work and break-in to do, but she's at a point where I'm getting much less stressed and more excited.

edit: misspelings

 

as the conpression keeps rising from a fresh rebuild, itll get alot better....I experienced the same problem, but I had the trim tab from the haltech....

 

Yeah before I got my car started it flooded over 20 times before the successful start.

It fowled the plugs to hell. I ended up buying new plugs and then towing the car and dropping it in gear(When it's 100 outside you try not to push start ARGH!).

It started right up and I adjusted the clutch a bit to get it back into my driveway.

I have noticed a huge difference already since before the 1 1/2 uptime it would just plain flood.

Now I can hear it wanting to kick over but just doesn't have that extra little bit of compression to get it there.

I will be idling thr car all day tomorrow and maybe sunday so I can get it ready to drive on Monday(it's my daily driver!)

 

congrats on getting the car running and for a SUPER writeup, I wish everyone fixing there cars would document it as good as you!

You get the standing ovations from the otherside of the atlantic

 

Well she's got about 50 miles on her now... driving a 2 mile loop in your own neighborhood is a slow way to get miles on a car but its got perfect hills, stop signs, nothing super intense but a good workout to break an engine in nicely. Plus low traffic in case I stall out. That and my registration lapsed while I was working on the car and they refuse to give me an exemption since its a factory engine. So I have to be careful where I drive until I get a hood on my car and my cat welded so I can pass emissions (or at least try to...).

Only significant problem I can tell right now is she feels slow compared to my NA -- even compared to the NA under low compression and almost dead. A friend said she should feel at least comparable without boost. I'm keeping her under 4k (usually under 3k too), boost below 2 psi (only hit ~2 when going uphill in 2nd at ~3-4k rpm under load) and she just feels slow. No pep. On the flats, she's fine. Uphills, or starting from a dead stop, forget it. S L O W. So I'm a bit worried about why she's so damn slow, and if I've got some hidden problem or an iffy rotor or a stagnant turbo or all these things I have never had on my car until now which I don't know how to troubleshoot right.

So, a little nervous, gonna pop the plugs and check them to make sure they look good (is that an art akin to divination?? ) and might just drop the catback and see if she improves any. I doubt it tho... its not that restrictive judging from the truly impressive amount of exhaust being expelled from each of the dual tips. It just sounds like *** (well, sounds like an outboard motor or a mack truck). I'm now saving up for the RB 3" turbo-back setup unless I am dissuaded by someone. I don't want to go single, but if I did I'd get the A'PEXi GT setup with the integral presilencer and then I'd probably still run the RB downpipe and presilencer with that as well. 'Verts are noisy with the top down.

Comments? Suggestions? And thanks for the encouragement!

 

remember that after a build compression is gunna a lil low. Do a compression test and see what kind of numbers you pull... do you have a stock turbo?? is it running rich???

 

I have a stock turbo, and as my wideband is not hooked up yet (the bung was welded in the wrong spot ) I cannot say as to whether or not I'm running rich. The exhaust is not noxious like it was on my NA which I KNOW was running pig rich. But I'm using an uncorrected (for now) stock ECU, so that should tell you its probably a little rich, especially at 1500 rpm.

I do have a stock turbo, for now. Compression test will come later, when I can get my hands on a true mazda tester. There is a guy in south atlanta who has one and I just need to pony up the $$ to get him to come out and give me a proper analysis. His prices are very fair.

 

Glad to see your project is coming along good and has worked out properly