The stock washer tank is SUPPOSED to have an O-ring seal between the fill neck and the tank. It also has a hose that goes from the top of the fill neck to the top of the tank, not totally sure why that hose is there. They do both seal properly, I had mine filled to the top when I was leak testing with no leaks there.

The stock OVERFLOW tank doesn't have a seal at the top, that's why it barfs out when a car is overheating.

Again, it could be worth it to buy a new washer tank if you're serious about it. Not only is it clean and nice and not full of old crap, but it REALLY dresses up the engine bay. I've seen tons of cars with super clean polished/ceramic coated/carbon fiber engine bays with yellow nasty overflow tanks and washer fluid tanks.

I also thought about using the rear washer fluid tank as a fill tank somehow - have it connected to another tank that siphons down to it when you fill. Not sure on the physics of making that happen.

One thing I considered to help insure clean fills of the tank is using a funnel with a coffee filter in it when filling. That should keep a lot of the crap out. Don't know how important it would be when filling from a new sealed bottle of washer fluid.

Dale

 

personally I'd avoid the coffee filter, you'd probably be introducing more particulates into the water than without. Since the nozzles are so small to atomize the water, I think that an inline filter is a must... I thought a few kits came with them but it looks like my aquamist is missing one.

 

I'm back from vacation, have a nice box of electrical connectors waiting for me. Tomorrow night I'll be doing some more work and post up some progress for you guys.

Dale

 

yes! by anychance are you going to carlisi at gordons this year?

ps looks great! top notch

 

Sorry for the slow update, but there's not been much to report until today. Rained solid all day today, so I closed up in the garage and worked at it pretty much solid today. It's DONE and ready for testing on the street!

First thing that took some time was getting some GOOD electrical connectors. AEM supplies a few cheesy crimp connectors with the kit. Yes, that will work, but if you ever want to remove a component to work on the car you gotta cut wires. Also, there's not weather-tight connectors, I want my underhood connections to be sealed and long-lasting. Also, I want everything to look sharp and as professional as possible.

I ordered connectors from a site called Eastern Beaver -

http://www.easternbeaver.com/Main/El...onnectors.html

They specialize in Japanese connectors for repair work for motorcycles. They're actually in Japan, but shipping was VERY fast (only a few days). They do have a minimum order of $20 or so, but that's fine - I stocked up .

The biggies I was looking for were a small, small gauge, 2-wire connector for the water level sensor that was watertight, a large gauge heavy-duty watertight connector for the pump, and a simple non-sealed connector for the LED light in the interior.

Connector for the water level sensor -

http://www.easternbeaver.com/Main/El...-MT/sm-mt.html


Connector for the pump -

http://www.easternbeaver.com/Main/El...ripack280.html


Connector for the interior LED -

http://www.easternbeaver.com/Main/El...onnectors.html


Note that all these connectors require a proper crimp tool that will curl the tabs down and crimp tight to the wire and insulation. I've got one that kinda rinky-dink, I really need to order a better one, but it got me through this job. Some of the crimps I did weren't so sexy but they work.

Proper terminal crimpers have teeth like so -



Eastern Beaver does have proper tools as well, if you want to really step up your game on your wiring and make some quality looking and working connections this is the way to go.

Tools -

http://www.easternbeaver.com/Main/El...ols/tools.html

More on next post....

 

weather and metri packs for the win. Dale Clark doesn't have a proper crimper? c'mon dale...

 

Call me juvenile but I just like the name Eastern Beaver.

 

First off, sorry for the blurryness of some of these pics, I think the moisture in the air messed up the camera or something.

OK, first order of business was to put a connector on the level sensor and get the tank back in the car. Here's the pieces -



You push the weather seal onto the wire, crimp the terminal to the wire (one tab on the insulation, one on the wire) then just push the wires into the shell. I like to do it like Mazda does, put the connector with the open terminals (the female shell) on the dead circuit. This way if it's unplugged the live terminal would have a hard time touching ground and shorting.

Blurry shot of the terminal on and split loom tubing on the wire -



The AEM kit supplied some fairly small split loom tubing with the kit, not enough unfortunately, but enough to get me through. You can also get rolls of it from McMaster-Carr REALLY cheap, FYI, in any size and length.

