Delaminated a tire 2 weekends ago at the top of 3rd... this is why you don't mold fenders on to a drift car...


This showed up today... Thanks THmotorsports!

 

awesome build

 

i tried hating your car, but the more i read, and see... the more i respect it, keep it up!

 

lol hate it all you want! it's not going to keep me from ripping this thing around as often as possible!

Few shots from the event a few weeks ago... standard parking lot shenanigans



And another day in paradise today...

 

So I guess this is really more of a photo-journal of all the driving I've been doing... I promise I'll do some work on this car this winter and post up the "build"

Smoke


SuperHellaUnFlush


Ain't nobody got time for hitting the apex


Other

 

Can't wait till drifting is back in season, wanna make it to one of your events

 

sup

 

After 2 months of being lazy I finally got back to working on this POS this week.

Pulled the exhaust (one piece from the headers back... so dumb)


Pulled the fuel cell firewall cover to reline the fuel cell


Pulled the Wide body off


Pulled the rear subframe to get at some worn out bushings and a worn out differential


Pulled the Differential


and pulled it apart to make room for the Carbonetic 2 way



I'm planning on reusing my bearings and seals if I don't ruin them while pulling them off the stock diff since they only have ~4000 miles on them, they look brand new.

Seals came out fine with my HomeDepotRacing plumbing-isle spec press



The only issue I may have is the stub shaft length... Mazda changed them to a shorter shaft halfway through 1987... and I'm not sure whether the new diff takes the long shafts or the short shafts... I've got the short shafts. I'll find out if it all works soon when I try to put it all back together.

 

this car is nasty lol. only really thing im not a fan of the headlights but thats all to personal preference. im really diggin the trailer addition too lol. im sure people see it out and are like wtf is there there a hitch on it hahaha. damn nice build though man

 

Thanks man! I feel you on the headlights, I don't love them either. The FC2000 front end is probably not going back on.

Got the trans pulled tonight (the rebuild of that will commence after the differential is buttoned back up)

 

Finished up the differential rebuild yesterday afternoon.

Bearings getting pressed onto the new differential



Ring gear reinstalled and back in the carrier.


Setting up the backlash


I had to make a tool to adjust the bearing race retainer preload and set the backlash



I ended up cutting the threaded rod down to about 1" to keep them from bending under use.

Not shown is checking the pinion to ring-gear wear pattern. My bright yellow gear marking compound did not show up on time so I ended up using white lithium grease. The results were hard to see but despite not touching the pinion shaft spacing the contact pattern was dead on.

sealed up and ready to rock!



Next project is the transmission rebuild.

 

Started tearing into the trans tonight to see why this trans won't shift into second without a powershift (has been like this since I got it with 600 miles on the build). The previous owner claims the trans was rebuilt (with standard upgrades) when he put the car together, should have approx 3800 miles on it now (3200 of them mine). This will be my first trans rebuild... I'm using the Tremec Service manual and a few DIY T56 rebuild threads for reference. I hope I don't screw it up

Draining the fluid out of the front of the trans before standing it up

This fluid should be red (ATF - Dexron III)... I wonder what I'm going to find inside.

Has a little side to side play on the input shaft... A few threads that I've read say that a little movement is normal and that the pilot bearing will locate the input shaft and constrain this when it is installed... but it would be easy to tighten this up now rather than find out its an issue once it's back in the car.


Had to modify the work bench with a hole for the input shaft so the trans can sit vertically on the work bench...


Removed shifter assembly and selector block (rear offset lever).


Shifter assembly - Bare aluminum area is where the rear offset lever is rubbing against the bottom of the shifter housing.. that's not supposed to happen is it?


Pulled the rear housing


Started pulling stuff off the main shaft


I'm using a piece of conduit to keep everything that comes off the main shaft in order (and in proper orientation).


Bronze shift fork pads... maybe this thing really was rebuilt/upgraded by the previous owner (I'll have to wait to see if there are billet syncronizer keys when I pull the next set of gears off.There were still plastic shift fork pads and stamped metal keys on reverse)

There's a couple chipped teeth on 5th gear too

The next step is to pull 5th/6th off the main shaft and countershaft and then I can pull the rest of the case off and see what's going on with 2nd.

