Rated R1

Well what has started out as a small exhaust leak has turned into a major surgery. I went up to Deal's Gap on the 4th of this month and I had an absolute blast, but when I got back to town I noticed that my car had developed an exhaust leak.

A few weeks ago I had noticed that the turbo "whine" had gotten a little louder. First, I thought it was due to the Gotham Racing short shifter I had installed and the fact that since the shifter is a smaller diameter the rubber boots do not fit as well and let in more road noise. However, when my car was starting to sound like a harley I knew I had some issue I needed to investigate.

I jacked up the car and first listened for the exhaust leak. I was hoping it was just the DP to the Cat gasket, but the noise was definitely coming from a spot more forward. So I pulled the undertray and the turbo heat shields and checked the bolts/nuts/studs that hold the turbos to the exhaust manifold and they all appeared to be tight. So I moved up to the DP and checked those and they were tight as well. I called it a day after that because I had just gotten back from Gainesville the day before after a not so great GRM $2004 event.

The next day Dave Disney came over and we tried another technique to pinpoint the leak. As everyone knows, ATF makes a lot of smoke when it goes through the engine and the smoke will quickly reveal where exhaust is leaking from. So we pulled the boost guage and ran a line from the UIM into a bottle of ATF. He reved the engine and I looked from under the car and smoke started pouring from aroun the exhaust manifold heat shield area. I couldn't tell if it was coming from the turbo to manifold gasket or the manifold to engine gastket either way though... All right! I get to pull the turbos!!

So the next day Tuesday I call Carson (Spyfish007) and tell him what I have planned and he said he'd stop by and check things out. I got the turbos off the car and this is what I find:



Ouch. Luckily I have a spare set of turbine housings laying around so I might as well port the old wastegate while I'm in there. Carson shows up and says while we are in there we can machine you primary injector housing to put in some 850s, install my kickass blockoff plates, do away with the airpump, EGR, ACV, AWS, double throttle butterflies, and simplify the rat nest. He didn't have to twist my arm to much and I said it sounds like a plan! By the way this is what my basement looks like right now (my wife is so thrilled). Notice the sweet *** cedar strip canoe I built a few years ago:



So in the meantime I order new gaskets, nuts, and other associated doo dads from Mazda Motorsports (thank god for these guys), call up Rich at Gotham Racing and order a supra fuel pump to feed those injectors and their alternator/waterpump pulley set, and send some 850s to Marren to get cleaned and blueprinted (might as well while I'm in there right ) Rich also tells me they have a new resonated midpipe coming out soon. So I figure I got a ported wastegate might as well run a midpipe now as well.

While I'm waiting for the parts to come in Carson and I go ahead and start pulling stuff off the top of the engine. I go ahead and pull the UIM, coils and some other things while I wait on Carson to come over. Let me tell you he is a genius when it comes to this area of the engine. We had the rat nest and injectors out in no time. We also dissassembeled the turbos and he took the "new" housing with the wastegate and the primary injector housing off to be machined. We also start pulling the rat nest apart and remove the EGR, ACV, and all the other little things that are being replaced by his block off plates. Here is a pic of the revised rat nest:



Some of the sloenoids and other things that will not be going back in the car:

Rated R1

and a couple of shots of the engine bay after teardown:

Rated R1

Here is a pic of the wastegate (sorry for the larger pics):



Gotham's pullies (did I mention how great these guys are?):



Injectors (Marren):



Reassembly and cleanup started on started this past Saturday. We got the turbos reassembled and back into the car and installed some of the block off plates. I also installed the new pullies and the supra fuel pump. We started a little late in the day and I had an autocross on Sunday so we called it a day after the turbos were in the car. Since the car was down I had to run the STi in SM2, I still won my class BTW.

Yesterday we installed we installed the injectors and fuel rails, and the rat nest. There is still a couple more evenings worth of work to do. Hopefully the car will be ready for tuning by the weekend. Here are a few pics of how the engine bay looks now. Pay no attention to the dirty vacuum lines!






