my fourth FD (and hopefully my last)
11-28-14, 11:06 PM
#1
my fourth FD (and hopefully my last)
for those of you who checked out my last build thread https://www.rx7club.com/build-thread...ng-me-1032831/
you may know i parted out that car and bought a white almost-stock 94. ~118k miles, white/tan 99spec front/rear/spoiler/tails.
i bought this car from Addicted Performance in knoxville, as a car that zach and his shop "flipped" to make money on.
mods to the car were: powerFC with a basemap and no hand controller, full non-sequential mod, simplified wiring harness, catback exhaust. freshly rebuild with "good condition" housings and rotary aviation classic apex seals, stock ports. and a rear iron off of an automatic FD, for whatever reason; it was probably all they had lying around.
i discovered several things on the car were half-assed and/or rushed--all of which i didnt figure out until i purchased the car and left the shop:
1. there was no TNS relay, so when the sun went down on my drive home i had no parking lights. i had my friend follow my closely so i wouldnt get rearended. i ended up swapping in the retra relay to get the lights to work, manuall rolling down the headlights.
2. there was no air filter in the damn air box.
3. all 6 pillowballs clunked. this was a little hard to detect while i had the stock springs/shocks on the car, but when i swapped them out to my coilovers it was much more obvious.
4. the wrong battery was installed, so there was a battery in "backwards" with a big stereo cable connecting it to the fuse box, and no battery tiedown. i installed my optima redtop battery and made a nice solid tiedown for it in the stock location.
5. the oil injector air bleeds were simply connected together with a vacuum line, effectively blocking them off, which is not how they were designed to be used. i uncapped them and saw that they shot lots of oil out of their air bleeds when i tried to boost (see a little farther down my list). i replaced the oil injectors with new MAZDA pieces, and replaced the omp lines with new mazda, along with all the crush washers.
6. the driver front ABS wheel speed sensor was dead, and the light was not on because of "a grounding issue" like i had been told when i checked out the car.
7. both oil cooler line connections at the engine (front cover and oil filter pedestal) were dripping with oil because (i assume) the crush washers were re-used multiple times. i replaced these.
8. there were nails in 3 of the 4 tires that came with the car
9. the hatch struts are so badly blown that the hatch won't even "pop" when you pull the lever, and they're leaking oil out onto the hatch plastic.
10. after cruising around for about 1500 miles and doing an oil change, i decided i would sell the powerFC and go with a pettit unlimited ECU and just run low boost (have the option to turn it up to 11-12psi in the future) and i went for a drive and attempted to boost. limp mode. i think 4 or 5 of the 330ohm 1/2 watt resistors had been installed into the harness at some point, and when switching back to the pettit stock-ish ECU i ended up with limp mode.
i removed the harness, unwrapped the entire thing, removed the poorly installed resistors, added a sub-harness that has all the resistors (all 13 i think it is) to resolve any CEL codes, re-wrapped with friction tape, and reinstalled into the car with the pettit ECU. BAM, no limp mode, but the car feels slow.
11. i install a boost gauge to see why the car feels slow, and i see it's only hitting about 5psi, and at about 4000rpms THE CLUTCH SLIPS (yes, it slips at 5psi). albeit, it was cold outside (~30*F) but this clutch, which i was told was "good" by zach, slips at only 5psi, and why is it hitting only 5psi????
12. i take the car to my buddy's fab shop with my new exhaust pieces (ebay downpipe, racing beat dual catback, vibrant hi-flow race cat, and the resonated midpipe that i had leftover from my red FD). we removed the cat to install my new hiflow cat and downpipe, planning to have the cat at the end of the downpipe, just before the resonator in the midpipe. we got the stock cat off of the car and it's like rattling a folgers can full of golf ***** --the guts of the stock cat were busted into a multitude of small pieces, which were surely causing a huge restriction. my buddy made the exhaust, got it all sealed up, and i took the car back. the car now hits 8psi and annihilates the clutch. at least it's boosting correctly now, right? i'm thinking "JESUS CHRYSLER WHAT'S NEXT"
13. what's next? that's about it. i installed a mini amp and some infinity kappa speakers in the front and rear, installed my tablet mount, and got the stereo going. it sounds pretty good. it needs a small subwoofer though.
