I got the suspension fully buttoned up, sway bars back in (fresh poly bushings), shocks in, new tie rods and steering rack boot, etc. Once I get the brakes back on it will be a "roller" again. Feels good.

Then I got the heat shields cleaned up and back in, finished tidying up the fuel lines (plastic covers cleaned and re-installed), etc.

Next I want to get the fenders back on, but wanted to pump the frame rails full of FluidFilm before proceeding there. So I proceeded to use my fiber optic camera through every single access hole on the chassis, and these FluidFilm cans with the 24" wand/fogger extension to pump the frame rails, rockers, and every single body cavity FULL of film. This stuff has a really nice black color to it, so it's easy to see where coverage is and isn't. I ended up putting 6 MORE cans into the front end (this is after the original 6 cans I pumped into the rear frame/rails/quarters/etc.). I'm feeling really good about this. Also in the picture from the inside of the trunk you can see how this stuff "creeps" even upwards against gravity. It creeped through the frame rail past those plugs (that I never removed) and coated all of that. It also creeps into all the seam welds, you can see it coming out a lot of the various pinch weld cavities, etc. It gives me some really good peace of mind to know the inside of every cavity has been fully fogged with rust inhibitor and inspected. No major rust in there really, just lots of little surface stuff starting on the corners of the seams etc. that I could see with the fiber camera.

And lastly a pic of the wing I picked up, or rather traded to a local friend for some tuning on his MS2 powered turbo miata. Pretty cool trade, since those things are like $500 and It's the series 7 (99+) OEM wing for the car. Well that ones a replica, and needs some finishing, but yeah.

Next I'll get the fenders back on, get the brakes cleaned up and on/bled, then I'll be working on engine dressing, de-sequentialing the turbos, etc. as well as wiring (CAN expander for the link, o2 inputs, etc.). So generally.. onto the fun parts.

 

Here's the wing I picked up. No idea who makes this one or how fitment is. Guess we'll see at some point?

 

Fuel pump in, for good, with the fuel pump rewire. This fixes voltage dropping under load on the FD platform, which is known to fuel starve 'em at high RPM.




Dove into my non-sequential conversion. This really simplifies the turbo setup and makes the sequentials run in parallel more similar to a single. And supposedly porting them like this will free up a few HP, making them at least 315+whp capable (maybe more?). These are 60k km JDM turbos I picked up on a work trip last year and shipped home. The turbos are clean but the manifold was buggered so I had to swap the manifold (piece that joins the two turbos together) from the turbos that came with my car. This was a PITA due to 4 completely seized studs that broke off and needed delicate extraction. Lots of hours on that stupid manifold drilling out the studs, re-tapping, etc. It came out great - though no real pics of that process (it sucked). In this pic you can see the old "buggered" manifold that someone welded a stud back on. I ditched that for the clean manifold you see in the later pics.



Before any porting. I didn't go crazy, just opened up anywhere that it necked down. For instance right on the inlet of the manifolds:




You'll see that I like to use the "glass and sandpaper" method of planing surfaces flat. This has never done me wrong, I've even done some subaru heads this way and they've held up for 100k+ miles! My turbo hardware on the miata is done the same way.





And this is the good "manifold" housing I got studs extracted from, planed flat, and used for the turbo setup. I can't emphasize enough how many hours I spent getting this prepped. Annoying.





More stud extraction.




Not pictured was deleting the sequential flapper and actuators. Side note, the new hardware on this thing cost me like $100+ bucks at my local HW store. Damn hardware is getting expensive.




Huge shelf after first mockup assembly, so back apart they came to make that flow properly.




Fixed! Tapered in nicely and porting smoothed out a bit. Again not going for perfect here.




The other port flows nicely too (I smoothed this one up a bit as well before installing but you get the point):

 

Wastegate porting. Going non sequential and flowing these things means I'll be fighting boost creep. And boost creep can be so bad the turbos overspin and nuke themselves. Hopefully this allows me to target/maintain 12-14psi:

Yeah there's a crack, but in the world of OEM FD turbos that aint bad.






