I really enjoy this build!

Thanks! Me too. A lot got done between Nov 1st and Dec 31st, I was never bored to say the least...

Here is the completed new body control module distribution mountain dew center
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/01/0...744542e8c5.jpg

I also did a little "updating" on the interior, to hide the sharp edges up top and make for better cruising I added the tops of the door panels however they had to be trimmed to fit my dash. Also the trained eye will notice that I have switched to manual operated windows, I have had power mirrors for years but no switch and etc (and it was broken) now it doesn't flop around when I drive and I can see better when I change lanes. ta da

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/01/0...23331cdf01.jpg

Well my oil cooler mounts were pretty mangled and I didn't feel like ordering them from mazda (45 + shipping est of 15 for both) so from the bracket material I left for the relay box I made my own.

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/01/0...24002df77b.jpg

A friend of mine who helped out on the trans mount lent me an arc welder, so I have been playing with that...


I solved my wood shift knob dilema...
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/01/0...94913b1742.jpg

just cut the old threads off and weld them onto the new shifter!

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/01/0...6011629e4e.jpg

learning to weld is fun! Also the metal on this car is so thin I kept burning holes. Anyways remember when I had a flawless road test? I re designed the front skid plate mounts to work much better. Yes I know the oil cooler is crooked but the mounts are sturdy and those lines are preventing me from installing it another way. I will be making my own AN lines for the oil cooler soon though, which then I will correct that issue.


Time to break in the engine so time to add the baller steering wheel back on (too cracked for race use however)
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/01/0...155151f989.jpg


Yes that is a crown royal bag...

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/01/0...155239faf1.jpg

Like. A. Sir...

After I got all that sorted and buttoned up did a quick clean/organize of the garage. then a friend of mine stopped by to go for a ride

#ebonyandivory

(mostly stock t2)

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/01/0...33511cf51c.jpg

Now its time to really break the engine in.

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/01/0...1260711cbc.jpg

Okay thats not the engine but I made chilli because I was going to be driving around the Detroit metro area getting stuck in traffic in this beast then meat (see what I did there?!) up friends and take driving breaks to enjoy chilli.

Here is the breakdown of how to break in a rotary engine, per mazda:

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/01/0...908464a2d1.jpghttp://picoolio.net/images/2015/01/0...90923e4d87.jpg

Also when you/should you break down, you got chilli. Its win win.

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/01/0...2514302622.jpg

A locking lid is also REQUIRED...

ASK ME HOW I KNOW!

I managed to put about 200 miles on it this weekend and I drove it to work today, and the carb'd rotary started in 6 degree weather with no issues :)

So the issue I have right now is the choke cable. not sure how to mount it so it functions properly. it seems to be able to pull the choke fine but to disengage the choke it work. Sometimes its the other way around.

Also, well I'll let you see. ( drove it to work today )
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/01/0...14540fcc61.jpg
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/01/0...14533ee19f.jpg
The whites don't match at all. I am going to have to better match them come spring/summer time.

to get the whites to match, just crash more.... or pick up a nice wall paper, and wrap the car.

i wouldn't worry about, go have fun! it looks like the car will do that :)

re the oil cooler, on my 1st gen didn't like the way the FC cooler mounted, so i ended up with the cooler horizontal behind that round bar, and it stays cool (you need a flap/duct), and when i go off with it, i don't need to worry about tearing the cooler out of the car.... or the 80's guys just made the oil cooler the rear wing, they were on more than chili though...

Yeah I have some minor adjustment to the passenger headlight, its aimed properly but its not as flush fitting as the driver side. Also the front end on that car is a little f'd from an off the road incident 2 winters back. Other than that, some carb tuning/jet ordering (ideally I just need a bigger/proper sized carb) and more driving and it should be good to go!

It is going to be hard to dial the carb in because doing WOT pulls on snowy roads isn't exactly accurate. Also I need to borrow a wideband 02 sensor (or just buy one) However now that I have individual runners do I just use 1 of the rotors or do I put the bung further downstream where they collect?