zach mailed me an air filter and TNS relay out of the kindness of his heart.
there was a brief period of time that i was running an adaptronic 440d plug and play, but i sold it and decided to go with the pettit ECU instead. i'm not totally happy with the pettit (idle is insanely rich, and cold start is even more rich, not sure why, but i don't like that) other than that, the ecu is pretty good for being a modified stocker...
SO, i basically spent 17,500 on an FD that had ALL THOSE ISSUES ^^^
a bad purchase? maybe, but damn does it look good:
the day i got it
tablet mount
about to tear open the harness (friends playing iracing)
making the positive side battery terminal
ahh, yes, something that had been untouched!!! installed my walbro400 in here, because why not.
some sweet stuff removed from the engine. installed mishimoto silicone radiator hoses and properly capped off the AST return line at the bottom of the radiator
installing new oil injectors and OMP lines (and yeah, i need new injector grommets [they exist, they're just removed in these pics])
fresh new LIM/UIM gasket. i love installing new MAZDA parts
you may know i parted out that car and bought a white almost-stock 94. ~118k miles, white/tan 99spec front/rear/spoiler/tails.
i bought this car from Addicted Performance in knoxville, as a car that zach and his shop "flipped" to make money on.
mods to the car were: powerFC with a basemap and no hand controller, full non-sequential mod, simplified wiring harness, catback exhaust. freshly rebuild with "good condition" housings and rotary aviation classic apex seals, stock ports. and a rear iron off of an automatic FD, for whatever reason; it was probably all they had lying around.
i discovered several things on the car were half-assed and/or rushed--all of which i didnt figure out until i purchased the car and left the shop:
1. there was no TNS relay, so when the sun went down on my drive home i had no parking lights. i had my friend follow my closely so i wouldnt get rearended. i ended up swapping in the retra relay to get the lights to work, manuall rolling down the headlights.
2. there was no air filter in the damn air box.
3. all 6 pillowballs clunked. this was a little hard to detect while i had the stock springs/shocks on the car, but when i swapped them out to my coilovers it was much more obvious.
4. the wrong battery was installed, so there was a battery in "backwards" with a big stereo cable connecting it to the fuse box, and no battery tiedown. i installed my optima redtop battery and made a nice solid tiedown for it in the stock location.
5. the oil injector air bleeds were simply connected together with a vacuum line, effectively blocking them off, which is not how they were designed to be used. i uncapped them and saw that they shot lots of oil out of their air bleeds when i tried to boost (see a little farther down my list). i replaced the oil injectors with new MAZDA pieces, and replaced the omp lines with new mazda, along with all the crush washers.
6. the driver front ABS wheel speed sensor was dead, and the light was not on because of "a grounding issue" like i had been told when i checked out the car.
7. both oil cooler line connections at the engine (front cover and oil filter pedestal) were dripping with oil because (i assume) the crush washers were re-used multiple times. i replaced these.
8. there were nails in 3 of the 4 tires that came with the car
9. the hatch struts are so badly blown that the hatch won't even "pop" when you pull the lever, and they're leaking oil out onto the hatch plastic.
10. after cruising around for about 1500 miles and doing an oil change, i decided i would sell the powerFC and go with a pettit unlimited ECU and just run low boost (have the option to turn it up to 11-12psi in the future) and i went for a drive and attempted to boost. limp mode. i think 4 or 5 of the 330ohm 1/2 watt resistors had been installed into the harness at some point, and when switching back to the pettit stock-ish ECU i ended up with limp mode.
i removed the harness, unwrapped the entire thing, removed the poorly installed resistors, added a sub-harness that has all the resistors (all 13 i think it is) to resolve any CEL codes, re-wrapped with friction tape, and reinstalled into the car with the pettit ECU. BAM, no limp mode, but the car feels slow.
