Hello, I am working on putting a JDM S5 into an '87 Turbo II roller I bought. The guy I bought the car from had the same hopes/dreams. But, the motor he bought was blown when he got it, so he gave up pretty quick.

My overall goal is to have a fun track day car and maybe lemon's racer down the road, so part of my build here is removing interior, etc. This will make the necessary wiring from RHD to LHD easier on my back as I don't have a dash to deal with

I've been lurking here for awhile building up my knowledge base on this swap and appreciate all the links/info available. Have my wiring diagrams laid out and necessary wiring swap plan in place.

The Turbo II body is manual steering and I've taken out all the heating/A/C which saved a couple of wires there (and removed the pumps off the engine).

That is a nutshell of this project, will start posting photos and updates.

 

Spent a few hours getting the old ratty carpet out. Found a mouse nest in the usual suspected area for this car. Hope the mouse **** airs out by the time I work on it again

Was able to pull out the '87 wiring harness, worked on driver side carpet removal. Found a neat little hidden switch under the seat (by the gas/trunk latches) that patched into the fuel pump. Red neck anti-theft device....not bad....

 

Finally got some time to put into the car, very close to being able to drop the engine in. The interior and dashboard is now removed that gives me the access necessary to route the RHD wiring into the car.

Using this thread as a guide in the wiring: https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-generati...-body-1090975/

Probably the best write-up I've found to this point.

Engine install is awaiting a fuel filter mount fix. The stock rubber grommet mounts were broken off. Need to install the S5 fuel pump and possibly clean out the gas tank. It was sitting for so long it might be worth just taking it out and giving it a good cleaning to get in front of future problems.

Need to source an S5 body harness to ECU plug so that I can wire to it...

 

Nice work, glad to see another car in west michigan!

 

Just showing some Michigan love since I'm from Saginaw (now in Texas ) . Great base start you got .

 

Finally got some time to spend on the project, focused on the fuel system. Started by removing the rear interior, found out why the fuel door wouldn't pop, just a missing spring but boy was it nasty inside. No gas cap! Makes me wonder how long the previous owner was driving around without it.

Well, if that was so bad better drain that gas, eh? Looked like bright yellow/green pee coming out! I'm guessing it is loaded with fuel additives for 'storage' or something.

Got that done, popped the fuel pump off. All but 1 screw came out easy, that last one was close to being stripped by got it. And sure enough, goopy sludge and water on the bottom of the tank and what looks like mouse turds....go figure. Anyone know why the corrosion looks that way?

Happy surprise that the fuel pump was already upgraded, need to confirm but looks like it may be the Green fuel pump from an FD...hoping so and need to check relays to ensure that goes smooth. Need to clean that tank out too, nasty.

Final task of the day was removing the fuel filter 'bolts' that the rubber portion degraded and broke off of. That was a lot easier than expected, didn't take much to other than a bit of drilling and bolt extractor. Highly recommend the spiral ones, they grab great!

So, now it is all down hill. Clean up tank, drop the engine/tranny in. Then the real fun begins with wiring!! Can't wait!

 

Got a lot done over the last couple of weeks. The gas tank took some time to clean up.

I used Apple Vinegar with a couple hand fulls of washers, nuts and bolt to rattle around inside to knock the corrosion off. Those little rat turd looking rust spots left the tank pitted. Didn't feel good with the final result, still a bit of minor surface rust so I used a quart of Red Kote to finish it off.

First time using that so it didn't go 100% awesome, more like 85% it should work. Letting dry for an extra couple of weeks which I hope allows any build up areas to thoroughly dry....stuff drys really quick!! So if you go that route, you gotta MOVE FAST.

Engine dropped in pretty good, my cherry picker was a bit to small so had to hook up from the side to get the final position right. All bolted down which leaves final plumbing and electrical work.

Also found a minor leak on the master cylinder/booster. So looking at options there.
For the record, I find this very odd that it was completely dry when I sanded and repainted.

Now completely wet with brake fluid removing the paint in the same exact area. Not like the brake fluid reservoir is dropping levels here, still at full and haven't added any...haven't need to! So, looking at doing the 929 booster/ms swap.

 

Working on bits an pieces at this point. Need to run new vacuum hoses and used this forum post for guidance: https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...choice-990528/

Ordered from HiPerformance as the idea of having instructions is great for me, less back and forth to shop manuals, etc.

The gas tank will need to be redone, the Red Kote bubbled up. Not sure what I did wrong, but I did it wrong. Will acetone that this weekend and hope that enough is left on to just be done with it. That stuff is to expensive to do wrong....again....

The clutch fluid was nasty as well, need to finish flushing that out when I have a buddy to help work the pedal.

Pretty much cleaning up little surprises and replacing the bits/pieces gone missing as I find them....

 

Before I bolted down the motor and tranny I still needed to finalize where I was going to bring in the JPM wiring through the firewall. Considering I wont' be using the heat exchanger, that hole was a great target.

The firewall hole need to be 2 1/2 inches to match the rubber grommet. Drilled it out without much hassle. Picture tell the story....

Once that was pulled through I could bolt down the motor, tranny, re-install drive shaft.

