mdpalmer

iTrader: (24)

Here's another "me too" build thread, mine is very simple and a fraction of what a lot of you guys are doing, but figured I would post up for fun. Some of you guys know my story, I already posted in the "new guy" forum. Kind of random pics/info from what's happened so far, car has been apart for about 3 months now, about 1-2 more months to get her on the road again. Goal for the car is to keep it a fun semi-dd that can hit the track a couple times a year. This is super abbreviated... I'm leaving out tons of details for now... will post up more later, to norotors.com (rx7 swapper forum). I wanted to put this up on the rx7 forum to keep my rotary buddies in the loop

Here's the norotors.com forum link: http://www.norotors.com/index.php?topic=4478.0

Here's a recent pic of the outside of the car.



Make a long story short:

-Aways wanted an FD since they came out in '93 (I was freshman/sophmore in HS), really, really love these cars
-Bought my silver '93 back in October 2005
-Motor was low on compression but still drivable
-Rebuilt the rotary with stock turbos and set the car up for street/track/strip/whatever, goal was 300 ish wheel-hp and 250 ish wheel-ft-lb, and, more importantly, to run the car high 12's in 1/4 mile at 110 mph. And to be able to put it on road course/open track day and keep it cool/reliable
-Started tuning the car on my own on the street
-Got the torque itch recently and decided to do the swap
-25k miles on the rebuilt engine and it ran great

Dyno sheet, about 300/260 whp/wtq (dynojet), "non-sequential" turbos, pig rich, 91 octane



Never got the 12 sec slip but did run the car @ 112+ mph vs. a "425 hp" Camaro SS, stock wheels, 245/40/16 toyo TR1 street tires



See 3rd pass..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKE6YjsYOMA

Best I could do was 13.137 @ 108.22 vs. a lightly modded Evo 9 (read: no exhaust, talked to him after that pass). Same motor/turbo/suspension on my car, with different wheels/tires



I'm no drag racing pro, just doing it for fun... check out 1st pass against Evo in the vid

Mazda FD Rx-7 @ CA Speedway Street Legal Drags

Right before pulling the motor (about 1 or 2 weeks in fact) I had a track day at Buttonwillow, here in semi-So-Cali. Boy was that fun. Car ran perfect, besides the brakes (didn't bed new pads/rotors in as well as I should have). The guys who set the track up are Corvette dudes, one has a C6 Z06 and the other a ZR1. Both are complete animals... those cars are nuts and are a big part of why I'm doing the swap (torque!). Check out the vid of the Z06 following me. Yeah, I am slow, he could have just drove right around me, but I was out for fun

mp shoveling dirt

Last shot or so of rotary, night before motor pull.

mdpalmer

iTrader: (24)

So I picked up an engine/trans/misc from a semi local guy who was in the middle of a swap on his FD. Fresh rebuilt LS1 with cam/heads, and some other goodies...


Check out his build. Fresh pistons, rods, rod bolts, oil pump, timing chain, z06 clutch/fw/pressure plate, ls7 lifters & trays, ARP head bolts, CNC 5.3l heads, double valve springs, titanium valves/retainers, etc.




Out with the old, gone but not forgotten


ZR1 track buddy showed up right when I was getting to pull the motor, I actually had my phone ready to dial him up to get him over and he magically showed up, awesome.

mdpalmer

iTrader: (24)

Put new adjustable height/damping coil-overs on the car. Pettit trak pro, stage 2 (10/8 kg/mm springs, 24 level adjustable dampers).


Rolled car out of garage for first time in 2 months or so, pressure washed engine bay. Check out dog on left, silly pooch!


Clean, empty engine bay /w Samberg engine cradle installed


'nother shot of Samberg cradle in the 'bay


Trans tunnel

mdpalmer

iTrader: (24)

I did a bunch of upgrades while the motor was out.

Comp cams rocker arm trunion beaing upgrade




Katech con rod bolts



Improved Racing oil pan baffle



LS6 valley cover mod, had to cut/grind the ls1 block to get this to fit

mdpalmer

iTrader: (24)

Motor ready to go in, did this by myself in a about 2-3 hrs.