11. i install a boost gauge to see why the car feels slow, and i see it's only hitting about 5psi, and at about 4000rpms THE CLUTCH SLIPS (yes, it slips at 5psi). albeit, it was cold outside (~30*F) but this clutch, which i was told was "good" by zach, slips at only 5psi, and why is it hitting only 5psi????
12. i take the car to my buddy's fab shop with my new exhaust pieces (ebay downpipe, racing beat dual catback, vibrant hi-flow race cat, and the resonated midpipe that i had leftover from my red FD). we removed the cat to install my new hiflow cat and downpipe, planning to have the cat at the end of the downpipe, just before the resonator in the midpipe. we got the stock cat off of the car and it's like rattling a folgers can full of golf ***** --the guts of the stock cat were busted into a multitude of small pieces, which were surely causing a huge restriction. my buddy made the exhaust, got it all sealed up, and i took the car back. the car now hits 8psi and annihilates the clutch. at least it's boosting correctly now, right? i'm thinking "JESUS CHRYSLER WHAT'S NEXT"
13. what's next? that's about it. i installed a mini amp and some infinity kappa speakers in the front and rear, installed my tablet mount, and got the stereo going. it sounds pretty good. it needs a small subwoofer though.
zach mailed me an air filter and TNS relay out of the kindness of his heart.
there was a brief period of time that i was running an adaptronic 440d plug and play, but i sold it and decided to go with the pettit ECU instead. i'm not totally happy with the pettit (idle is insanely rich, and cold start is even more rich, not sure why, but i don't like that) other than that, the ecu is pretty good for being a modified stocker...
SO, i basically spent 17,500 on an FD that had ALL THOSE ISSUES ^^^
a bad purchase? maybe, but damn does it look good:
the day i got it
tablet mount
about to tear open the harness (friends playing iracing)
making the positive side battery terminal
ahh, yes, something that had been untouched!!! installed my walbro400 in here, because why not.
some sweet stuff removed from the engine. installed mishimoto silicone radiator hoses and properly capped off the AST return line at the bottom of the radiator
installing new oil injectors and OMP lines (and yeah, i need new injector grommets [they exist, they're just removed in these pics])
fresh new LIM/UIM gasket. i love installing new MAZDA parts
11-28-14, 11:11 PM
#2
my funny roommate
chinese CX RACING coilovers (8k/6k). these things are surprisingly nice. especially for how cheap they are.
looks great in the garage
install of the little baby catch can
china downpipe that had to be altered (we had to move the o2 bung and we added a second one for my wideband)
chinese CX RACING coilovers (8k/6k). these things are surprisingly nice. especially for how cheap they are.
looks great in the garage
install of the little baby catch can
china downpipe that had to be altered (we had to move the o2 bung and we added a second one for my wideband)
11-28-14, 11:12 PM
#3
installing exhaust stuff
all on AMAZON
new crush washers
jumpered the fuel pump relay resistor (can't really see it in the pic)
discovered this while jumpering the fuel pump resistor
stock alternator pulley installed (underdrive water pump pulley still there)
engine bay mostly complete (before removing underdrive alternator pulley)
the face of madness after discovering the "good clutch" in your 18k FD is slipping at only 5psi
red FD roller the day i sold it. detailing it at my friend's house.
all on AMAZON
new crush washers
jumpered the fuel pump relay resistor (can't really see it in the pic)
discovered this while jumpering the fuel pump resistor
stock alternator pulley installed (underdrive water pump pulley still there)
engine bay mostly complete (before removing underdrive alternator pulley)
the face of madness after discovering the "good clutch" in your 18k FD is slipping at only 5psi
red FD roller the day i sold it. detailing it at my friend's house.
