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Took the car on its first trackday! New track just opened in Norway called Motorcenter Norway, was very fun and the track has a nice flow. Car did great, temps stayed cool and brakes never skipped a beat! Only thing I noticed is that I need to stiffen it up a bit. So going to get a beefer swaybar and change the bushings out to poly. If anyone can recommend a good swaybar kit, let me know!
The car is now parked up for winter and I have already pulled out the engine. It is leaking quite a bit from the sump and I generally want to go over it and see if anything needs maintenance. Almost 99% set on going single turbo and ditching the twins + rat nest to cleanup the engine and get some more power out of it.
My first time pulling an engine out of my own car, but gotta say it was really easy. The only thing was the downpipe that fought me for a while since one stud didnt come straight out. It finally snapped after a bit though, so just needed to hassle it past the steering column and it came out.
Engine looks good for the most part, but looks like I need a new clutch disc as my 6-puck ACT is worn down. Probably going to go with some poly engine mounts as well. Then its just a matter of saving up funds to get the BW EFR turbo, Turblown cast manifold + downpipe and a new fuel system.
Engine bay is completely stripped and prepped. Ended up plugging up some unused holes from factory as well.
Got a set of Aero twenty three "Ganador" mirrors. Created from a mold of a genuine Ganador set and comes with blue glass and electric motor. Great bit of kit. Fit pretty good on the driver side, but passenger side could use some work.
Got my hands on a barely used EFR8374 turbo and decided to order the turblown turbo kit. Really excited about how the car is going to perform with this kit after reading up a lot about it. Everything looks great, but didn't receive the EFR Wastegate actuator bracket and 2-bolt exhaust gasket that I ordered from Turbosource, so hopefully they will get back to me soon and sort that out.
Also another note, seems they are supplying Vibrant filters now instead of K&N as listed on the kit when I ordered.
Started to clean up the engine and get rid of all the unnecessary stuff. Insane amount of vacuum hoses, solenoids and other stuff that I removed. Just waiting on some block off plates and new rear main seal as my oil leak seems to come from there. The plan forward is then to paint the engine bay, strip the engine harness from stuff not being used anymore, fit the turblown kit and order a FFE step up kit, bigger fuel pump with hardwire kit and Link plugin ecu.
Just make sure to hang on to all those factory parts! Someone might need them some day!
Yes I will be keeping them, just in case I will need them myself. Norway is a bit strict on modification, so if I get a "state ref" as you americans call it, I will be able to turn it back to stock and get it approved for the road again.
Mounted the Turblown turbo kit and EFR turbo today, everything looks great! Cannot wait until spring comes and the car is running!
Engine bay is finally painted, much better but also a bit disappointed with the gloss level. I could go through the effort of wetsanding and polishing it, but cannot be bothered as its just an engine bay at the end of the day. Turbo kit is also fully mounted up, just missing the wastegate still, but have gotten a hold of Turblown who let me know they were on backorder and will sort one out as soon as they can. Decided to paint the Greddy Pulleys black as well since the blue didn't really fit in.
Thought I'd revive this thread and update you guys, been a minute.
I managed to get the engine back in after the final parts from Turblown showed up.
Walbro 455lph fuel pump going in with Deatschwerks Hardwire kit
Simplified engine harness
Wrapped downpipe
FFE step up kit with ID1700cc injectors
However I had a problem where the car would die after starting up. Turns out I removed one wire to much when cleaning up my engine harness that was meant to supply 5v to all the sensors. After fixing that, she idle'd with no issue. Just got it ready in time for the season start and made it to the first car show of the year.
Car was a blast to drive with the new turbo kit. The sound is intoxicating. The turbo sounds like a jet engine!
Also got the mirrors and Feed headlight duct painted and installed. Along with Feed stickers for the spoiler and Feed door handle covers in carbon.
I had some issues with overboosting with the IWG. So out came the turbo and ported the wastegate.
Car has been flawless since the single turbo conversion.
Took it on its biggest roadtrip yet - 8 hours from Stavanger to Rudskogen for Gatebil Festival 2022.
Also took it to a trackday at Motorcenter Norway where it performed really good. My only complaint was brakes fading after a few laps and tyres getting hot.
