When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
That high capacity baffled differential cover adds an extra 1L of oil to the 1.4L base
2.4L capacity
Did that diffuser make much of a difference?
The front diffuser does
but the rear diffuser is mostly aesthetic for now
Wonder if I shouldn't find a used transmission under cover to smooth out airflow under the car...
I am no Adrian Newey, so I can't really tell you if a transmission cover alone would help airflow under the car versus a full flat bottom tied to a proper rear diffuser...
but I don't think it could hurt
My friend Jamie and I like what Michal Fabiánek did and may look to replicate it soon (I say "we" but Jamie has the furniture building shop to work with). I had reached out to Michal before considering this, and he can't remake it but shared some detail
It has been a few months since we talked about it, but I believe we landed on alumalite for an economical lightweight option to base it around
This is the basis for a proper diffuser
Ready to wrap this chapter of the build up, put a bow on it, and move on to the next stage!
My kids have their own advent calendars counting down days until Christmas, but I am like a kid counting down the hours until I can pick up my FD!
The ribs on my greddy dif cover almost hits the subframe, how much clearance do you have? I considered shaving down the lip of the subframe to give it a little more room to make sure the two wont hit when things flex.
Have you thought about making a triangulated brace for the part of the diffuser thats cut out for the exhaust., that side will flex more without the brace. I ran into a few probs when I had mine until I did the additional bracing.
Last edited by rotaryextreme; Dec 12, 2024 at 12:09 PM.
The ribs on my greddy dif cover almost hits the subframe, how much clearance do you have?
Hey Ben - clearance is pretty good
I can get a better angle for you soon
Originally Posted by rotaryextreme
Have you thought about making a triangulated brace for the part of the diffuser thats cut out for the exhaust., that side will flex more without the brace. I ran into a few probs when I had mine until I did the additional bracing.
That exhaust cut out was not intentional :
Originally Posted by Ghost of Unresolved Past 8/3/2016
I somewhere along the line caught something out on track last season and cracked my rear diffuser. I initially had the idea of putting some heavy duty tape with high-temp tape veneer on it to act as a temporary fix until I ordered a new one
but eventually took the tape off, thinking I didn't want to have to deal with it trackside when it inevitably acted more as a parachute than aero aid
I have something in mind to tighten it up
The rain light mount looks good in person, and a note to self on grabbing 2 to 3 clevis-ended strut rods to tighten up that rear diffuser
The greddy diff sits close to the subframe on the top of the greddy diff cover that extends back to give it the additional fluid. The ribs on that extension part pass under the rear subframe and that is where you will see how close it is. On my car it is almost touching. I also have Banzai's transmission and Diff brace to reduce PPF flex.. I have not had any contact between the two yet, but it is uncomfortably close. I believe that in forward motion under acceleration, it will pitch with the back (of the diff) downward from tq. In reverse, the back will pitch up. In track on/off throttle will cause pitching in both directions. Found my pics so you can see exactly where I'm talking about. I may shave the ribs on the diff down a bit.
Last edited by rotaryextreme; Dec 13, 2024 at 07:59 AM.
I figure Mazda put those covers under the transmission and differential for a reason, lol.
But, mine have been lost to the sands of time…
Ahh gotcha - misunderstood you there
Reach out to Jim T - I bet he has some available
Originally Posted by rotaryextreme
The greddy diff sits close to the subframe on the top of the greddy diff cover that extends back to give it the additional fluid. The ribs on that extension part pass under the rear subframe and that is where you will see how close it is. On my car it is almost touching. I also have Banzai's transmission and Diff brace to reduce PPF flex..
