2 hours last night, 3 hours today. One of the previous owners was a moron, and I can tell they once had a downpipe and put back the pre-cat to sell it. I've seen roadside mechanics in 3rd world countries who did a better job.

1) the cat-precat nuts were not stock. One was a 19mm castle nut, the other was 21mm plain hex nut with a plain washer and lockwasher underneath. They were definitely not torqued correctly. Fortunately, the dealer had new nuts in stock.

2) one of the dp studs was already broken off. The stupid SOB used a snapped stud to put it back together! I was wondering why that stud looked so short! He also had all the studs in backwards!

3) getting in behind the y-pipe (I'm replacing that too), I find out that the Si hose job wasn't done for the hoses nearest the turbos. Considering that's the hottest part of the engine, I'm going to have to go in and do them myself too. Anyone got some scrap Si hoses laying around?

To top things off, my RX7Store SS dp was defective - the cat-side flange was warped (won't seal) and the bolt holes are too close by .155". Don't buy this dp: the welding of the flange is done last in the fabrication, so there is no correction for shrink or warpage. I'm going to try and trade in for a M2 dp. Is this the best built pipe around? Cause I'm tired of F'n around with cheap **** parts.

Ugh. Time for a ****, shave, shower.

Dave

 

How bad is the warp? Can you lap it yourself? You can probably enlarge the bolt holes with a dremel.

 

The warp is really just the flange bent about where it meets the pipe. It would be about 1/8" off at the end against cat flange.

The holes are off .155", which would be a PITA with a dremel.

Sorry, but for $250 I expect the flange to be at least nearly flat and the holes within 1/8".

Dave

 

Hmmm, sounds like an exchange is in order...

 

nah...just get some duct tape and smaller bolts...lol....(return it and dont forget, most of these parts from online stores are drop-shipped...so itll probably need to be returned to the manufacturer)...jason will help ya out...dont worry...

 

same with me, my downpipe bolts, where it meets the midpipe, are too close. I bought it used so I'm just gonna throw some smaller bolts on there, instead of 14mm, i'll go with a 12mm.

 

I think one of the stock bolts on the precat is a different size than the other 3. Seem to recall that and I thought it was weird. How can the stud be installed backwards? It's screwed onto the manifold extension so it's gotta go in CW. Weird...

Anyhow, maybe the previous jobs were done by a cheap shop, not by the owner. I have a hard time thinking of an owner who go thru the trouble of putting in a dp and changing it out and still don't do the job right.

 

Dave (MakoDHardie) also got an Rx-7 store DP, when we were installing it we came accross the same problem. With a little "fabrication" we worked around it. We used a dremel to cut tabs out of it to make up for the flange being welded incorrectly. Took about an hour to take care of.

 

before....

 

after....

 

one more...

 

Your fix is exactly what I would need to do, but I'm going to get an exchange and upgrade to the M2 dp instead. I keep my car in great shape and because it's my baby I'm not going to settle for a kludge. Moreover, I don't want to give the fabricator/designer the impression that this is acceptable. It's not.

Dave

 

yeah. poorly made parts should be unacceptable

 

It really wasn't exceptable, but we weren't about to put the Pre-cat back on. Also that is his daily driver so it had to be done that night. So we really didn't have a choice, we did contact Jason and send him pictures. He said he hadn't had any other complaints. But it's in there now and it works.

 

That does suck...I am from Jamaica and it sounds just like the job a mechanic there would do ...It's really nice having people like www.RX7.com work on your car. Look on the bright side...at least you can send your DP back.

 

They can go in backwards - the thread is the same on both ends, just different lengths. I guess there's room on the hidden side of the manifold plate where the extra threaded length went. Mine had the short side pointed out - it held the precat fine and makes more space to get the pipe on/off, but there's not enough thread to put on 2 nuts to extract the stud. Fortunately for me only one stud didn't come out with the nut, but on that one I had to grind flats on the threaded end to get it out with a vise-grips. Glad I'm using new hardware. I'm also glad I had the y-pipe and turbo intake pipes out to give me space.

The cheap shop is another possibility I had thought of.

It makes some sense though: the current motor is a reman put in right before they sold it to the guy I bought it from. That sales receipt showed it was covered by some warranty plan. I imagine they put the pre-cat back on to avoid 'voiding' their warranty, and since it was going to be sold they didn't care.

Dave