Took it drifting as well. My first time ever trying to actually properly drift and it was really difficult with a car not set up for it! But managed to get the hang of it in the end. Very addicting, but will need a purpose built car for it since I don't want to risk crashing the FD now that they are worth so much!
Didn't do much during the winter, but installed some braided brake lines and got a new SAS Autowerks exhaust in hopes of quieting down the car a bit. The straight pipe with only a HKS muffler at the back was getting a bit too loud.
It definitely helped a lot. Very quiet on idle and cruising, but gets loud enough when you get on it. Turn down tip helps with the amout of flames it shoots to save my bumper!
I ended up taking the car to a trip down to Nurburgring, but before that the toe arms I changed a few years ago already went bad. So I swapped back to the stock ones and changed the bushings to poly. Very big improvement and fixed the slop in the rear.
The car made it down after 18 hours, about 1300 km's and 3 fuel stops! The only issue being that I lost one of my Feed carbon door covers on the Autobahn.
Got pretty dirty on the ride down!
Got 2 laps in on Saturday before eventually being black flagged for being too loud! Apparently the car was breaking the 130db limit! Not sure how with two mufflers in the exhaust system, but I suspect it actually may be the turbo that was too loud. Could possibly making a high pitch sound that I cant hear, but obviously picked up by sound meters along the track... A bit disappointed only getting two laps in, but was a blast to drive there none the less. The atmosphere around the track is also something to enjoy. Feels like you are in Forza horizon with all the cool cars around the track and small town in the middle of the track.
On the next day I met up with youtuber Misha Charoudin who took the car for some laps and made a video about it. Crazy to ride with him and feels the difference in how he can push the car knowing the track. Found some weaknesses that I will address on my next trip down. Video can be seen here:
Had my first engine fire which I guess is mandatory for RX7 owners. Luckily I keep a fire extinguisher in the car and managed to put it out quickly before and real damage was done.
Turned out to be caused by a fuel leak right before the FPR. In Europe they just recently changed to E10 fuel standard, which means that it can contain up to 10% etanol. Guessing the fuel hose I used from the generic auto parts store couldn't handle it and gave out finally. Changed it to an e85 rated hose that came with the FFE kit and all is good so far. The only damage really was a bit of charred electrical tape, charred paint behind the intake manifold and had to re-seal the FPR with thread tape/sealer again. Very lucky I guess and that I noticed the fire just before parking the car. Do not want to think about what would happen if I didnt notice it and left the car...
I have started the upgrades after my Nurburgring trip. The first being to finally install the Recaro seat I had laying around. Had to weld up some custom brackets for it, but got it installed in the end.
The stock bushings in the car was due for replacement after 28 years. Went with SuperPro's kit and J-Auto pillow ball bushings.
Got some new brake discs as well - Dixcel Slotted from Japan.
The brake cylinders in the front calipers did not want to compress back in. Some of the gaskets were completely done for, so rebuilt them and they slid back in with ease.
Along with the new brake pads from Project Mu - Type HC.
Stock swaybars also got changed out for stiffer and beefer ones from Cusco.
And lastly some new gear and handbrake boots from Rmagic:
That brings us to today, so the next plans for the car is to get a new alignment done after replacing all the bushings.
Some other stuff in the plans are:
Upgraded Swaybar mounts
New Coilovers with stiffer springs - leaning towards BC ER Series with 16kg/16kg springs
Front brake ducting
New exhaust to quiet the car down even more for track
Air intake - to quiet down the turbo noise and get colder air
But will most likely wait until winter to do the more expensive stuff like coilovers and new exhaust.
Well, looking good except that engine fire! Great catch with the fire extinguisher
Mandatory RX-7 owner ordeal; not necessarily! With the amount of fuel pushing through, that's definitely a fear in the back of my mind.
Added this as a relatively inexpensive insurance vs the catastrophic potential - 3 nozzles in the engine bay and 2 on me
Very cool lapping the Nurburgring with Misha - the man knows his way around The Green Hell
Have fun out there - stay safe and keep the updates coming
I've heard enough horror stories out there, so its always in the back of my mind.
Not a bad setup with the fire supression system, probably a must if you are tracking your car often.
My car is still mainly a street car, so a bit overkill at the moment.
