craaaazzy's widebody project
 

hey guys,
i'm going to keep a build thread here in the SE forum, if that's ok w/ the mods.

rented a uhaul and drove up to NC to pick up an 85 rx7. car already has a lot of work done to it. engine rebuilt, suspension redone, brakes upgraded, etc. car came with a widebody kit from black dragon. car seems to be at about 80% complete. mainly it's installing oil cooler, installing seats, installing rollcage, mounting the widebody kit, and finally paint.

i've got one pic for u guys as a teaser, will get more later when i have time to work on the car but priority right now is to put together my 74 bmw 2002 when i get it back from paint.

fred

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-M...s400/photo.JPG

btw, i'll be hitting up SE members for help on finishing the car. am looking for some parts that i know i'll need. some include the following so if u have em, please let me know. thanks.

SA front bumper
SA rear bumper
stock seat rails

also looking for advice on doing prep work for paint. i've never done body work so any advice/help would be awesome.

Sweet 1st gen. Saw the car in person and it is a mean looking machine! Can't wait to see the finished product!

WOW looks like a cool project!

I started sanding mine down awhile ago but decided to just let the professionals do it. if you end up doing the prep work please post the progress!

If Ray doesn't come and pick up this seat i have then you can have the rails off of it.

Good luck Fred :icon_tup:

thanks for coming to pick it up with me!

thanks, just keep me posted. question for u...are the rails the only thing i need or are there some sort of mounts that need to go along with it? trying to research but of course, not much info on rails, just seats that people have installed.

The seat rails bolt into the bottom of the seats and then bolt into the floor boards. I have a set put aside for you, always an honor to contribute to a new and worthy FB project.

Post up some more info and pictures of the wide body project when you get a chance. And that '74 2002 is a fantastic car, wouldn't mind seeing a few photos of it too (or even a visit to an OGTA meeting, good for 1 12A equivalent for sure).

thanks ray!

as for the 02, it's currently disassembled. was at the painters for 4 months and little work had been done so i finally towed it back to my place. i am now one of those people who got "screwed" by their painter. i am in the process of looking for another painter so if anyone can recommend me someone who is reasonably priced, please let me know. will need the 02 painted as well as the rx7.

this is what it looked like prior to sending it to the painter:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-E...0/IMG_2780.JPG

here it is disassembled:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-W...0/IMG_5863.JPG

and the new wheels that will go on it once it's painted:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-L...289%252529.jpg

That 2002 is a pretty looking car, right up there with the RX-2's and RX-3's in Megastyle.

I need to paint a couple cars myself, I tempted to learn how and just do it.

I'm leaning towards that with my FC at the moment...

Good luck with the widebody, craaaazzy. What sort of wheels are you going to run to match up with those fenders?

thanks guys. i'm debating whether or not on tackling the prep myself w/ the rx7. so if u guys find any good sites that i can learn from, please shoot them my way.

as for the wheels brett, i'm most likely getting a set of custom steelies from bassett. that way i can figure out the correct backspacing and width required to fill the widebody prior to having to spend serious money on other wheels (ccw's preferably but that's a lot of $$$). this is a slow project as i just got the 02 back and this is what it looks like at the moment...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-J...283%252529.jpg https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-N...282%252529.jpg https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-M...s400/photo.jpg

Are you going to paint it back to the original light tan? That would be a classy color for that car.

I've been rocking the wet sander lately, it's more fun than packing front bearings, for sure.

I'm seriously thinking about hooking the compressor up to a spray gun and see what happens.

Yes, it's going to stay the original color (charmonix).

I say try and paint it urself. Worse that can happen is u have to sand it back down.

was able to work on the car a little bit this past weekend. unfortunately things didn't go as planned. i picked up a used oil cooler since mine was cracked (2 places on the same bung) and when i went to install it, i ended up cracking the top bung myself (i swear, i barely torqued the thing down!) so am now looking to get this cooler welded up. car already has racing beat SS lines so what I'm thinking is to have the crack welded up as well as the 16mm to -10 fitting welded to it. only concern is the different materials but i'll see if that can be done.

also found a few more problems with the car. a small oil leak from the oil pan which i will now requires me to drop the pan and seal it correctly.

the other problem is the water temp gauge was non-functional. checking the wiring diagram, it tells me the wire connecting the gauge to the sensor is yellow with a white stripe. i don't see this wire. what i do is either a tan wire (could be yellow) with brown dots every inch apart or a brown wire with a gold stripe. the tan w/ brown dots did not affect the temp gauge and i did not get the chance to try the other wire cause that's when i noticed my oil cooler was leaking. so any help here would be great.

btw, i didn't mention it in my original post but this is an 85 gsl-se. thanks.

edit: alright, according to this post, i have the right wire on the sensor: https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...ight=temp+wire
now i need to confirm that the wiring to the gauge is good, that the gauge itself is good, or the sensor is good. i read i can simply ground the wire and the gauge should move, this should narrow down the first two at least.