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12-02-14, 01:18 PM
#8
and just a little more info, as i had a couple people ask about my experience with the adaptronic (mine was a 440 PNP unit)
i like these units. my only issue with it is that i use my EMS with a tablet mounted in the DIN location to display gauges/info while driving and tracking, and the adaptronic doesn't have a conventional "gauges" page --just some numbers and ECU data to monitor. those things weren't easily visible on my tablet screen, and i didn't like that. of course any ANDROID tablet can display all of that stuff easily (similar to what XLR8 josh did), but i happen to have an x86 (full windows 8.1) tablet, and didnt want to ditch that for an android tablet just to use the adaptronic android app. the windows software is also not at all touch-friendly, so i nearly couldn't make any changes with the tablet.
i had no issues tuning it while using a laptop, and while the software isn't beautiful, it is effective and "makes sense." this is a great unit for the price, and i'd definitely prefer one of these over a new PowerFC.
anyway, i sold the adaptronic to a local friend with an FD (johnnykommavongsa on here) and took a partial trade for his pettit ECU that i rolled on for a couple months. i sold my nice engine harness and adaptronic to johnny and i may be dyno tuning the car for him.
so, my FD is currently sitting in the garage with no EMS/harness, and i'm not sure what i'm going to do about the EMS.
i like these units. my only issue with it is that i use my EMS with a tablet mounted in the DIN location to display gauges/info while driving and tracking, and the adaptronic doesn't have a conventional "gauges" page --just some numbers and ECU data to monitor. those things weren't easily visible on my tablet screen, and i didn't like that. of course any ANDROID tablet can display all of that stuff easily (similar to what XLR8 josh did), but i happen to have an x86 (full windows 8.1) tablet, and didnt want to ditch that for an android tablet just to use the adaptronic android app. the windows software is also not at all touch-friendly, so i nearly couldn't make any changes with the tablet.
i had no issues tuning it while using a laptop, and while the software isn't beautiful, it is effective and "makes sense." this is a great unit for the price, and i'd definitely prefer one of these over a new PowerFC.
anyway, i sold the adaptronic to a local friend with an FD (johnnykommavongsa on here) and took a partial trade for his pettit ECU that i rolled on for a couple months. i sold my nice engine harness and adaptronic to johnny and i may be dyno tuning the car for him.
so, my FD is currently sitting in the garage with no EMS/harness, and i'm not sure what i'm going to do about the EMS.
12-02-14, 06:35 PM
#9
As the old saying goes "no pain no gain" but at least you know what you're doing and apparently you have good taste as your FD looks pretty fresh....god haven't used that term in a while. Anyway your FD looks amazing and I can't wait to see where you take it from here.
What are your plans with the harness?
What are your plans with the harness?
Last edited by 4g63rotary; 12-02-14 at 06:54 PM. Reason: grammatical
12-02-14, 09:56 PM
#12
i've had a haltech e6k (2), an apexi powerFC w/datalogit (4), a haltech e8, a haltech PS2000, a haltech PS1000, an adaptronic 440 pnp, and probably 1 or 2 others i can't remember at the moment.
i am not sure what is next, but i will need to get an EMS soon.
12-03-14, 12:39 PM
#17
i've been collecting a lot of this since installing the catch can. lots of moisture. anyone know how to fix this?
Sadly, I would guess that is a symptom of running without an air filter. Rotaries absolutely need an air filter.
Dust has probably worn your side seal to corner seal clearance high, your oil control seals and step wear on the plates.
I would guess this engine will begin to exhibit hot start issues as normal rotor housing wear comes into play compounding the sideseal wear.
Still, I would just run it until the catch can required to for a track session can't quite fit under the hood any more. Side seal wear doesn't affect top end power *that much* on a turbo car in my experience.
Sadly, I would guess that is a symptom of running without an air filter. Rotaries absolutely need an air filter.
Dust has probably worn your side seal to corner seal clearance high, your oil control seals and step wear on the plates.
I would guess this engine will begin to exhibit hot start issues as normal rotor housing wear comes into play compounding the sideseal wear.
