Addicted to boost. Turbo FC build.
 

My love for rx7s started when I was real little. My mom used to drive an 88 arctic silver gxl and I always loved to ride around with her in it. At the time I knew nothing about it, only that it was a sports car and that the interior smelled like leather haha. Fast forward 10 years (till I was about 16/17) and it was my first car.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

It was a stock s4 so I did a few things. The wheels, tokico blue struts and tanabe gf210 springs, apexi exhaust, miata short shifter and strut bars. This made the car so much fun on the twisties. Anyways the paint was hurting so this happened. Rusto paint job ftw!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

You can see the apexi exhaust in the last pic. Seriously that is my favorite sounding rx7 out of any i've ever been around.

Anyways, it was only natural for a 17yr old to learn about something called "boost". I used to get on the forums way back in the day before I was even a member and everyone was always talking about the turbo rx7s. I was intrigued so this happened.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

Picked up a 87 T2 out of texas for $700. Totally molested with a blown motor and red interior! :blush: It had a motoria exhaust system, knight sport fcd, act clutch, aluminum radiator, electric cooling fan (garbage) and some adr wheels. Definitely a project car. This is also the car that I got the tokico suspension from that I had on the white fc since it would be a few years till I got the t2 running. I was still in high school at the time.

Pulling the blown motor with my pops. At this point I had purchased a new T2 motor off of ebay that only had 34k miles on it when the car was wrecked. Bought this from a US seller, not some japan website that's know for selling rusted out blocks. Figured I'd use this block rather than rebuild the one that was already blown. I had a feeling, especially since the blown motor sat for so long, that nothing would be salvageable. (this later turned out to be true)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr


I had the new block streetported and rebuilt right away (might as well rather than having to pull it later) along with fd corner springs and all new seals. I decided to go with the stock mazda apex seals since they spent a lot of time developing them and I had read many horror stories about aftermarket seals. The block was in great running condition but I wanted it ported so I had a shop rebuild it too. Then I did a few upgrades like an act 9lb flywheel and old school HKS blow off valve.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

During some troubleshooting trying to get her running (bad maf) this is how she sat. Added Re-amemiya mirrors!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

Nice car, my car looks pretty much the same yours is shinier though lol.

I have a build thread too in this forum called my sweet 87 turbo2

Rotary >Pistons

subscribed!!

Thanks for the compliments. This was where the car was at about a year and a half ago! More to come right now.

the girls...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

Overheated her once with the garbage efan so I got ahold of a stock clutch fan to throw back on.. Also went fmic around that time.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

Looking mean! It's an emusa intercooler. Core was awesome but the piping was a pain in the ass to get to fit right. (arent they all?) The piping also had metal flakes on the inside so I was sure to get all that cleaned out.

But a couple of cuts here and there and it went on and functioned well. I definitely noticed more lag right after shifting compared to the stock tmic. No heat soak now though! :icon_tup: You can see the oldschool hks bov in one of the pics. Uses the same flange as the new ssqv but sounds way better! Definitely fits the era of these cars. Has a nice PSSSHHH sound rather than bird chirping like the new ones. OH, and theres the new gp sports knockoff front bumper getting trimmed for the front mount!

So at this point the car was running a streetport, full exhaust from the dp back, walbro 255lph fuel pump, stock s4 turbo with a ported wg, twin scroll disabled, stock 550cc injectors all cleaned and flow tested, emusa fmic, hks super bov, act clutch, act 9lb flywheel, knight sport fcd and an aem wideband, ngk plugs and plug wires, and some cheap ass gauges. more pics...

Some pics of the turbo before I even went fmic. From this
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

to this. Much better
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

Last pics before getting kitted.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

and the cockpit. Boost gauge in the middle, then oil pressure above my aem wideband. Check out the ugly s4 wheel. I hated that thing.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

I had the knockoff gp kit in my garage because I originally bought it for my white N/A before I even owned the t2. Decided to keep the n/a stock bodied s4 goodness and use the kit on the t2 because the previous owner bashed the kick panels and lower parts of the car all to hell. The body kit was perfect to cover up all the damage that the PO did.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

And then mocking up the skirts.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

coming along. glowshift has some good gauge mounting solutions on the cheapif you're in the market.

