Managed to get up early this morning and get to the gettin'! Got my new clutch disc installed and got the motor off the stand.



and mated the trans...



Then it was time to move the party outside...no rain today means that this baby was going in!
I realized after mating the engine and transmission that I never stripped out the engine bay and that the install might be a tight fit.



Since I was gonna be changing out the oil cooler anyway, I pulled the radiator and cooler together to make a little extra space. Gonna need some new oil cooler mounts it looks like.

Ahhh thats a little better



It still took quite a bit of angling and my sloped driveway really didn't help the situation...



But it is in and mounted...



In retrospect...it would have been much better to have mounted the trans first and then drop the engine in and bolt the two together. The transmission is being held up by a jackstand currently, and will be mounted tomorrow morning. Ran out of time and had to pick up the kids from school. Still a productive day all in all.

 

It was another great weather day in NY so I dragged my ultra hung-over body out of the bed at 7am. In my fog I was able to get the trans crossmember bolted up as well as a number of odds and ends on the engine.

As I was bolting up the headers it became quite evident that I would only be using 3 studs for the install. One of the studs broke off in epic fashion taking the helicoil repair with it as well as any chance of future repair without a little aluminum welding.



I may be able to thread some kind of oversized bolt to hold pressure on the manifold flange and keep the exhaust leak to a minimum, but it will be ugly and probably upset me everytime I look at it.:crying

Also found a bit of chaffing on a wire harness in the front of the car.


At this point it was time for a coffee break...lol.

I got back at it soon enough and installed the carburetor and distributor and starter. I got my alternator on as well and found a double pulley from a Subaru I took apart a while back. I was wondering if it would work on the rx7's alternator so I put it on. Not bad! Now I can run dual belts.





I finished out the day with a fresh set of plugs. Still have to switch out my oil cooler and cleanup and paint my radiator, then those bits can go in. Its starting to come together though.



Hope this good weather holds out!

 

i am willing to bet that without something in place of that stud, your going to have exhaust leak issues

 

For sure...

I will make an attempt at threading an oversized bolt with a spacer of somekind for now. This engine had all kinds of issues when I picked it up a couple of years ago. Nearly all of the bolt holes were stripped in one way or another and one of the bell housing ears was broken. When I bought the motor I was so concerned with turning it and listening for good compression that I barely noticed anything else wrong with it. It was a rushed purchase and I overpaid for it...I had been using it as a mock up engine for other builds, but I would like to see if it will run for a bit in this car.
I have other plans for this car anyway...so this may be a short lived install if things go my way.
Right now I just need the car be able to move around under its own power.

 

Just scored some wheels on ebay...old school american racing. I was looking fo Libre's but these might fit the bill nicely....and for the price you can't beat it.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/170751072843...9#ht_500wt_969

 

Thanks man!

 

Not much to update lately...the holidays have a way of draining all my time (and wallet) and we have hit a pretty good cold snap of weather. I have been going back and forth between needing to buy a new radiator and breaking out the jb weld and using an old one I have that needed the mounting brackets to be put back on. My oil cooler mounts are also barely useable as the rubber is pretty cracked but still holding together. In my haste I realized there was a broken oil cooler mount bolt in either side of the radiator mount brackets AFTER installing the radiator. This only left one attachment point on each side for the oil cooler. The result is an oil cooler with way too much movement upon the final mounting.....Soooo it will all come back out again for a repair and fresh oil cooler mounts. The redo should give me a very useful radiator and cooler with the only cost being the new cooler mounts. 37 bucks each.

The day wasn't a total wash however...I found some mechanical gauges I wanted to run so I modified the radio surround to mount the gauges...still not sure if this car will even get a radio.


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

good score on the rims!

 

lookin clean. i like

 

Thanks. Wheels came in the mail yesterday...super clean! Not sure about the width or offset...we'll just have to see. 90 bucks and 39 for shipping I'm not complaining.

 

Thanks!

 

looks pretty good for what you started with! keep it up!

 

Thanks zaridar...it won't be a show car by any means, but it will be fun to drive and that is all I'm after. I live in Bklyn NY...if you make it too nice...it disappears!

 

Got a bit more done today including cooling system plumbed and oil system plumbed, fluids filled and ignition system installed. Waiting on a rear tranny seal, oil metering blockoff plate. Still trying to figure out the layout of the wire harness...I will not have emissions and a stripped down nikki for now so there is a ton of extra connectors that have no home. I should also replace the fuel filter since I have no idea how long the car has been layin' around. Once those items arrive it will be time to put in the drive shaft and an exhaust and hopefully post up a start up video. The car needs tons of other work like replacing siezed brake calipers and such, but it will be a relief to hear it run for now. Also gotta figure out if I will run an e-fan right now or not since the ones I have are all too big to mount on my radiator so it just might be a mechanical fan for now too.