I didn't have these gaskets, and they cost a pretty penny new. Found some good condition used ones here on the forum:




Same process on the intake manifolds, but went easy with this one. Minor porting only. Here's a better shot of the IM that came with it that was modified to block off the Semi-PP (or maybe they were making a flange to modify it and add an intake path for them?).





Primary injectors cleaned/flow tested. Looks like they were fully locked up when I sent them. Came back perfect!




Tanabe medallion exhaust. Should be nice and quiet and I dig the looks.




Going back together. Not pictured was the process of capping off the unused semi-pp ports. You can see the intake manifold has bosses welded up there to cap them off, I used some aluminum sheet to make some MLS gasket/blockoffs and they came out great though. All sealed up:




Lots of little **** like blockoff plates on the IM, etc. New rotary performance 2200cc rail + bosch injectors. Also deleted the fuel pulsation dampener (brass fitting on primary rail), so that it doesn't leak and burn my car to the ground (known issue):




Cleaned surface rust off clutch and flywheel, greased pilot bearing, reassembled:





Getting close..



Clever folks will probably notice lots of other little parts I've been picking up. Off the head:

Banzai racing pulley kit
Braided stainless OMP lines
New OMP injectors installed

 

Rusty driveshaft and ppf wire wheeled, ospho'd, and painted.




Belts on, still waiting on PS idler pulley, it's otw.




It's in! Not pictured are the banzai racing street poly mounts. I was afraid of poly, but apparently rotarys don't vibrate and buzz like piston engines do, so poly is ok on a street car. We'll see!



Over a year of dirt floor dust. Shameful I know. But seeing it back on its feet was pretty exciting. Also not pictured are the 20mm front and 25mm rear bolt on spacers I added. Gonna rock stock wheels for a while but wanted a more modern stance. I dig the look.




Currently working on:

• Wiring. Got a few injector plugs that no longer clip, so I bought some pigtails to rewire those. I figured out most of the OEM wiring last weekend though. So many plugs I'm not using without emissions or sequential turbo control. Nice and easy.
• Cleanup the rusty downpipe, weld a wbo2 bung, heat wrap downpipe.
• Install rest of exhaust.
• Radiator, IC, plumbing, etc
• Install link g4x into stock ECU case. Install CAN Harness and connect wbo2.
• Install fuel pressure sensor.
• Key on and test all sensors and outputs, make sure it's firing the correct coils and injectors when commanded
• Base timing set while cranking.
• Start it?

 

You're the right owner for that car. Awesome work and Raptor Liner was an excellent choice!

You've got just under a month to wrap everything up and drive it to DGRR. :P

 

Just came across your thread. That's some great work!

 

Another GTX and RX7owner!! Here's mine

Looking forward to watching the build progress!

 

Thanks man! That raptor liner is rock hard and with the epoxy primer it comes with binds to the chassis so much better than the OEM rubbery coating stuff. You could literally take a hammer to that stuff and it stays on.


Thank you sir!


Dude! I'll be checking out your build thread for sure. I can never get enough GTX content, and since I dropped off socials I lost connection with the GTX FB group which was where most the action was. I have a second GTX (the white one in my yard in some of the first pics) in similar condition to yours that I've always had big plans for. It actually surprisingly has a rod knock and a good gearbox/drivetrain, and I have a miata b6 motor to go into it. Though other projects have sidelined that one, I swear one day I'll build my dream GTX out of that thing. My black one is just a clean car, I'm the second owner, got it from an estate sale when they passed. I've done basic stuff to it, 2.5" downpipe back exhaust (no cat), lots of maintenance, HotBits rally length coilovers, Escort front calipers, miata rear calipers (with adapters) and Mitsu galant (non vr4) rotors to modernize the brakes. Rebuild all 4 hubs at that time. Shifter bushings. DIY intake. That's about it. I have a rockerman ECU in it and turned up the boost a bit, but the clutch started slipping over 10PSI so i turned it back down. It's been my daily for years, that and my blue 1999 NB are what I drive the most. Anyways thanks for chiming in here dude, I love those stupid little cars!!