Seeing what you mean now - thanks Ben
I'll pop under there in my full once over and take a look, see how close it is
Originally Posted by Valkyrie
Don't worry, it will self-clearance itself....hehehe
Lights check last night while moving it back in - all looking good
That FIA rain light is safely obnoxious - I'll use it for my blend line to out lap, pit in, time trial laps, and of course for rainy track days
Carlos makes a great point - need to use it responsibly, don't want to cause any seizures out there
Compression Check ✔
Rotary Compression Tester RCT-V5.2
Front
106
113
104
Rear
109
106
102
Good starting point for a large port engine
3.5 years - feeling like a boy the day before christmas...
The front end panel gap has been on my radar for a while and I want to build off of how well of a job Kris and Ihor did with body panel alignment on mis-matched non-OEM pieces
Fender differing from hood differing from bumper -> of course nothing was made to fit OEM perfect together
Never gonna be a best in show, but clean enough for some rubber marbles on this track toy
Looking to turn lemons into lemonade
Going to start with a 1" (0.5" sticky) weatherstrip as a cheap if it works great, if it doesn't work back to the drawing board option
Swapped out the faded Fujita Engineering anodized oil cap for a shiny red new one (that may very well fade the exact same!)
Note to anyone else that grabs one, don't put that sticker on until AFTER you get it secured on - that sideways FEED on the initial one drove me as crazy as the fade
That cap is tight like a tiger on the Alphaloc
Got to take my first quarter turn disconnect on one of the LPS - I am a fan!
Your car is looking great! I had to do a double take when I saw it at IRP on Friday. AND that sign your kids made for the car is amazing hahah
Thanks Benny - great to hear from you! Ihor said you were there the other day. Renna was there dialing in a car as well - sounds like it was a good time
Beautiful day here - attempted a few more non-caloric items
Pulled down the Knight Sports cooling panel and resisted the urge to wash / install some of these other pieces
Need to trim the cooling panel around the hotside endtank (someone's getting a new tool!)
Going to find that Carbing/carbon fiber extension cooling panel, merge these two panels, and do some more work to fully seal that area up
Top side intercooler panel is also on the to do list
Tightened and adjusted the Craft Squares (lol like I said non-caloric stuff, bounce outside for a minute run back inside - it's distracting having this car back in the garage)
Yup, these mirrors are still best suited for an RHD
Last edited by ZumSpeedRX-7; Dec 17, 2024 at 07:11 PM.
Rainy Saturday morning - perfect for Gran Turismo with the kids!
My daughter's 458
and her RE Amemiya FD3S
and my son's R33 GTR - I have a feeling my daughter talked him into the same paint code she painted her RX-7...
My daughter's racer is pretty cool - anyone have any custom nomex suit connections? My all black Sparco Sprint RS-2 is feeling so boring all of a sudden...
Actually wanted to play some Gran Turismo (after about 2 hours of updates - it has been a while!) for some gearing and R&P simulation with stock gearing and my 4.777 against 4.300 vs 4.100 vs 3.900
Anecdotal top speeds in 1's & 0's for fun:
- 4.777-177mph
- 4.300-187mph
- 4.100-191mph
- 3.900-196mph
I mean, I had these two for reference when I bumped up to a 4.777 R&P but test and tune video games with the kids is more fun!
4.777 vs
4.100
Firing up Gran Turismo - still a fantastic way to spend a rainy Saturday morning for 27 years and counting!
Took the first steps on measuring up an intercooler top mount duct to vent / seal to the hood
Reached out to @JP3 Motorsports for some measurements, as their GReddy piece will be solid if it's close enough to work with on my core with some modifications instead of making my own
Last edited by ZumSpeedRX-7; Dec 28, 2024 at 10:14 PM.
