decided to throw an air filter onto my summit racing order for diff bearings to get the kart up to free shipping I think it'll work pretty well:



It's a K&N RF-1042. 6" inlet to match up to the afore posted velocity stack

 

Replaced my DTSS eliminators with supernow units. I'm impressed by the fit.



They're steel, and they needed to be pressed in. after pressing in the fitment was so snug that the c-clip grove was full of aluminum when it came out the other side. but some quick work with a screw driver and a hammer chiseled all the aluminum out of the groove.

You can see the white mark on my old delrin units where it had slid out of place, and also the completely rusty inner sleeves.

delrin upper triaxial hub bushings are the other circular bushings there.


I've also been having issues with the bottom mount bearings on my bilstein ASN rear dampers. one of the bearings had some play when I first got them, so I ordered another pair just in case, both of the replacements had play out of the box also... they aslo felt too light... like some of the bearing might be aluminum? So the other day I found an aurora bearing part number specifically for replacing this odd sized (half metric half standard) bearing: COM-8T-24

bought a pair and they work great, no play at all.

 

Went over to my buddie's house on saturday and we installed the new 4.56 gears:

old gears coming out (used a big prybar haha)



Made a frame out of wood to hold it on the table:



new gears all installed and looking good:



We kept the same shims in the diff to maintain diff preload and just swapped different sized shims back and forth to adjust backlash. pinion depth was set using a pinion depth tool based on ford 8.8 specs.

 

Yesterday I had a bit of free time and installed my steering rack bushings. They look good.

passenger side old and new:



driver's side:



they're much easier to install with the engine out

 

Nice work! Those rack bushings look great.

The carriers are a bear to get out of the aluminium housings LOL.

 

What brand bushings are those?

 

Richocet Tech. They were on ebay until LOF let the cat out of the bag in this thread and they instantly sold out:
https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-generati...mbers-1096646/

not sure if they're back up yet or not.

 

Thanks! Just bought a set. Steering rack is off the car for spacers and NASCAR pump mockup, so for $32 this is a no-brainer.

Fits Mazda RX7 RX 7 Steering Rack and Pinion Bushing Set 1986 1991 Polyurethane | eBay
There's 1 set left for whoever's interested.

 

NASCAR pump?

 

I bought one of THESE on eBay last weekend. They're very small, come with a 6" pulley and mout via a plate at the back of the pump. The plan is to use the PS, crank and water pump pulleys for one belt and a crank, water pump, and alternator on a second belt. These pumps (also known as a GM Type 2 pump) are also shimmable to adjust the power assist with a $17 kit HERE . 700-1350psi of assist out of the same pump and only takes a few minutes and a vise to change the shims. The pumps also come with a 6AN out and 10AN in, so routing to the rack is relatively easy, but a cooler is recommended and a remote reservoir is required.

 

I need to get a sales commission from the guy. I talked to hime and he said he is willing to do the NON PS passenger side bushing for me. I just need to find one. I'd rather not pull the one out of my car

 

Still dragging my feet.... race season is rather close.

I had powertrain industries modify my driveshaft transmission yoke to fit a Spicer lifetime u-joint in it.





I mainly did this because I found out I couldn't grease my u-joints with the driveshaft installed because the aluminum driveshaft ends are so thick.

while I was in there I also got a coated 1310 spicer lifetime joint for the rear small mustang flange.... (normal u-joints can seize into aluminum driveshafts due to electrolysis or something. I took off 2 of the coated caps and swapped them onto the front u-joint (probably not recommended but it should work fine...)

in this picture you can barely see the difference between the coated caps and the normal ones on the 1310:




new u-joints installed:

 

When you get your drive shaft back in the car and driving, could you please make a list of the part numbers and dimensions you used to make a TII drive shaft for the Ronin kit? I'm looking to do the same next fall and it'd be great to use your trial and error!

 

All the part numbers you need are in this thread:
https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-generati...shaft-1081644/

My driveshaft is 36.5" long (U-joint to U-joint) for the ronin kit.

 

installed the super now upper triaxial hub bearings. very nice and fit great. They're nice a snug, not going anywhere.

 

God a decent amount of work done over the past week....

First, the strap that goes above the ronin front diff mount was digging into the rubber of the diff mount, so I ordered a 2.5" washer to put underneath it. I'm also switching over to the stock Ford lower mount cushion. the ones that came in the ronin kit seem to have gotten crushed pretty well.

Hopefully this fixes my diff noise issue, but I'm not too confident.








after that i reassembled entire rear suspension, driveshaft and diff into the car. the only thing left to do back there is re-set the pinion angle with the new front mount once I get the engine in.

lowered the car onto it's wheels again and pushed it out of the garage into the driveway and emptied 2 cans of engine degreaser on it. it worked out pretty well for not scrubbing anything (you can see how bad the subframe was in my steering rack bushing picks above):






so now it's time to put the engine back together...

sat down on Sunday and clearanced all the side seals:




learning from my mistakes from last time I rebuilt the engine, I ordered 15 side seals so I could redo the ones I was the least happy with . They turned out much better this time.

the engine is going to go back together sometime this week. the only real differences between this engine and the last one:

new t2 oil pump (mine was pretty badly scored, it was original)
13B-RE metal front cover gasket (no oil o-ring)
I got my oil RX-8 rear stationary gear machined for an o-ring groove (this was the main thing I've been waiting on)
OEM Mazda apex seals.
Pineapple racing solid dowel for the lower dowel pins (still using normal dowels for the upper oil passage)
Racing beat water jacket mod
Racing beat exhaust air injection delete
RX-8 oil control o-rings (viton for e85)
FD rotor housings

highlights of old engine that I'm carrying over:

RX8 e-shaft and stationary gears
S5 NA 9.7:1 rotors race clearanced w/ MFR bearings
cleaned up stock ports
FD oil pressure reg.
FD front counter wieght and thrust bearings
Pineapple racing viton water seals.
turblown stud kit

probably some other stuff I'm forgetting...

 

As usual, good work, great pics!

At what degrees are you setting the pinion angle?

 

Thanks!

I set it to the same angle the transmission is. That way both ujoint angles are the same. Iirc last time it was ~3.5* different than the driveshaft.

 

Even better! I need to check the angle on my. It has to be off, between the rear camber adjuster, and the almost 1 inch lower engine mounts...

Didn't think of measuring at the transmission, and then setting the rear end

 

slowly but surely getting this car back together...

built the engine last night. slapped on a bunch of the other bits onto the engine today. it's looking good.




lots more inconel heat sheilds from turblown. I also fixed the hole in my LIM heat sheild with a peice of inconel sheet from mcmaster-carr



installed some stage 8 locking nuts on the manifold and turbo. since the manifold didn't have anything to lock the tabs with I bent the tabs to catch on the edge:







getting close to putting it back in the car:

 

Is that an alloy oil pan, or is the paint lying to me?

 

Yeah, it's a pineapple racing cast aluminum oil pan. I'm pretty sure they're discontinued now though...

the only one I know of is the built to apex one:
Built 2 Apex

 

I have looked into the B2A pan. It looks like a very nice unit.

 

Wow, now I know what a killer $10,000 engine looks like. You win.
Terrific progress. Time to race again.

 

Brotha the heat shields are a nice touch . Is it a full kit from him pre made to fit the . The turbo shields would be my first purchase for sure . I have a holset hx52 I'd like to shield . Wrapped the down pipe all the way past the trans already .