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Finally turbo swapping my vert

After owning my car for something like 13-14 years I am finally getting around to swapping the motor out.
It all began when I purchased Jim's old motor ( 13B ACE )
He had it in his purple convertible with some rather large turbo and it ran great.
It was tuned with a Wolf, so I am using the same computer because it worked well.
Later on maybe I will change the computer, but I will leave that up to the tuner when he uses it and tells me
if he likes it or not. The car will be dyno tuned after break in by Enzo Racing- at least that is the plan for now.

The motor had sat for a few years but was what seemed like a perfectly good running motor when it was removed.
I know because we lived 10 minutes from each other and been to his house a few times.
Figuring it had sat too long I decided to enlist someone to rebuild it for me. I had checked a few times with different people
but never made a connection to get the work done. Finally I found someone to swap the whole thing and build the motor.

Quite honestly- I do what I do best- fix boats. Could I do the swap myself? Im sure I could with some head scratching and posting
questions. The fact of the matter is I have very little free time, my time is best spent fixing boats and making money- then going home and
enjoying myself for the 2-3 hours before I go to sleep again :wacko:

So here is where I am at now.

After taking the motor apart there was some scoring on the rotor housing, so now I tracked down another one.
It was found that the motor was barely ported- plenty of power left in it so the motor was ported to keep it streetable.
The rotors which were 3mm rotors were a little out of spec, so we got some super low mileage FD rotors and rotating assembly.
New stationary gears were also needed. I also got a brand new oil pump from Mazda.
Obviously we put all new seals in the motor.

I will be running a S4 front cover with a billet aluminum OMP adaptor from rotary aviation.
This requires a small bottle of oil and eliminates the need to pre-mix.
I got a nifty solution from one of my boating supply places intended for drive oil for a high performance boat.
I got linkage from a S4 car that will allow this whole deal to operate off throttle, this way I wont be puffing smoke sitting at idle as it would
be with pre-mix.

I got all new motor, differential, and transmission mounts. I got competition mounts from Mazda, I also got new Y-blocks for the transmission mount. New bellhousing bolts.
All new hydrolics including stainless clutch line, master, and slave.
I got a new clutch fork and obviously new throw out bearing and pilot seal.
I had a perfectly good TII transmission taken apart and rebuilt from my transmission guy.
Brand new Racing Beat 12lb flywheel is going to a totally custom clutch I had one of my customers make for me.
He makes race clutches for alot of companies in the country. We started with a worn out ACT set up ( which was sold to me as "barely used" and was not even useable ) and rebuilt and customized it from there.
He had done the clutch on my LT1 TII and I cant be happier with it so I am looking forward to this set up as well.

I have a manual rack going in place of the power steering rack.

I put all new bearings and seals in the S4 TII rear end, I had it professionally set up by Freddy Brown Transmissions locall to me.
He cleaned what I did not and checked over the LSD to make sure it was good to go. Those bearings and seals aint cheap, I got
them dealer cost 2 years ago and it cost me something like $250-$275 at the time, and that was everything but the LSD unit.
It looks brand new inside and out.

I have what I think is a Greddy FMIC, I will be retaining AC so I may have to get custom pipes made.
Battery will be in the trunk, again turning to my high performance boating people I got a nice composite battery holder for that.

I am replacing the auto meter gauges in my car now with Blitz, boost gauge will be column mounted Blitz BLM, oil pressure and water temp will
be mounted where I have them now under the radio.
The wolf controller will be in the glove box, as will the HKS boost controller- I am beyond having everything out in the open for people to see- I want to be low key.

Fuel system I got a brand new Supra TT pump from Toyota, its going to KG rails and brand new 1600s and 850s with a fuel pressure regulator, all stainless braided lines and AN fittings will be used.

Turbo is a brand new garrett T04B. I know its not that large, but the rest of the car is already built to handle much more- which I am already planning on next winter. Mounted on a HKS log manifold, BOV is greddy, wastegate is Innovative Turbo Systems.
Downpipe is a Himni 3" stainless with V-bands. Exaust will be custom pipe to Racing Beat stainless steel mufflers.
I got a nice oil feed set up from Himni which is a stainless braided line with all the adaptors.