Set up a new battery trickle charger today, because having a dead 6.4 pound lithium battery doesn't sound like fun
Bear with the details as I am new to an Li setup
Initial hook up - charging and voltage between 0.5 and 13.1 volts
3.5 hours later - charging and voltage has reached 14.4v
30 minute post charge test - battery can hold at least 90% of charge
Parking these faults on the Cartek XR battery isolator here until I disconnect the trickle charger to better troubleshoot
The interior button and battery isolator were flashing eight times
Can see the fault code, but am not sure yet of the source
Going to mess around with the TUNE setting on the charger (keeps the charge topped off while adjusting ECU/dash settings with the car in ACC), and will disconnect and see what's up with that battery isolator fault code tomorrow
Picked up a Garage Alpha Mazdaspeed-style Titanium strut tower bar from Peter a few weeks ago - it looked like it had clearance the Autoexe didn't
One of these two weighs barely two pounds and the other... significantly more than that
Special delivery with the matching titanium hardware, and new motivational flag, came in today - time to wrap up what should have been an easy strut tower bar install once and for all
Fastened down the cold side - I'm likin' it I'm likin' it!
Rolling over the coupler to get over towards the hot side strut tower... not promising
The FPR is absolutely in the way as is, but I may be able to rework it
Disconnected the FPR block bracket and moved it back
Hmmmm off about a half an inch with applied pressure on the bar over the coupler down (can't imagine that tension bouncing off curbs...)
Nope! but it would have looked cool
Catch it in the marketplace soon and/or PM me if you're interested in it - it's a beautiful, ridiculously lightweight piece!
Back to the drawing board - I think I have a new crackpot idea that looks promising...
See - this new motivational flag is already paying dividends!
Last edited by ZumSpeedRX-7; Dec 28, 2024 at 08:08 PM.
Parking these faults on the Cartek XR battery isolator here until I disconnect the trickle charger to better troubleshoot
Fault 8 Flashes - Maximum current in NEGATIVE circuit exceeded.
All sorted
Disconnected the battery charger, reset the battery isolator (push the interior button once, kill the power; push it again)
No more fault code - not sure what triggered it, or exactly what in the restart process resolved it
Have you tried turning it off and on again? Sometimes it just works
I heard a horror story from the shop of a miswiring of my battery isolator frying an Elite 2500...
Seeing the Elite power LED green solid after all that was a welcome sight
Alright - let's fire her up
Step one was to transmit the new dash pages
Start up view for reference
View after connecting to the dash (can do through WiFi or direct into HVAC panel USB) and transmitting the pages
...I seemed to have lost some channels
Let's get into Haltech NSP and see what's going on
Yup, we've got some good sensor reads that should be coming over
AiM MXG is enabled and connected
Tripped over the add custom start up image and timeout wallpaper pages while looking for the ECU channels - cool but not what I really need right now
Reset the ECU protocol on the dash from CAN to CAN V2, picked up a few more ECU channels, transmitted and...
BOOM!
I wasn't sure how I was going to get the odometer reading over to the new dash after I replaced the OEM
AiM makes it easy through Odometers Management through RS3 just like a standard odometer with trip counters
For my own posterity, here is the detail of how I set my odometer
Last odometer readout in my garage a few weeks before drop off May 28, 2021
My dash counters had every trip at 102 km (approximately 64 miles) on December 30, 2024
Odometer assumes 101,575 miles + 64 miles since rebuild = 101,639 miles set on new dash
Somewhat off topic, but putting this here as a motivator to redo my interior as soon as possible
Right now, I am considering POR-15 in a rust preventative coating with a top coat in gloss black
Small victory since I am more or less back where I started, but I'll take it!
Cleaned up the E92 and stretched her legs a little bit today - drove her less than 500 miles this past year / no autocrosses : (
A house cleaning update - sadly but logically I sold Bianca to free up some garage space for Mia
Awesome car, great no drama NA inline six, fun and smooth manual transmission, and the xDrive was perfect for daily driving new england year-round
Great news is I found a fellow enthusiast (somehow a gold FB along the test drive led us to him initiating a conversation about Smokey Nagata) who is going to enjoy her more than I could
On her way up to her new home in Vermont
I think there will be a time soon when I will really miss the comfort cruises - I have a feeling the FD coming back to motorsport life will fill some of that void
:
