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Make a Youtube vid of you talking about the car and REW swap process and I will watch it.
Gotta wear those Paul Walker jeans in it.
the jeans are gone. in 2015 or so we did another 25 hours of thunderhill, and on Friday, i jumped over the pit wall and they split right up the middle! so there wasn't much left...
Late Fall update! FC-REW Faq is in the pipe line, i had to move, and then the Blue car here had wanted some attention.
as usual the stuff i want to do, the stuff i needed to do and the stuff i actually did are just like 3 different lists
basically i wanted to put the T04 on it, but it had slowly been forgetting how to idle, and washing it didn't help....
its worth a post about it, but like a typical FC i went through the TPS setup procedure, and cleaned the ISC/BAC valve, the clutch switch was actually good , and then it turned out that the neutral switch wasn't plugged in, so the question became why did it idle at all for like 5 years?!
anyways after all the screwing around (FC TPS needs adjusting a lot, but its easy, FD doesn't need it much but its a PITA) it idles better than ever, the 3200 hesitation went away, its never run this good.
the next thing is that it just doesn't feel like an FC (its getting there though), and when i bought tires the tire place didn't want to align it. it was late in the day and there was some big truck on the rack, they said there was a loose wheel bearing and they didn't like the front control arm bushings., but i wouldn't have moved the truck either. anyways i looked and sure enough the right front wheel bearing was loose, which was an easy fix. they have like ~1000 miles on them.
then i made some toe plates out of some scrap wood, and surprisingly (or not) the rear was fine, and the front was 3/4" toed in. the front was set with toe plates and the rear by eye :eyeroll:
then its gotten a wash/wax/vacuum, the KSP radiator panel i've had for like 2 years and it is Radwood ready
as usual the list of stuff i wanted to do, and the stuff i needed to do and the stuff i actually did were three different lists....
i wanted to put the big turbo on, and paint the T2 body kit (and maybe the whole car again), but it i had it out a little bit, and it was running warmer than i would like (and it used to), and so what did i do?
Fix the turbo oil drain. the old one worked fine, but it was pretty janky, and really close to the metering pump. the FC uses T3/T4 size turbo drains, and the FD uses T2 size, so its one of the little areas where fabrication is needed.
so the old one was a T4 drain into a cut down FD pipe swaged (i hammered a socket into it) to be the same size, ii used a piece of heater hose, which isn't a good idea, but the two pieces actually were touching, so it was ok. what i needed was a longer piece on the engine side. (and an oil resistant hose)
the old, it mated up to the stock S4 turbo drain
so the new, i took the FD pipe that goes on the engine, and what i think was an S5 turbo drain and hogged the bolts on the FC part until it bolted up, the gasket is an odd shape, but totally works for this. or course the S5 pipe is too long to fit, so i cut the flex section out, and got a piece of hose from Parker, my friends Dog, and ended up with this:
this whole thing works great, and when i do go to the big turbo should still work, however the gasket on the turbo side didn't seal so i still need a turbo drain..... (i also might bolt some kind of heat shield to the manifold
so with the running hot part, one of my favorite FC's ever is the Yellow FEED Demo car. its just so clean and simple
and its running an FD engine too, right? so like my car running warm, maybe could be fixed by just having the mechanical fan, right?
well Mr Fujita is a better tuner than me, and by a lot. he built a 13B-T for his car, because it fits the car, and then he put the upgrade FD parts on it.
so after a LOT of trial and error, the FC water pump could fit on the REW, but the throttle body hose barb hits the FD fuel rail. The FD metering pump lines are also routed differently and that turned out to be the thing that stopped me.
the belt situation is also a problem, but its a solvable one. i had a 13B Cosmo alternator, water pump pulley and FD crank pulley backwards were a shim away from lining up. actually the odd part is that the S4 alternator uses that goofy spacer thing, and all you need to do to line the pulleys up is to put that spacer on the other side. the S5 water pump housing has the spacer built in, so you'd need to grind it, and add one, but not a big deal really.
