Probably rollover protection against fuel spillage

Yep, in the case of a rollover the balls will plug up the inlets to the fuel cell to prevent spillage.

Some pictures of exhaust setup. Youll notice where it runs under the rear subframe transitions to oval for ground clearance.

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...hmentid=539344

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...hmentid=539345

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...hmentid=539346

very interesting! cool. keep up the sweet updates :)

Definitely not your 'normal' FD undercarriage, that's for sure :)

Logan does some crazy work. The guy is an artist. Explain to me the concept of the super long header tubes. One seems to be shorter than the others?

Haha, that it doesn't. Haven't seen you post nearly as often lately Rich, but your black fd is looking killer :)

^ David, those are equal length runners. Since all the piping collects at a single point under the chassis, it's impossible to have straight piping on a virtically mounted engine if your trying to maintain equal length runners. The front rotor is usually the straightest as it's physically the furthest from the collector. The center and rear need to bend to meet the collector at the point as the front. How you shape them doesn't really matter.

Is it normal on an N/A engine to run them that far under the car?

The header design / primary lengths is probably the most important aspect of making power in n/a form. The primary lengths are "tuned" in accordance with the intake track length to create a resonance. With the correct length of exhaust primaries before the collector you get a scavenging effect, basically one exhaust pulse creating a low pressure area behind it, essentially "sucking" out the following pulse. On the intake tract you try and make that work in reverse, as the air is entering the port at a high velocity, and the rotor closes off the port it bounces back and reverberates in the intake runner. At a certain rpm this reverberation will hit a resonance frequency with the port opening and provide a sort of natural supercharging effect. This is the reason for systems such as vdi in the s5 n/a cars and rx8, as well as the variable telescoping intake in the 787b. To try and match that resonance throughout the rev range. As far as the one primary on mine that looks shorter from underneath, that particular one just has more length up top (I'm assuming the front rotor) so the rest had to have their bends down below to match.

Here is a decent article on tuned intake and exhausts :

http://www.autozine.org/technical_sc...e_exhaust.html


They are sort of underneath just because thats where theyd fit. If my engine was in the "normal" location you could probably loop more primary length up top (such as Gordons car). With mine located so low and far back, that just wasnt an option.

On a side note this is basically why my car is at DefinedAutoworks in the first place. I enjoy working on my own vehicles.. and could I physically do a good majority of the work completed? Sure. Have I had years of R&D and trial and error working on N/A engines, fine tuning exhaust and intake lengths to find the perfect sweet spot and then tuning them to run properly? Nope :)

anything to update?

No :( .. Dont really know what else to say at this point. Pretty much just waiting for word from Defined, was hoping I would have it home by now to be honest.

Yeah tell me about it. It's tough to get in touch with a business that has a full VM box and wont respond to emails. I've been waiting for (2) 20b mounts for my FD going on week 7 now. I was told it would only take a 1.5 weeks.

Nice car BTW.

Let me know how loud it is when you start her up with two mufflers.....if it's quite let me know the type of muffler you used. I originally had two mufflers and added a third cause it was too loud. I understand that there are a lot of other factors go into how loud a car is but the mufflers are probably the single most effective component of reducing noise.... Keep the updates coming and hang in there....all this wait will be well worth it.

I guess the only thing I can say is that they are good people and you'll get your stuff. When it comes to timeframes though, yea.. Believe me I can relate to the frustration.


As far as noise, I wasnt hugely concerned being it isnt exactly a DD or a car I plan on cruising with. Im sure itll be fairly loud. It should be somewhere between comfortable and ears bleed. I know they are borla race mufflers, cant remember exactly the name (they may be xr1s), Ill have to look back through receipts and double check. I do have a decibel meter I could measure sound levels with if it would help you out at all?

No need to go thru all that trouble....just curious.

thanks :icon_tup:

^ If you are running a 3 inch pipe, the RX7Store mid pipe muffler is a great option to reduce noise. I had a constant drone in my car and needed a solution as I had a ringing in my left ear when I'd drive the car over 30 minutes or so. The RX7Store mid pipe/muffler worked great for me. Have been told I have one of the quietest 3 rotors around.

I am taking this off the car though as we have increased the piping to 3.5 inches. I ordered a high flow cat that we are going to use in its place. Didn't get this for sound dampening but to reduce the rotary smell of the exhaust a bit. Will be interesting to see how it compares to the previous setup as my guess is it will be louder.

As for the Borlas (XR1s), those work well but my setup was better and less costly. Had a friend that had one of those on his car in the mid pipe.

Have been finishing up all the little odds and ends and getting everything buttoned up. Here are a few pictures Logan had sent me just today. Custom bracket and tensioner for alt complete, drysump pump and oil tank plumbing has been completed. Had some hangups with the slide throttle but thats all good. Just a few more small bits, but startup should be tomorrow :)

Mounting location that has been decided for the oil tank. Cant say Im the biggest fan aesthetically, but its basically where it needed to go. Our original plan was where the ABS unit used to be, but concerns about hoses routing over the header and general engine bay heat in that area, basically with it here it will be in a cooler location with shorter lines. It is what it is, and it works.

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...hmentid=543971

Rest of engine..
https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...hmentid=543972
https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...hmentid=543973
https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...hmentid=543974

Lenny, so happy to see the car ready for fire up. Your journey has been a long one and you have been very patient. Let's hear that puppy start!

They couldn't even clean up the fan relays? For something to take this long it should be looking way more professional/factory.

^ Probably because that takes time and time is money. A shop is just not going to fix or reroute all sorts of things an a customers car unless they pay for it. Perhaps Lenny can do that work himself and chooses to let defined do the fabrication because he cant or does not have space to do that kind of work.


Also, water pump/alternator belt has almost no material on the main pulley that is no good and will probably slip.

I can definitely understand where you're coming from, especially on the timeframe. Some of which I do find them in fault, and some of which was from a number of other reasons. But as for the final "fit and finish", I basically told them to get all the fab work done and get it tuned , and don't worry too much about making it pretty. I will be taking care of that myself. Fingers crossed will be getting it back soon and then over this winter everything will be tidy'd up and it will look as should. As RenesisFD mentioned about, time and money.. as well as a will from me to do that myself. If you take a look at my bay vs Gmonsen's car which Defined also put together, you will see there is a vast difference in how they look coming out of the shop. Gordon asked/payed for that, as I did not. That being said these pictures are still "in progress", as Im sure they are not going to give my car back with shit dangling by wires.


Good eye on the belt, I will keep a close eye on it.

What fan relays? Can't take my eyes off of the important parts. Secksy.

This is a rather bold statement. Aside from the factory relays being in the factory location what about this whole setup is non professional? Nothing is polished aluminum, but it is virtually a slide throttle, itb, custom drysump race engine in a street car with nascar cooling. This is all business and maybe we are the only ones apparently but every detail was carefully plotted out and it looks the part. I don't even see where Lenny has any areas (excluding some relays) to make it better? Didn't expect this hate from you my friend.

Sorry, you are right, the work itself is very professional and the fab work is second to none.

I've been spending too much time on speedhunters where most features are really above and beyond (i.e. braided lines, AN fittings, no zip ties, tucked wiring, etc). I do realize not all of that is necessary. My comment was more based on how long this build seems to have taken vs that level of finish.

Instead of "professional", I really meant "OEM" fit and finish. But that is really none of my business and as the OP stated, there are many reasons for that , and the fault (or whatever one wants to call it) is not the shop itself.

A mod can delete my comment if you'd like. It wasn't really meant to be a stab at defined.