RX7Club.com - Mazda RX7 Forum - 3rd Gen General Discussion

Trans input shaft bearing

2-TIGHT — Sun, 10 May 2026 22:00:01 GMT

Hello all,

I pulled out the main input shaft bearing, and thereafter realised I couldnt replace the needle bearing inside pulling down the whole transmission.
I don't have the tools required for that yet, so I decided to just put the new sealed ball bearing on the shaft and check for improvement in the neutral growling noise. If I need to come back to it, I will.

As it stands, I have the new bearing almost all the way on to the shaft, but i noticed now that the shaft is behaving differently and I am concerned I have overlooked something.
The circlip groove on the shaft is nearly exposed and the on the new collar is nearly up against the housing. Firstly, it looks like the collar has less than 1mm until it hits the transmission housing, but i cant see the groove for the circlip yet. Makes me think even if i keep driving the bearing in, I may not get the circlip groove exposed.
Also, there is no side-to-side play in the shaft anymore. It is very rigid. There is also no in/out play.

Twisting the shaft by hand, I only have 180 degrees in either direction. Before, I am pretty sure I could turn freely.

Any feedback/info is appreciated, thanks.

Idler Pulley Replacement

vr2cym — Sat, 09 May 2026 23:46:58 GMT

I'm sure you all have or will hear the serpentine belt squeal one day on your FD. Well, I think I traced mine to the idler pulley because this baby, when spun on my finger, sounds like it has sand inside the bearing. So, the natural thing was to look for a replacement. OMG, they want close to a $100 or more for a brand new one. When comparable item for other cars runs about $20, I get to pay 5 times that because I drive a FD? Geesh, talking about a rip-off! Sorry, I just needed to get that off my chest.

So, the 2nd obvious question is: what other brand or aftermarket idler pulley will be a direct replacement? Please note that this is for the OEM pulley set-up (no underdrive pulleys), i.e., a stock set-up that uses the OEM belts. If there isn't even a close match, does anyone know what would be a replacement bearing (brand or spec) that could be pressed into the OEM pulley?

Thanks in advance for your help with this issue.

Engine o ring failure?

Xion — Sat, 09 May 2026 04:43:47 GMT

Ok so I�ve been dealing with a blue smoke from exhaust issue for a while.

Some background:

no cats, pretty much straight piped.

So after I had adjusted IAC valve to spec, smoke kinda stopped�or was very little.

On my wedding day last month, the smoke was totally gone the whole drive (thank god), the next couple of days it was also totally fine.

then I decided to top off my oil to full in my car, and two days later, it started smoking again like a freight train.

For info I�m running 10W-30 castrol Dino oil. I was like a quart low before I topped up.

it only smokes in idle never when I�m accelerating or on decel.

so after that day of it smoking like a freight train I let it sit for a week, started it up again and tried to look out for if it�d smoke blue on startup and as soon as I turned it on, blue smoke came out of the exhaust albeit a lot less and eventually went away. Just turned car off after 1-2 min of idle tops.

So with that being said, engine O rings are going out no? Because if it smokes blue right on startup, that means oil was sitting in combustion chamber and got burnt on startup. Also the fact it only smokes on idle means the vacuum when driving prevents the oil from seeping through I�d imagine.

thoughts guys? Looks like I have to tear down? I know the blue smoke can only be bad turbo seals or bad engine o rings

attached is a pic of it smoking like a freight train. I know it looks white but trust me the smoke is blue

Also I have a tune with FCtweak by Xavier. Not sure if that�s worth mentioning

Turbo Oil feed line question

alleyesonus — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:48:53 GMT

So I had my twins off to port the wastegate and was eager to get them back in. While rushing I did not look at torque specs and over tightened the connector on turbo oil feed line. :wallbash:

I was wondering if anyone had any advice how to fix this? Guessing I need to remove everything to slide the new connector on since when it has the lip it likely shouldn�t come off right?

Boost issues

Ledian8301 — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 20:04:13 GMT

Hi, I�m new to rotary envines in general but I recently acquired a JDM 1995 and I did some mods to it including an emissions delete including OMP delete, I installed a Power FC ecu and completed the air learning but am getting little to none primary boost, the vacuum reads about 400-415 at idle but when I press de gas it either go on boost for a second and then goes back into vacuum or just stays in vacuum and even increases to almost 600. This happens bow 4500 rpms, if I go higher then the secondary turbo kicks in and the engine boosts. Have anyone experiences something similar? Any ideas would help.

Reproduction Fuel Hanger

FDAUTO — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:13:40 GMT

https://v12throttle.com/products/rep...16e943d0&_ss=r

we bought one of their fuel hangers for a Z32 were working on and it is of the highest quality. i could tell you it was a new oem and there is no way to tell the difference. in addition to that, the version they make is actually quite a bit nicer than the oem. its also a lot more friendly with fitting an aftermarkey pump. we have not tried their FD version one yet but considering how nice the Z32 one is, i would expect nothing less than the same impressions. we're not affiliated with them in any way but we thought it would be nice to share.

Can Anyone ID these sideskirts?

Mr_ — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:19:42 GMT

Google Lens gave me lots of results of used blue WRX side skirts, I searched Google images for quite a while with no luck. They're fiberglass, came with the FD I bought, previous owner was not the one who put them on so I can't ask him. There's a recess pictured at the front where it looks like an emblem for the maker would rest. Thanks for any help you can offer.