Hopefully everything is ready for the first event! I'm under a time constraint for my first event too, but don't have near as much work to do as you. Excellent work here though.

 

Thank you. It has been a ton of work just to get all the bad prior upgrades out of the car. I am just hoping I can get it running and enjoy it for a summer at 450-500 rwhp before my baby is born.

 

Well I finally have an update:

I finally got the car tuned at Beyond Redline Performance in Green Bay WI. To say the least I was disappointed with the results. It made 400.8rwhp. I had a couple issues which led to the low numbers:

1. I had spark blowout. Already ordered NGK 5501 R7420-10 to fix that issue
2. The turbo is choking out the power. I have never really know what turbo is on this car, just some of the specs I can verify. 66mm Inducer, 60ar compressor, 1.15ar turbine housing, and unknown sized wheel.
3. Wastegate is opening at 8psi and then somewhat closing up to 22psi. I bought a 20psi spring to put in the gate and will be testing for boost leaks.

With all that said I will most likely be upgrading the turbo at some point too but with a kid coming 400hp is not bad and keeps the car reliable.

I will get a video up as soon as I figure out how to without giving everyone access to my photobucket account.

Added the Pineapple Racing idler pulley to help keep contact on the water pump pulley:


All washed up before loading it up on the trailer:




Dyno Graph:

 

how was your experience at beyond redline? they've tuned one of my cars before. contemplating making the trip up there to have them tune my FD once it's ready.

 

I will hold off on my full review until a few issues are sorted out with my tune but overall I am very happy with how they tuned my car. Luke is VERY knowledgeable and took my barrage of questions and responded with no attitude and taught me quite a bit! I just have an issue with running lean under very slight throttle that he said is a decel map issue and he will correct the map and email it to me. Also he programmed my wastegate to open at 8psi under normal driving and under hard driving to open at 22psi... I personally find this annoying because it seems like my wastegate is open all the freakin time. He said he would correct that too in my new map.

Overall I would refer everyone to Beyond Redline for their tuning needs. I have a friend locally with another FD that I will be sending up to them. I also feel like I got a great deal.

Hope that helps!

 

it does. howard built my motor as well, so he would be there during tuning (i think). i worked with luke so much in the past, but never actually met him in person!

thanks

 

Well... the inevitable happened, I need a rebuild. I am going to try to hold in my frustration as I basically threw away 700.00 on a tune just to have a coolant seal let go which means its all gotta come out and get rebuilt. My engine was a new Mazda Reman with 6k miles on it so that makes this all the more frustrating.

I have been working closely with Howard Coleman and Beyond Redline on what to do next but with a baby on the way and a house purchase looming over head I think this may spell the end for my RX7 for years to come. I am throwing around the idea of buying a used JDM engine and throwing it in but I am a bit afraid of the unknown and possibly being stuck in the same situation with a used engine.

There will be more updates to come but I am fairly certain they will not be good.

 

I have a 2jzgte for sale if you need a baller motor :-p.

But in all seriousness, sorry to hear about that. $700 for a tune though?!?!?

 

I have seriously considered swapping out the engine for a RB26 because I have quite a bit of experience with the RB motors but it makes no sense. I have all the supporting mods for 550-600 once the engine is built so I should stick with rotary.

 

I finally have an update... of sorts.

I got the engine pulled again to taken up to Howard to the rebuild. I can not say enough about how HUGE of an asset Howard is to our community! I spent about 4.5 hours there while he tore down my engine and learned more than I ever thought I would about the 13B and my engine specifically.

The take aways were great:
1. My engine is in VERY good condition. You can obviously tell its is a very low mileage engine that really just needs Howard to work his magic to make it even better.
2. There was no clear evidence of a blown coolant seal, but clearly water in the oil.
3. My crank shaft was bent... very odd and rare but he got a new one in and ready for me.
4. My exhaust manifold (and ports) seemed to be what was holding me back.







With all that being said I set out to build a new, better flowing manifold. (My old one will be for sale shortly. It is perfect for someone looking for 400-425 rwhp). I bought all 2.1" ID schedule 10 stainless steel piping, another Tial 44mm wastegate, and build a "jig" so i could make my new manifold in the exact same turbo position as my old one so I didnt need to redo all my charge piping and down pipe. (Photos show the jig when I was going with a singe wastegate.






That is all the further I made it on the manifold last night. I obviously need to work on the transition still going into the T4 flange, but I am pretty happy with the progress for a 3 hour night.

 

if you're making your own manifold why wouldn't you just rebuild your own motor?