 

Man claims he's not doing a full-on restoration.

Then does a full-on restoration.
Lol. It looks good man, you're tackling all the stuff now, getting it out of the way, and then you'll have a really solid car to enjoy for years to come.

 

Agreed, this is my 4th one, and much like you, this one is getting built into my dream GTX. So I think you'll enjoy the build thread when you get time to check it out.

 

I quickly browsed it and I'm already impressed. GTAE bumper, BPT GTR driveline, etc. Great work on that thing, I'm going to sit down in more detail and comb through it later.

To keep this thread a goin, we aren't up to date yet boys! I kinda feel bad that I didn't do this thread while building it, but again I felt like an rx7 imposter and kinda just wanted to grind away and do my own research and build this thing. Now I'm just psyched to share it with club.

I decided to re-use this CRUSTY *** downpipe, the goal being to keep this iteration budget. I might have mentioned this, but assuming this car treats me well and the engine breaks in and is solid, I do have plans for a single in the future with goals of ~400whp. At least that's the dream setup for this thing. For now non-seq twins and 320whp would be great. And maybe it will make more than that with the streetport and ported hotside stuff + water injection? Who knows!

Also not pictured I planed the flanges and they came out buttery smooth, so I don't expect any leaks.




The stock location o2 bung is so close to the turbo it would definitely eat wbo2 sensors, from my experience they need to be further down. So bung added. Harbor freight flux core putting in work again. I have good faith in how this bung came out.





All wrapped up and installed.





Yes heat wrap might deteriorate the already pitted metal, but I don't care about that too much. I'll keep an eye on it.

Started slamming the heat exchangers in here. I should have done some before and after, but these both took a lot of cleanup as well. I think most the time on this car is cleaning/spiffy **** up before it can go on the car. I of course went through all the fins with a pick as well for max flow. Heat exchangers are Fluidyne rad and Petit racing SMIC (stock mount IC). Trying to keep a stock-ish layout here and not going crazy vmount or anything. PIcked these up as a package deal for $300. What a steal!




Of course fresh silicone hoses. All mocked up.




At first I was like holy ****, the radiator just DUMPS on this I/C. Then I remembered it came with a shroud. Also battery box thrown in there to get an idea of fitment.




Shroud is actually pretty awesome. Really shrouds the IC for less heatsoak. Don't get me wrong, that ***** still gonna heatsoak, but the shroud makes it at least acceptable I think. We'll see.




Fresh air from the front is cool:

 

Switching gears to ECU install. It goes into the stock case. Pretty! The old FD board is also awesome, crazy tech for that era.




CAN + expander harnesses installed. Just popped these wires out the side of the case with a grommet. Not pictured, I was able to get the ECU plugged in, and UNLOCKED. This was a second hand (unused) ECU but there was still some concerns about it actually unlocking with the provided key. That went smoothly, great success!





Finalized the FP rewire. That larger gauge red cable goes straight to the battery for maximum amperage and minimal voltage drop.

 

Onto a battery box. Simple things like this cost a lot for an FD and I'm tired of buying expensive parts. OEM battery trays are $200+ and beat up, aftermarket were $250+ and fit specific batteries. I happen to have a group 26 battery lying around I wanna use on this thing, so I wanted my tray to be big enough for that at least. I stewed over this for a while then remembered I could weld (kinda) so I bought a universal one on amazon for $15, included tie down and all.




Needed a base to mount it to. The pucks are there for the 3rd mounting point.




Couldn't really run a bead here, more of a stitch. But it came out great for what it is, super solid. Also I of course painted it, but here's the finished product.




I actually cut one down for the exact spacing I wanted and of course put a hole through it and a rivnut in the cross bar to secure it. Not pictured, but it's there.

 

I've stepped up my wiring game to using DTM everywhere on this car. With help from one of my more wiring adept buddies (who I race miatae with) I got the right crimpers, ordered some nice connectors, and did everything in those.





