XanderCage

iTrader: (1)

Alrighty, couple more updates. First and foremost... Wheels! Finally took the plunge and got something nice. These pics were posted elsewhere but what the hey, I'll put 'em here too.
Rays Gram Lights 57Transcend 17x9.5 +40 all around, with Bridgestone Potenza RE-71R's 255/40. Was on the fence about going with 18's but I didn't want to roll fenders and also didn't want to sacrifice too much tire sidewall. Plus I think the RX-7 is one car that makes smaller wheels look big. I'm extremely happy with the current look.






Took it to the next autocross and man, these fresh tires made such a big difference. I was on borrowed RE-71R's last time which were a few years old but I just didn't expect the difference to be this drastic; thing just sticks to the road! Transmission performed great too, changed the fluid to Neo HD (it was really kind of a mishmash cocktail of different brands before) and once it warmed up it was smooth as silk, just the way I wanted it.

Now the other thing that happened at that event was- I was going around a corner when suddenly I hear a "POP" and the engine died completely. I coasted to the edge of the course and had to be pushed back to the staging area. Damn! Not representing very well for the rotary community. Well me and my co-driver both dove in and discovered that the fuel pump wasn't turning on. We lifted it out of the tank and found that the positive connector had came out of its socket. MAN! WILL THESE FUEL PROBLEMS NEVER END?!



Turns out the plastic tab which locks into the connector must have broken off, so there was no locking mechanism for that wire. You can kind of tell in the below pic that the tab on the left connector is not present on the right one.




For the short term, we put it the connector back in its place and zip tied it with a bunch of slack to the other wires so that it wouldn't get tugged on. Once I got home I ordered some bulkhead studs from Radium.

I lengthened the wires (probably a bit too much really in hindsight...) so I wouldn't run into the same tugging problem, and installed the studs.





Okay. Going to another autocross this weekend, this time I want NO ISSUES!

Testrun

Wow man that's kind of scary. Glad to see it didn't end much worse like popping a seal or something. Glad to hear the tranny worked out!

XanderCage

iTrader: (1)

Oh, it was extremely scary. As I was pushing it down the course, in my head I was just thinking "pleasepleasepleaseplease be ok!". When it started up again without any fuss I was laughing so hard and had the biggest smile on my face. I had to rev it up a few times just to let everyone there know it was still alive and ready for action! I had stated in a previous post that the wires survived the "pull test". well, here's a lesson everyone can take from that... pull harder.

XanderCage

iTrader: (1)

Free time to post some minor updates. Car came with a muffler that had a crack in it (advertised as such). For a long time it was holding up fine, so I just lived with it and saved my pennies. Well, over time the small crack grew and grew and it's finally not fine anymore, I feel like it's a safety hazard at this point, like it could just crumble right on the highway.



So, I needed a new exhaust (catback really). I was debating a while on what to get, but my desire to stay dual-tip really limits my options. I mean, there's the Racing Beat duals, the Apexi N1, St Mays Shotgun, ReinHard, and M2. After weighing cost, availability, looks, and reviews I ended up going with the tried-and-true RB dual catback. Not the most exciting choice given its commonality, but one that I in no way regret.


It will never be this shiny again!





Got some black seats too, actually got really used to my old tan seats. Enough that I'd actually prefer the tan (that kind of coffee and cream look), but these were in just such better condition I couldn't pass them up.


Finally, the piece de resistance, inner door triangles! It's the little things, y'know?

Not the most exciting updates but it's fun to improve things little by little. Should have a more interesting item to report on soon!

Testrun

Awesome updates imo.... I use to love buying new cat backs.... I dunno why, but just one of those parts I never minded spending on (when I had the $ anyway). The RB dual is a beautiful piece.

I will also be going the black seat route. May be one of my next mods after I get this thing tuned and finish up the pillow *****.

Your car is looking awesome.

XanderCage

iTrader: (1)

Whoa, been a bit. Figure now's as good a time as any to update.

