I had the same issue, and it did turn ito to be the oil filter neck. I do run with full oil and haven't seen the oil near there since fixing that problem.

Excellent!!!!!

Very nicely written indeed and it looks like it will do the job.
Now, onto sourcing similar European parts so there is no silly shipping custom costs involved!

Thanks for pointing at what looks to be the right way Guy! :)

Regards,
Kostas.

Was it leaking, was the filter improperly tightened or what?
And more importantly how did you fix it!

Regards,
Kostas.

Another update on the car is that whole dashboard is not flock-painted.

The result is better than i truly expected.
My friend who did the application of the flock has really made a great job.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...eabde0a16d.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...c5bef4566f.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...ac87716b4d.jpg

Love the content and the vids. I think i follow you on Instagram. Glad i found your build thread. thanks for sharing

Thanks a lot man.

Unfortunately the content have been a little bit left behind due to work and bad luck with some components of the car.

So many things were planned for this season and so little have actually been done so far.
But from what I understand this is part of the rotary life :P

That said, a new video will be coming out tomorrow so stay tuned on the media for a fresh update.
On top, If all is well, I should be able to throw a few laps around the Nurburgring this weekend and at Spa next week.

Fingers crossed and positive energy!
#theringdorito

And as said yesterday, here is the new video with the installation of the Rotary Works V mount setup on the car.


Now next step, to put down a solid lap at the Nurburgring so we can upgrade the suspension after :)

After doing some actual work on the car myself, and looking at some parts closer, I realise that I stand corrected and that the oil leak was indeed from the oil filler neck.

Apparently the plastic OEM part doesn't cope well with increased temperatures and more boost and this is where all the oil is going on the bonnet.

So now I will be looking for an aluminium one with a bigger breathing outlet as I have already purchased an oil catch can with extra 10AN lines as suggested by some other posts here (Thanks for directing me there btw, it was of great help).

After that I am pretty sure that the issue with the oil will be a problem no more!!

PS: I have been able to put down some nice laps in the last few days and the only thing I have so say for now for the stock FD chassis is... what a car!!

Cheers,
Konstantinos.

Update regarding the oil filler neck...

So it looks like regardless if its a quite common problem, the oil filler neck leaking oil, the companies that are making aluminium or cast ones, either done have them in stock or the are not quite matching the type that would work with the setup from Damian's oil catch tank, that someone posted here.

The xcessive manufacturing seems of nice quality and the guy that I have been speaking with is super friendly and of great service, but It looks like the diameter of the neck is not enough to have a 10AN line on there.

Unfortunately I live in a small village and making something custom is not as easy.

If anyone here has any other ideas or can point me to a good direction, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Konstantinos.

Lpsfab was making them for one of the vendors here a few years back, can't imagine he'd be interested in making a one-off, but nothing ventured, nothing gained!

https://www.facebook.com/linderpowersystems/

One here was made using a 1.5" tight radius aluminium donut, cap - https://speedflow.com.au/1-5-filler-...semblies-from/ and -12 male weld-on. Only "tricky" part is making the flange, 3mm endmills for cuttiing the O ring grooves are a touch fragile, but a basic machine shop with a mill and rotary table should be able to knock that up...then you just need 4 bits of welding.

Correct attitude man! :)

Thanks for the info, it seems that I now have found something from SuperLap in Cyprus.
He owns two RX-7s and he has a good fabricator so he will go ahead and produce one based on the specs mentioned above.

Will post pictures and comment on the quality when I get it.

Have you used a catch tank with bigger lines Smokey?

The writeup from Damian and his setup, and how a wider line will benefit the air going into the breather without pushing too much oil makes absolute sense.
I am curious if you have and still got the same amount of oil pushed into the tank.

On another note....

Last Sunday I drove a couple of laps at the Nurburgring and the turbo went bad...

After one lap I was waiting in the line to go out of the track and I heard a strange noise.
Long story short, I checked the shaft and it had so much play that it was scuffing on the aluminium part of the turbo.

As a good note, the engine seems to be idling fine with no strange behaviour so MAYBE I am lucky and all particles have stayed inside the intercooler.

Have to look into my budget and options and see how I will move ahead replacing with a new turbo now.

Here is the car in some action as the week before I decided to participate at a local hillclimb.

Last minute decision but was absolutely great fun and the car, apart from an electrical gremlin, felt really composed and fun to drive!!

Body roll still looks a little excessive. Unfortunately that "waiting for power" is a symptom of the half-bridge engine. You could try to get around it with a turbo like the Borg Warner EFR 7670 or 8374. What turbo came on the car?