All that is left is plumbing and electrical...

Oh, and that darn fuel tank needs to be re-worked....Red Kote disaster right now.

 

Majority of time is now just troubleshooting the engine bay. I have a lot of bits and pieces missing, cut hoses I'm not sure where they go yet. Found a modification on the motor (cut and blocked hose) I'm trying to figure out why and impact.

Being a Jap motor, some hoses don't seem to match up exactly with American model.

Fun?! Kind of, took a step back and working on just identifying each component then will back track pipe/wire connections to ensure all is in place before wiring the ECU and Body Harness.

Anyone gone through this as of late? A lot of the posts on site deal with NA to JDM Turbo and don't have any useful information on TII to JDM Turbo.

 

Well, my head is spinning. Need to take a step back and find the mistakes in what I have. I've gone through many threads, different sites, picked up a lot of info in various areas. Not a lot of recent posts/input/conversions documented to work off of.

There are a tremendous amount of dead links, many of which I could recover some info via the waybackmachine. But, ouch. The thrill of engine swaps in RX7s seem to be diminishing

Here is what I have, these will need to be tested and gone over a 3rd time now to ensure I have everything right. Any ?? simply means I'm not 100% sure right now.

The biggest hurdle I have is the FSM plug wire colors I have are different than the FSM lists. So I need to unplug sensors, etc and test wires to ensure they lead to same area.

Getting closer, but need to make sure I have this right.

One area I can't find any write up on is the X-07 JDM connector. I have found the FE-03 and FE-02 match up to it pretty good outside of the two Altenator connections and Power supply on the X-07.

 

Well, after many hours of checking/double checking wiring. Searching high and low for tested solutions. I followed instructions from one post or another and fried something.

Pretty much deflated.

It was all working well, car was turning over. Was just down to getting the fuel pump to work.

And then.....dead.

Off to test all the relays and pretty much deflated. Hopefully it is a simple fix.

I've attached my updated wiring schematics with some errors fixed.

 

FYI, Forget about using the JDM harness and ecu with your s4 usdm chassis harness. I was in the same boat. People were telling me dont waste my time, but i didnt listen thinking i could figure it out. theres simply not enough info on the jspec wiring to do it.

Your best bet is to match the series harness and ecu with your chassis harness. good luck.

Heres an old post, where i left off before i gave up and bought a standalone

 

Thanks for the post, the mis-matched wires sure does throw it all off.

Ebay to the rescue, I hope.

I take it that once you got the standalone, then you were able to get everything to work?

Thanks again!

 

Yeah everything worked with the standalone.

If you dont want to do that, youre going to need a USDM S4 harness and USDM ECU.

If you want to keep your OMP, youll need to change the front cover to an S4 and run the mechanical pump. Or you can block it off and premix.

 

Ok, the whole starter giving out was very puzzling. The initial thought was some sort of overload/short that killed a relay. In the end the culprit was a bad negative connection at the battery.

When ever I tried bypassing the relays, the battery at negative terminal would have a spark....and that just didn't sit well.

Sure enough, cut the old somewhat corroded wire off and stripped the wire back to some nice bright copper, put the terminal back on and she turned over.

The last piece of the puzzle was the fuel pump not turning on, which was missed wire in the engine bay.

Next step was it firing up but then immediately dying. Found that the AFM plug wasn't 100% seated. Pulled, re-seated it. Boom! Fired right up and idles at 1,000. Damn.

Last thing is the throttle cable I discovered is to short on the S4, ordered up a new S5 cable and hope to have test driving this weekend.

Glad I didn't give up, but really painful there for a bit solving what amounted to very very simple little issues.

Youtube of it firing up and a quick look at my current rats nest of wires. I've only wired up the bare minimum to get it working to help in troubleshooting.

 

What did you end up doin? Standalone or USDM stuff? If you got the jspec stuff to work you should post it because i think youd be the first.

 

This is all stand alone JDM right now. We'll see how long it works! Won't have it under power until the weekend at the earliest. Waiting on the right throttle cable. Will post how it all pans out here the next couple of weeks.

 

Got the throttle cable in.

Installed.

Runs great so far!

Need to button down the exhaust, just running the downpipe right now so getting fumed out, but have ran 3 days, warming up, making sure cooling is happening (water temp gauge is operational, woot!)

Was a bit concerned that the water pump wasn't operating whether from a faulty switch, but all seems to be operational at this time. First upgrade will be a decent radiator now that I know it all works.

Very snappy little motor, love hearing the turbo whine down. Have only taken it up to 4,500 RPM and will just keep tinkering. The O2 sensor needs to be replaced, the one I had in the down pipe the wire was smashed and fell off....

So, the wiring diagram I have above (the second set) is what I'm currently working off of. No Wipers, will do that next spring, getting cold here in Michigan. I've stripped all the interior out as the body isn't all that great, so just plan on it being a fun track day car. So no A/C or Heater, etc to go back in...thus I won't be testing those wires out.

Think the next big step is getting the headlights working, brakes need attention from sitting unused for years....the clutch fluid was black, can't imagine the brake fluid is any better...but the do work, nothing grinding....they let go.

Have a good one!