Fred,

I just had some fittings welded to my oil cooler for use with RB lines, so it shouldnt be a problem. I keep having some minor leaking issues at the cooler, but that's just because AN fittings are so temperamental. I am slowly tightening it to try to stop the leak, but I dont want to over tighten it.

I also just had my coolant gauge go out when I installed the FD alt in car, and yes you can test the gauge by grounding it out. I have seen this work numerous times on other cars, so it should work on ours. That is my next step with my car too. Just rub the wire on a ground and you should see the needle move around.

Once you get these sorted out, you need to drive that thing around! Maybe source some stock fenders so you can drive the car around a little. That'll give you time to figure out installed the widebody, and let you enjoy the car.

hey donnie,
did u have AN fittings welded onto the oil cooler? my fittings are actually the RB ones that comes w/ the RB SS lines...hopefully welder can weld that to the cooler (non-aluminum to aluminum weld). we'll see what he says today.

thanks for confirming the ground theory. will have to try it when i get the chance to at least confirm the gauge. i also have an autometer gauge and will need to hook that up.

Donnie, i say we go over to Fred's and take on that project ourselves..at this rate, car wont be running till next year..lol

i can use all the help i can get... ;)

Fred, I had aluminum fittings welded to the cooler, so your case may be different, but I am sure it can be done. You just have to have a proficient welder. Since my temp gauge quit working, I need to install an aftermarket gauge as well. I just have to decide where I want to place the sender and what gauge to buy.

Marco and Fred, I am definitely down to come tweak on the SE one day. We just need to find the time and plan it. I hope to knock out a timing belt change on my DD, Rav4, next week. If all my parts come in in time, I hope to do it Tuesday. Then I will be free from work Thursday. If they don't, then I will spend Thursday changing the belt and all. Just drive the SE to Marietta and we can wrench on it ;)

welder is welding an fittings to the cooler. he didn't want to weld the RB fittings since they were not aluminum. should get it back sometime next week. think i'll try to tackle the oil pan this weekend if i can find the time.

Oil cooler is now installed. Also had to redo the oil pan as there was a slight leak from one of the bolts. Previous owner had used a gasket on it and it did not seal properly around one of the bolts.

I think i've figured out the cage install so need to drill holes through the floorboard and rear wheel well and bolt it down. I'm only going to be installing the back hoop portion and not the front half as the car is going to be a street car, not a dedicated track car.

Also figured out how to install the driver side sparco seat. Just need to buy the supplies and do some fabrication and mount them.

Let's see, last thing was wiring up the autometer water temp and oil pressure gauges. Not sure if the water temp sender is f'ed up or what cause the needle on the gauge did not move past 100 degrees. Wiring should be good cause I've got a good ground and power powering the lights on the gauges and it shares those wires.

Btw I wanted to thank Ray for the seat rails as well as Alex for bringing then over to me. Them nice people. :)

Alright, I may have an idea as to why the water temp is not reading so let me run this by u guys. Reading the instructions, it says that the sender is grounded by the threads. This would be good if I mounted it directly on the engine but since mounted it on a coolant line via an adapter, it is not grounding itself so I need to some how wire up a ground to it. Does that make sense? And if so, how do I add a ground to the sender?

autometer water temp and oil pressure gauges are in. now need to fabricate some sort of plate and mount them to the center console. anyone have a spare clock i can have? previous owner took it out but i'd rather put one back in.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-w...284%252529.jpg

also modified seat rails and cut/drilled flat stock to bolt down seat. installed the sparco seat belts also...let me tell u, these were not as easy to install as i would have though. the way u have to loop the belts, u have 3 layers that need to go through a small slit.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-R...283%252529.jpg

installed the rollbar.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/--...282%252529.jpg

and finally, started drilling to mount the rear fender.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...s400/photo.jpg

That's looking pretty Wide, Fred. That seat looks like a wide body too. Nice Work!

u have no idea ray...i still need to get wheels to fill them but can't do that until i finish the 02 first. the widebody fenders stick out 5 inches past the stock fenders! i should take a pic from the back just so u guys can see it.

as for the seat, they are sparco torino's. i'm a 32 waist and it fits me well.

just took pics from the back.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T...286%252529.jpg

this one is looking straight at the rear tires.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-G...285%252529.jpg

Looking good! Man you can fit such a big tire under there lol. Did you see that black widebody FB in the 1st gen section? He is running like 17x11 in the rear!