I realized I took no pics, but the finished product you can see here. The cables all neatly stash behind the ECU there and the OEM covers will fit. DTM for the CAN and expander harnesses. Super easy, nice, servicable. Cool.




NOT pictured, but I moved onto coil wiring. The OEM wiring was a 3 coil setup with wasted spark on the leading plugs. (2 rotor has 4 plugs, 1 leading and 1 trailing per rotor). So basically like this:

Spark output 1: L1/L2
Spark output 2: T2
Spark output 3: T1

I'm using a Sakebomb IGN1a Smart coil kit ($$$$$) and it made most of the installation easy. It's similar to miata-land where you wire it right into the ignitor, the kit came with a PNP plug for that. However, in PNP form it actually keeps the old wasted spark setup. Maybe not a huge deal, but in the rotary world wasted spark means less dwell time, which is a big deal since every single rotation of the rotor is a firing rotation, there are no wasted strokes like a normal 4 cylinder which gives things time to cool and coils time to charge, etc. So I decided I best ditch that wasted spark.

This was a frustrating process, to be honest and maybe my first gripe with Link. Of course this is an older link (g4x) they use for the RX7 PNP so this is part of my frustration. However, adding a 4th coil wasn't just running a wire to the expander on the ECU like I thought it would be. There are somehow no extra spark outputs? Crazy.

So with @redursidae 's help, and some posts I found on the link forums we had a plan:

A/C compressor is triggered off Spark4 output on the ECU. The cat overheat light uses Inj7 (yes, there's a light that comes on when the stock cat overheats - I have no cat and no use for this).






While I don't currently have A/C, I have full intention to add it back in on this car at some point and want to keep A/C. So the plan was this:

Re-pin ECU so that A/C compressor relay trigger is Pin 52 (Inj7), re-use Pin 87 (IGN4) to trigger my extra coil. This ended up working out perfectly (after updating the ECU firmware so I could assign spark outputs!) and after re-mapping the inputs in the ECU everything is working.




I ran an extra wire from the Sakebomb coils after de-pairing the batch spark so they were individual and now have proper spark outputs mapped out as per the manual:




While we're talking about wiring I did re-wire several of the injector clips which broke, and the CLT sensor, and a few other things got patched up properly in the harness. This car just like many others from the era clearly had something wired into it. When cleaning up the wires I saw the MAP sensor was intercepted at some point, along with the main switched power to the ECU, and a few other things. Not sure what that was for but I assume some sort of piggyback tuner. I un-did all that and properly crimped those with my new fancy crimpers and heat-shrink/glue-sealing butt connectors. This is a departure from my normal "solder everything" approach after talking with @redursidae and watching some HPA videos I'm convinced that proper crimps are better than solders in the long run. The new crimpers make a banging crimp, a few test ones I did showed that you are gonna basically rip the wires apart before the crimp comes undone, and apparently these are less vibration prone to causing breakage. Funny because I always thought solder was the end-all.

Anyways after all that I was also able to test my injector outputs and confirm those are mapped correctly as well (and basically use this output to make sure the plugs were correctly installed, since the primary/secondary injectors are close to each other and the plugs the same they could easily be, and were mixed up.







Also got my Fuel Pressure sensor wired in. This terminates all 3 wires into the ECU expander harness, all via DTM as well.




Current state of the bay. Ready to be buttoned up now that injectors and coils are installed/mapped correctly and I don't need access to them.




Also got my AEM wbo2 connected. This of course goes into the CAN harness for power/ground/CANH/CANL outputs to the ECU via DTM connectors as well.

 

Quick list of what's left to do at this point before the first start/drive/base tune for break in:

Fuel System:

• Fill tank with premix (yes I'm keeping the oil injection system, but I'm also going to premix. And premix especially heavy for break-in!).
• prime the system, figure out which line is fuel feed (I ran all new lines, fuel feed/return are the same size and I honestly don't remember which is which. this was always the plan).
• Install fuel pressure sensor in-line of the fuel feed. Install return line.
• TEST and confirm fuel pressure + leak test.
• FUEL SYSTEM DONE.