Took the car to the track for the first time! Went to the Ridge in Shelton WA and had an absolute blast. There was a problem however, the brakes just wouldn't last more than 3 or so laps before fading and shaking and I'd have to pull off to cool them down. Now, I know, I could make the stock brake system work fine for my purposes. However, I used this as an excuse to buy and install the AP Racing kit from Sakebomb.




Brought my cavalcade of tools, a lesson learned the hard way!




Shiny parts!


Old Busted


New Hotness


Lots more brakemeat


Did the rears too, don't much care for the red-on-blue color but I'm leaving it for now.

Testrun

Wow congrats on the track and the new brakes..... I've been eyeballing the same ones, but I have to get to the track to justify the cost lol.
I look fwd to updates on how they perform. Car is looking good.

How is that stealth pump working out?

silverTRD

iTrader: (36)

Nice brakes. I’m curious if the mx72 are all they’re cracked up to be, but then again you could run street pads with that kit and have a huge upgrade. Go to the track right away and report back ya?

Johnny Kommavongsa

iTrader: (13)

Nice. Cool to still see this car on the road and being tracked.

XanderCage

iTrader: (1)

Yeah! It was so great, I feel like I should apologize to the car for waiting so long.

Thanks! Yeah, I went with the MX72s on recommendation of a buddy who like me, used to run Hawk HP Plus pads, and also like me, didn't like the dust or noise on the street. These have been great so far; they don't grab as immediately as the Hawks but are more grabby than my most recent pad- EBC Redstuff. But yeah, another track day will really be the test.

Thanks a lot man! As for the pump, I'm actually having ANOTHER mysterious fuel issue! I've known that I've had this problem for a while but haven't done anything about it just yet.

My fuel pressure drops seemingly as temperature increases. This hasn't been too big of an issue as the pressure drop isn't usually enough to effect the AFRs to the point that it would raise concern. However, I do know its happening and want to get it fixed eventually, I'm just not 100% sure where to start. Just for fun, here's a graph!

The yellow line on the top graph is essentially, fuel pressure (it's really the difference between fuel and manifold pressure, but that shouldn't matter for this example). During this time, I'm idling at a frustratingly long stoplight. Notice oil and AIT temp rising steadily on the bottom chart, while fuel pressure slowly decreases on the top.



Here's the same graph, just zoomed waaay out on the time scale. It's easier to see this way that there's a definite decline in fuel pressure as I'm waiting at the light. You can also see that once I'm rolling again, the overall trend for fuel pressure is that it goes on the rise.


So, I don't know what's causing this. Again, my guess is heat, as that seems to correlate although I do not have a fuel temp sensor to really prove that theory. As for culprits, my knee jerk reaction is that it could be my FPR, it's a Fuelab Mini, and I think this because while the pressure does drop, it stays regulated. By which I mean, it still tracks with manifold pressure as it should, just at a lower differential pressure, if that makes sense. I do have a fellow RX7 enthusiast nearby who I talked to, and he relayed the info to one of our forum gurus (I don't want to name anyone, as I didn't talk to them personally) who stated that he does not trust the Aeromotive Stealth I've got in the tank, and recommended swapping that out for a similar sized Walboro.

But I'd also like to know yall's opinion and get some group-think happening on this issue. Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

TwinCharged RX7

iTrader: (14)

Where do you go to the track around here?

XanderCage

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Are you local? I see your location is listed as Connecticut.

Well, I went to The Ridge in Shelton WA. It's a fantastic track with lots of elevation changes. Also around is Evergreen Speedway for AutoX, Pacific Raceways which is another good road course, and if you're willing to travel some, Portland International Raceway is down south. However, the real jewel and the most fun track I have ever been to is Oregon Raceway Park. It's in the middle of nowhere in Grass Valley Oregon so I've only been able to go once but it was the single greatest driving experience I have ever had. So, yeah, you've got some choices around the PNW.

Brianawd

have you checked voltage at the pump. 90s jdm cars are know for shitty wiring. If it was me I would run a wire from the battery or alternator to a relay to the pump and use the factory fuel pump wire to trigger the relay.

TwinCharged RX7

iTrader: (14)

Awesome. I hadn't looked into it. I've been in Edmonds for about 4 years now. Guess I should update my profile haha.

