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Thanks! I am beginning to fall in love with it more and more!
Not much of an update, but I have a couple of questions below.
So, I began to reinstall stuff. I got the car off the dolly and back on the jack stands thanks to my two oldest boys. I figured I'd start with the exhaust shield and exhaust, since it will be easier to get it in now rather than after the rear end is in, so I set out. Lesson learned: use new or rust free used hardware... One of the bolts broke off near the transmission mount and naughty words ensued... Eventually I drilled a bigger hole and tapped it for a larger (rust free) bolt. What should have taken 15 minutes took me about 2 hours, but I was determined!. Not much of an update, but things are beginning to go back on the car!
Exhaust shield in place:
Hoping to get the exhaust up next, I retrieved the racing beat muffler that I pulled from a junked 84 GSL-SE and as most will know already, the inlet pipe on the GSL-SE muffler is different on the SA - a fact I had hoped was not true even though I knew it was.
GSL-SE Racing Beat muffler:
My SA exhaust pipe. Notice the rotten end of the exhaust where the muffler used to be, and the position of the two bolt flange:
My existing exhaust has a Pace Setter header. I had hoped that I could simply remove the broken exhaust pipe and bolt up the GSL-SE muffler but no joy.
So a couple questions:
Aside from cutting the pipe and welding on a new flange, does anyone know if a Racing Beat midpipe would work with this and my Pace Setter header? I suspect not, but thought I'd ask.
Will a RB header and mid pipe fit my 79 12A, and if it does, are there any performance issues (either good or bad)?
I just went to their site to look into it. There are 5 different options for the SA/FB exhaust. They all rely on the factory mid-pipe, so you would need the SA mid-pipe. The Racing Beat exhaust, which I had on my old FB, was a single outlet into a RB presilencer, factory midpipe, stock muffler. I then took it to a shop and had them weld up a presilencer-back exhaust. Too bad the car was totally in a rear-end collision a couple weeks later.
If I were you, get the header and presilencer used, if you can, or just stick with the Pacesetter and get a Vibrant or Magnaflow straight through resonator. Piping on summit racing isn't too terribly expensive, so you could build your own.
Getting all new hardware is SO pricey. Don't price it out, I did... See if a zinc-refinisher is in your area. I know Riversine did this pretty freakin' well here:
I just went to their site to look into it. There are 5 different options for the SA/FB exhaust. They all rely on the factory mid-pipe, so you would need the SA mid-pipe. The Racing Beat exhaust, which I had on my old FB, was a single outlet into a RB presilencer, factory midpipe, stock muffler. I then took it to a shop and had them weld up a presilencer-back exhaust. Too bad the car was totally in a rear-end collision a couple weeks later.
If I were you, get the header and presilencer used, if you can, or just stick with the Pacesetter and get a Vibrant or Magnaflow straight through resonator. Piping on summit racing isn't too terribly expensive, so you could build your own.
Thanks ACR_RX-7! That story about your car made me shudder a little bit...
I think I have a few options and will have to go with the one that fits my budget the best. That factory midpipe is the key.
I guess one option is to just buy a new SA muffler, and reuse my system.
Another is to buy a used header, presilencer and midpipe, buuuuuuttttt, since the 13B housings are a bit wider than SA I can't use the 13B RB header on my SA and will have to find an SA header. I'll have to call and see if the 12A header will bolt up the the 13B midpipe/ presilencer section.
Or, I could just go with a whole new RB system for an SA.
That looks like pretty easy math I guess...
Originally Posted by Qingdao
If you find you can't use that RB canister.... I'll take it off your hands.
It's looking like I may not be using it. I'll keep you in mind if it comes to that Qingdao!
Originally Posted by SirLaughsALot
Getting all new hardware is SO pricey. Don't price it out, I did... See if a zinc-refinisher is in your area. I know Riversine did this pretty freakin' well here:
That was a cool video Sir, thanks for sharing! That guy seems to have a much bigger budget. I can't imagine spending that kind of money on plating. He's prolly in for over $1000.
What I can do however, is try to plate some stuff myself. I did a writeup somewhere in here on using electrolysis to remove rust and I know that if I reverse the polarity and use a bar of zinc I can plate something. I went to a boat dealer locally and picked up a zinc bar (thanks Qingdao for the help on that idea) but never tried it, so I think I know what I'm gonna do today!
To get the car painted a couple months ago I used the wire wheel to knock the rust off bunch of fender and lower valence bolts that I had collected and then strung them together with tape and painted them. They came out looking pretty nice. Here's a few pics:
I'll give the electrolysis thing a whirl and see how it comes out. I'll start with the suspension bolts.
In the mean time, here's my rusty muffler shroud. I took a wire wheel to it and then painted it with high temp engine paint - used the silver I had on hand then went over it with satin black. It has some sizable areas of pin holes and some areas of rust through, but it's going back on!
A new SA long primary system would look super good on all that new paint. You could put mirrors under your car when you park it.
I'll poke my SA and see what it has under it. If you can use it. It didn't leak when I ran it a few years back, but its no performance exhaust.
I might have a factory mid pipe still. I'll check when I head down to Charleston on Monday.
That would be awesome, thanks Qingdao.
I tried the plating idea on my Watts linkage bolts and nuts but had less than successful results. Here's what I started with. The ends of the bolts were rusty but the middle sections were still nice and shiny. Can still see the cadmium plating on them.