I have always heard the rear rotor runner. The collector is too far back.

I am diggin' the race car dash. Those headlights just scream ford taurus to me though.

My collector is about 1 foot infront of the rear axle so I figured that would be too far.

These are what the headlights are from:

http://images.thecarconnection.com/m...00026938_m.jpg

With Bi-function HID units from:

http://motorreview.com/wp-content/up...G_SKV_5758.jpg

Yeah, the collector is waaaay too far back. Even though widebands have a heater, they still need engine heat to operate correctly.

You are pretty ingenious fidelity, taking oldsmobile projectors and using ford HIDs is pretty clever. I would have never thought of it.

I am guessing you swapped the lights so that they would project lower to the ground without sacrificing distance too much? I live on the edge of Dallas so there are rare instances I am on a road at night and there is no street lights, thus I adjusted my lights to project a little farther but that sacrificed some "right directly in front of the car" visibility. High beams are useless here because there is too much traffic, you basically can't use them.

That's an infiniti J30. I work for a lighting supplier. The company I work for made the lights for the J30 the mustang and many many other vehicles so some parts are fairly "standard" in size or construction so grafting the two together worked out decent. I could have done dual bi function HID too but I think that would have been a bit unnecessary and hard to aim and frankly overkill. I'm surrounded by HID and LED projector assemblies and etc. My daily (mazda 6 wagon) is going to get the bi-function treatment as well but it will be LED powered instead and come from the sister vehicle of this:
http://images.thecarconnection.com/l...00463272_l.jpg
However, I can't show you the lights or the parts because it doesn't come out until next year...

The factory J30 lights still retain their stock adjustment. I just mounted them level in the car and positioned them aimed in the car well enough so all I had to do was fine tune it with the stock adjustment screws for the headlamp. After driving around at night right now I have gone a bit conservative on the aiming, they can go up a taaad higher. With the amount of lumens I get from the HIDs I am not sacrificing anything over stock LBs/HBs. I get visibility and distance :)

Yeah my high beams are basically useless around the Detroit metro area, except when I need to flash people because I lack a horn.

I am still with stock bulbs, which by the way suck at longer distance or right in front of the car, you just pick the lesser of two evils for the situation. Hell, my parking lights decided to shit on me (there is a thread) so that is my main priority at the moment. I have been contemplating doing HID in my car with appropriate reflectors (as not to blind everyone!) but I have too many other things going on with the car.

I consider myself lucky (knock on wood!) that my car is healthy and can drive me across the country if need be, but I have these minor electrical problems that screw with me all the time. I am an MECP installer for a living and have been doing it for 7 years, but you know what they say, the master plumber has the most leaky fixtures.

NAL? We used to do work for them until the management effed it up.

i'd stick the WB in the rear rotor, although it doesn't matter. it'll work fine clamped in the tailpipe too.

my carb WOT tuning is really simple, start rich, and then lean it out until the butt dyno stops registering a power increase, richen up a jet size, done. if you want numbers, it should end up between about 12.5 and 13. you want to be slightly richer than max power, this gives you a little safety margin.

tuning it when its cold is actually pretty ideal too, air is most dense, although the snow just makes it silly :)

In a place pretty close by, but a long long time ago, I worked at a shop with a gas analyzer (10 years ago).

We had contracts with the city and neighboring cities to service their ambulances. 10 years ago 99% of the ambulances we worked on where GM 454's with carburetors. Throw those suckas on the 5 gas machine and I would turn the fuel screw until the HC's got high and then back 'em down until NOx and CO2 started to rise and then back it up slightly.

Yup! Good guess.

When I first had done the carb swap on the old engine I did the same thing ( I had a wideband then but it was stolen a few years ago). It was easy though because I lived in the middle of nowhereville college town USA. so PLENTY of backroads to basically go drag racing, stop n go for tuning. I feel that 13.2:1 is the sweet spot for power. (from the butt dyno) but I would still be happy with high 12s in the upper band. Ambient air temp today is 6 degrees soo that might generalize well the rest of the year... Soon though.