Subframe/motor mounts




Will post more later... the whole driveline is in the car now (diff, axles, driveshaft, trans mount, etc.), fuel lines are run. Have to do wiring, fill fluids, and hook up cooling and should be able to fire it up in a few weeks.. hopefully!

turbodrx7

iTrader: (43)

Very nice, clean build with a lot of good parts used.

-Austin

Battle Cat

iTrader: (78)

nice build thread mike.. come help me finish mine LOL and bring this bad boy with you

frijolee

iTrader: (1)

Good start Mike. I think this car will meet your goals nicely. Don't forget the accusump.

R3AL.CH1CK3N

iTrader: (9)

Looks good Mike!

mdpalmer

iTrader: (24)

thanks jamie I hear you about finishing the car, takes forever to put everything together. hardest part for me is the closer I get to the finish line the more crap I run into or have to sort out, parts to buy, etc. I knew 2 months was overly ambitious, 3 is more doable, 4 is about right, 5+ and I have no excuse for not having the car together. makes it a lot harder when you have to piece the car together that's for sure. looking back, I kinda wish I just bought a stock pullout with all the crap to go with it and start there. you don't have that luxury, you have to piece-meal the entire thing... one nut, bolt, part at a time... it's painful sometimes but worth it in the end.

hey I totally forgot to get back to you the other night about the dremel. did fisa help you out?

thanks joel. I wanted to ask you about the accusump. I plan on getting one, but not until I sort the car out. the more I read about it the more paranoid I get.

if you're going to starve your motor of oil, long sweepers seem the most detrimental to me, as you're possibly starving the pickup continuously during the turn. riverside turn @ buttonwillow comes to mind. what do you think?

what is your opinion on their use for a street tire autocross car? I know it's good insurance... but, there's a guy with a dark green ls1 camaro z28 who was out autocrossing the last couple times I went to the speedventures course @ fontana, didn't get a chance to talk to him about his setup, but he was flying. pretty sure he was on street tires because his car looked a little squirrely in turns, could have been something else, but his tires didn't look that sticky.

thanks jesse, have tons more pics.. will have to post them later.

Montego

iTrader: (1)

wow good job Mike! Seems like you are doing great on your timeline.

mdpalmer

iTrader: (24)

Woot, hey Elliot! I'm not very happy with my progress in terms of timeline to be honest... there were a lot of little things that f'd me up a bit... no worries, getting there. Hope all is well in SD, maybe I'll come down to visit sometime. BTW, there's a guy with a silver LS6 FD down there, think his name's Mark.

Here's a couple random pics of cool parts:

LS7 (C6 Z06) clutch disc & pressure plate



Pettit Track Pro Stage 2 (10/8 kg/mm springs front/rear)


Justin Samberg (Samberg Rod & Custom) LSX mounting kit (before powder coating)


Samberg engine cradle after P/C


Samberg Version 2.0 radiator w/ dual spal fans (had to send it back because it got f'd up during shipping... still waiting to get the new one)




TSP (Texas Speed & Performance) Hardened Chromoly Pushrods


Wilwood Clutch Master Cylinder (7/8" bore) w/ LS1 clutch line (orange end goes to bell housing fitting to slave)


FD base seats, made of CLOTH. I love these seats. Wanted them from day one. Mannykiller gave me a killer deal and even delivered them to my front door. Thanks homie!

Montego

iTrader: (1)

Mike you have done about 100X more to your car in this past 2 months that what I've done in the last 5 ... It be cool if you come down, maybe on one of our cruises?

You know I've seen that silver FD at the SD auto show. Very clean ride, looked like quality work for sure. I think I saw on here that he was selling it but I don't think he ever did.

sweet....

dvo

iTrader: (22)

Wow Mike, car looks good! I still need to come by some day and check it out. Makes me want to do a swap like this if I were to blow my motor.

mdpalmer

iTrader: (24)

No worries dude, PM me if you ever want to stop by.

Little update:

Little more progress to report.

-Trans & diff filled w/ fresh fluids.

-Tensioner & idler pulley installed.

-Intake manifold, fuel rail removed and cleaned.

-Got manifolds, new gaskets, fasteners+anti-seize paste on car. Pass one was easy to get on, driver's I had to bring up from bottom. Check out the clearance on the pass side flange to cats. Looks like about 1/8-1/4", close! Also, I bought block off plates for the air tube connections on top of the manifolds.