 

That is two completely different animals. I would rather pay someone with the reputation as Howard to rebuild it and rebuild it right. He also stands behind his work so it was a no question. That being said, if I was not having a baby this fall I think I would have done it myself. My worry was that I would screw something up and have to pay twice. That and I would have never check the crank and found that it was bent, so that made it even more worth it.

Building manifolds and manufacturing parts is easy, I can do that in my sleep!

 

Looking great man. I'm jealous of your fab skills!

 

Well its been about a month and I got the engine back now. I know its not a super exciting tread to follow because I dont have super fancy powder coating but oh well!

It turned out I had a cracked front plate which was causing my burn of antifreeze issue.


I am not much of a photo taker when I am working on my car so I got a photo of the engine with a lot of the crap back on it as well as it in the car. I also took a photo of my coil bracket I made to get the coils off the top of the engine. It works with the P/S but its tight! I may just take it out and convert to a manual rack.




I am hoping to start the final mock up of my manifold this weekend so I can get the car running again. More updates to come.

 

Looking good Bro!

 

They're night not be super fancy powder coating but that engine bay looks pretty clean to me.
And that red 99 front end...omg it's nice.

Keep us posted is more interesting thread than u you think

 

Thanks for the compliments guys.

Does anyone know if I remove the Air condition/Power steering bracket if I need to replace it with anything? I see there are bolts that go into the front plate and the chain cover. I didnt know if it helps support anything.

 

Another small update:

I got the runners for the manifold made and tac welded (Keep in mind the manifold is not final welded nor lined up perfectly at this point). All I need to do is position the wastegates and then I can have it welded.

 

Looking good!!!

 

i really enjoy your updates.

that sucks about the coolant seal

do you have any more info about that turbo? it should very easily flow over 400whp at a mere 15psi. at 22psi i'd guess it would be ~500... is it an authentic garrett?

also, of all the EMSs for a rotary, why AEM? just curious. it seems like AEM/rotary haven't really been a common match since back in the day when they came out.

 

Thank you!

The turbo is an authentic T04z with a P-Trim turbine wheel and a 66mm compressor wheel. It had a 1.15ar exhaust housing that I switched for a 1.01ar. It should be quite a bit more responsive and spool quicker.

The car came with AEM when I bought it so I ran with it. My tuner seems to be able to do good things with it, but does agree that it is a bit out dated. I will ether swap it out with an AEM Infinity or go Haltech. I need something that I can hook a flex fuel sensor into.

 

yeah that is an aggressive turbo!

and about the EMS, i've used many of them (AEM 1 and V2, haltech e6k/e6X/e8/platinum/elite[kinda], PowerFC, adaptronic, megasquirt, hydra, etc.) and i've always liked the Haltechs the best --especially since the platinums came out, and the Elites blow the platinum out of the water. the software is just a lot simpler and understandable in my opinion, and so many rotary guys use haltech. it's like supraforums with AEM.
i'd definitely recommend a haltech platinum with your setup (or an elite if you can pay a little extra $).

 

UPDATE!

The car is back up and running. Typical me, I didnt take many photos during the process of putting it all together and getting it to the stage it is at. Here is a quick writeup:

I got my custom manifold TIG welded and back. I wrapped it (double) to help with heat on the LIM. I swapped the turbine housing from a 1.15ar to a 1.01 from the advise of Howard Coleman to help with street abilty and responsiveness.

Of course I was going for as much power as possible so I swapped out my 1000cc primaries for 2200cc... and then back from the advise of my tuner Luke and Beyond Redline Performance as the AEM v1 has a hard time controlling that large of an injector in the primary location. My inital goal was 550 to the rear wheels, after a lot of thinking and Q&A with Luke I decided to tune the car just south of 500. There is may reasons for this but mostly I want a reliable FD that I wont have to rebuild every couple of years... I am having a baby in Nov and that will cost me enough!

Now for some photos:

Manifold tack welded ready for the TIG welder in my jig:


Post TIG welding (I have to give Shayne Draper a huge shout out on his skills!):





Manifold wrapped with the wastegates and in the car showing position. I should have taken a under shot showing the two gates joining into one screamer:




V-Mount all put back in. Thank god I made that jig, placement was perfect!


New SMB exhaust... I LOVE it, so much quieter than my HKS!

 

And some ***** shots after I took it out for a spin. Officially have 47 miles on the new engine:




Lastly... She is running pretty hot! AFR's are in the 12s but lean out a bit at times. I am making sure I stay out of boost while I put some miles on it prior to my Dyno session on the 28th.

 

Pics don't work.