DarkDrakeX

TBH man allready welded it. I googled it and since its cast steel and not iron people said it is fine to weld on as long as you use some pre heat and post heat. It didnt crack so hopefully it holds up =/. Gonna work on that panhard soon i just got orders to Korea for a year and leave in 2.5 months. So i have to either kick this build into overdrive or wait off and store it. Quite sucks.

peachs

a little update since OP doesn't do it...

FC front subframe in Dormant Purple and Ronin Speedworks LSx mounts in Aqua Clear:




Car sitting on QA1 coilovers and 2012 Mazda3 wheels (color is Bronze Chrome on the rims):




Looking through the trunk/fuel cell area at the Ford 8.8 rearend and custom panhard bar (in Aqua Clear):




Another view of the Ford 8.8 and powdercoated panhard bar:




QA1 coilovers and panhard bad on the Ford 8.8:




Coilovers adjusted almost all the way up and there is almost no gap:

peachs

A couple interior shots...

Racing seat mounted on slightly modified stock seat rails:






Another view of the seat. You can just barely see the boxed in tri-link in the bottom left of the photo:

peachs

More pictures...

Upper control arm of the TRi-link boxed in (interior):




Upper control arm of the tri-link boxed in (exterior)(control color is Aqua Clear):






Lower control arms on the tri-link setup (powdercoat color is Aqua Clear):




Panhard bar and QA1 coilover setup:

peachs

Also...

LS3 timing cover, PAC1218 springs, hardened pushrods, LS9 cam, TBSS timing gear, and ARP timing gear bolts:

DreamInRotary

iTrader: (49)

So he's going LS swap now? I thought I saw some of his parts for sale in the 3rd Gen Classifieds not too long ago.

Nice looking setup so far though, curious where it'll go

placd1

iTrader: (3)

Damn! I was looking forward to seeing a boosted FB build. Great work so far fabricating and welding up that rear end.

DarkDrakeX

Yeah im going LS now. With the time constraint of going to korea (I leave on the 18th) and the amount of money i was still going to have to drop into that motor to have it were i wanted it i decided to give up my rotary dream. While im away tho my 12a is getting boosted with the turbo/13b manifold that i have leftover from the last motor so it wont all be going to waste.

Andddddd im going turbo in the LS. So a 5.3l with a BWs475 or HX52R with a billet wheel. Im looking for 500 HP (street) 750 (race) and a 1000 wheel dyno pull. On a street registered car that i will drive to work onto a military base one day hahaha. For right now i am going NA to 1st startup and then working on acquiring all of the turbo stuff while im in korea.

DarkDrakeX

So since i havent updated this in a minute other than a breif explenation from earlier im gonna post some of the stuff i have.

Got a computer+wiring harness complete form the junkyard. SOoo time to hack a prefectly good wiring harness up to make it "cleaner"

THis is what it looked like deloomed


Depinned from the plug and all of the junk wires seperated and removed this is all of the single harnesses that go to every sensor.


Welded my rear end axle tubes


Building the trilink box


Turbo drain installed in the front cover and the thing powder coated. I let my best friend sign it because i let her powdercoat it and she was all excited she got to work on my racecar lol.


Got the timing cover installed and the harmonic balancer installed


Motor mockup mounted in the car. (no oil pan)


Seeing how far the truck alternator bracker would stick out my hood (reason i went with corvetter stuff)


So i got the wrong oil pan and i was gonna see how far i needed to move the mounting to make this work.. Verdict i had to get rid of my bvrand new oil pan and get a used LS1 camaro one. O well.
[img[http://i1289.photobucket.com/albums/b514/darkdrakex/IMG_1181_zps8ee5cd9d.jpg[/img]

[img[http://i1289.photobucket.com/albums/b514/darkdrakex/IMG_1180_zps03c1fe16.jpg[/img]



Thats about it for now. I got my clutch and all that in today and am going to permanently install the motor and get the transmission crossmember made up tomorrow. I would love to get it driving before saturday (sevenstock) but i dont think i will have the drive shaft shortened by then unfortunately.

DarkDrakeX

Since i messed these 2 picturesup. This is the motor w/ the oldschool swap pan (2nd best clearance oil pan)

DarkDrakeX

Got the motor installed for the last time. Now to run the engine wiring harness+all the other stuff. Some of wich would be easier w/ the motor out but there not quite as pressing so eff it.

t5 Transmission bolted to the engine. Had to do it 1st because i dont think i have enough room in my tranny tunnel to properly instal it.