XanderCage

iTrader: (1)

Yes, I should have mentioned as it's relevant, the pump has been directly wired to the battery through a relay, and I even have bulkhead studs running thick gauge wire to the pump in tank to eliminate any voltage drop through the old connector. I've also done the mod where you cut off the o-ring fitting and attach the pump with a fuel hose instead. Good suggestion though, as doing so did net me a couple more PSI when I was having earlier problems!

Testrun

Just wanted to mention my same issue. "An ever leaning trend" is the name of the thread. I share your problem. I have a few ideas and will keep you posted or just try to check the thread from time to time.

I will look at your build again and see if there are any possible similarities. I think this problem occurs a lot, but a lot of people just don't notice jt.

mazdaverx713b

iTrader: (91)

You've done an amazing job getting the car right and I enjoyed reading your thread and seeing the pictures! Very well done and very beautiful FD!

XanderCage

iTrader: (1)

Thank you so much! That really does mean a lot!



Today's project is taking care of something that has been bugging me soooo much. When I put my headlights up or down, they love to continue to dance up and down for like a full 45 seconds before they finally stop. They always stop in the right position eventually, but it is so embarrassing that if I knew I had to drive at night, I'd raise them up in the garage and leave them up all day. So that won't do, I want all of the basic "car stuff" to work like it should.

So. Let's dig in then.



I don't have pictures of the actual headlight motor/actuator extraction, but I was surprised that they were actually (in the grand scheme of things) pretty easy to get at. After taking the headlight shroud off, and disconnecting the control rod, it was like three bolts or something simple to get them out.

Once out, you can see the up/down sensor-


So those three metal tabs on the right ride across the surface of the metal disc on the left. You can see that the center tab always rides on the metal part, while the outer and inner tabs will sometimes ride over those bits of white plastic which cause the circuit to be broken indicating that the light has reached it's destination. If that signal is too weak, it'll just go up and down forever (I don't know if it has a timeout or something) until it gets a strong enough signal.

And I wish the above picture was more in focus, but you can see that the paths the contacts travel on have become scraped and blackened as well as the tabs themselves. I used a q-tip and some isopropyl alcohol to do my best and clean the path of the contacts on the disc, although those black rings are stubborn! I also gently pried up the tabs (but not too much!) so they'd make better contact with the disc, and finally I cleaned them up and sanded the contact points with light grade sandpaper.


This is the "after" believe it or not, I told you those rings were stubborn to clean! Sandpaper would have done a better job but I didn't want to mar the surface too much. I also reapplied the grease. I had heard that some people remove the grease entirely, but my intuition tells me that without a greasy surface to ride on, the metal-on-metal contact will accelerate the wear over time.


Nice clean contacts.

Welp, put it all back together. One headlight worked immediately, the other took a couple more rounds of cleaning. But, now they work flawlessly! Lights go up and stay there! Lights go down and stay there!

Some of the most satisfying fixes are just getting rid of the little annoyances that have been eating at you forever. Also pretty pleased that it was a relatively easy job. Usually when people say "It's a job you can do in an afternoon" it takes me a day or two . This, I really did get done in an afternoon!

XanderCage

iTrader: (1)

Ooh, and as a bonus, I also used Dale's writeup
https://www.rx7club.com/power-fc-for...useful-534888/
to wire in my dashboard check engine light to the Haltech! This was another super satisfying modification to do. When it comes to cutting and splicing, I usually get out the wiring diagram and triple and quadruple check that the color is correct. But this time I decided to just trust the writeup; so I put three Oreos on the offering plate of my shrine to DaleClark, made the snip, rerouted the wire and viola!
I've never been so happy to see a check engine light haha!

XanderCage

iTrader: (1)

SOUND! IT'S LOUD!