kind of a weird pic, but it shows how little room the metering lines have (and then they were nowhere near the pump)
so i decided just to put the FD stuff back, and look at more/better fans
My FD setup had a new pump on it, so i left that alone, but it got some other attention. Thermostat got changed, and while i had it apart, i noticed that thermostat cover was a 38mm pipe into a flange, and the factory thing was actually quite a bit bigger, so i got the files and dremel out and made mine match the factory better
step 2 was to seal the radiator to the car better, and then um take the tape off the intercooler.... couldn't be it could it? i also spent a few hours straightening fins, and pulling the dead JDM bees out of the IC
Next up is the Fan Fail. The FD fan setup started to appeal to me because it has 3 speeds, AND if you hit the AC button, it speeds up a speed. so i could cruise around all normal like, and then hit the AC button and its ready to go faster.
the FD has two fans, and since the radiator has to be twice as wide as it is tall to run two fans (if each fan is 12", the radiator has to be 12" + 12" wide....) so it doesn't fit the 22x16" FC radiator.
i had looked up a bunch of potential fans and the 2001-2004 mustang fan looked like it had potential, because someone showed that the radiator was the same size as the FC AND the fans bolted to the side like the FC.
this turned out to be wrong! the Mustang uses a HUGE radiator, and GIANT fan, the fan was $35, but didn't even fit in the engine bay. so i exchanged it for a set of Maxima fans. the Maxima uses the same dual two speed motor setup as the FD.
however those don't fit either, because the FC radiator is not twice as wide as it is tall, so i put the old fan back on, which was from a 626 or something, it doesn't fit either....
i did, however clean up the fan wiring. i'm bad at fan wiring (and turbo drains), so the old harness we just individual wires, but it worked. the new one plugs into the AC plug, and then runs the Air Pump and Fan just like the FD diagram.
the old
the new
much better right? so of course the ECU doesn't want to turn on the air pump, after much troubleshooting the ECU is switching the air pump on, its just not enough to trigger the relay (it will light up an LED), which is really weird, it worked before.
so after like 2 months and all that work, it actually runs better than ever, coolant temps seem like they are lower. on the minus side, i get huge clouds of oil smoke from the turbo drain.... so fail.
Fan wise you could always go with the Taurus fan. Add foam and modify corners to clear rad hoses:
Then add two rivnuts to the rad mount on driver's side (fan already has mounting provisions there) and two to the passenger's side (you'll need to fabricate mounts here), and it's in:
It's a two-speed fan and flows a ton of air even on low. So much so that in slow traffic I can feel the heat rushing out from under the car and up past my arm out the window. Also fairly cheap from the junkyard or like $100 new.
so dumb update, i put the old turbo drain back in, but with a new oil resistant hose.
then a Power FC came up for a good price, so i pulled all the twin turbo solenoids that were only there to keep the stock ECU happy. it looks messy, the FC harness doesn't fit the FD engine with the FD coils very well, if you use the FC coils, the FC harness fits much better. my favorite FC, the yellow FEED one, is running an FC engine, FC harness, but FD upper intake, and ignition, so somehow Mr Fujita got it to fit, better than me. i also hooked up the idle air bleed, and it makes a big difference, the PFC barely ran before, and now its ok.
it also got a $35 dual one touch down window switch, which was A, more than worth the money, and B the first time the car has had a drivers window switch that was um fully assembled..