Engine bay:

• Install upper intake manifold (with coils and injectors wired/confirmed, I can install this without obstructing anything I might need to get to).
• Install throttle body. It's already cleaned and ready to go. I didn't mention it but I had to make 1 good throttle body out of two, since mine was missing some parts. It's already fixed/cleaned/ready to install. TPS already confirmed working.
• Install AST and top up cooling system. All other lines are plumbed and tightened already.
• Install intake tubing/filters on turbos.
• Install charge piping for cold/hotside. This includes BOVs which now VTA.
• Add oil. Another thing I failed to mention is that I already flushed the oil cooler with ATF (previous and very reputable shop confirmed the car did NOT have a bearing failure and the oil cooler/lines were OK to re-use). I also have already hooked up all oil lines. So just adding oil is next.
• Crank to set base timing as best we can during cranking state. (I already tested the started and she CRANKS and has lots of compression). If we don't build oil pressure during this procedure, continue to crank and make sure we get oil pressure.
• Ready for first start.

Chassis:

• Re-install some interior plastics, and seats/belts. Maybe just put the whole interior back together, that would be nice. But not required for first drive.
• FIX toe on the front. New tie rod ends are visually toed out, I'll get a string on there and make it drivable at least.
• Another thing I didn't mention, but the car has brakes. I bled the brakes and have a firm pedal. This was after installing braided everything and new pads/rotors.
• I also have clutch! I didn't mention this eitther but I rebuilt the clutch slave cylinder and have a FIRM pedal. Should be good to go.

Then we'll be firing this thing up, setting base timing, tuning idle, then taking it for a drive. The plan is to have my buddy who is super adept with link tuning (I'm more of a MS3 kinda guy historically, the link on this car is completely his idea) come down for first start and get a rough-in tune on it. I'll then need to put at least 500 miles on it before we start boosting/WOT and get the rest of the tune dialed.

 

Started by debugging a low fuel pressure issue. Turns out I failed installing the walbro with the factory style o ring and it was dead heading and leaking in the tank. While I was in there also fixed my fuel float with some jbweld, glad I did because the fuel gauge is proving to be pretty important on this thing 😂 With that fixed I was able to put the rest of the engine bay together, after leak testing the system. All good there.

Also installed a fast acting IAT sensor from a triumph, which is a common FD mod. It's a specific small thread pitch and I wanted to use the OEM spot. I got that installed and wired into the UIM.





Pulled up the carpet, no real rust under here but lots of rat turds. Cleaned the crap out of the underneath of the carpet, the carpet itself, touched up a few spots with rustoleum, filled any accessible cavities with fluid film (boroscoped them and no rust in there but I've been pumping every cavity with that stuff because of its history).






So I got the upper intake manifold on, ran all my vac lines, etc but hit a snag and the OEM intercooler pipes wouldn't fit this petit I/C. I tried even soaking the OEM rubber in boiling water but there was no way it would go on. I also had bought a Greddy inlet pipe with plans to use it eventually, so might as well rock that right away. A pipe kit was like $250 for 2 basic *** pipes (FD stuff I guess), so I DIYd it with some silicone 90's, 45's and some straight aluminum pipe and my trusty bead roller. Came out great.




There were tons of other little things not pictured. Deleting the sequential control from the turbo Y pipe, refurbished my gReddy intakes that came with the car (they were super crusty and flaking weird chrome coating so I blacked em out). Made turbo intake and compressor outlet gaskets from a sheet of gasket material (you all know what those cost). Also had to source a throttle cable bracket since it turns out I didn't have one. That was a great deal from Banzai.




Rebuilt the shifter, filled the trans with Unicorn tears (Ford motorcraft fluid which is great for old mazda boxes - an old miata trick)





Cleaned this damn thing for the first time in nearly 1.5 years. Easy to forget it's actually a pretty nice car!