Brand new stainless braided oil cooler lines will go to the factory oil cooler.
New MSD wires will light the fire.
A brand new Koyo aluminum radiator will keep things cool.
I got a brand new FD alternator that actually came with a spec sheet that was putting out over 125 amps
I will hopefully be running the RE-Cosmo serpentine belt as I got a set of pulleys from a cosmo engine.
I got a ac bracket from a manual steering car so that I wont have that extra crap in the engine bay, it was
powdercoated to match.

We are trying to detail the motor as much as possible, paint and powdercoat will replace polished- I am hoping for a darker sinister effect
instead of that polished look.

Im sure I might have forgot some stuff or typed something wrong, its early and Im sleepy!

I also have full S5 parts for the car, im undecided to use them or not. Consisting of S5 vert tails, factory TII skirts, bumpers, and moldings.
I will probably use them as the other car I have needs a bumper anyhow- so might as well put my S4 bumpers on the other car.

Im having problems with the resize on my site, so excuse the pics.

Out with the old, I took this pic a few weeks ago when I took the car out of storage. This motor will go into another vert I have
that was on its way to the scrap yard so that another RX7 will be on the road instead of parted out.

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1601-1/8%20003.jpg

the car it is going in:

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/490-1/d130cafb033d.jpg

The color alot of the externals will be, we filled in the un-used emissions stuff instead of using block off plates.

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1618-1/25.jpg

Looks like an awsome project! I'd try to squeeze the battery under the spare tire cover behind the passenger seat to save room though. The trunk is just too tiny as it is. I'd also just use the factory plug wires for your setup though I'm sure others use MSD with no problems. It sounds like you have everything you need and then some, good luck!

the MSD wires dont interfere with the radio, they seem to be one of the best on the market.
Im betting stock wires would work just fine, but I was going for a more top shelf effect.

I try to detail the car out when I do something to it, next I am going to redo the seats and the interior along with a custom cut dash panel with all aftermarget gauges mounted in it- but I think that will be next winter's project as I want to be driving this thing in the summer.
I also dont want to rush the interior- it is one of those things that sets a car apart from others like it when the interior looks as good or better then new.

wow... your engine bay is so beautiful.. :)

sweet another turbo vert your project looks good your car should turn out amazing it looks super clean the motor still looks really good. good luck

thanks guys, it won a few times at Rotorfest even for being a NA car.

All the attention is on the turbo cars!

Who is doing/did your motor work? I'm also in the midst of doing a turbo swap in my vert.

By the way, the MSD wires work fantastic in my car as well.

Roan and Steve, Roan is a mod on this board.

I thought verts couldnt be installed with turbos due to framing issues

You must be new to rotarys, verts came stock with turbo II drivetrains overseas. We're just correcting the flawed US versions...

so now I have become the guy who has the gauge mounted in his car before the motor, I feel so ashamed.
Its part of me getting the car ready to bring over there for the swap, figured I would tinker with this crap and
deal with the brittle mazda interior plastic on my own so no one feels bad if something breaks. :D

luckly nothing broke, I could not mount the other blitz gauges because I still have to track down some fittings for them to
work for me, you would think it would be easy to get japenese gauges working in a japenese car?
Maybe when I bring them to the motor I will find they thread right into the motor somewhere and wont have to use the RB adaptor
thats on the car now.

It only blocks a tiny bit of the un-viewed part of the tach. Its looks like it blocks more of it, but thats just the angle of the pictures.

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1631-1/gauges%20006.jpg

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1634-1/gauges%20007.jpg

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1637-1/gauges%20008.jpg

it was nice to get it into the shop for once

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1640-1/gauges%20001.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob XX 7 (Post 7603609)

Roan and Steve, Roan is a mod on this board.