-New spark plugs (TR55), wires+dielectric grease in boots, plug heat shields installed. I had trouble getting some of the plugs in w/o starting to screw up the hole threads, so I bought a spark plug thread chaser from Harbor Frieght for 5-6 bucks. Voila, spark plugs thread right in. Aluminum is too easy to mess up, from now on I will chase every damn thread if I can't get a fastener in finger tight.

-2x Water lines run from firewall/heater core to water pump. Got 5/8" heater hose, 90* bend, about 25" long side, 4" short side and trimmed to fit.

-Got power pump & lines on the motor. If you can, I recommend doing this with the d/s manifold off the car... I didn't do it that way, but it would be a little easier to access the p/s rack.

My swap parts package didn't come with the p/s mounting bracket. I had to call up several GM dealers to find this. Apparently there are only 7 (now 6, since I bought one) left in the entire USA. At least that's what the parts monkeys told me :poke:



View from front. I used Pez's high pressure p/s line, pretty neat looking piece, thanks dude The hose is very stiff. I had to clock the fittings on both ends a bit in order to get them to line up. I used 18 & 21 mm open end backup wrench.



Close up view at the rack, looking down from top. Top is the high pressure line, bottom is low pressure line to reservoir. Bottom fitting has male barbed end, use 3/8" hose + clamps to make connection. I had 13" length spare fuel injection hose rated to 300*F and working pressure of 100 psi, I'm going to swap it out for proper p/s hose to be safe. You can also see how the alternator is in the way. I put the blue fitting into the rack first and then clocked the 120* fitting a little to keep the hose as straight as possible. Then routed the line around the alt and up behind the pump. Then I put the other blue fitting into the pump and clocked the 90* end to fit and keep the hose straight and least stressed as possible. Install the low pressure fitting after you secure the high pressure lines. Don't forget the o-rings that go on the ends of the blue fittings (two in rack and one @ pump)



Clearance between water pump bolt and pulley.



-Also installed my MGW shifter + cobra ****

Cleaned up shifter cup, chased the threads... tons of old dirt/RTV in there. M8x1.25 internal thread.



I filled the trans from the shifter cup. Just pulled the fill plug out and filled up until it dripped out. Little less than 4 qt of Dexron III.



The shifter shaft is a little tall for my taste. I think I will cut about 1" off it to shorten it some.



Kind of tight between where I cut the shifter hole and the shifter boot. I verified thru range of motion that there is no contact, but I'm going to cut these ears off to improve clearance to the front bolts... I had to install those from under the car with a wratcheting 13mm closed end wrench. Pain in the *** to get my arms up there, but not too bad.



View showing driveshaft and trans mount



**** on shifter. I was playing with it, pretending to drag race, with no driver seat. The trans is way beefier than the rotary one, feels real solid. I like this shifter so far and haven't even driven the car yet :P



That's it for now. My radiator is coming in this week (hopefully). Will start wiring sometime this week or weekend. Getting closer... probably 2-3 weeks minimum to fire it up, assuming nothing else comes up :punch:

mdpalmer

iTrader: (24)

Some pics of my rear end setup.

-stock 4.10 rear gear/diff
-rx7.com nylon diff bushings
-samberg diff cradle/brace

old, stock, liquid filled diff bushing (look at big crack in bottom... rear end always seemed loose maybe this is part of it!)

diff mount /w rx7.com (rotary performance) nylon diff bushings

diff w/ samberg cradle ready for driveshaft

driveshaft in place

mdpalmer

iTrader: (24)

Been struggling with a few things, stupid easy stuff... the kind of crap I shouldn't have screwed up. Cliff's notes:

Power Steering
-Found out p/s pulley had some hairline cracks in it
-Got a replacement pulley that didn't fit (I think it's for a C5 'vette)
-When installing the incorrect pulley I bent the installation bolt (3/8" bolt)
-Couldn't find another pulley locally, so had to drive 20 miles to another dealer who had it (NAPA, Oreily, Autozone didn't have it)

Steering Rack
-Put rack boots on wrong side (flipped)
-Turned one of them inside out when trying to remove it, basically destroyed it
-Had to get another boot, again, no one local had it

Front Lower Control Arms
-Realized I put the bolts on the front of the arms in the wrong way (wrong way = nut on inside)
-I installed the bolts like this before installing the steering rack...
-Couldn't remove them w/o dropping the rack again (just had to move it a bit)
-I have one cam bolt that has a different pattern than the other ones (it's NOT "D" shaped)

Oil pressure sender
-I broke the terminal off the sender, just hand tightened torque too. Bummer.
-Had to order another one, did that last Monday... should have got it Friday but "inclement weather" delayed my shipment until Tuesday next week (02/08)
-I really wanted to install the sender before putting the intake mani on...