I'll post more updates this evening or tomorrow.

Fatman0203

You are a brave fellow my friend!

Nice pics!

dgeesaman

iTrader: (7)

Neat stuff, but the basement picture makes me dizzy...

OOh, dibs on the y-pipe!!1!

j/k I have one, just wanted to be first in line

RX7Wishing

engine degreaser is ur friend!

RX7Wishing

wow, that is some seriously bad cracking... Mine is doing the SAME THING.. in the mornings the car is SUPPPER loud.. im assuming i have the same cracking problems as the leak is definetly at the turbos. I have a used but in good condition exhuast manifold ( portion that bolts to the engine ). After seeing your pics om going to go ahead and find some turbine housing as well. I just want to be prepared to replace all of that shilllznit.

fastcarfreak

You are very lucky to have a friend that knows what he is doing and can help you out will all your stuff. I wish my friends knew anything about cars, more specifically rx7s. Let us know how she runs when your done. Do you plan on turning the boost up for more power now that you got a new set of twins in there?

fastcarfreak

on another note, you did a really nice job making that canoe.

Rated R1

Thanks for the compliments on the boat. I am still on the stock IC for a while so I will probably keep the boost at 12 psi for now. We have a pretty good circle of friends here in Knoxville and the surrounding area. I mean we have Disney, Carson, Kevin Landers and several other good shadetree mechanics and Garfinkle is right down the road, but I haven't had the oppurunity to meet him yet. We do a good job of helping each other out while we can.

spyfish007

You do long write-ups than I do! I am really good at making a project balloon from $200 to easily over $800! I can do this anytime you like.

We like speed around here. Disney & Co are always working on some grassroots project. Well here is my currrent project.

spyfish007

Ok I've tried posting my attachment 6 times now and nothing works, so this is a test to see if I can even post to this thread.

adam c

iTrader: (2)

If you have not spent all of your money, now would be a good time for an efini y-pipe. Since you have a Mazda Motorsports membership, you should be able to pick one up for around $190 (last years price).

spyfish007

You should ask him if he has an efini y-pipe.

Rated R1

I'm going to wait on the Y-pipe. I have a pettit boost hose kit and I haven't had any problems with the infamous coupling hose. I don't want to buy an Efini y-pipe if it is not going to be compatible with whatever intercooler I decide to go with. Right now I will stay with the stock y-pipe. If I get an efini one it won't take me long to install it.

That vacuum hose looks familiar. It looks like it matches the spark plug wires really well.

roadsterdoc

Is the wg on the left ported? I can't see any difference other than it has been cleaned. What exactly was done to it?

Nice job on everything.

spyfish007

It is ported from 1.00" to 1.25".

tt2323

Very nice write up and pics...the efini y pipe doesn't fit with some Intercoolers? how is it not compatible?

roadsterdoc

So I guess at 1.25" the flapper door is big enough?

spyfish007

Yeah, done this many times now. Even with the play in the flapper door it still covers the hole. I go down right about .75". I probably need to go down another 1/8" to clean it up a little more. Tyler had to do a very small amound of grinding to clean it up.

Rated R1

Some intercooler pipes are made to connect to the rubber coupling that joins the Y-pipe with the cross over pipe. When you put an Efini y-pipe on there you are eliminating that coupling because the y-pipe bolts to the crossover tube. They are $212.05 from Mazda Motorsports right now.

adam c

iTrader: (2)

Different intercoolers use different piping. If he were to install a front mount intercooler, the piping would all be different.


Spyfish, I saw the old y-pipe, so I didn't need to ask.

RXtacy

iTrader: (7)

It's good to see that your taking this all in stride, and as an oportunity to improve. Good luck with your car and your season, but please use normal camera angels from now on it hurts my head.

Rated R1

Angels? What angels? Are they all that bad or just the one with the tile floor? If it's just the tile floor one, then I apologize it was the only way the line of parts would fit in one pic.

spyfish007

You should still ask the question ... it might have a funny answer.