Johnny Kommavongsa

iTrader: (13)

Good idea on the slipstreams. The car is coming along nicely.

H_M

iTrader: (7)

Thanks. I love how they look on the FD. They look better than I imagined.



A couple of things have happened since my last update. First, I decided to fix the oil leak that I've been having. When I installed the engine, I removed the old motor mount arms (one steel and one aluminum) and replaced them with two steel arms. After driving the car for a month, I noticed a steady drip coming from the rear of the engine by the right motor mount. I was going to leave the drip but it seemed to be getting worse so I bit the bullet, lifted the engine, pulled the oil pan, and resealed everything.

The leak at the back. Notice the amount of oil on the subframe motor mount


Motor lifted


Oil pan out


At that point I cleaned everything, resealed the oil pan, and put everything back together. The dripping stopped for a day or two but then came back. So, I'm thinking that it's the rear main seal that's to blame. I'll pull the engine this winter and take another look at it then.





At this point, the wheel bearing on my Honda completely went and I had to drive the RX7 to work for two weeks while I waited for parts. Two weeks of daily driving takes a toll on this car.





While daily driving, The exhaust leak really started to bother me. The leak was coming from the back of the turbo where the v-band flange connects the downpipe to the exhaust housing. There are no flex joints in the entire exhaust and that makes the alignment on the downpipe off by a bit. I purchased a 3" flex pipe, cut up the downpipe, aligned everything, and welded the now properly aligned downpipe together. Sucess!! No more exhaust leak.

I also took this time to install a 2Kw Starter that I have had sitting around since winter. I bought a remanufactured 2Kw RX-8 starter on ebay, switched the hat from the RX-7 starter, and made my own. The whole thing took 15 minutes to make and was 1/3 the price of buying an already preassembled starter.,

FD at the shop where I have access to a welder


welded downpipe and old starter






I've also began to collect parts for winter. I have actually been collecting parts since February and things are starting to pile up. But I'll go over all the goodies in another video. They won't be going on the car until November anyways so there's no rush.

H_M

iTrader: (7)

I almost forgot the most important update: I lowered the car 1/2" all around. I was unsure of how low I could got with the 265 tires due to rubbing so I left it at it's previous ride height. It made the car look like a monster truck and bothered me. After having to daily drive the car for two weeks and experiencing no rubbing, I decided to lower the coilovers a little bit.

Here is the new ride height. It's still very functional and makes the car look much better.



I kept the front a hair lower than the rear to give the car a very subtle aggressive stance. I saw this on an old episode of Monster Garage where Jesse James was talking about how he lowers the front of his bikes by 1/4" more than the rear to give them a more aggressive look. Your eyes don't see the difference but your brain notices it. I thought that was kind of cool and it seems to work the for FD as well.

H_M

iTrader: (7)

I'll do a "photoshoot" some time. Once I figure out what the settings on my DSLR do, haha.