Progress:

-Ran a couple wires for my gauges. And got my gauges installed in cockpit, cleaned up/simplified cabin wiring.

Oil temp, in oil pan w/ speedway adapter & 1/8-27 NPT sender. Ran the wire between the starter and engine block/oil pan (should help protect from header heat some)





Water temp sender in water pump housing



-I decided to put the intake mani on, I will fight with installing the oil pressure sender when I get it next week, shouldn't be too bad.

"LS6" intake mani (LS1 manis have a sloped bottom-recess section, not flat like this one)



Intake port with injector



New gaskets



-Installed Samberg's throttle cable bracket
-I got the harness pushed thru the firewall. I spent some time today cleaning up the harness, unwrapped sections of it, rewrapped with new shrouding.
-Connected most of the connectors on motor/trans (except O2's front/rear, and EVAP, and MAF, reverse lights, etc.)
-Took some futzing with placement of the harness/wiring, but the connectors were basically positioned to hook up easily
-Not sure what I'm going to do about the pass side O2 in front of the cat, I want to light the motor off and let it run... But, the O2 bung is in the cat converter pipe, NOT the exhaust manifold like on the d/s. Greg (Pez) pointed it out that I should have them in the exhaust stream, as plug fouling is likely if not (car thinks it's running lean since it's exposed to fresh air... so car will run super rich to compensate, kind of like blowing off your MAP line on the turbo rotary)
-Connected fuel line to fuel rail (using hardline from rear of car)
-Connected brake boost vac line to intake mani

Here's where I am.





Up next:

-Waiting on Pez to send my PCM back
-Waiting on Samberg to send me radiator bushings/isolators & cam plates for lower control arm bolts
-Install clutch master & bracket (have to grind a little more off bracket and can install)
-Bleed clutch
-Run cables for battery
-Make harness connections in cabin
-Rewire fuel pump-relay
-Wire fans
-Install radiator, hook up water lines to expansion tank & steam lines
-Install intake, MAF, harness connector
-Install plastic covers on back of block
-Fill oil & p/s fluid
-Seat crank pulley, install new crank pulley bolt

That should be most everything to fire it and make sure it's not leaking, smoking, etc. Then I can figure out what to do about exhaust and tune. Really want to have it running by end of February, we'll see :drive:

mdpalmer

iTrader: (24)

Hey man, you on norotors? What is your name over there? PM me if you like. Any details on your setup and pics?

FearNoPiston

iTrader: (17)

Great thread! I got my motor today for my swap and this makes me excited.

-Chance

mdpalmer

iTrader: (24)

LS3??? Who needs a cam/heads LS1 when you have that. Sick, sick, sick. I would have loved to do that, just a stock ls3. Not sure if I could get that one by emissions po-po here in CA tho... good luck on the swap, it is very exciting!!! FadedFD on norotors has a gorgeous ls3-fd, white one, you should check his thread out.

FearNoPiston

iTrader: (17)

Yeah I just couldnt pass up the ls3..So I may be a little out of budget but whatever lol. Good to know I will check out his thread over there. good luck on the build. BTW We pretty much did the same thing, I had a good running fd(ran best of 12.8 @113) but I started looking at how much it would cost to go single and then compared parting out and going v8 and it was practically the same so here I am.

-Chance

mdpalmer

iTrader: (24)

Thought you'd find this funny. I pulled my A/C evaporator out of the pass side behind the glove box in order to push the ls1-fbody connectors/harness thru the firewall. Look what I found inside the evap box.