 

lookin good man keep it up

 

It lives!....kinda...well only on starter fluid. I am really hoping that the gas in the car is flat. Once its sorted the video will follow. I got a kick outta watchin exhaust smoke come out of my damaged exhaust stud hole on the header...will be addressed shortly. Sounds strong though. I am pleased.

 

Ok...update, car is running on it own now. OE fuel pump lost its prime I'm guessing. I wanted to keep it running to take a video, but the cops showed up and ended my day of work by handing me two tickets for 115 bucks each. Noise pollution. What a bunch of ****! Anyway...it looks like the next phase of the project will be cobbling together my exhaust so my neighbors can go back to watching Maury Povich in peace.

I started by setting up the install for the Racing Beat PP Muffler...





Progress is slow...got a bunch of stuff going on and looks like I'm gonna have to move by march, maybe its a good thing. Hopefully I will have a little time and money left over to play, but the family needs always come first.

 

Well I finally grew enough ***** to turn on the mig yesterday in an effort to put together an exhaust system for the fb.

By cfamilyfix at 2012-01-27

The exhaust I am using came off my parts car I used for my GLC build. Headers, dual pipes all the way back to a Racing Beat prima flow muffler.

By cfamilyfix at 2011-12-03

There were no flanges in the sytem where they were supposed to be so that was going to have to be addressed as well. First off I had to re attach the over axle pipe to the muffler...

By cfamilyfix at 2012-01-27

And here it is...first arc weld I have ever laid down...ugly...yes, but its got a good bite and the grinder may help to hide some of my inexperience. lol

By cfamilyfix at 2012-01-27

By cfamilyfix at 2012-01-27

 

I had a flange that came with my parts car, but forgot to bring it to work with me, but I did have a flange from some headers I had cut up a while back. Just had to cut the pipes off to get at it.

By cfamilyfix at 2012-01-27

By cfamilyfix at 2012-01-27

all that was left was to grind it down and knock out the pieces of pipe still in there. Then it was on to fitting and welding and grinding...

By cfamilyfix at 2012-01-27

By cfamilyfix at 2012-01-27

here is how it will bolt up to the intermediate pipes, which still need to get sorted

By cfamilyfix at 2012-01-27

I switched to bigger pics as promised, but boy they sure show my fugly welds...go easy on me guys...

 

As Dwayne from American Hotrod once said " you dont have to be a good welder, just a good grinder"

Good try with the welds, but............. they're pretty bad and i'll think they'll give you trouble down the track. I recomend you practice some more on some scrap, then redo these once your a bit better.

 

Thanks Adsy...I was messing around with wire speed and amp settings today and have a little better handle on it, but going by the user manual reccomendations was no help...just gonna take practice and patience i guess...for now these will do. Look for a nicer system to get put together once I go turbo and start the 3in single pipe system.

 

the rims look nice......my friend is selling a full racing beat exhaust...call me if you are interested....

 

ahhh...thanks Joe, but I have made a couple of big splurge purchases already (a set of libre's and a weber set up) so I am pretty much outta cash for this build right now.

 

Well I had a vacation day from work today and the weather was damn near perfect today...almost 60 degrees in end of january! So I took the opportunity to fit up the rear muffler with the over axle pipe and flange connected...what a disaster! The extra length caused a lot of trouble when trying to install rear muffler. I ended up unbolting the right rear shock and jacking up the right rear side of the vehicle...proved to be pretty dangerous with the front of the vehicle on jackstands and the left rear on a ramp platform...in a very sloped driveway It seemed to do the trick and so I bolted it up.
With the muffler installed and the headers in place, all that was needed was a flanged intermediate set of pipes. Since I am using exhaust pipes from a scrap heap (free) it became a challenge to make things fit in a bolt up fashion. I realized I was gonna need two more flanges (no problem 1 I have ready to go and the other I cut off and grinded from an old system)...very time consuming. Here is what I ended up with before calling it a day...

By cfamilyfix at 2012-01-28

fitting up a middle pipe for measuring

By cfamilyfix at 2012-01-28

flanges and pipes ready for welding then fitting

By cfamilyfix at 2012-01-28

This is turning out to be the most time consuming part of the project, but it sure is a lot more fun than just buying a bolt up system.

 

[QUOTE=cfamilyfix;10956630]but it sure is a lot more fun than just buying a bolt up system.[/QUOTE..........