 

Lot of work everything looks awsome hope to see u out on the track soon

 

Thanks man! Opening Moves is coming up way too fast and I'm not spending nearly enough time out in the garage... I did spend Friday evening working on tearing the rest of the trans down though.

I had to make an extended puller to get 5/6th gear off the main shaft.




5/6th out


This was extremely difficult to pull off of the shaft, some people report that they just slip right off without a puller.... that was not the case for me. I had to heat the larger gear (5th) with a torch to get it to expand and slide off with the puller.

With 5/6 off the main shaft the rear section of the counter shaft and the 5/6 shift fork can be removed allowing the next section of the case to come off too.



This is with all the shift linkages apart before pulling the rest of the gears off the main shaft.


So far I've found out that the only upgrades performed when the trans was rebuilt were the bronze shift pads and 3rd/4th viper shift fork... everything else is stock.

This is probably the cause of my 2nd gear issues (popping out, not shifting in, grinding, etc).

The syncro blocker ring looks fine and is probably reusable if the carbon fiber clutch material is still intact on the inside taper... but the mating interface for the syncro sleeve on the actual gear is completely rounded off... those should have sharp points just like the blocker ring on 4th gear in the pic below.

This is 4th gear which is in much better shape (blocker ring is the slightly blueish piece on top).


Looks like my parts list to get this trans back together is going to be:
5th gear (drive)
5th/6th gear casting (driven)
1st/2nd, 3rd/4th hub/sleve assemblies
2nd gear (drive)
Billet shift keys 1-4
1st/2nd syncro blocker ring set
Snap ring set

 

have you thought about removing some of the teeth off the syncro blocker ring for easier engagement?

 

I didn't even know this was an option. I'll have to look into it. What are the downsides of doing that?

 

Hey I just got new Diff Bushings from Drop engineering and they feel loose. Like you don't need a press to put them in. You can just drop them in and wobble them (About 1mm of play) Were yours like that? I feel like that's not right.

 

The Delrin bushings on the mounting ears? Mine can be installed or removed by hand... but don't seem too loose as installed. I'll check again next time I'm out in the garage.

 

I figured it out. These urethane ones compress and fill the space as you tighten them to spec. How's the trans rebuild going? I want to do the same on my T56

 

My bushings are delrin and have no slop in them. Good to see you got your issue sorted out.

The T56 rebuild is coming along slowly since I only get to work on it a few hours a night a couple nights each week. The list of parts I think I need to replace keeps getting longer since I'm not sure where the reuse/reject point is because I'm a complete noob at this.

I got the rest of the gears off the shaft and now it's time to clean all the parts, order the replacements, and get on with the reassembly.





I also took my fuel cell out and apart tonight to see what was going on in there... I was having some fuel starvation issues and plugging fuel filters at the end of last season.
From here:


... to the floor


Issue #1 - the 3 fuel pickups at the bottom of the tank were not connected to the outlet hose... so I was drawing my fuel through the open end of a -8an hose 2 inches off the bottom of the tank since it had slipped off the barbed fitting on the splitter to the factory pickups.


Foam looks to be in decent shape but I'm not sure how old it is. Any reason why I shouldn't reuse this stuff?
I thought it was breaking up and clogging my fuel filters... but I don't really see any breakdown at all.

 

Got the new fuel cell foam in:

3 pieces of foam like that and its full again. I also replaced all the rubber lines in tank and secured them with stainless Oetiker clamps this time so they will not fall apart again when the rubber swells.

Trans parts came in today so I can get on with putting that back together. $800 to rebuild a "built" trans that was never built and would have been better spent towards a Jericho 4-speed

 

Got everything cleaned and laid out to start the reassembly.



From here on out it's just slide everything onto the shafts and put it all into the case... here's hoping that I kept everything in the right order!

 

if you take off to much at low rpm's your trans might grind a little. i usually take out every 4th or 5th one. it depends, i try to keep it even.

 

What did you upgrade/change in your trans? I'm going to crack mine open soon.

 

-New 2nd gear
-New 1-2 Syncro Assy
-New 5th Gear
-New 5th/6th cluster gear
-Billet Syncro Keys 1-2, 3-4
-Bronze 1-2 Shift fork pads (1-6 had bronze shift fork pads already, 1-2 had abnormal wear)
-New 1-2 Shift fork (Still aluminum but it was $17 so I'm not messing with the old one if it were somehow bent)
-New Seals
-New Snap Rings