So let's shut it up. I've got a lot of road noise and exhaust drone in my cabin. Me and the fam are taking a trip to Glacier Nat. park in Montana this Sept and I want to drive the FD there, and I don't want to be deaf by the time the vacation is over.
I actually didn't realize this until a long time after I bought the car but under the carpet, my trunk was already covered in some sort of a rubberized paint. I thought that was from the factory until someone informed me that it is not. Digging further, there was Second Skin sound deadening mat plastered underneath the rear bins. So someone's seemingly already given noise reduction a crack, but it wasn't doing enough IMO. I was a little disheartened by that because I figured, if all that stuff was there and it was still loud, how much more could I do?

My trunk floor, covered in a rubbery surface


Well, I figured it was at least worth a try anyways, so I bought some SecondSkin sound deadening paint, and painted up the rear wheel wells. It was kinda nice painting a surface that nobody will see, means I can make all the mistakes I want.






I also got some traditional sound deadening foam and applied it to the interior, underneath the plastic panels. MAN are those panels nerve-racking to get out! Didn't want to break any tabs. Of course I did, but just one. That might be a record.


That's an in-progress shot, it looked better when finished!

Anyways, after all that I went for a drive, and yeah. It did reduce noise. It's no miracle, but it is better. I may revisit this topic at a later date.

XanderCage

iTrader: (1)

Alrighty then. Lots more little things have been done to the car but I'll get to those later. For now, something a bit more interesting. I took my car to the dyno! I had been tuning it myself the whole time and it ran well but I wanted a bit of a cleanup, as there were a couple quirks I wanted dialed out. Secretly I was also hoping for a bit more power.
Well, the tuner I brought it to couldn't get more power out of it, but it is a more pleasant drive in the lower RPMs and AFRs are more stable than before. The results:




So, how do I feel about it. Welp, Okay I guess, but I want more. Now, this also brings up a really interesting comparison between the 8374 and 7670. My buddy has virtually the same setup but with the 7670. His dyno (different shop, but both DynoJet units) below:







Both cars:
Are boosting at 15PSI
Are running Washington 92 Oct pump gas.
Have stock ports
Have Turbosource / Turblown shortie turbo manifolds and 3" downpipes
Have Bonez 3" catted midpipes
Have 3" Racing Beat dual-tip catback exhaust.
Have IGN-1A coils

Here's a rough overlay:



Now, he got his dyno done before I purchased my system. I thought that perhaps the larger 8374 would spool a little slower but net me more power up top. That doesn't seem to be the case however, as we both roll out of torque at around the same rate. So. I need to make this 8374 worth it. I'm going to do this in a couple of ways.

First, I need to boost higher than 15PSI to make the most of this turbo. But no way I'm doing that on pump. And since E85 is scarce around these parts, I'm going with Aux. Injection.

Went with the Sakebomb kit, I really liked that tank.


And the mounting of the pump


One thing I did need to do, was grind some material off of one of the mounting legs of their bracket. You can kind of see where I did that below, the original radius of that arm was too large and prevented the bolt from going in straight. I discussed this with someone else who purchased this kit and they said they too had this issue. I didn't feel it was the biggest problem to take that material off but to those considering this bracket, be aware you may need to do this as well.

Testrun

I really like how this car turned out... or is progressing. The dyno turned out with some nice numbers. There is a local dynojet here. I am excited for the results and I can't wait to compare them to the last one I was on..

I love my sakebomb inj. I think it is one of the best options out there. Stealthy and plenty of fluid! Which nozzle you going to run?

XanderCage

iTrader: (1)

Thanks man! Haha, it's hard to leave things alone as I'm sure you can relate to
As for which nozzle, I think I'll run the medium 500cc nozzle, but I'll have some time to research and think about it, as I'm waiting on a shop to weld in a bung for the nozzle to be placed. What did you go with?

Testrun

I am on the smallest, but only pushing 13.5-14psi. I think I ended up with it activating at 9psi and max by 14.

I will probably swap to the medium and see how it reacts.. I look at it as even the smallest is better than nothing at all, but not sure if stepping up will really help to get the "full benefits". According to the charts I should be with the 500, but one must remember those charts are for pistons.... I would go 500 if I were you.

estevan62274

iTrader: (32)

Great numbers considering you’re running cat and racing beat muffler. 👍