Extremely jealous of that hillclimb event... That looked like a ton of fun and a long enough course to really get your heart racing!

That looks like FUN.

I agree that the laggy engine/turbo set-up seems to be forcing you to overdrive the car on the hillclimb (which is fun and fun to watch).
That is, when the tires spin up a bit you are hesitant to ease off the gas and let it hook up and into peak acceleration because when you let off the gas you have to build up into the powerband again.

That was a huge difference for me in my TII when I went to from the old 60-1 to the same size EFR 7670.

Turbo on the car is Greddy turbo kit, which means Mitsubishi turbo, which means laggier than contemporary HKS turbos which got to use Garrett (T04S and T04Z).
T04Z is a great turbo on the RX-7, but the same size EFR 8374 is really a game changer.
The Greddy turbo manifold already puts the turbo very far forward, so the longer EFR turbos are just not going to fit on that manifold- it would be a whole kit needed.

Another way to work around the powerband issue is to maximize forward bite during wheelspin and just get used to correcting preemptively with steering input. A good aftermarket clutch type LSD will help (if you don't already have one) and some tires have better traction with vertical slip angle than others (forward bite while spinning). A shop that sets up pro drifter cars can give you some alignment/chassis set-up tips to maximize forward bite as well.

Turbo/engine response looks fine for the track work where things happen more slowly, but still better response would be nicer for driving through on track traffic (when variables come into play).

Very cool! :ylsuper:

You are very right about the body roll as the car is on some kind of Bilstein (very basic shock) with HKS lowering springs.
This is how I bought it and unfortunately with all those issues I have had I haven't yet had the time to work and upgrade the suspension.

It really was the next step of upgrade but now that I lost the turbo this has to wait again for some time.

In regards to that "waiting for power" keep reading below so I don't write too many different posts :)
The car had a TD06SH - 25G on and is a bridge port.

As for the hillclimb... if you ever get the chance to attend one, THEN GO FOR IT!
It was so worth it and I had a ton of fun!

Very nicely put and good observation skills sir :)

You sound to be quite experienced with both the car/engine but also driving on track...and I really like that!
You already helped with what you say about the manifold and the newer EFR turbo as the 8374 might be a potential option.
But now that you say that I will need another manifold this is already increasing the budget quite a lot. Hm..... decisions... decisions...decisions...

So, before I lay down my array of excuses and how I feel that the car was not really THAT MUCH laggy, let me explain that my RX-7 is the only RX-7 I have driven ever so I don't have any experience at all with another turbo setup etc etc.
So yes, I maybe drive another one with a newer EFR turbo and put a shock where my mouth is :D

That said, as you can see in the video, I have an electrical issue and at some points of hard bump or compression the car momentarily (for a split second) loses power.
ECU,dash, engine, everything loses power, so for an instant I have no control over the car and I am just waiting for it to wake up again.
There are some parts on the hillclimb that this happens consecutively 2-3 times and by the time this stops the engine has lost a good amount of revs and the turbo of course is out of its power band.

I also had a small outing on my second run due to this as my correction on the steering wheel matched a power cut from this issue and then became over-correction.

As for powering out of a corner while sliding a little bit (and using that slide to keep the turbo alive)I am more than confident in doing this and is quite much how I drive most of the time on a road course type of event.
Tires on the car are Nankang AR-1 and can I just say that I am absolutely ASTONISHED by the amount of grip they offer while sliding a little bit at the same time.

I don't know if its the soft suspension that takes all that load in the back or just the soft compound on the tires (not the first time I use them on one of my cars), or... I don't know what!
But hell, for a car of this much power its really amazing how well it is putting the power down!

Glad you enjoyed :)

And again as I said to LavitzLegend, if you ever get the opportunity to do some kind of an event like this and you are into this stuff, then absolutely go for it!
You will not regret it!

Hell, it was not even timed! It was just an event to have fun with your car and other cool people that share the same passion!!

Regards,
Konstantinos :D

At the same time I just received a picture of the oil filler neck I am getting from SuperLap.

Don't know if Michael has a fabricator of his own or sourcing them from elsewhere but he answered and sourced the part in just a few hours whereas other big tuning companies haven't answered me for weeks now.

So in my books, that gets some kudos!


