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Hi everyone
I spend 3-4 hours writing up an introduction with lots of info, but now I can't find it. When I do I will post or put the info in some new threads if people are interested. Anyway, I'm biting the bullet now and posting else I will never get to it.
Thanks everyone for the great info that has accumulated on this site over the many years. Much appreciated.
I grew up in country NSW, first car was a 1976 Holden Gemini (The Gemini), which I got just after moving to Sydney for Uni and never went home.
The first family car was a Ford (Larry) Laser 1991 1.6L carbi which we still have though it's now not registered (any buyers?)
I picked up my 1986 Rx7 Turbo II in 1993/4 for $20K with 90,000km on the clock. I've had it ever since as a daily drive, then holiday drive, then under covers whilst my son grew up. He's now 13 and bigger enough to sit in the front seat.
Our family (my wife's) car is now a 2016 Subura Levorg 2L Turbo Wagon, putting the Laser to pasture.
My daily drive is a 20 year old Mongoose mountain bike. 22km per day is good exercise keeping me fit for football (Soccer).
I have a great family, one son 13 , lovely wife and a coolie dog with the same name as my car: Turbo.
You will see photos below of the car and also of a boat that has consumed all of my free time these past 4 years, now back in the water.
Most recent history about the car:
The car had idle troubles about 6-7 years ago or so, fuel pump was howling, radiator hydraulic fan stopped working on hot days etc etc.
With no free time, it got packed away in the garage until now.
Over the past 3-4 years I've been helping my brother rebuild his timber cruiser. A great job but a big job. The promise now is he will help me get my car back on the road.
Photos below provide a bit of insight to both the hard labour for the board, and now the beginnings of the work on the car. My apologies for the over size photos and the order they have appeared.
Regarding my recent progress (last 12 months):
With the very few spare hours free I managed to get a new fuel pump into the car, sent the alternator off for service repair (apparently nothing wrong with it...wrong that was).
Earlier this year I oiled the engine, turned it over, drained the tank, popped an old battery into it, put air in the tyres and cranked it over. Started fine, revved fine.
First drive was great, getting the brakes to work and revving it carefully through the full rev range. However, it did not want to go on boost.
On the third run, I guess the secondary injectors decided to work and the car took to red line under full boost, smooth as. Mind you, full boost was only 6psi.I had closed off the boost bleed valve and I'm sure the waste gate is no good.
At the same time lights started flashing on the dash. That is when I determined that the alternator that was OK, was not. It was intermittent with regulation and at the end pumping 18V into the battery.
Car had to go off the road until an alternator found.
Found a great alternator through eBay from a local supplier, who dropped it off to me on a Sunday night. It only just squeezed in but should work great. I have some wiring to do to take load off the ignition switch and confirm that the existing wiring indeed does have the EMS and CDI on independent circuits.
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The broken keel and hole in the boat made it easy to work on everything else!
There she is at sundown back on its mooring. If you are thinking Gilligan's Island, then yes, I'm Gilligan, and Yes I've gone over the side just like Gilligan.
Most recent photo of my 1986 FC outdoors that I could find
Bosch 044 fuel pump installation Dec 2018 as step 1 to get the car going again. It was a little larger than its predecessor and a lot larger than stock. It works a treat. Voltage issues, alternator, ignition switch Dec 2018. I've still got to do some wiring to bypass the voltage drop across the switch. Been like that since 1994 when I bought the car. Previous owner must have ripped the brick phone out of the car. I repaired this and cleaned the ignition contacts removing 2V of drop but there is still some left. I'll rewire and take critical load off the switch. Big new Bosch 110A Alternator installed May 2019 after a couple of laps around town revealed the original alternator wasn't regulating (was even serviced by an auto electrician). If you are after a good alternator for your Rx7 S4,5, 6 then this one is a good pick. The S4 is the hardest install due to the mechanical oil injection. 2 row (1" cores), 4 way aluminium radiator ready to install. Got this Rx7 S4 "racing" radiator for $105 in Jun 2019, box was dated 05-09-2003! My existing radiator is copper built by a local in 1996. The main problem at present is that the hydraulic clutch fan is free wheeling. At ambient 32 degrees it stops working altogether and the electric fan (16inch Davies Craig) cannot keep the temperature down. The temp moves up to about 90-95 once the fan clutch fails. The car still doesn't over heat. Plan is to put this new radiator in with a better fan arrangement. After 23 years the dump pipe has had its day. What a great setup it was. After the initial drive I decided to look for the exhaust gas leak whilst installing the alternator. I found it and it isn't really repairable. Luckily I kept the original exhaust and plan to install it whilst I sort out what to do about the exhaust, turbo etc etc. The car's original exhaust just pulled out of storage (roof) and the 23 Yr old custom exhaust on the right. Side by side, the custom is 3" offtake into 3.5" split to dual 2.5". Dual 3" cat converters, then dual 2.5" to the rear. I really liked the sound of this exhaust so am hoping to create a similar solution. I'm not really keen on many of the designs I've seen and I'd like to keep the dual cat setup. That's another discussion
Well that's it for a Hello. Thanks for your patience if you made it all the way to the bottom of this post.
Take care, and I'm sure I'll be posted some questions and maybe even some answers, but more likely just more stories.
Life is a journey, and boats, cars and family keep you busy on that journey.
The original exhaust is back on the car. This took out 2psi of boost, but at least I can drive it around again.
New alternator is working great. I have photos, video for the install so suggestions for where to post the info would be appreciated.
Also, I didn't mention before, despite the engine purring and running fine under boost (now at only 5psi) it has internal damage and I know how it occurred. The rear rotors read 90, 30,30 psi and the front 90,90,90 psi at low cranking speed. I'd like to post how I did this without a proper rotary compression tester.
Friday, I got the pink slip, breaks working great according to the mechanic. They work same as usual to me too (no ABS), after waking them up from their long slumber. The results are below so comparative comment welcomed:
Pedal Max = 198N @peak = 163N
Deceleration Time = 1.67sec
Deceleration Peak = 98%g
Deceleration Average = 74%g
Deceleration Distance = 8.9m
Test Duration = 1.67sec
Speed of Test = 38.4km/h
Current photo after a late night car wash before rego: Looks as good up close Turbo sitting in front of Turbo
09-19-19, 09:46 AM