You can see that I used the wire wheel to knock off the rust...
Aaaaaannnnnnnnnnd then after a few hours in the electrlysis bath... No bueno.
I'll try again with a scrap piece and see if I can get it right. Otherwise I'm just going to clean up the hardware and paint it.
Very likely. I have another bolt in there now for the last 24 hours and it's not turning into rust. It's a slow process. It may be quicker to just wire wheel and paint rather than plate the hardware....
Between work and family issues life has been CrAzY these days. I put in 40 hours at work last week by Wednesday evening.
I finally got the damplifier on the inside of the doors - I can tell by tapping them that are much better than stock, which was a little 6 inch by 9 inch (or so) patch.
I put everywhere that I could reach, both on the outer skin above and below the crank mechanism, and on the back side of the inner structure.
I also removed the headliner, installed the damplifier on the ceiling, then put the new foil backed insulation up there and reinstalled the headliner. Hope this helps keep it cool in the summer.
After removing the factory insulation.
The factory insulation covers about 60 - 75% of the roof surface.
Cleaned the adhesive off with brake cleaner - that stuff is awesome.
Dampifier pro on the roof
Heatwave Pro from Second Skin.
Headliner reinstalled.
I have to find some headliner glue to re-glue the edges of the headliner. I've seen some stuff online that should work, but I'm gonna try the paint shop I've been getting my stuff from. If anyone local has it, they would. Otherwise I'll have some shipped.
How are your hands after putting the deading in the doors? Cut up pretty bad? I hate dealing inside doors; everything is sharp inside of them.
Nah, not too bad. I used mechanix gloves, having learned my lesson from installing that stuff on the floor. On the roof however, I did get a couple of nice slices that I didn't notice until I washed my hands, difference being no gloves - thought I was being careful, but that foil is thick and sharp as a razor.
Seeing as you just did what I planned to do, could you post quantities used for everything? :P
I was going to use heatwave as much as I could. Not bad for old denim shorts, eyy? Wow, the car sure is coming together nicely!
Thank you Sir! I am getting a lot of looks when the garage door is open, and a lot of "what is that?" and "when are you gonna be done?" Ha!
I bought two 48 x 72 sheets of the heatwave. So far have used about 1 and 1/2 of them both, so I have about 1/2 of one left. It will be almost enough to do the roof, firewall and floor. I am piecing together the firewall section so that I can cover it all. Not so worried about the back end if I don't have enough.
Oh! And if you're going with the Second Skin adhesive - get three cans. I got one and had to run to AZ and get a can of the 3M adhesive. The SS adhesive is $16, the 3M is $20, but the 3M is the bomb and outperforms the SS stuff - in my opinion. I'm gonna need one more.
Are you not using the MLV or Damplifier Pro on the floor? Overkill in the doors?
I have a connection with SecondSkin, so I was going to purchase it as a dealer in a pretty large quantity. Their stuff is $$$ but I think the quality surpasses everything else on the market.
Are you not using the MLV or Damplifier Pro on the floor? Overkill in the doors?
I have a connection with SecondSkin, so I was going to purchase it as a dealer in a pretty large quantity. Their stuff is $$$ but I think the quality surpasses everything else on the market.
I misunderstood your question. Take a look at post #597 - I put pics in there of the coverage of the damplifier pro I used. Took 2 bulk packs to do the floor and firewall. I bought another small pack to do the roof and doors.
I misunderstood your question. Take a look at post #597 - I put pics in there of the coverage of the damplifier pro I used. Took 2 bulk packs to do the floor and firewall. I bought another small pack to do the roof and doors.
Yea, it's beautiful! <3 <3
For some reason I was thinking the heatwave would go first, then damplifier pro, then MLV.
This car is going to be SO quiet and comfortable. A total GT.
For some reason I was thinking the heatwave would go first, then damplifier pro, then MLV.
This car is going to be SO quiet and comfortable. A total GT.
Yeah, I don't think that will work. The damplifier pro is pretty thick stuff and needs a hard surface to bond to. I believe it was designed to install directly onto the car body. I considered using the MLV over top of the heatwave, but I think that this car will be noisy to a degree (rotaries are aren't they?) and the MLV will not gain me much over what I've done now for heat protection as it's more for sound resistance so I opted not to use it. Regardless, this should be a much quieter and hopefully cooler ride than stock, although I have no reference point to go by.
With that said, I was after as much heat protection as I could get in there on a variable budget that constantly hovers near zero. The two 48 x 72 inch sheets of heatwave covered the roof and the floor including the firewall from front to back ... except beneath the bin area (where bins on FBs go anyway). Since I don't have any other heatwave left to go in that area, I decided to double up on the damplifier pro there.
Now I'm considering cleaning my replacement carpet up vs. buying new. New will be about $330 with shipping and a discount, but I don't have that at the moment so I 'm gonna give power washing my replacement, or using carpet shampooer on it...
This is what those two sheets covered and how much was left over:
Yeah, I don't think that will work. The damplifier pro is pretty thick stuff and needs a hard surface to bond to. I believe it was designed to install directly onto the car body. I considered using the MLV over top of the heatwave, but I think that this car will be noisy to a degree (rotaries are aren't they?)
...snip...
Its amazing how much you've done (how much drive you have) considering you've only driven the car for a handful of miles.
