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gracer7-rx7, thank you for teaching me how to tag!
Thank you both very much. I guess you can say I enjoy restoring things. It's kind of like therapy.
I'll put on some LOFI music and kind of zone out...lol
I still have so much more to learn and thank you to everyone who has contributed here on the forum.
No worries Bro, The updates - yes you are correct not real time.
I have 10 total updates where the last one is starting to put things back on the new engine, I'm just releasing them within a few days of each other for ease of uploads.
I got the car in Feb 2022 I think and had it ready to go to the body shop by end of Apr 2022 - Not 100% sure on the dates but I did all this on the weekends over a period of 3 months.
I got the car in Feb 2022 I think and had it ready to go to the body shop by end of Apr 2022 - Not 100% sure on the dates but I did all this on the weekends over a period of 3 months.
The car is still at the body shop
That's pretty quick progress, it's a good thing you binned everything like you did! I'm not surprised on the bodyshop delay but 1 year and 2 months is excessive.
That's pretty quick progress, it's a good thing you binned everything like you did! I'm not surprised on the bodyshop delay but 1 year and 2 months is excessive.
Yeah big delay.
I just make it a habit to pack stuff now because you never know whats going to happen nowadays.
Calvin Wan’s Drift FD3S Period Correct Refresh By Rotary Extreme
C.Wan FD3S Refresh – Update 09
I finally got everything off the old engine and it was time to separate the trans from it. The only thing left was the clutch assembly and counterweight. Unfortunately the rear iron cracked where a tranny bolt goes to it, looking at how thin the cast is here I can understand why.
01 - Strip Engine
02 - Clean Engine
03 - Broken Rear Iron
04 - Clutch Off
05 - Clean Trans And Heat Shield
06 - Engine Transport Dolly
01 - Strip Engine
It was time to get the old engine ready to be stored for a rebuild. This engine is C.Wan's race ported engine and will be replaced with a new mazda engine. I drained the coolant and prepped it to be power washed. I have no idea what the white residue is on the outside of the exhaust ports, seeping coolant when everything red hot?
02 - Clean Engine
I covered all the holes and sprayed the engine with some heavy degreaser and let it sit for an hour. It was almost if the engine was leaking from everywhere. I gave it a power wash and then engine looked super clean again. Now it was time to take off the remaining parts like the LIM and PS. You can see in these pics the bracket that the oil fill neck bolts to separated from the bracket side that bolts to the engine, the was addressed later on upon re-assembly.
03 - Broken Rear Iron
I guess when the race motor was built they gave the housings a nice coat of paint. It matches really good, I wonder what color it was. I took out the water temp gauge sender and the lower threads were stripped. The bolt hole next to the water temp / oil pressure sender was cracked. I searched briefly for a way to reinforce this, do any of you guys in the RX7 world have a way to prevent this from happening. I'm sure the was cause by track abuse, just wondering if anyone has a solid method of preventing this from happening on a new motor. The broken part of the bracket seen attached to the oil filler neck, fixed later on. I also noticed the little metal needle for the timing light was bent too.
04 - Clutch Off
I used my tranny jack to hold the trans as I unbolted it from the engine, when all the bolts were off the trans slide right off - easy. I used a flywheel holder and my HF impact gun to loosen the flywheel bolt and started taking the clutch off. I took special note of the thickness of the disc so that I could swap the locations when putting them back to extend clutch life per Exedy's instruction. These disc are only about 1/2 used and still have plenty of life in them.
05 - Clean Trans And Heat Shield
The back of the engine and inside the bell housing were super grimy. I took some engine degreaser to them and let it sit for a while. I sprayed everything off with my trusty power washer and of course the spray would hit it at the right angle for it to bounce off and cover me in crude oil. After I cleaned the engine, transmission, and myself I took a wire wheel to the heat shield. Thankfully they cleaned up nice as well.
06 - Engine Transport Dolly
I made a transportation dolly to bring the engine back to C.Wan. I borrowed the bracket from the new engine and lifted the old engine onto the dolly. I strapped it all down and then lifted the engine onto a rear carrier on my Mazda5 van. I dropped of the old engine and brought his new engine back home with me. Next is to start putting everything onto his new engine.
Calvin Wan’s Drift FD3S Period Correct Refresh By Rotary Extreme
C.Wan FD3S Refresh – Update 10
Now that C.Wan's engine is at my place it's time to re-install some components on it. Update 10 should bring us up to current status and everything moving forward will be live. The new engines from Mazda come with the pan and longer bolts with washers that are for the engine mounts. I also like the fact that the new engines have all the internal updates from Mazda and are considered to be the same blocks used in the last 280hp version RX7. When I have time I will pull the motor mounts and pan off and use some better RTV, and install the front oil thermo pellet. Both require the engine on the stand and rotated accordingly for each job.