i took wonderousbread's advice and bought a taurus fan, it fits much nicely. right now i just have the PFC running on low speed. it does move more air
i did go down the rabbit hole and the one you want is F4DZ 8C607-CA, which is 1988-1993 Taurus/Sable/Continental with a 3.8 engine
so with the PFC, two things were apparent, one is that it was knocking a little. its weird, its in the -100mm area, so its not boosting yet. my first thought was that it was the strut bar, as it hits the hood and the engine hits the bar (only Mazda would have a different hood frame for the NA...). that didn't fix it, but pulling some timing did, so i've been tuning a little and its mostly good now. its funny i had a PFC in my FD back when they came out, and i just plugged it in, and it ran fine, but this thing has had me really go though all the foibles. it took forever to setup the idle, the metering pump isn't working, etc etc
the other thing is that the intake temps are sky high, and its annoying because i have a GIANT INTERCOOLER. the GIANT INTERCOOLER was COLD to the touch, but all the piping was HOT. so step one was to wrap the TID (it was hot too), and actually that seems to have helped. it does run really close to the hot side GIANT INTERCOOLER pipe.
since it seems to have done something, i will probably wrap it more nicely someday...
i'm also contemplating a water to air IC, the pipe run could be super short, and i wouldn't be blocking the radiator and oil cooler with a GIANT INTERCOOLER, tbd...
I just had a plate there between the TID and radiator and it worked great.
My buddy that races EF Civic just went through this too on his new engine set-up. Was pulling 80F IATs going down the freeway, put in a 6" wide plate at the side of the radiator and IAT dropped to 5F over ambient (same results as my FC).
"Hot" engine bay air intake is nothing compared to hot air right out of your radiator going down the road because the engine bay air is not stagnant (like when you stop and pop the hood and observe engine bay temps).
Well, the radiator hot air is far from stagnant too, but since the radiator is the main source of heat... you get the picture.
I just had a plate there between the TID and radiator and it worked great.
My buddy that races EF Civic just went through this too on his new engine set-up. Was pulling 80F IATs going down the freeway, put in a 6" wide plate at the side of the radiator and IAT dropped to 5F over ambient (same results as my FC).
"Hot" engine bay air intake is nothing compared to hot air right out of your radiator going down the road because the engine bay air is not stagnant (like when you stop and pop the hood and observe engine bay temps).
Well, the radiator hot air is far from stagnant too, but since the radiator is the main source of heat... you get the picture.
i do get the picture! i can't believe something like that would work that well (although maybe not surprised? i'm curious to see what just having a fan shroud will do.
in my head there are like 3 parts to this car.
Part 1, is just proof of concept, will this collection of parts work?
Part 2 is to get these parts working well together, does it drive like i want?
Part 3 is to make it look good.
part 1 was finished when it passed smog, and was registered.
so i'm part way through phase 2,
some things are in phase 3 its true
but for every step forwards
there are backwards steps too...
I bought a Power FC, like mentioned above, and its really going to take the car to the next step. However i can't seem to have a step forward without a couple steps back. in 2001 when the PFC came out, i remember plugging it in, and it just worked, no learning or anything. in 2021 it needed lots of learning, and then it needed to repeat a few grades, or maybe i did or something. this thread was kind of the jumping off point https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...needed-841706/
it probably works great for someone with a throttle body that hadn't been messed with, but mine had been messed with before i got it. also i had played with it too. so this is like a last ditch i can't get this thing working guide to getting the PFC happy.
the root cause for me is that the Throttle Stop Screw (TAS, Throttle Adjust Screw) wasn't set right, and then the Thermowax was off, so i chased my tail (and didn't catch it). Yesterday i found this guy, https://www.rx7club.com/power-fc-for...9/#post9972459 " So I ended up slowly opening the idle adjustment screw, a little at a time, maybe an 1/8 revolution. Did this over the course of several days/weeks. Never raised the idle by screwing too much. I am assuming the PFC was compensating for these minor adjustments by closing down the ISC." and decided to do something similar. i also think i found that the throttle stop adjustment changes the thermowax, so there is an order this needs to go in, and its a pain because its the wrong way round...
there are like 5-6 adjustments so its like Ye Olde Carburetor
What we're going to do it set the mechanical idle and then setup the PFC to match. first thing i did was to set the AAS to 1/2 turn out, i keep reading that the PFC likes 1/2 to 1/4 turn, and i wanted to start at 1/2 just to have some flexibility.