Still, I would just run it until the catch can required to for a track session can't quite fit under the hood any more. Side seal wear doesn't affect top end power *that much* on a turbo car in my experience.
12-03-14, 02:57 PM
#19
i've been collecting a lot of this since installing the catch can. lots of moisture. anyone know how to fix this?
Sadly, I would guess that is a symptom of running without an air filter. Rotaries absolutely need an air filter.
Dust has probably worn your side seal to corner seal clearance high, your oil control seals and step wear on the plates.
I would guess this engine will begin to exhibit hot start issues as normal rotor housing wear comes into play compounding the sideseal wear.
Still, I would just run it until the catch can required to for a track session can't quite fit under the hood any more. Side seal wear doesn't affect top end power *that much* on a turbo car in my experience.
Sadly, I would guess that is a symptom of running without an air filter. Rotaries absolutely need an air filter.
Dust has probably worn your side seal to corner seal clearance high, your oil control seals and step wear on the plates.
I would guess this engine will begin to exhibit hot start issues as normal rotor housing wear comes into play compounding the sideseal wear.
Still, I would just run it until the catch can required to for a track session can't quite fit under the hood any more. Side seal wear doesn't affect top end power *that much* on a turbo car in my experience.
1. i installed an air filter immediately when i got the car home... it was without a filter for about 1 day --really not that big of a deal, just a WTF moment when i was checking out the car more closely after getting it home.
2. it cold starts and hot starts perfectly.
3. maybe you didn't notice most of the stuff in that cap is water, not that much oil. i was just curious if i have something vented incorrectly.
12-03-14, 03:30 PM
#21
Just my personal experience with blow by on a rotary.
I build my engines with very tight side seal clearance and not a single porting template I have seen besides Judge Itos keeps the irons from wearing side seals so I make my own.
My last TII engine I dyno tuned it on he old turbo set-up @ 18psi, raced it, dyno tuned it on the new set-up @ 26psi (probably 150 dyno pulls total on engine) and then raced it.
Why the story?
3 months after the build at a race I decided to finally check the catch can for the first time since the rebuild. Less than a thimble full of blowby.
In contrast, I have overreved an engine and stuck a side seal and would have to change the catch can a couple times a day.
Combustion chamber blow by carries lots of water into your sump along with the gasses. The gasses exit the vent in the catch can and the water and oil condenses and stays.
I build my engines with very tight side seal clearance and not a single porting template I have seen besides Judge Itos keeps the irons from wearing side seals so I make my own.
My last TII engine I dyno tuned it on he old turbo set-up @ 18psi, raced it, dyno tuned it on the new set-up @ 26psi (probably 150 dyno pulls total on engine) and then raced it.
Why the story?
3 months after the build at a race I decided to finally check the catch can for the first time since the rebuild. Less than a thimble full of blowby.
In contrast, I have overreved an engine and stuck a side seal and would have to change the catch can a couple times a day.
Combustion chamber blow by carries lots of water into your sump along with the gasses. The gasses exit the vent in the catch can and the water and oil condenses and stays.
12-03-14, 04:01 PM
#22
Just my personal experience with blow by on a rotary.
I build my engines with very tight side seal clearance and not a single porting template I have seen besides Judge Itos keeps the irons from wearing side seals so I make my own.
My last TII engine I dyno tuned it on he old turbo set-up @ 18psi, raced it, dyno tuned it on the new set-up @ 26psi (probably 150 dyno pulls total on engine) and then raced it.
Why the story?
3 months after the build at a race I decided to finally check the catch can for the first time since the rebuild. Less than a thimble full of blowby.
In contrast, I have overreved an engine and stuck a side seal and would have to change the catch can a couple times a day.
Combustion chamber blow by carries lots of water into your sump along with the gasses. The gasses exit the vent in the catch can and the water and oil condenses and stays.
I build my engines with very tight side seal clearance and not a single porting template I have seen besides Judge Itos keeps the irons from wearing side seals so I make my own.
