The FC build challenge
 

so i have this FC-REW project that's been collecting dust (its a nice collection!), and i got challenged to finish it by January 15th, i'm on vacation for the next 2 weeks so basically i will have about 13 days to finish it.

the good. the rear suspension is done, its toe eliminators, comp diff mounts, spherical toe links, the shocks are GAB's, with an new K2RD coil over and upper mount kit. S4 turbo diff. the car came with Mr Ko, and ReTed's old FC subframe with REW mounts, so the engine is a bolt in. the engine is rebuilt and i have all the junk that goes on top of it.

the fun. i wanna run the FD ecu, so i need to make a wiring harness. its also going to keep all the emissions and stuff, i wanna run the FD cat and smog it (eventually). for the turbo i was originally going to start with a stock FC turbo, put some instrumentation on it, and then try an H trim and V trim compressor. although i think i might just put my 60-1 on it, and be done.

i'd also like to paint the thing, i'm undecided on the stock brave blue, or chicken s&%t white?

usually i am the one calling out my friends to say i can build mine faster, but this time the shoe is on the other foot, and it'll be fun to see if i can pull this off!

pics are from 2010, this things been on the back burner for a while!

The interior... oh dear!
In fact... the entire car. Oh dear!

2010, eh?

well, i almost don't feel so bad about mine sitting that long now (save for the fact that you actually have parts to put on yours and i don't).

if it's smply just a matter of putting it together, then i don't see why you couldn't get it done in 13 days. depending on your work schedule, it might mean several days without sleep (or very little sleep), but i think it's realistic.

on the other hand, if you don't have all you need, then you'd better start ordering things now and while you're on vacation. :)

by the way, i vote for blue.

the body is really nice except the drivers rear quarter panel, the P.O. (we can call him Kenny), hit a guardrail, so its kind of funky back there. he used some S5 T2 side skirts to hide it.

yeah, i got stuck at the part where i either have to clean and degrease the "new" subframe, or get under the car and remove the old one or clean up an oil pan and stick it on the engine...

i think i am leaning toward blue too

Stop posting & BUILD!!! You can do it dude, but hahaha, it'll be tight!

If anything the wiring will kill the deadline. If you had a stock s4 turbo harness, you could buy the power FC conversion for the S4 from banzai and use an FC front cover and CAS and that would pretty much be it.
Any pictures of reteds subframe?

car's an S5, so its pretty straight forward. i kind of just have to decide if i wanna use the FD harness, or the S5 harness

no subframe pics yet, they will be along. its not fancy, in concept its like the FD subframe, instead of a big C shape, they added a crossmember at the rear to make it a D shape. it uses stock FD engine mounts, although in hindsight, the FD mounts are crazy money, and a cradle that uses the stock FC mounts is probably better, just for that reason, but hey they did the subframe in 1995, so who knew?

Fc turbo harness will plug into your dash harness. Use an fc front cover and a pfc and that's as easy as it gets. I went haltech e8 and that wasn't that bad either

Looking forward to how this turns out :D

Does the challenge include paint?
Without bodywork, sounds like the build is possible within the timeframe, with it...bring on the meth!

i actually want to run the FD stock ecu, im just undecided if its easier to adapt the FD engine to the FC harness, or the FD harness to the FC body.

me too actually, it'll be fun to see if i can pull it off.

lol, i guess paint is an option, but the car is ugly!

Interested to see how this goes.

I see this 'project' on a regular basis and it does in fact need work. Everything should be there, it's just scattered. There has been some progress since 2010, though. The mattress in the 3rd pic is no longer on top of the car...

So your saying its no longer a sleeper....

:D awesome!

yes, sleeper status is revoked! we got back a day early, so i have 18 days to finish the car...

today i made more progress than i thought, santa put the car on jackstands and dug up the new subframe.

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...2&d=1356835847

i then cleaned it up, and here is a shot in primer

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1356835800

next step was removing the yucky old one

here is the custom inverted bilstein, this one is a prototype, it'll be the first time we've run it. spring in the pic was just lying around, its a 650#, which is probably WAY too stiff...

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...4&d=1356836034

i wonder if there was a brake fluid leak?

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...6&d=1356836034

after a wire wheeling. i'm missing the pic of the rail in primer, i think the fumes make me THINK i took the pic, but i maybe didn't?

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...3&d=1356836034

day two was productive, i dug up a set of S4 control arms i had already cleaned up, um a year ago.... they have the urethane bushings in em already, which i was prepared to really like, but upon installation they have a lot of sticktion, they don't pivot freely, so i may actually go back to stock rubber bushings. freely pivoting suspension = win... for some reason the pic doesn't work...

next i painted the frame rail. ideally i would have stripped the whole car down and taken it to the body shop, but i'm not sure i have time. i found a rustoleum blue that with a little black under or on top of it, is close enough to brave blue to work, so done!

so at this point the rack (its an S5 base model, my favorite!), got cleaned up and put back in, i am planning on keeping the power steering, although AC is gone. the suspension is reassembled, pics didn't make it, i need to buy some wheel bearing grease, so i can replace the wheel bearings and put the hubs back together.

day 3, i did laundry and cleaned the house, today i'm gonna go in and jamb the fenders, and maybe reinstall them, and maybe the front bumper reinforcement. then i need to dig up a trans....and start piecing together the drivetrain.

the rear suspension got finished about a year ago, its an S4 T2, with competition bushings, GAB shocks, coil overs, the lateral links have been replaced with rod ends

Nice! I'll be keeping an eye on this.
That shock absorber strut looks familiar, I've made a few of them that looked like that for local rallycrossers, We use the bilstein B6 inverted shock and intrax springs. Works well!

cool, i hope the strut works for me too, its an experiment. i have a few more trick parts up my sleeve, but i'm not sure what i'm gonna use yet.

day 5 saw the fenders jambed and final fitted, hopefully. i did spend a few hours last year pounding most of the little dents out, and fitting them on the car, so it went pretty easily.

i then started installing the intercooler, its an OLD Greddy kit, i used it on my 3 rotor car in 2001, and it was used then! anyways fitting it on this car with power steering and putting the wiring harness back just took forever.

the PS cooling loop had to move, and i found a little bracket to do it.

more pics, hopefully its being a bit weird about uploads...

the funny part, were the horns. i'm pretty sure the car is supposed to have 2 horns, i've got four, and looking at the other two FC's in the shop they both only have one!

so i installed one, it needed the bracket bent to clear the IC, its a pretty tight fit in there now!

i had grand plans of cutting a hole in the front bumper reinforcement, and bumper for cooling, but the hole saw has a weird chuck size, so it didn't work out.

i had grander plans of posting some pics of the inspiration for this car, but a quick flip thru my japanese magazines had me come up empty....

tomorrow's task, unless i can procrastinate on it, is to dig up the transmission...

today i dug up the good trans, and the bad trans and went to swap bellhousings, only to find out i need a front trans seal, and its all gooey, so i stopped.

then dug up the clutch and flywheel, although no S5 counterweight.... so i have to choose between a stock FD flywheel, an OS gieken clutch set, or find an S5 CW.... :rolleyes:

then i tackled the other project i've been putting off for a year, i went to the stack of oil pans, grabbed one, cleaned it, and put it on the engine.

and then i went home!

Rew swap into FC using an obscure, but cool subframe....front mount greddy IC kit...hybrid turbo.....custom inverted bilstein monotube shock setup.... and we gets pictures of a horn bracket :scratch: