25XP

See above pics, and conversation between Andy and I.
Thanks
25XP

wanabgts

Great looking car, we still have not made the move over to non-dot slicks.

What are you using for dampers and have you done any roll center correction in the front?

Zack

25XP

I am using revalved Bilstein shocks with custom front strut inserts. Pretty smilar to the strut inserts that AWR sells. I have a friend who works for Bilstein help me out with them. I am using Hypercoil springs. ST front and rear bars and camber plates. Delrin bushings throughout. AWR rear camber indi and center camber adjusters.
I have Mazdatrix swaybar end links and one is bent, which does not give me much confidence with thier bumpstop elmininating rod end links. They look pretty cheap and I would like to find a better option. Aurora rod ends are high quality and there enough tapered bolt and spacer kits that would look like they would hold up well. The hard to find off the shelf is the adjustable coupler nut that would fit the FC's thread on the PS rack. While it a left hand thread could be made on a lathe, I have not been able to find an off the shelf coupler in the correct thread size. This is another project I want to handle over the next couple months before next season. The car is low enough that bumpsteer needs to be corrected.

Anyone with a lathe want to make some coupler nuts?? From what I did as some quick research, a high quality bump steer kit could be made under $165.00 give or take. This would be using Aurora's alloy steel metric rod ends. Thoughts, ideas, suggestions?

25XP

wanabgts

Yeah we have been working on a set of lower ball joints for the front as well to do roll center correction. I should have the model done pretty soon....if I get a break around the shop haha.

We have been through three suspensions on the car I codrive sometimes, went from teins to koni doubles, and finally settled on a custom bilstein setup as well. The car has never put power down better than with the custom valved bilsteins out back.

I agree that front roll and bump center correction should be figured out on the car, hopefully more people will become aware of the effect it has on handling and start figuring this stuff out!

Zack

25XP

So I spend some time completing a few things on my list.

After several hours under the car, I finally installed my Moroso Oil Pan Stud kit. Its a great mod to do, but NOT while the motor is installed in the car. It took forever and after removing the front swaybar, and PS rack, as well as some creative thinking with tools, its all snugged up tight. Don't get me wrong, this is a great setup if your using an oil baffle with 2 gaskets. It just is very tricky to install with the motor in place. I hope it keeps my oil inside the motor and not seeping out.

Also installed my Miata short shifter. I have been wanting a short shifter forever, but couldn't justify $150 for one, esp since autox usually only warrants one shift. After a few mods to the Miata kit, I have a nice firm and short shift now. Money well spend. I didn't take pics of the install of either of these as they are boring and you can get step by step pics at Regan rotary racing.

I thought I had all of the fittings I needed for my fuel system. A slight mishap with Pegasus and I am delayed a few days. Their excellent customer service is taking care of the problem. I should have what I need in a few days.

So I started laying out the parts for my fuel system for reference. Here is what I have.
From the Jazz 5 gallon fuel cell -8an outlet to a 1/2" hard line to the -8an of the Holley Blue inlet to the -6an outlet. 3/8" hard line carries it to the -6an inlet on the swirl pot. Pressurized fuel exits via -8an outlet to the -8an inlet of the 100micron fuel filter, exits vial -8an outlet, 1/2" hard line to -8an inlet on the Bosch 044 fuel pump. Exits via -8an to 1/2" hard line to -8an inlet of 10 micron fuel filter. Exits via -8an to 1/2" hard line to -8an bulkhead toward the engine bay.
Return lines enter from FPR to -6an bulkhead to 3/8" hard line to -6an inlet on swirl pot. Over flow fuel exits swirl pot via -8an outet to 1/2" line to -8an inlet on fuel cell. Remaining top -8an fitting on fuel cell will be vent.

While I was a bit skeptical about the CXracing swirlpot, I couldn't pass it up for the price I looked at an ATL unit, but it was 3x the price. There were a few units from over the pond, but they were 2x the price. I checked all the fittings first thing, as another memeber had issues. There was a bit of buffing rouge on the fitting, but easily was removed and the fittings went on just fine.

I used some tape to simply get an idea of where the lines would go. The Holley pump flows in the wrong direction for the swirl pot to be on the passenger side as I wanted. I may rethink a mounting solution to it.

Any thoughts, ideas, suggestion, red flag alerts or comments, please let me know. Also those who have bent/flared a lot of hard line that have any tips, chime in.
Thanks,
25XP

25XP

pic

25XP

pics

Josh18_2k

iTrader: (3)

i dont feel like digging through the rules right now, but isnt there something about requiring a firewall between fuel system and driver? i've considered a cell+swirlpot, but firewalling it seemed like a huge PITA considering the hatch layout

25XP

Yes your right, I will fabricate a fire wall between the fuel system and driver.
25XP

25XP

I received the rear wing and assembled it. The dual wings are ARP 55" silver carbon fiber and the end plates are aluminum. The struts were custom made by Ciro Design Racing. The wing conforms to the XP rules for total surface area, total height and contained within the bodywork. That is why the struts are "forward struts".

I am happy loose the Nascar style single plain spoiler. It did a okay job, but also was pretty heavy. I haven't weighed them both yet, but the new one is a tad heavier, however the downforce will be worth the weight.

In the pics, it is simply sitting on the car, I will take some more pics of the mounting brackets and finished results.

Overall I am happy with how it looks, the struts are nicely machined. I will probably look to CF end plates in time to loose some more weight.

I have put the car on a even further diet. I have already removed so much, now comes the more expensive weight saving changes. More on that to come.

Josh18_2k

iTrader: (3)

how much do you weigh at the moment? whats your target?

25XP

I am not quite sure how much the car weighs at this time. I have had some fluxuation in the weights that I had previously. The SCCA offical scales seemed a bit heavier then when I weighed it last.
On private scales the car was around 2100lbs, but I have made some changes to the car since then. Somethings added weight, other removed it.

I am trying to do those last little things that probably won't add up to more than 25-30 lbs. The car has almost eveything removed that could be removed, now its the last 5% of weight.
Removing the stock gas tank was one of the bigger weights I wanted to remove. I am also redoing the aluminum dash that I had. This weighed just a few pounds, but the new one will be even lighter/smaller.

I will remove what weight I can, get the car weighted again. I would like to get close to the min weight for the Rx7 for XP. I don't think I will be underweight and have to add weight, but if by chance I am under, I will add it to help with corner weights.
I would like to work toward less rotating weight in the future.

25XP

eage8

iTrader: (9)

Nice car.

Can you tell me more about your bilstein setup? Mainly the rear. Are they just standard FC bilsteins or custom?

eage8

iTrader: (9)

25XP

The Bilsteins were reworked by my buddy who is a shock developer/engineer for Bilstein. He worked on them about 5+ years ago. I think they were simply revalved, but I don't recall the exact specs. I left it up to his knowledge as he is also an autox'er.

I just ordered Super Now bump steer kit for bumpsteer correction.. I figured I would give them a try as they looked a bit better then the Mazdatrix units.

Any idea what time frame Tony is going to have the kit ready?
Thanks,
25XP

eage8

iTrader: (9)

No, but send him an email, if more people are interested he'll probably work a bit harder on getting it done.

tony "at" awrracing.com

Josh18_2k

iTrader: (3)

I'm building my own roll center kit this winter, i'll make a thread about it when i'm done. should be able to move the ball joint down anywhere from 0-2.5". ish.

eage8

iTrader: (9)

one like the VW pieces would work fine:
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...T/SNV31203.jpg

I'm not sure if their stud is the same diameter as ours though.

25XP

After welding up the bracket that mounted the fuel cell and laying out all the pumps and filters, I took another direction with the mount.

I was reluctant to cut up the rear hatch for really no reason, I mean I cut up a percfect turbo hood, sliced my rear quarters for the wide body kit. So after some "getting over it" I went at it.

I wanted to get the cell as low as possible without runnning into plumbing issues, and also keeping it all above 6" from the ground. I also wanted to keep as much of the pumps and filters inside the car, while keeping the anount of bulkhead to a minimum. This meant stuffing as much as I could into the spare tire well. No easy feat and an exercise in patience. Some of the pumps/filters just simply couldn't make it, and will end up being installed under the car.

I had never worked with aluminum hard fuel lines, and after a bit of "practice" I was able to get the hang of it. The hard tube bender I bought was great at kinking the 1/2" tube so I relied on the flexible slip bender. This worked like a charm.

Here are a few pics of the process, lots of time in little adjustments to make it fit correctly. Still lots of work to go. Hard lines have some benifits, but certainly take more time to create.

Thanks,
25XP

eage8

iTrader: (9)

I read on a forum that VW studs are 17mm studs and just put a caliper to a new set of S4 balljoints I have lying around and they're 18mm studs so no go on the VW RCAs.

Sorry 25XP, I'm finished side tracking your thread... I'll let you know if I hear anything from AWR.

25XP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyA8G...c4AUAAAAAAAAAA

A video I found a couple seasons ago.
Tires temps and ambient temps were pretty low that day. I had problem putting down power without breaking the rear loose.

I set my camera up to watch the gauges more then where I was going, so that is why the angle is like this. My camera isn't that great so it didn't get the gauges like I wanted. Oh well, better than nothing.

This is my old dash layout, the new one will be minimal in comparison.

25XP

25XP

Gee, I didn't realize how much of a shifter jiggler I was in that video!

So I have finished pulling all of the suspension off the car. It had been a few seasons since I did so, and I wanted to inspect everything.
I decided to POR15 the suspension parts while I had them off the car. The stuff works pretty well, and should hole up well. I will post some pics of the suspension just before I put it back together.

I bought some new rotors for the car, the OEM issues were still on the car. They held up very well, a lapping day at Lime Rock, several Time trials, 80K of road use as well as many autox's. The problem was I could not get the frot hubs out of the rotor. Not too surprising, aluminum hub with steel rotor. After breaking my 3 pound sledge, I decided I would just take them to a press.

Enter the local VW mechanic. I am new to the area, don't know them but thought I would give the locals a shot. They have been there for 25 years, so they must know what they are doing.......

I give the veteran mechanic the rotor and 10 min later he comes back with 2/3 of my rotor. No problem, I have new ones. But he can't grasp the concept that the hub has actually moved. I had to draw it out for him in crayon. Then he just couldn't see why it would be so hard, he didn't believe me that the hub came out. He looked at me like I had 2 heads when I told him alumium and steel some times bond together with heat. He got one out today, but he wanted to soak the other one in some special penatrating oil before he did the second one. Lets just hope he doesn't mess the hub up.
Time will tell..

25XP

Josh18_2k

iTrader: (3)

throw it in the freezer and it'll probably come apart

25XP

A little bling for under the hood!

Things are coming apart to get things complete with the fuel system. I removed the manifolds to give them some shielding treatment before I run the new fuel lines.
I think this DEI Gold foil tape is pretty cool stuff. Combined with my new DEI Ti turbo blanket, I hope to keep things a bit cooler near the turbo.

25XP

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

i like the block off plate!