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...9f7999ed17.jpg

No experience on the track at all :crying:
I have only done solo racing in parking lot, hillclimb and Kart track. So, take my observations with a grain of salt!:dunno:

Looks pretty close to what the other bloke was selling....without the import hassles. The car here runs a drain back from the catch to the sump with a one way valve (plus a fabricated sump that has about 6 litres in it) as these things are almost as much oil cooled as water. If you do run just a hose to the tank and empty it after sessions, you might want to make sure there's a baffle in the neck to limit oil rushing up there during turns....you can probably pull 1.5G instantaneous with those tyres. This is the way he limited that problem -


They use the Nankangs in one of the control rotary series down here, it's not the best R-comp, but for the price, you can't complain too much! Get any heat into the tyres beforehand too? I suppose there might have been a bit of an issue with burn-outs on a public road - not to mention the possible exploding torsen - if that's installed, but that's usual hillclimb practice. Car seems pretty loose for a run mostly in 3rd, but imagine power isn't too deficient when that turbo spools up!

Guess you wouldn't have lack of suspension choices with the location either. The humble RS/RZ, Spririt R Bilstein is pretty shithouse as standard, they can be made to work pretty well though. An FD with those, followed by replacement of the pistons with digressive/linear fronts and linear rears and adjustable seats, currently holds the quickest lap at Bathurst for an Rx7. Usual issue with most of the 50mm body shocks is interference at max castor and full droop if there's any rough hill courses or if you're into ye olde N'burg style jumps.

My English stand corrected then... was trying to say that you seem to know from experience what you are talking about.
Whether its hillclimb, auto -x etc is a detail.

:)

- The catch tank setup I will run consists of one hose coming from the oil filler neck (breather) into the tank and one hose leaving the tank back to the stock oil return line of the second turbo (doesn't exist in the case of the car anymore as it is a single turbo)
Normally, along with the big diameter lines, that should be enough in terms of vapour/oil circulation inside the system.

- As you say... these tires, for the money you can get them don't have a competitor. Out of curiosity, which R-compound tires have you tested that you find superior to the Nankangs?
At the hillclimb event I never did any warmup at all. Just sitting there and launched. That's why I was expecting much more spinning in the beginning but the tires performed excellently. Was really shocked by this.

- Suspension wise, I haven't really thought of the possibility to working on the suspension the car has on now. I will directly go to a full coiler-over set like a KW or Ohlins. Its quite easy to work with either of these companies as we have partnership (from work) with one of them and the other has its headquarters at the Industry pool at the Nurburgring, so its literally 5 minutes away.
Maybe the final cost will differ but then again I think it will be for good reason and money well spent.

Regards guys,
Konstantinos.

Unfortunately where I live in the U.S. the closest hill climb event would be around 10 hours or more drive to get to. However, I do get quite a bit of time on race tracks doing endurance and sprint racing so that keeps me busy. I'm saving up to hopefully buy an FD over the winter or next spring after I sell a few of the other toys (couple dirt bikes and a crotch rocket). There is a black '93 R1 for sale near me right now that isn't running but has a supposedly fresh built half-bridge REW ready to go in... Not sure if I would put that engine in or instead go back to a stock port setup to pair nicely with a good turbo setup... Decisions... I'm definitely targeting the 8374 EFR turbo setup though based on all the reviews and dyno sheets I've seen. Power seems to come on early but is still linear and usable. Would be really interesting to see how your car would respond to such a setup. All signs seem to point to that combination for giving good response and power while not having to exceed 20 PSI to do it.

Here's a great video of a test drive of a street ported FD with EFR 8374 setup. You can tell just how responsive the turbo is and how linear the power delivery is as well. He has no problems modulating the throttle and getting power to the ground. Also he's running Ohlins with some Bridgestone re71r 200 tread wear tires. So you can kind of get a preview of how those handle the canyons and bumps.

Sounds good! Have found the breather of the tank is important too - if not recirculating. Initially had an outlet around 15~20mm and the filter would spew a bit of oil into the engine bay with the velocity out of the can, welded on a larger flange around 35mm with a bigger filter and that problem ceased.

Don't normally run treaded tyres here now, so may be a bit out of date. We have run a yoko 050 medium in drizzle a few years back, toyo and dunlop versions in the past. The hot ticket for the hillclimb would probably be hankook z221 or an 050 soft....but then again paying a lot more than double the price of the nankangs....at least here.

Suspension choices look promising, hopefully the ohlins are the Swedish ones if you go that way. The older Japanese reservoir versions at least, were pretty dire and needed a complete revalve to work properly in the conditions here. This was how the bilstein car ended up a few years ago, it had a 8374 and that corner is normally around 270~280 kph, the other guy was innocent, but driving like he was taking miss daisy to church rather than in a race. :)


That electrical gremlin issue, might be the usual FD failing , I'd check the harnesses in the wheel wells to see if there's been any rubbing. If that gets bad, harnesses are NLA - and you'd be in for a world of pain short of a CAN install....or dozens of solder splices.