Next up is to order some larger main jets and pilot jets and work on the transition from idle to main circuit.

Engine has about 220 miles on it now, starting to rev it to 6k and small bursts of powa! Also getting a little sideways driving around in the snow when making left hand or right hand turns :)

Is your business card in Japanese? The reps card I have is, with English too. It seems like a good company to work for. I work in a tool and die shop that builds plastic injection and die cast tooling. The money hungry owners of the company I work for over sold themselves to them. Classic overly greedy business owner mistake.

Mine is in English and Japanese yeah. We built our own mold shop within the past few years but that's in Evansville, IN. Who was the rep? maybe I know them, was this very long ago? You got me curious. Or at least who did you work for, maybe I recognize the supplier name. We do use a variety of tool shops.

I don't want to clog your thread. I'll PM you.

any updates?

This thread makes me not want to make mine the least bit turbo anymore lmao

Bought an innovative wideband, did some carb tuning. it was too lean above 5.5k rpm. just ordered new jets, need to wire up the rally boobs because this Saturday is night ice racing event! May be bad on the pictures but we shall see.

While carb tuning it was a lot of WOT in 3rd/4th from 3k upward. Never had an NA in 4th gear pull like this. quite peppy but we shall see...

I basically have a rallycross or ice race event every weekend this month. Hope to snag some good pics :)

Gonna need a new steering wheel to accommodate the co-driver and I as well as replace the clutches in the diff after a few miles out on the lake.


Other than that, its just gonna be seat time this season! Hopefully make it out to nationals in the fall.

How long are your clutches generally lasting? I'm trying to get a rough ballpark as to how frequently I'm going to be rebuilding the s3 FB lsd I just picked up to shoehorn into my n/a FC s4 hillclimb car.

I'm absolutely loving the lights.

I have only shattered 1 clutch disc. I usually just toss in rx8 or t2 discs and re-use my PP every time. Just scuff up the surface on the flywheel and call it good. The differential is a different story. my current one (and spare) need clutches badly. It takes about .25 miles on the ice for the diff to remain open the rest of the day. Mazda competition parts luckily stocks .1mm thicker discs and stronger springs.


Here is an update: (and a shitty photo)

I have new gauge! to help with carb tuning. innovative wideband 02 sensor. (as partly shown)

I also have a failed voltage regulator for my FD alternator, so I may get that rebuilt or just wire up an external regulator. Haven't decided yet.

Also a new sparco steering wheel should be in the mail soon. 2.5" dish, 380mm :)

well no more uploading photos, the work firewall has changed. I will have to mess with that another time. I don't have internet at home so likely getting around to uploading them will be a while (other than below) Which is a shame because I have some good ice racing pictures from the past 2 weekends and I have a rallyX Saturday followed by ice racing Sunday again.

that much snow came off of just 2 events. and there still is more hiding in places.


Performed some carb tuning and have found out that my carb REALLY leans out above 6krpm under WOT. played with the jets and was unable to fix the higher power band issue, the carb is running out of fuel and draining the float chamber. Time to check needle/seat but I may be maxed out on the carb and have to decide on larger carb or EFI.....

what were your symptoms of the bad voltage regulator?

last season my FD alternator started acting up and was reading ~16-17 volts.... and then seems to have fixed itself.

aside from seeing it hang out at 16-16.5v all the time above idle. My tachometer is very sensitive and you can tell in the photo there of me driving down the road the fancy camera could not even capture it still. it just wigs out a bunch until you put heavy load on it.

Also I am just routing a wire from the S terminal to the B+ post on the alternator. So its full fielded, I think this S wire needs to run right to the battery, I have had a few premature voltage regulators failures and I am out of warranty now on my alternator.