Took it drifting as well. My first time ever trying to actually properly drift and it was really difficult with a car not set up for it! But managed to get the hang of it in the end. Very addicting, but will need a purpose built car for it since I don't want to risk crashing the FD now that they are worth so much!
Didn't do much during the winter, but installed some braided brake lines and got a new SAS Autowerks exhaust in hopes of quieting down the car a bit. The straight pipe with only a HKS muffler at the back was getting a bit too loud.
It definitely helped a lot. Very quiet on idle and cruising, but gets loud enough when you get on it. Turn down tip helps with the amout of flames it shoots to save my bumper!
I ended up taking the car to a trip down to Nurburgring, but before that the toe arms I changed a few years ago already went bad. So I swapped back to the stock ones and changed the bushings to poly. Very big improvement and fixed the slop in the rear.
The car made it down after 18 hours, about 1300 km's and 3 fuel stops! The only issue being that I lost one of my Feed carbon door covers on the Autobahn.
Got pretty dirty on the ride down!
Got 2 laps in on Saturday before eventually being black flagged for being too loud! Apparently the car was breaking the 130db limit! Not sure how with two mufflers in the exhaust system, but I suspect it actually may be the turbo that was too loud. Could possibly making a high pitch sound that I cant hear, but obviously picked up by sound meters along the track... A bit disappointed only getting two laps in, but was a blast to drive there none the less. The atmosphere around the track is also something to enjoy. Feels like you are in Forza horizon with all the cool cars around the track and small town in the middle of the track.
On the next day I met up with youtuber Misha Charoudin who took the car for some laps and made a video about it. Crazy to ride with him and feels the difference in how he can push the car knowing the track. Found some weaknesses that I will address on my next trip down. Video can be seen here: Youtube
However the car only made it two laps again before being banned, so no more laps for me sadly.
I had assumed you had a dump pipe and that is why it was so loud, but apparently not. I think that muffler is probably just too aggressive for a track with sound limits. It's basically a race muffler.
Rotaries are just naturally loud. If anything, the turbo makes it less loud.
Great to see the progress. Care to share the temps on track since you have a front mount? I always love to see owners with their FDs on the track.
Had no issue with temps at all, oil stayed around 80 celsius while on track and never overheated coolant temp. Efini touring model so I have factory dual oil coolers. Along with the koyorad and undertray ducting I made it all works great. Only issue is sitting in traffic, the oil temp will reach 110 celsius, so plan on installing a fan on at least one of the coolers.
Had no issue with temps at all, oil stayed around 80 celsius while on track and never overheated coolant temp. Efini touring model so I have factory dual oil coolers. Along with the koyorad and undertray ducting I made it all works great. Only issue is sitting in traffic, the oil temp will reach 110 celsius, so plan on installing a fan on at least one of the coolers.
What about intake temperatures? That's usually a harder issue to deal with than fluid temperatures.
What about intake temperatures? That's usually a harder issue to deal with than fluid temperatures.
Do not have a gauge for that and didnt take any datalogs, but never been an issue for me. I still have the stock IAT sensor on the manifold so that usually gets a bit heat soaked, but temp shows around 30 degrees usually as long as Im moving. Plan on installing one just before the throttle body eventually and also installing an android headunit so I can get more gauges from the Link ecu.
Just got around to installing my Feed fog lights that I bought forever ago. Couldn't get a hold of lenses for them, so had to make my own. FEED requires proof the bumper is genuine and where you bought it from, so no go there since I bought mine from Shine auto. Shine auto used to have replica lenses, but none more in stock and no word from their supplier when it will be available again. So I bought some 2mm thick sheet of Acrylic glass that I cut out to size, took of the bumper and layed it on the ground and used a heat gun to heat up the acrylic till' it eventually started to move into place. Very happy with the passenger side one, but the driver side could still use a little bit more work around the edges. Also going to tint them a bit darker, but need to get some proper tint as when I first tried something from the general auto part store, that was completely trash.
Tire rubbing under compression.
Coilovers not stiff enough and running too low, so it hit the chassis before bump stops acting like pulling the handbrake on one side. So the car wanted to steer left into the barriers.
09-22-21, 01:28 PM
and keep the updates coming