Nighttime view

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
Added a turbosmart mbc and then upped the boost a little. 12 psi on the stock turbo felt great. I thought it was so fast back then haha. Faster than an 2010 camaro ss that's for sure. Pulled him up to about 120 and let off. Probably my favorite run with this setup because I thought the dude was gonna eat me. 1.3L turbo for the win! Also pulled a bunch of turbo hondas but that's nothing to brag about!

however... I WANTED MORE BOOST! Being a freshman in college, that's only natural right?
I picked up this bad boy with some shaft play. Never installed it because I ended up going a different route before rebuilding it.
To4b s5 hybrid turbo with a clipped exhaust wheel. (FOR SALE if anyone wants a project turbo)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
Comparison next to stock s5 turbo.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

Oh and then my dad caught the rotary bug and picked himself up a project. Theres a new baby in the family! :)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
ouch... don't worry though, the price was right. ;)

I'll be sure to check them out, those are the gauges my dad runs in his fd. Seems like some quality stuff except for the oil pressure gauge. That one is wacko.

ANYWAYS, to be young and dumb is something that every adult male must go through. The feeling of invincibility, acting like you know everything, that you're the top dog.. It's natural to go through this before maturing, and I'm not afraid to say that I still have more of this to do!

It was about march or april of 2012 when I was doing a little fun run with an fd running stock twins, and a bunch of other rotary guys. I pulled the fd (barely) in a straight line. He said he was only running 4psi of boost, but those turbos sure whistled and sounded like they were pushing more...

Anyways after some cruising we decided to hit up a local mountain pass for some touge! I wen't first on the uphill and had a blast! Flames shooting out of my exhaust, bov venting, tires chirping, and just enjoying the sounds of the rotary. Anyone who cruises the mountain roads rotary style knows what I'm talking about! ;)

This can only last so long right? The fd went first on the downhill and I was right on his ass when....




http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

I see the fd hit his brakes and slide a little, I hit mine and feel my car slip out, I lock em up (rookie move) and slide right off the road. Turns out there was a pretty big spot on the road that had a bunch of sand and dirt on it. I didn't see it cause I was right on his ass..:icon_tdow

Some of his buddies showed up in a big diesel truck and pulled me out. I then babied her all the way home with my front bumper in 3 different pieces, and my intercooler core all bent up.

LESSON LEARNED

I was so bummed to have wrecked my baby. Luckily I got out of it with only smashing up my fiberglass front bumper. My intercooler was actually fine until they pulled me out. Thats when it got bent on some rocks or something.

Back to work!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
Still looking mean!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
It was time to bust out the zip ties and save the front bumper! And heres another shot of the girls. My dad got a new stock front bumper on the fd with new fenders and and R1 lip I believe. That car is a blast! Too bad it's automatic..

Up until now I was only rocking the gp sports front bumper because I had been pretty busy with school and there was no time to fit the rear and skirts. Slowly but surely!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

Green skirts because I wanted to hit em with the heat gun and fit them first, and then paint. It would've sucked to paint them first and then deal with paint cracking once you hit em with heat trying to get them to fit the car better.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

And one of my all time favorite shots!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

Here are some pics before and during a cruise with my buddy. We were after some flame shots and we got some! :)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

At this point I had planned to rebuild the hybrid turbo, have it balanced, and then run it on the perfect s5 manifold I had already obtained. I then wanted to go with bigger secondary injectors and an rtek computer upgrade.

However, I would never get the chance to do this because me friend offered me a killer deal that I couldn't pass up!

Turbonetics 60-1 hifi
.96 a/r P-trim exhaust wheel
T4 Manifold
Tial 38mm wastegate
3inch vband downpipe
full corksport exhaust

for only $500! I opted for this turbo because it has the potential to make way more power plus, I think everyone can agree that an aftermarket turbo setup is way nicer than a hybrid setup using stock manifolds. Also, it was only $500 bucks. That's a steal.

Unknowingly this would be the longest my car would be down. I needed to obtain a few parts and I spent a lot of time waiting for them to arrive in the mail.

Some parts I now needed:
aftermarket ecu
harness
720cc primary injectors (low imp)
1600cc secondary injectors (low imp)
Aeromotive fuel pressure regulator
Fuel lines to run parallel fuel setup
Fuel rails (not required)
all fittings to make it work

(at some point before this I also got a new walbro 255pump as the first one crapped out... and rewired it so it's constantly getting more volts)

Test fit!!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

And parallel setup with the aeromotive fpr and rising rpm fuel rails.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr


And the finished product..


http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_skotch/7883543974/http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_skotch/7883543974/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/brian_skotch/, on Flickr

I had painted my uim with vht high temp paint. Came out pretty cherry.