With the engine together I needed to put the rest back together so we could tune this thing. No reason to fire it up if it's not ready to drive. Rebuilt the shifter, new shift boots, and got the interior back together. Fixed some clips with jbweld, bought some sweet checkered carpets off eBay, put seats back in, etc. Put unicorn tears in the transmission and filled up the diff. Also added oil and coolant to the motor.



Rocking some cheap break-in 10w40 dino oil and some super expensive Evans waterless coolant - which I'm going to run at 0psi. This is partially because of rotary cooling hotspotting and whatnot, but also another theory I'm working on. See this motor has P ports (blocked off of course) with the normal oldskool press sleeve + epoxy method. My hope is that 0psi helps prevent leaks there into the intake chambers. Who knows, but I'm trying it!

 

Now the car is mostly back together and ready for the first start:

 

Just some more pics of the I/C routing and engine bay finalizations:

 

Buncha other little misc things too like giving it a once over, reinstalling chassis plugs I had pulled out for rust inspection and fluid film application. I'm sure there's more.

Got the ECU all setup, all sensors reading and baselined, made sure it could crank and sync, bled coolant beat I could and primed the oil system by pushing oil through the system with a big syringe thing I got on Amazon.

The night before our tuning date I decided to check the fans, which I assumed were working. Nah. Relay would click but no fan would come on. I had a spare set of fans that came with my radiator, so I plugged those in, still nada. So I started debugging the 4 (yes 4) relays that control the cooling fans. I found 2 wires fully corroded and disconnected from one of the relays.



Wired in some spades and repaired that, and fans still wouldn't come on. But now I heard 2 relays clicking. I pulled the fan plug and had 12v there, then for ***** tried my spare fans again.. and boom. Fans. So yeah broken relay AND a dead set of fans. When troubleshooting it's a rarity to have 2 things broken like that. I ended up staying up pretty late figuring that out.

Still not out of the woods yet I needed to swap the fans out, so I got up early and went at it. The intercooler, piping, battery box, and radiator cross bar all had to come out but I got it done in about 1.5 hours.

 

Then my boy Ricardo (link expert and tuner) showed up for the first fire. I cut it close but was ready. Plan was to set base timing, fire it up, burp it and go for a drive asap. Base timing procedure is weird and scary with the Link G4x but we tag teamed it. The FD basically has only 1 mark to check timing at -20btdc, so you gotta do this weird thing in link where you lock trailing timing at 20 ATDC. To set base timing we lock the ignition at 0 BTDC, and set the trailing split to -20, which Links interprets as 20 ATDC. . It felt weird and we had to adjust the default timing offset value by a bit but looks like we nailed it. The timing light fires off the #1 trailing coil.



First start Ricardo was tuning fuel and watching vitals. ****** fired off within 2 secs of cranking and made a sick smoke show. Anyways no bad leaks and clts were rising linearly, but I didn't feel any heat on the rad hose. About the time I was feeling concerned Ricardo let me know CLTs were running away and we shut it off asap.

Now I'm a rotary noob but I know overheating is really bad for these things. We let it cool a min and cranked a bit more without firing to keep things moving in there (avoid hotspots?) and the coolant burped and CLT came down, but the gauge was high 240s for a min there. Scary.

Now on rotaries when breaking them in often you won't be able to start them back up while hot until the motor is actually broken in. I.e. compression when hot is less than cold. This is why you always hot start a rotary to test compression, it tells you a lot more about engine health than a cold start. We let the motor cool down, cranking without spark intermittently to circulate coolant until it was down to 210 or so, the re enabled fuel and it fires right up and was burning clean. I was relieved. Then it finished burping and held perfect coolant temps from there out.

Once we had stable temps we got it on the ground and put the first 10 miles on it. All was going well and Ricardo was impressed with the car and how it's reacting already. Gave it a once over and went back out. After about 30 miles on it we started to give it light load and 4k rpms and the motor just kept getting happier and happier. By the end of the day we had 50 miles on it, mostly keeping it under 4k rpm and varying throttle and load. We saw 4psi part throttle and around 5k rpm max, once I think. Was generally being super easy on it but we wanted to get the tune good enough that I could drive it somewhat normally and finish break in. We got the secondary injectors to kick in and roughed in good enough that it's smooth and safe.