C.Wan's engine was sitting for a while and when I pulled the bolts out to put the motor mounts on the grey RTV was still wet on the bolt threads. What's up with that, I think the engine was sitting for like a year already. Anyways I moved forward with the motor mount install so I could get the engine on the assembly dolly. I had 2 poster boards with C.Wan's livery and now that the garage is cleaned up I finally have a place to hang them.
2. Exedy Carbon Clutch
Time to re-install the Exedy Carbon Clutch on the new engine. The flywheel bolts to counterweight are torqued to 48 ft lbs. I aligned the flywheel to the key and slid it on the E-Shaft. The flywheel nut face that goes to the flywheel side has a raised surface that looks like a record player. This side get a little RTV and you put red thread locker on the threads. Next is torque the nut to 150 ft-lbs, then you need to turn it another 60 degrees or 1 point to point face of the nut and this is said to be roughly 350 ft-lbs. Put a mark on the flywheel and one on the nut at the other end of the face. You use a impact gun to tighten it to get the marks to line up. Mine did not go point to point after the impact gun so I maxed out my torque wrench to 250ft-lbs and it didn't even budge - I'm sure I'm good. Next was to put the twin carbon disc back together and making sure to swap the carbon disc for even wear. The original tranny side is near the engine, and the original engine side is now near the tranny side. I slowly tightened the pressure plate bolts as I adjusted the clutch alignment tool making sure the disc settled in place. Once everything was snug I rotated the clutch assembly making sure the carbon disc were centered. I continued to bolt down the pressure plate bolts until all were snug, then I backed one out at a time add thread lock and torqued them to 23 ft-lbs.
3. Crank Sensor And Oil Stuff
Now is a good time to install the crank angle sensors and most oil related components. I installed the oil pressure send with the gas specific yellow teflon tape (make sure not to over tighten and crack the cast plate), front oil cooler outlet house, oil filter pedestal with new o-rings and oil filter, oil cooler return pipe, turbo oil feed line, and oil filler neck. I did not tighten the oil filler neck all the way since I still need to fix the bracket and bolt that in place too.
The oil filler neck bracket separated at the spot welds, I welded it up and bolted the bracket in place. Now it was time to bolt the oil filler next to the bracket and tighten the 2 bolts holding it to the engine. The PS pipe going to the reservoir has a nasty twist on it creating a flat spot. I have no idea how that happened but the new hose I installed will have the clamps placed right by the rolled lip where the pipe is still round. I would like to replace that pipe so if any of you guys have it let me know. I installed some stock plugs for the break in, the leading plugs are new and the trailing plugs have maybe 3 hours at idle in the driveway. I am going to re-use the 75C Thermostat for C.Wan's car since priority is race car.
5. Parts Cleaned
I would say that almost every part in the engine bay was covered in mist from some type of fluid and I wanted to give everything a nice scrub down. I also got another working OMP from Mo at Palm Tree Rotary, and C.Wan supplied a replacement PPF and right lower control arm for the damaged pieces. I gave C.Wan my updated LIM that does not have the feed through for the vacuum lines and I sourced another UIM like mine that does not have the port on the underside.
6. OMP Lines
I routed the new OMP lines using all new copper crush washers. The oil injectors on the new engine are the updated design and are designed to be used with the new Mikuni OMP. I have read about the newer oil injectors having a smaller opening and being more prone to failing, that is something I don't want. Since I am using the older Denso OMP I will try to source the older high flow oil injectors. I may also try my hand at drilling out the hole and seeing if I can pull it off without damaging the internal check valve. I will have to add this to the list of things to do. Back to the OMP lines, they fit nice over the engine but since I installed the RA oil feed adapter the lines are stretched on the OMP side. I made sure to route them in the brackets to protect them from the belts.
7. Fuel Rails
The injectors were sent out to be rebuilt by RC, hopefully they will be OK once I fire them up again. I put all new rubber orings and diffusers in the pri and sec fuel rails. I used the pri diffusers as is but for the sec diffuser I cut off the lower part and just used the top part as intended. I read the sec injectors when punched out to a larger size do not benefit much from the sec diffusers. Also since one of them was broken upon disassembly I did not want to have a repeat of that. I made sure to install the pri fuel rail phenalic spacer as well.
8. LIM And Belts
I found a nice 90 degree coolant hose that goes from the rear engine iron to the front thermostat housing. Also pictured is the newer style LIM compared to the older one. The rear rotor sec intake track is way different on the newer one and looks like it will flow better. The pulleys on C.Wan's motor are the same diameter as the Greddy pulleys but now we have added an F.F.E idler pulley. I was able to find the belt sizes for this set-up, Continental 4050410 (5PK1040) and 4060367 (6PK0932).
9. Sheath For OMP Lines
I spoke with C.Wan about the OMP line rubbing against the water pump housing and we were able to address this by finding some high quality nylon sheath. I was able to slip the sheath over the lines in place, hopefully this will prevent any damage from the lines rubbing against the aluminum cast textured surface.
06-05-23, 11:05 PM