velocity stack!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

Anyways, tried to start the car with map that was on the e6k and smoked out the neighborhood haha. It was towed to a shop in albuquerque to get tuned!
Some more pictures.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_s...ch/, on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_skotch/8151631851/http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_skotch/8151631851/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/brian_skotch/, on Flickr

Finally made a thread huh? Tis an interesting read to re-live the past couple of years haha!
Looking forward to the recent progress :icon_tup:

Yeah Jake I need to get it up to date! It's still at like at last years point in time.

dyno time
 

She hit the dyno in September of 2012 and put out 300whp on 12psi through the 60-1 hifi. I got screwed by a shop in ABQ that I won't name here. Granted the tial 38mm wastegate was cracking open at 6psi and then around 6k i'd get boost creep to 12psi. Still the hp output was low for the fuel system, ecu (haltech e6k) and turbo, no cold start map so the car was nearly impossible to drive before reaching operating temp, and they also charged $500 more than the quoted $600. It was 1100 for some labor, a 3inch intake pipe, and the shop redoing the vacuum lines.:icon_tdow To add insult to injury, when I took the car on the highway it was so rich at certain points the aem wideband would hold 10.0.1 and the car would sputter.
[IMG]https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2937/...bc8b6f51_z.jpgIMG_5231 by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]

I had to ditch the oldschool hks bov because it wasn't venting as well as it did on the stock turbo setup. I was getting a lot of surge. I picked up a temporary ebay hks knockoff which has been working fine. I want a real one though.
[IMG]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7039/...c48cdc0f43.jpgIMG_5232 by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]

and an engine bay shot with that setup. There's a 3" k&n intake on there. I'd like to build a cold air box around it but I'm not sure what material I want to use/how to seal it/vent cool air to it..
[IMG]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3726/...ee0f2c70e0.jpgIMG_5235 by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]

A vented headlight scoop might help when I do get around to building a box
[IMG]https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8087/...4344271992.jpgIMG_2381 by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]

Anyways. I wanted a better suspension setup so I ditched the tokico blue/tanabe gf210 springs for a set of tein HA coilovers. They handle really well and feel so much more comfortable than other coils i've felt in an fc. They're comfy over the bumps but super stiff around corners. Here's a before shot:
[IMG]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7260/...5d0dfa48a7.jpgbefore coils side by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]

And a few after shots
[IMG]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3726/...3e82b7e8f4.jpgaftercoilside by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]
[IMG]https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2911/...9a103afa_z.jpgcoilssky by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]

As you can see in the above pics, I scored some jdm ftps and they're rad!! Coilovers making me get stuck lol. Pops pushing the wheel back down.
[IMG]https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2926/...66be5acf10.jpgIMG_5242 by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]
[IMG]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7042/...50ebcd678b.jpgIMG_5240 by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]
[IMG]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3780/...c1a2c94fa6.jpgIMG_5241 by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]

So I had to sell my other baby for funds. I miss her everyday.. 88 gxl na It broke my heart that I left her sitting so much. At least she's being driven around a bunch. I still see the car from time to time and she is in ROUGH shape. I was selling it for 2k and the guy I sold it to said if I let it go for 1700 I could keep the moonroof. DEAL.
[IMG]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3703/...d659f26d_z.jpgIMG_5234 by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]

Here's the bronze tinted glass moonroof on my t2. baller!
[IMG]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7411/...e1448d29_c.jpgIMG_1949 by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]

halloween 2012
[IMG]https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2905/...c1305d5607.jpgIMG_1961 by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]

At one point I noticed the turbocharger making a weird sound. Upon further inspection I found out that the compressor wheel was slightly contacting the compressor housing. Sent it off to Boostlab right away and also decided it'd be a good time to upgrade my wastegate from the tial 38mm to a 46mm precision vband. With the new wastegate the problem was fixed. The car felt faster with this setup on a 10psi spring compared to to the old cracking open early/creeping setup at 12psi. Plus the sound of the new wastegate dumping to atmosphere was AWESOME. :egrin:
[IMG]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7446/...cc84327de8.jpgIMG_2452 by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]
[IMG]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7419/...b3ff8dafb7.jpgIMG_2484 by brian_reynolds123, on Flickr[/IMG]

BOOSTLAB did a great job with the turbo. Kirk is an awesome guy and I highly recommend them to anyone who needs a turbo serviced.

That kit looks sick! So does the turbo lol. I'm doing an NA to TurboII streetport swap right meow and am looking forward to getting back into the boosted life after my old STi had its motor blow up beyond repair.