then i backed off the dashpot, and turned the fast idle cam down as far as i could (by hand). part of my surging was the thermowax being intermittent, which confused the ECU, understandably i think.
after warming up the engine, i turned off the idle control and o2 feedback. then i unplugged the BAC, so this left the car idling with no ecu control.
then i got a piece of paper and put it between the TAS (Throttle Adjusting Screw, throttle stop), and the throttle and basically turned it so that the linkage just grabs the paper. my TPS was reading .95v which is close enough to the 1v spec, so i left it
after this i get a ~750 rpm idle, its a little higher than what i wanted, but it is what it is.
so i set the idle in the PFC to 800, turned all the idle controls back on, and was rewarded with an 800rpm idle. no surging, no idle sticking, i turned it down to 780, and the PFC brought it down to 780
so i'm pretty happy, its working. i think i should probably reset the thing, and let it relearn, but i'm scared, its working....
i took it to Kai's Wankel reunion thing this weekend, and the FC that sold for 63K parked right next to me! its really exceptional to actually SEE one of these high dollar cars, usually they get sold with fanfare, and then disappear.
so it is amazingly nice, it even smells good (its fresh and leathery inside, mine smells like old tires). the Blaze Red is really really vivid too
car made the ~125mile trip just fine, the turbo drain leaks (#eyeroll), it was knocking a bit in the transition around boost, so i started pulling timing, and then adding fuel, but i kind of think it was either the IC pipe hitting the strut bar, or the other IC pipe hitting the air pump. you can also see my Intake Temp Lowering System (ITLS), that white thing is a piece of card stock, and it lowered intake temps 10c.... so instead of 45c, its 35c we're getting there. you can also see i painted the fender jambs myself, the Brave Blue is a lot darker than i think it is!
funny part, so the coolant temp gauge, the one i added reads the same as the PFC until temps get to like 95c and then it looks like the gauge goes way higher, to like 105c, so i replaced the ECT thinking maybe i had a bad spot, but its actually the perspective. if you look at the gauge straight on, its 98c not 105c.... i also used the wrong stuff in the 3d print, the gauges are super tight when its cold, but fall out when it gets hot
i also used the wrong stuff in the 3d print, the gauges are super tight when its cold, but fall out when it gets hot
Did you use PLA? It tends to deform a bit with heat. This makes it easy to print but not super sturdy for automotive use.
I've been using ABS for all my interior stuff, and it's worked well. Unfortunately it's a lot harder to print and large flat parts need an enclosure to keep the heat in and prevent warping during printing. I have been able to mitigate this with a space heater.
I've also heard good things about PETG, but never tried it.
Did you use PLA? It tends to deform a bit with heat. This makes it easy to print but not super sturdy for automotive use.
I've been using ABS for all my interior stuff, and it's worked well. Unfortunately it's a lot harder to print and large flat parts need an enclosure to keep the heat in and prevent warping during printing. I have been able to mitigate this with a space heater.
I've also heard good things about PETG, but never tried it.
petg is way easier than abs, just turn up the temps a bit over pla.
Did you use PLA? It tends to deform a bit with heat. This makes it easy to print but not super sturdy for automotive use.
I've been using ABS for all my interior stuff, and it's worked well. Unfortunately it's a lot harder to print and large flat parts need an enclosure to keep the heat in and prevent warping during printing. I have been able to mitigate this with a space heater.
I've also heard good things about PETG, but never tried it.
i'm pretty sure it is PLA, the funny thing is that the Greddy gauges vary in size a little, so the EGT and boost gauge are fine (EGT is never coming out, lol), but EGT and Water temp, the water temp gets loose
its also not the flattest thing in the world, but it does work.
i've been thinking about getting a 3D printer, i would like to improve my IC pipes, and its a pain for me to cut Aluminum here, but i could print sections and glue it together for a mock up. plus i have some other ideas, like a battery tray for the battery i'm using, throttle body elbow, stuff like that
03-31-21, 08:22 AM