I'm getting dizzy Fred, you got any reference photos?

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T...286%252529.jpg

Saw that sweet widebody. 17x11's is a bit too much in my opinion unless u can back it up with some serious power. I'm looking at getting some 15x10's myself.

Sorry ray, no additional pics yet.

i had the same body kit and i loved it
http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...yfree7/1-5.jpg

nice, what kind and what size wheels/tires were u running? any side and rear shots? looks like u had some battle scars.

i got the wheels, body kit and wing all for $350..... the rims were ARE Hammers! the rear rim was 15x12 with a -76 offset and the front was 15x9 with -56 offset. they were missing the center caps so i painted them black.

had to cut out over 3in to fit
http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/uu204/myfree7/9.jpg
http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...yfree7/4-2.jpg
test fitting
http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...widebody-1.jpg
http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...8020020411.jpg
http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/uu204/myfree7/q.jpg
http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/uu204/myfree7/qa.jpg
rims
http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...tachment-2.jpg
http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...yfree7/1-3.jpg
http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/uu204/myfree7/07.jpg

awesome. that's a terrific deal! what size tires were u running though? do u still have the car?

did some work to the car. the body kit, as seen myfree7's pics, uses the SA bumpers. being that i don't have those and it's pretty hard to find since no one responded to my wtb thread, i decided to see if i could make the existing fb front bumper work. here's the end product:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-h...282%252529.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-R...s640/photo.jpg

don't remember the tire sizes and i sold the car earlier this year... why? i have no damn clue, but i have a new 7 and i will be doing the same body kit!

you can find the SA front bumper pretty easy. just have to look for them have you ever tried apexautoparts.net? they had one on there the last time i was on and i've seen several SA's being parted out as well. you can as you've done make the FB front bumper work

Just asking to find out tires that could be run for that wide of a wheel. What I found is a 265/50/15 for the rear and 215/60/15 for the front. Using ur offset numbers, I'd be looking for rims with around a 2" backspace for both front and rear (15x8 and 15x10 respectively).

ya that sounds about right... this time when i do it i'm gonna go with a 15x14 in the back and run the bfgoodrich drag radial because they make a matching front tire rear is 325 and front it 215

Id look into going with 17s simply due to tire availability.

I had some Porsche wheels that where 16x10 and 16x12. Had a hard time selling them since the only tires available where race tires.

15 and 17in rims are easy to find a matching set of tires for wide and standard with rims... especially for the big difference between the wheels i was running on my car

fabricated a plate to mount the aftermarket gauges
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-8...s640/photo.jpg

i had the same gauges, but i put them in the climate control holes. i set it up so that the heat and blower speed were set on high so if my windows ever got foggy i just had to flip a switch and clear it up.
http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...yfree7/2-1.jpg
blower switch, push button start and g-timer
http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...e7/rx71030.jpg

great idea. my car didn't have a radio so i wanted to use that space somehow. would be nice to have a few more gauges such as oil temp and wideband to fill the panel more though.

still trying to find a solution to the gas fill neck problem from the widebody fender to the tank. i can't find a flexible hose that has enough flex to do about a 75 degree turn in the tight space. may end up using a 90 degree bend hose. we'll see...still searching.

Fred have a piece of aluminum tube tigged at 75 degree and use hose at both ends

thanks GB7, I was thinking similarly as well but trying to avoid this since I don't weld myself. my concern as well would be welding the aluminum to the metal filler neck, not sure if that would be doable...as i think the neck is steel.

think filler neck, hose ,75 degree aluminum piece, hose, fuel tank

man, i'm slow today!

for the connection to the tank i was going to just cut out the factory door and some of the panel and use a flexable radiator hose as most people do...

definitely DO NOT use radiator/coolant hose for fuel.

I like how you mounted the gauges.

Did you see these wheels for sale?

Thirteens might be too small for your car. They sure are wide enough.

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/pts/2625117036.html

Saw those but I doubt 13's would clear SE calipers. street tires would also be hard to find.

i've used the radiator hose for fuel before and it works fine... it doesn't eat through at all and it's cheap!

they no longer make good street tires for 13's. there is only 2 companies that make tires for a 13in rim and the widest one is only 205 so it wouldn't work