Pump with the terminal on and split loom tubing -



The pump bracket had to be re-drilled after I went to mount it. The pump JUST touched the steering column which is a no-go. I had the holes centered in the bracket, so I just re-drilled them closer to the front of the bracket to move the pump back. The pump is solidly mounted to the driver's frame rail just above the motor mount and below the steering column. The two bolts holding it in place were a BITCH to get started, with having to re-drill the bracket and all I spent a good 2-3 hours just mounting the damn pump. But, that's part of the deal, I wanted an out-of-the-way location that wouldn't interfere and that required some compromise.

Washer tank mounted back in it's home -



Pump mounted. Yeah, the pic sucks. This is looking straight down.



Next dilemma was what to do about the injection nozzle. I have a Greddy elbow I was planning on going to, problem is my IC pipe would have to be re-done and I don't plan on keeping my current IC setup long-term. I did another post on this topic looking for input, found people saying the stock plastic elbow was fine to mount the AI nozzle in. With that, I grabbed a spare stock elbow out of the attic, cleaned and re-painted it (looks great now) and drilled/tapped the elbow. There is a LOT of meat there to work with, it's a good 1/8" thick at least. Just be careful, it IS plastic and doesn't make for super solid threads.

Terrible pic of the nozzle installed on the bottom of the elbow -



The AEM control unit needs a vacuum signal to see how much boost is running so it will trigger itself. They include some crap rubber vacuum line in the kit, there is NO rubber vacuum hose that goes under the hood of my car. But, I didn't want a full run of silicone all the way into the cabin, so I ran silicone 3.5mm Hose Techniques hose to the hole into the fenderwell, then used AEM's hose from there to the controller. To join the two I used a spare HKS vacuum line filter I had from something else, figured having the filter on can keep some junk out of it. I used a nipple on the back of the intake manifold, firewall side, to hook up to. No sense T-ing into hoses when you have perfectly good capped vacuum nipples . I think the one I used was originally for the double throttle.

Pic of the filter, this is just above the cruise control mechanism. I pulled it up for the pic, installed it's buried down in there and isn't visible.



OK, controller time. I put the controller where it will go, up above the driver's kick panel (I zip tied it to a thick harness there), ran the wires to where they needed to be to check length, cut the wires, pulled it all back out, and crimped on the connectors. I also wrapped some of the wires up in electrical tape (good 3M tape) to make neat harnesses.

The LED requires a 12v wire as well, after cutting the signal wire to the LED, I used some of the leftover red wire to run that 12v. I did the connector then spliced and soldered the red wire into the red power wire for the controller, nice and tidy.

Pic of the controller with connectors and tape -



Crappy closeup of the 3 connectors on the harness -



The LED is installed in my dual gauge pod, between the two gauges. Nice and visible and clean.

Final wiring was ground and switched power. Ground I found a bolt ground by the CPU, 12v switched was off the ignition switch.

Time to test - ran the line to the injector and in a bucket, then used the test button on the AEM. The test button SUCKS, it's recessed in there and hard to get to. But, it tested, had a leak at first on one connection I didn't push in well, after that it was leak-free and made a nice mist. Yes!

Final step was I wanted to tie the AEM's fail-safe output to my boost controller. The AVC-R has an input for a "scramble switch" - when this input is triggered, you can lower or raise boost by a set amount. It triggers when the wire is grounded, and fortunately the AEM's output is a ground. Ran the wire over and connected it, went to the Sensor Check screen on the AVC-R, and checked with the connector to the level sensor plugged in and unplugged. With it plugged in (full tank) no error on the LED and the AVC-R showed the switch Off. Unplugged, LED blinking error code 1 (out of fluid) and the scramble switch showed On. Success!

This output could also drive a relay to cut power to a boost control solenoid, nice clean way to keep the boost down when you're out of juice.

The main power connection to the pump I ran off the hot terminal in the underhood fuse box. AEM doesn't supply a fuse (grrrr) so I got a high amp fuse holder from the parts store with a 25 amp fuse.



For running the wiring/hose to the cabin, there's an unused grommet that's easily visible with the fender liner removed. I have other stuff running through there too, real nice way to go.

Car is now buttoned up and ready to try out. I have to clean up the garage first, it's a damn MESS. Hopefully tomorrow I'll make my first AI run!

BTW, many people have asked me why I don't run an RX-7 shop. I doubt a customer would want to pay me for 15 hours of labor to install something like this . This is the way I like to do things, take my time and do it clean and right.

The proof will be when I run the car but so far this met my requirements. Short hose run, used the stock washer tank, pump is out of the way and well mounted, good wiring everywhere.