Ricardo being the boss he is also dialed in the hot start, which is perfect and fires up first crank with no throttle or bogging. Straight G. We were both super impressed with the motor, how much tq it makes, how responsive it is, etc. I think we're both rotor heads now. What a feeling.

The first day I got a bit over 100 miles on it with no drama. First oil change had a sheen to it, as expected on break in, so hoping that looks better next change. I did cut open the filter and confirmed no chunks. Sounds normal to me.

The sheen in the oil combined with my oil pressure gauge on the dash dropping to near 0 on the dash gave me a panic attack so I bought and oil pressure test kit and tested it today. The oil pressure is bitching the these triangles are so smooth running that I think things are going well.


This **** kinda stresses me out but I'm thrilled with my first rotary experience so far, the engine is so smooth and I can't get over the noises and how it feels. Judging by how it feels already this thing should rip with some boost.

So far main problem is a leak at the oil pan. That won't be fun to fix, but once this motor survives break in I'll address that. My tach and water temp gauges are also broken and need addressed soon too. But for now I just wanna get more miles on it.

 

For the first few drives I was rocking it bumperless to keep an eye on leaks. I've got a leak at the oil cooler lines (which I actually replaced all four O rings, on the cooler, and where the lines quick connect after the cooler to go to the block. Honestly not sure how to fix that other than sourcing some different lines and trying those, or converting to AN fitting. That's just a drop though, so for now it gets ignored while I break it in.

The major oil leak is at the motor mounts basically dripping off the bolt to the motor mount on the drivers side. Research has shown me this is most likely an oil pan leak. That's one that that was pre-sealed during the build process that I didn't touch

 

Fun seeing the passion in completing this much work into the car…help ignite my desire to tinker on my FD with the various parts I’ve bought but not installed in the last 8 years….with the BnRs being one of the larger items to install and a new clutch.

 

Break in tune is going well, logs are all checking out. I've got 350 miles on it now. Second oil change had less shimmer and more miles on it, so that's all good signs. Feeling good, but still very much in break-in and nervous phase. I would normally be nervous for a piston engine break in, but to be honest, this has me even more antsy. Gotta keep driving it. So far it's perfect.



Also put the bumper on so it feels like a car!

 

Thank you! It's been a long journey to get here, and still so much more to go. But driving by own FD is like basically a life goal and feels pretty surreal. The 13brew is so sick, I'm really enjoying it with stock turbos even and I suspect she's gonna rip pretty good. A 300whp miata is my baseline for a fast car, and if I can crack 300 in this thing and make it close to that experience I know I'll be happy with it.

I've got a bunch of little things to fix as well - tach and coolant gauge in the cluster - some oil leaks, etc. But all of that is going to wait until I get this thing broken in and tuned on boost, I don't want to dump any more time into it until I feel like I'm in the clear on this fresh engine build.

Eventually I'd like to re-install A/C (everything is there under the dash, just the A/C parts that came with the car weren't usable). I'd also like to run water injection with the stock mounted intercooler to keep the rotary happy.

I've got the OEM front lip coming in and I'm keeping it on stock wheels for now. Some better tires are definitely on the agenda.

Eventual goals are potentially a 99spec bumper and wing, that's generally my favorite look for these - but I will say the OEM stuff is growing on me. I think I've mostly decided to pass on crazy body mods, since it's just such a damn sexy car - but I could always get bored and things could change. I'm all over the place right now with rx7's and I still don't know how my dream car should look. Right now the OEM s6 spec is dead sexy in my eyes so It's gonna live in this visual iteration for a bit at least.

With 300+ miles on it I've been feeling brave enough to breathe on just a touch of boost. 3-4 psi and like 40% throttle and goddamn does it already get my blood flowing.