Wow that harness looks awesome! Coming along nicely!

Dale

 

Thanks Dale! The Raychem products give a pretty nice finish and even better protection for the harness.

I've got the engine harness apart. Definitely more corrosion than I'd like and inadequate cabling for grounds, my high output alternator and the 2kw starter. I'm thinking I'll integrate the coil loom to the main loom and get rid of that connection as it is an additional point of entry for corrosion to minimize future issues, the better the feed to the coils the better .

 

So here is the original power loom. It's actually in very good condition but where the terminals for the starter and power connectors are open to the elements it has corroded. This isn't really an issue as it's just on the surface and if the car was stock it could likely run on fine for a long time. However, I have a 2kw starter and a 170a alternator so the voltage drop over the current cables are no longer within acceptable tolerance. I'll be replacing these with 35mm2 cables.

I'll also be improving the wiring to the coils to ensure they are working to their full potential. Then a full re-wrap using Raychem dr-25, scl and hft, replacing any wires that have signs of corrosion or if the insulation is baked on the wires causing them to go stiff.

How it looks with most of the bits we don't want separated out:




Mazda love a cable loop, look at this inefficient wiring:





New starter terminal hydraulically crimped and sealed with SCL:






New cable to connect X01 to X02, old cable on the left:



Being a pretty simple harness this one shouldn't take long to get sorted .

 

New plain weave carbon lip and spoiler on, really like how these look! The brighter pics were taken in the day, IBM really brightens up in direct sunlight.









Swapped out my clutch line for a Sakebomb braided one that I've had for around 5 years. I bought it when I did the brake lines and never got around to fitting it! Also fitted new wiper arms and a new throttle cable. Undertray is also back in, all fittings are stainless with penny washers and aluminium rivnuts into the rebar so it should all come apart nicely in the future.





Picked up a Banzai diff brace. Hopefully it'll fit with the Autoexe braces without modifying.

 

Love the carbon lower spoiler. Take care turning into those driveways!

 

Lip is super nice. Is it genuine RE-A?

 

Haha yeah I'll have to be careful. I've got some 3m protective carbon effect tape I'm thinking of putting over the leading edge to protect it from light scrapes.


Thanks! It's Shine's rep of the Mazdaspeed lip to match in with the spoiler blade .

 

Power harness complete. The cable ties are not staying, just I wont be sure of the main grounds exact location on the loom until I try it on the car with the engine in so this is to fix later on the car after a proper test fit. The loose green wire is a shield wire ground that needs trimming to length and the reason the main ground wire looks short is because it is! It's just running to the ground point under X02. I'll then run a separate cable from there to the negative battery terminal which I will make on the car.

The coils have larger gauge wires for power and shielded signal wires. I'll change the power source to be relay switched from X02 in my free fuse slot, these mods will be done as part of the front horseshoe harness. So the power to the coils still links through X-12, just with beefier cabling. For the eagle eyed, yes there are open holes in the ring terminal connectors, these have since been filled with epoxy to prevent corrosion getting in .

The coil plugs are a later version used on some newer Toyotas, same fitment but a better design and more robust.

The coolant level sensor is now a sealed Sumitomo single pin connector to prevent corrosion ingress. I've left the AC clutch as a spade for ease of fitment and swapping compressors, but it is sealed with epoxy on the connector.






Now the starter, coils and alternator can work to their full potential .

 

Just read through this whole thread, thoroughly jealous. the Rx7 I purchased also has the double fog light switches, but I was unable to figure out what the second one does. I havent picked the car up yet as it has to go through a compulsory inspection here in Japan, so I havent been unable to pull the center console to see if its wired to anything and being used as a switch, or if its OEM. What does your second switch do? Thanks!

 

Are your switches both front fog switches? If so it'll be something someone has added as it's a nice OEM switch compared to using a random aftermarket switch.

Mine are different, one is a rear fog and one is a front fog switch. Rear fog lights are compulsory here in the UK. JDM cars never came with rear fog lights. It was only European and Australian FD's that got the fogs and that's why the rear switches are hard to come by.

 

Yea I did notice that yours face opposite directions, while mine both face the same way. I'll have to see what its wired to once the car arrives. Appreciate it!

 

I inserted a fog switch from an S6 in that middle location, so one switch glows orange and the other green. I mounted the S6 fogs to act as daytime running lights as required here in Canada.

But I later figured out another solution, so added the switch so I could actually turn the fogs off.


Better to see at night.


There were convenient spots on the S8 "rebar" in order to mount the S6 fogs, incidently more or less where the fogs mount on an S6.

We are also required to have side marker lights ahead of the front lheels. After pilfering about seven alternatives from cars in the local junk yard.

I decided to go with the side marker lights from a Scion XB. Incidently , they look a lot like the side marker used on the newest Supra.(Toyota you didn't!)