Yuck! The evaporator itself and the connections/lines looked fine. I removed them permanently (at least for now) from the car, as I don't plan on running A/C anytime soon. I also used the grommet for the A/C lines to run my battery cable directly to the starter (pictures later). Here's what the pass side (passenger compartment) looks like with the heater lines on the left, the holes in the middle are where the A/C lines used to run.



I also filled the p/s reso /w fluid, filled the engine oil filter and engine with about 6 qts. total of Joe Gibbs racing/break in oil (remember, this is a fresh motor, new rings, bearings, etc.) I heard from Texas Speed & Performance (TSP) this is good stuff, so I decided to give it a whirl.



I also managed to squeeze in my new oil pressure sender. I decided not to use the Mazda OEM/gauge because I never trusted it... a few years ago with the rotary I ran this same sender /w VDO gauge, it never gave me flakey readings (as in going to zero for minutes @ a time, but motor still ran fine... can't tell you how many times I shut the motor off when I saw that until I put this gauge in) This is the part. They updated the design in two ways... the 1/8-27 male end is a lot sturdier and the terminal side is the same, but the retention mechanism is a little different, they don't use a hex head nut type retainer (probably because they're too easy to break if you use a wratchet or wrench), but instead have a corrugated end, you can torque it by hand.



Tight spot



In



Got the Wilwood 7/8" bore clutch master installed with speed bleeders on both the master cylinder and slave bleed stainless line. Bled the lines, have pretty solid clutch pedal now! The firerproof hose (orange hose) on the clutch lines looks like ****.... I think I may put something over it to make it look a littl better.



I had to fully seat the crank pulley by the factory spec... after having the clutch/trans working, I put the car back on the ground. Had my g/f put it in 4th gear, pulled parking brake, had her step on brakes. Used a M16x2 threaded rod/ w matching nut & little bit of grease on nut to seat the pulley. Grabbed my buddy's torque wrench and torqued it to 240 ft-lb, per GM spec. Took some tugging, could not have done it properly if my radiator was there.

Loosened the nut and threaded rod, pulled it out. Grabbed a new GM bolt (they are torque to yield, can't reuse them), put some RED loctite on it and torqued it to 40 ft-lb (GM spec is 37 ft-lb) to seat it and then angle torqued it 140* past that. Yes I did get the full angle After that I routed the drive belt and called it a night.



I ran the battery cable from cabin to starter, starter to alternator, alternator to fuse block. Pics coming later. Checked the battery voltage (Optima red top 75/25), it was 12.6 volts. Not bad for sitting in the cold for 2 months

To do:

-Waiting on PCM to show up (next week?)
-Waiting on samberg radiator isolators/bushings to show up
-Waiting on samberg cam plates/bolts to show up
-Wire couple connections in cabin (tach, speedo, 12v switched/constant)
-Wire fuel pump relay
-Wire radiator fans
-Install & fill radiator w/ water/coolant/water wetter, hook up steam tubes
-Figure out what to do about pass side O2 (need it in exhaust stream to keep motor from running too rich/fouling plugs)

So close... almost there... can't wait to drive this thing!!!!!!!!!! The next post you see from me will be a start up vid, I hope :chug:

Andrew.

iTrader: (4)

+1 and the oil cooler.

And don't forget to check your PTV clearance and pushrod length

gnx7

iTrader: (10)

Taking shape nicely. Overfill by 1 quart when you do some track sessions. A catch can is a good idea as well....

mdpalmer

iTrader: (24)

Thanks Andrew Checked p/r length with a checker. I took Jack's word for it that PTV was good-to go....

Hey Mark. Great advice... have been hearing the same from other track driven folks.

Also, an update:

A lot has happened in the last week or two. Good news is I finally got the motor started. Been about 4 months since I pulled the good 'ol rotary. Check out the vid.

Rx-7 FD LS1 First Fire (fresh motor, open headers)

Bad news is that I have a slight water leak from the steam tubes on all four corners (I'm running them in the back as well). Brake master is also leaking a bit. Other than that, not a drip. Motor sounds real healthy. Loud as ****. I almost shut the motor off right after I started it 'cause I was afraid of my neighbors (who are probably in their 90s) were going to call the cops on me. I think I may try to drive it tomorrow :drive:

Here's a quick pic of the car, I put the bumper back on and got the suspension together. Will give more details later... I'm tired.