Ahh yes. I believe Roen tuned my friend Brian's black 3rd gen this past year.

some more assembly pics, you can see the clearance tools, some of the stuff is just sitting on there for the picture and not yet
mounted.
The RB flywheel is there, and my custom clutch set up.
Cosmo pulleys were mocked up as well as the FD alternator which needs some fitting.

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1643-1/101_0867.JPG

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1647-1/101_0873.JPG

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1649-1/101_0874.JPG

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1651-1/101_0877.JPG

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1655-1/101_0880.JPG

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1657-1/101_0878.JPG

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1645-1/101_0882.JPG

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob XX 7 (Post 7601157)

This motor will go into another vert I have
that was on its way to the scrap yard so that another RX7 will be on the road instead of parted out.

http://blogs.chron.com/shutterblog/M...6_3465_web.jpg

I decided not to use the blitz oil and temp gauges, too complicated to try to find adaptors for them for my motor.

I will be putting them up for sale or just file them in my basement with other spare parts.

I did get a stainless braided line for my autometer oil pressure gauge, and had a autometer bung welded on my waterpump housing
for the temp gauge- I run all mechanical gauges.

I got my throttle body all cleaned up, you guys can keep your polished throttle bodies- im going for a stealthy look.
I think some of the linkage on the throttle body will be removed.

I will snap more pics of the motor tonight, its dressed a little more.

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1683-1/tb%20001.jpg

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1686-1/tb%20002.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob XX 7 (Post 7638729)

PLEASE TELL ME YOU ARE NOT PLANNING ON RUNNING MECHANICAL OIL PRESSURE !

I have run mechanical oil pressure gauges on just about every car I have owned for almost 20 years.
Never had a problem.

I especially dont see a problem considering I always ran el-cheapo clear plastic tubing and now I will be running stainless braided line with AN fittings.

to others- the water temp gauge does not actually have coolant running through it, it heats a metal capilary tube that tells the gauge what to read.

Are you afraid of the oil cooler lines under the hood bursting?

I appreciate your concern, but think about it- if the gauges were dangerous they would have stopped selling them a looooooooooooong time ago

yea ive seen BAD stuff happen from a ruptured oil pressure gauge. I would just use electric for about 20 dollars more.

I've seen people with scolded faces, messed up plastic parts, and more.

It hasnt happened yet .. but its the times you arent expecting things that they do happen (see my totalled rx7 thread)

its not the money, I prefer gauges that work ALL the time.

Spend the extra $20, please you insult me, lol

Again I appreciate your concern, but if we worried about every little thing we would not leave the house. Hell I would even worry someone might crash into my house.

Lets all get full cages and wear helmets and get 10 air bags installed in our cars, because you know- bad things happen man!

great looking car, congrats on the turbo upgrade, I love the HKS manifold

my fan and shroud came from sneed speed today, got it with a heavy duty relay and thermo switch.

I had a v-band welded on my turbo, and a 1/4 hose barb welded onto my 2 stroke oil resevoir.
I also had a bung welded onto my waterpump housing for my temp gauge. This is really the way to go versus drilling and tapping
the housing itself. I ended up using one of the un-used water passages that would normally go to the intake manifold.
The other one by the lower radiator hose was also welded shut.

I mocked the Himni downpipe up to the turbo for a pic

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1689-1/dp+001.jpg

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1692-1/dp+003.jpg

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1695-1/dp+004.jpg

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1698-1/dp+005.jpg

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1701-1/dp+006.jpg

Hauled the rest of my parts away today, and the car itself.
I know that the little things is what takes time on projects so I anticipate a few issues here and there.

My rebuilt transmission and rear end in the back of my truck for the ride.

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1752-1/jan08%20001.jpg

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1755-1/jan08%20002.jpg

the sun was getting low in the horizon, so off I went, car in tow.

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1756-1/jan08%20005.jpg

turns out we had that bracket on there not realizing it will no longer be used, it looks pretty on there though.

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1759-1/jan08%20009.jpg

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1767-1/jan08%20011.jpg

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/1768-1/jan08%20012.jpg

stay tuned!