 

That's a lot of lights you've got going on that front end! .

I'll probably catch some heat for this but I've recently bought some Honda fog lights I'm going to try on the FD and see if they go. The output on them is amazing being modern LED's.



If I don't like them I'll fit the crystal Raybrigs I posted earlier to replace my oem Raybrigs the car came with from factory.

 

What are these pieces? Are they from the rear tower for the seat brackets? I added rear seats to my FD and I have the correct brackets. I can’t figure out how to install them so they fit without being all wonky. There are no FDs here that came with seats from the factory. Thanks for any info!
[img]blob:https://www.rx7club.com/0cc198ff-aa29-4656-b1bf-4848ab03d205[/img]

 

Can't see pictures. Are you selling your bins?

 

What are those Honda Fog lights from?

Car looks amazing man!

Vince

 

Yeah they will be fun to fit as they don't line up with anything really! I'd say the best way would be to bolt the catches to the brackets and install the seat back then slide the latches into the seat back and see where they end up on the towers and fix them there

Thanks Vince! They are fitted to a few Honda's, current model civic etc but I think they are a JDM option. I imported these from Japan and when I photoshopped them onto my FD it looked good.... Fingers crossed they still look good in reality .

 

Check over all the engine parts and gave them a final clean, should be good for assembly next weekend. Took quite a bit of filing with super fine files and cutting stones to get the water seal where the front iron was repaired to like new, I'm really happy with how it came out. I'll snap some pics during assembly when it's on the stand.

Cleaned up the engine mounts and fitted the IRP poly mounts. My passenger side mount had seen better days so this should be a noticeable improvement!





When cleaning up the exhaust manifold I noticed how far out the ports are when compared to the gasket size so I'll likely port match these to the turbos and rotor housings to try and improve the flow a bit. I also need to do a little porting on the plates and the uim/lim, so I'll probably have an evening porting this week. I'm not sure it's worth me changing the intake ports in the irons, I'll likely just clean them up and smooth them out a bit without altering the timing affecting surface as I'm not after anything crazy power wise.

 

Happen to have these available for purchase?

 

Those sold with the seats I'm afraid!

Got all the porting done last night.Ported matched the LIM and UIM to gasket size. Ports look a little rough in these pics as this was right after using the carbide bits. I finished them with flap wheels after but didn't take pics as I was rushing.









Also ported the rear turbo hard pipe and the rear y pipe to turbo flange. The front y-pipe flange was already matched to gasket size so didn't require any porting.








Exhaust manifold ported a bit for better flow, smoothing the transitions internally and matching the rotor housing side to the sleeve size in the rotor housings. This pic is pre finishing, so still a little rough. I also ported the turbo hot sides to near gasket size for the primary and for the secondary to leave a small seat on the turbo control flapper, making the ports as large as possible without leaking.






I did also port the plates but the pics I took are pants. I just ported the bowl of the port and gasket matched them where they meet the LIM as I didn't want to alter the timing.

 

That's some really nice work with the porting. It should really optimize the flow thru them.

As usually, your parts look better than new. I'm jealous of your access to a quality plater.

Vince

 

Thanks Vince! Yeah I love gold passivate on zinc, it's going to be pretty bling in the engine bay when it's back together, hopefully wont be too much haha.

Speaking of back together, I built the motor Sunday!

Front rotor:



Rear rotor:



The main bolts looked good plated, shame to hide them really.




New counterweight and flywheel on, old pilot bearing out. I've been looking forward to doing this for a while as my pilot bearing has needed clanging since I got the car. Not surprising it was gone, the seal was half missing and no signs of grease left, the bearing fell apart when I tried to remove it and ended up coming out in pieces.




New bearing and seal in:




On the later cars Mazda used these lock plates on the front hub to stop the front hub bolt coming loose. Also does a nice job of tidying up the front of the pulley.





Sump sealed with Hondabond, IRP stainless brace and stud kit. Engine mounts are also IRP.



And there she is, ready to receive all her new shiny auxiliaries and fittings!





I'll leave it sitting for a week for the sump silicone to fully cure then if the weather is good next weekend I might get a chance to get all the auxiliaries fitted and throw it back in the car.

 

Man I love this build. What boost pressure are you planning to run? I wonder what difference the porting will make. It looks great.

 

Thanks! Boost wise it depends how it feels, being on manual controllers it'll be a slow process of increasing the boost until it feels good with a smooth transition. I don't want to push anything too hard and create a lot of heat so It'll definitely be staying at or under a bar. Going by past FD's I've owned, for me the most fun in an FD was mid 300's on twins so that's what I'm roughly aiming for.

 

Currently building up the twins, here is a preview of the billet wheels compared to an OEM N3G1 comp wheel