Again


Engine in the bay


Now all i got to do is all the final shenanigans. Hopefully she purrs like a kitten and i get to hear it before i leave for korea.

Koguma

That's a pretty damn clean swap

DarkDrakeX

Im "Shaving" the bay. SO all the unneeded holes and shtuff were removed and im gonna hide as much wiring as possible. Surprisingly everything fits with all of the frankensteining ive had to do. Thanks alot man. Ibe been in korea for a few weeks now so no progress the last pic is pretty much were she ended. Im just saving money to finish it on my midtour. Haha

Josh.272

Mate i am loving the build. Cant say im a big fan of the V8 swap as i am more of a purist but none the less we all build cars different and you have to take in great craftsmanship of others. I still think that big torquey engine would haul *** in the nimble and light Rx7 chassis. Might be a project for me later down the track

1. How does the steering feel now with power steering? Is it much different to the feel of the standard Mazda?
2. How much of the standard steering column did you use?
3. Did you have any problems with trying to line the two columns up?
4. Are you able to post some more photos of joining the column and how it sits in the car?

i am just going through the process of sorting everything out before i actually go through with the swap and the steering is the last issue that i have to sort out.
My biggest concern is down here in Australia, the highway patrol are very very strict on the mods which are done on a car (eg. the car has to be higher then 101mm at its lowest point, but also no lower then 50mm lower then the car came from the factory, the wheels are only allowed to be 25.4mm wider then standard and the track of the car cant be increased by more then 25.4mm, also any exposed filter elements is a defect straight up. basically anything on the car can be defected because it is only in the officer's opinion that the car is defective even if its standard) So i dont want to do the sub frame swap and get caught out by the police because i will be facing very big fines.
Any help with joining the columns together would be great

Cheers

82transam

iTrader: (18)

Not sure how I missed this thread, but you're doing some nice fab work, keep it up. Glad my FC subframe thread could help, admittedly it needs a lot more pics though - sorry!

Josh.272 - if you're able to find spares it would be a good idea to get a spare FB and FC column and disassemble them. I should have taken more pics of mine for my build thread, but once you see all the components in front of you apart it becomes a lot clearer what is needed. Assuming you are a good welder it is possible to do the FC subframe swap clean enough that no one would ever know it wasn't stock. If it weren't for the moved strut towers on mine I doubt anyone would ever notice.

One of these days I'll have to update my how-to thread.

Dark-Drake - keep up the good work, I'll be watching this now

peachs

@josh i'll try to find some pics of the column torn apart if i can...since darkrakex's car is in the front yard lol

DarkDrakeX

Hey man were my last picture is is pretty much were i ended up on the project because im deployed to korea for 2 years now. Its still sitting waiting for me. The sterring wheel is in the stock location bolted to the normal mounting point since the upper column is the FB. Here is the best i can show ya.

So how i found out the length was measured were the yoke fitting will be bolting to the stock rack and got it that length (i dont htve the measurements sorry)

How it is held to the card on the bottom end is a piece of plate w/ 2 bolts thru the firewall.

Here is the 3 piece of the new shaft. I had to shave the smaller ones down to fit into each othger before welding.

From left to right FC lower small tube , FC Lower tube after the flare out, FB upper tube.

Here is the reference for what i just said.

I didnt even know i had this picture but here is the inner steering column.

Left to right FC lower, FB upper had to shave the FC lower down to fit in the FB upper (took alot of grinding)

It is stock heled together by a plastic crush pin and you can use a plastic or metal crush pin w/ a drill if u want that to make it collapsable in a accident (i welded mine fukk it)


This is the best i can do for what i have pictures wise. Sorry it isnt more if u have any more questions dont hesitate to ask. And with all of your measurements it isnt any wider than the stock it seems and im using full FC front suspention there isnt any FB anything on it any more.

Josh.272

Thanks mate for the pictures. They really helped. I still havent gotten an FC column yet but i have 7 FB columns so i have one or two spares. I will pull one part this weekend and have a bit of a look

DarkDrakeX

So just a little update .

As I am not back in cali yet and have been in korea for 6 months all I really can do is buy parts. My bosch 80lbs/hr injectors are on order I ended up going with a BWs480 capable of 1300 hp. Billet wheel 1.1ar on a t4 housin this thing is pretty sick. Here are some pics.
Just in case anyone is wondering with the price of everything so far im a little under 7500$ invested into this project eith about 3 more to go. So much for thinking v8 would be cheaper haha.

My turbo is the one on the left the other one is a garrett gt4202 with a t6 exhaust housing.