BTW, I went ahead and installed a new driver's side fender liner (I had already replaced the passenger side). Installing a new one is like wrestling a damn bear, it takes time to get a good set so it's easy to go in, first time sucks. But DAMN it looks good in the car!

Hope this helps someone else out!

Dale

 

Awesome install Dale! I will overlook the non professional crimp tools.

 

Awesome work Dale!

You going to turn up the boost now or are you just using it for a safety margin?

 

Going to keep the same amount of boost but like having the extra safety and hopefully the power of running a colder intake charge.

Hope to get it out for a test drive tonight!

Dale

 

Great job Dale. Waiting for your driving impressions.

 

Re the metri pack connectors: check out Waytek Wire

Shipping will be faster and they have excellent prices

 

Bump for an update!

 

Nice, I'll be doing mine pretty soon. Thanks

 

So far so good! Intake temps drop like a ROCK on full boost. Mr. Knock Count is staying happy.

I haven't run the tank dry yet, I want to see if the float/failsafe system works like it should.

Dale

 

From the AI section: https://www.rx7club.com/auxiliary-injection-173/another-option-pump-location-fd-959565/

I mounted the pump a little farther aft then DC. Similar but on a plate with studs that I tacked to the frame rail.
I also used that same low-level switch from Devil's Own as a ground for a red LED to tell me when the tank was low. A green LED lights up when the pump activates. That tells me that everything is working but also makes it easy to set with the boost gauge. (The LEDs are on a single 'A' Pillar pod used for coolant temp) The only other thing I eventually plan on doing is to hook up an old lighted toggle switch formally used for my "fan mod". I'll use it to kill power to the pump should I ever run dry and not able to fill up the tank right away.
Mine has pretty much eliminated the coolant temp spiking I typically saw after periods of hard boost. Knock was lowered, but not as much as I'd guessed. Maybe because mine is set to activate at about 2 psi.

Around town about a tank of water lasts nearly a tank of gas. Since I try to always fill up at about 1/4 tank or before, I just fill the washer tank from distilled water I keep at home or at a little shop I have. On some "spirited" cruises this summer it only lasted about 1/4 to 1/2 tank, which is why I started thinking about the pump 'kill' switch so I wouldn't have to worry about running it hot.

The whole thing is really low-key. Other than the two little LEDs, this is the only visible sign it's there.....

 

Looks nice Jim.. I am just about done wiring mine up. The aquamist 2d. I have mounted the pump and all sensors. Getting ready to dress the engine and drop it it. Pics are coming soon. G

 

sweet write-up Dale...now changing spark plugs gonna add extra 30 mins due to the AEM pump!!!!

 

Dale, which nozzle did you end up using?

I used the middle one, which I believe is an M5 315cc/min. My car is nearly stock, I wonder if I'm using too much.

Here is the write-up I did back in January 2010. It might be useful for somebody in the future.

https://www.rx7club.com/auxiliary-injection-173/aem-water-injection-install-write-up-883642/

 

^Great write-up Adam. I actually cited your thread in my earlier link.

FWIW I'm also running an M5 water-only and seems to do fine. I'm also at stock boost with just intake/IC/DP/emissions deleted. I followed Howard Coleman's formula in the nozzle sizing sticky based on horsepower...in my case a best estimate.

 

I'm running whatever the default jet size is with the AEM. So far so good!

Dale

 

SgtBlue, I did not realize that was my thread in your post. Thanks for linking to it.

Are any of you guys running wiper fluid? That is all I've used. I found the MSDS sheets on the Peak website and the only ingredient listed is methanol although I'm sure there is a small amount of dye as well. I believe the water used in the fluid is probably pure and clean.

 

I have a battery drain problem, been going on since well Jan 2010 when I installed the AEM injection system.

I followed the instructions exactly and connected both the red pump wire and red controller wire directly to the battery. I'm drawing .026 amps with those wires directly connected and .013 without so I know the AEM is drawing power all the time.

How did you guys connect to power and are you certain you're not having an issue?

I see what you did Dale, is that connection HOT with the key off?

 

hmm, so this newer style pump is supposed to be able to pull the fluid versus gravity fed?

sorry, the pickup tube had me a little concerned about the pump's ability to pull the fluid into the pump. all previous systems were gravity fed from the bottom of the tank.

if the pump is below the tank(should be) it will still pull the fluid but priming it may be a bitch and if it gets low may cavitate.