My last TII engine I dyno tuned it on he old turbo set-up @ 18psi, raced it, dyno tuned it on the new set-up @ 26psi (probably 150 dyno pulls total on engine) and then raced it.
Why the story?
3 months after the build at a race I decided to finally check the catch can for the first time since the rebuild. Less than a thimble full of blowby.
In contrast, I have overreved an engine and stuck a side seal and would have to change the catch can a couple times a day.
Combustion chamber blow by carries lots of water into your sump along with the gasses. The gasses exit the vent in the catch can and the water and oil condenses and stays.
i was just wondering why so much moisture is present with the small amount of engine oil that's blowing up through the fill tube. that little oil can carry that much moisture with it?
12-04-14, 12:43 PM
#24
ok what if i told you it had no air filter in the airbox for only one day (i am going to go ahead and say this probably cause absolutely no measurable engine damage), and i've had the oil slightly over-filled the entire time?
Then I would say it is likely not worn side seals, but an engine assembled with too high of side seal tolerance or porting that has damaged the side seals.
What is in your catch can is important.
Oil gets in there from a poorly baffled pan where you actually slosh oil all the way up into the catch can tube to sump junction with g forces and the sump blow-by pressure pushes the oil through the tubes into the catch can.
Water and fuel collect in your catch can when that sump blow-by is excessive.
Blow-by is high combustion pressure pushing past the side seals and easily pushing past the oil control rings (as they are designed to keep oil in the sump, not high pressure gasses in the gap between side seal and oil control rings).
Some sump blow-by is normal especially as the engine is warming up. A large amount of blow-by can be a problem.
These blow-by combustion gasses push through to your catch can and have a huge amount of water in them which condenses in your catch can as the gasses vent out.
The blow-by also carries fuel into your catch can as the injectors blast the rotor flank between the side seals and oil control rings with fuel and then combustion pressure blow-by carries the fuel with it into the sump and catch can.
If you can explain another scenario where water ends up in your catch can with the engine warmed up and running let me know.
if my red FD (that was a medium sized street port) if i had the oil overfilled EVEN SLIGHTLY it would fill up a catch can almost instantly in boost.
Catch can filled with oil in this scenario I presume.
i was just wondering why so much moisture is present with the small amount of engine oil that's blowing up through the fill tube. that little oil can carry that much moisture with it?
Oil and water don't mix- the oil is not carrying water in it. Combustion gasses are.
Then I would say it is likely not worn side seals, but an engine assembled with too high of side seal tolerance or porting that has damaged the side seals.
What is in your catch can is important.
Oil gets in there from a poorly baffled pan where you actually slosh oil all the way up into the catch can tube to sump junction with g forces and the sump blow-by pressure pushes the oil through the tubes into the catch can.
Water and fuel collect in your catch can when that sump blow-by is excessive.
Blow-by is high combustion pressure pushing past the side seals and easily pushing past the oil control rings (as they are designed to keep oil in the sump, not high pressure gasses in the gap between side seal and oil control rings).
Some sump blow-by is normal especially as the engine is warming up. A large amount of blow-by can be a problem.
These blow-by combustion gasses push through to your catch can and have a huge amount of water in them which condenses in your catch can as the gasses vent out.
The blow-by also carries fuel into your catch can as the injectors blast the rotor flank between the side seals and oil control rings with fuel and then combustion pressure blow-by carries the fuel with it into the sump and catch can.
If you can explain another scenario where water ends up in your catch can with the engine warmed up and running let me know.
if my red FD (that was a medium sized street port) if i had the oil overfilled EVEN SLIGHTLY it would fill up a catch can almost instantly in boost.
Catch can filled with oil in this scenario I presume.
i was just wondering why so much moisture is present with the small amount of engine oil that's blowing up through the fill tube. that little oil can carry that much moisture with it?
Oil and water don't mix- the oil is not carrying water in it. Combustion gasses are.
