Great work Mike! Sounds and looks good. We should hit up the track before I move to Okinawa!

 

beast..

 

Nice Mike. Great work man

 

Man, you're always on the move. When are you leaving and when do you come back? I won't be ready anytime soon... don't want to (actually, can't) spend more money right now.. and I need to do a few upgrades to the oiling system before I get out there. I have to spend some time driving the car again, it's a totally different animal. I think it's going to take some getting used to! I think I will start auto-crossing first until I get a better handle on it... not like I could drive worth a **** before anyway lol.

lol thanks dude. does sound pretty mean don't it!

Thanks Eillot... still have some things to sort out (like my interior... total mess right now). We'll have to meet up some time. Maybe next year I can get the car painted in Mex

In other news: I fixed the water leak. I used a gasket for the steam tubes when I didn't need one.

Also, I had to back the car out of the garage for the first time last night. 1st time in over 4 months the car could move under it's own power. I was getting it ready to be towed this morning to the exhaust shop. I was very surprised how easy the motor pulled the car along when I let the clutch out... so this morning the tow truck shows up and asks me if I can move the car to a better spot so he can better access the car.. it was about 8:30 this morning and the elementary school up the street had kids and parents and minivans everywhere... so I fired it up (open headers) and about 50 kids instantly start pointing an the car. It was funny because the parents were like "WTF is this maniac doing" and the kids were like "oh cool, a muscle car" lmfao. The tow guy said the same thing and when I popped the hood to show him, he was amazed "it fit in there". Later on at the exhaust shop, more amazement. I had about 6 guys scratching their heads. One guy even said, "I hate imports, but this thing is badass. good job". Thought that was pretty cool.

I drove the car up the street and busted a u-turn, in front of all these kids, and I gave it some gas... holy **** the car feels powerful. This whole torque thing is so sweet, I feel like I've been missing out on it ever since I bought it... just wanted to share the experience, I'm so excited to start driving it again.



After the exhaust is done I can get it aligned and get some weight/cross-weight data... gotta put some miles on the motor and then I can get it tuned. Stay tuned

 

Yep can’t beat MX prices that’s for sure. So if you are really interested and if you happen to be in the area, I’ll be more than happy to take you to the shop so you can check it out for yourself (you’ve already seen their work). In fact bring Fisa and I’ll bring my GF and we’ll make a day of it. Fish tacos, cold cerveza, donkey show (no just kidding about the show ha ha)

I hear you I still need to get my seats reupholstered as mine are beat to ****. I’m still on a hunt for a decent upholstery shop down there though. I got a lead but I have to check them out first but I'll be honest I haven't found one because the seats are a very low priority since working on my house pretty much takes most of my time and money.

ha ha classic

 

Mike,

Looking good! Hopefully, I will get to see you guys at Sevenstock again this year. I just hope my work schedule cooperates...again.

Man, I really miss my FD. Plus, I miss not being able to install my newly acquired Spirit R seats!

Props for a job well done. I don't think I could pull this off, as I really don't know much about piston motors!

 

What up Charlie! LOL, I remember last year you had your schedule work out pretty well for coming out. Hope to see you this year. Those seats you have are badass. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have my FD

I'm not out of the woods yet, tons of little **** to do. Nothing to these motors dude, they up and down instead of round and round :p

So got the exhaust done last week. They did a real nice job! Here's the setup

-fbody manifolds
-Magnaflow fbody replacement cats w/ CA EO number
-2-1/4" piping cat --> y-pipe
-3" y-pipe --> 3" M2 muffler (off the rotary setup)

It's louder than I thought it would be but still sounds mean in person

LS1 Rx7 walkaround & exhaust clip

 

Bulleted list (easier for me, and hopefully you, to read):

-So I drove the car around last weekend, and to work today
-Sans interior & pass seat, alignment in front is total eyeball job :poke:
-Went to get fresh gas (4 month old gas stinks!). Motor seems to run a lot better :chug:
-I'm forcing it to idle high because it likes to die letting off gas (esp. when cold, motor needs a tune)
-Other than that, seems to run great, fires right up
-Blew a 30 amp inline glass fuse I have between the battery & fuel pump. I'm going to replace that with a slotted fuse, probably 40 amp. Recheck my f/p ground & wiring as well. I put in another 30 A fuse and it seems fine.
-The fan wiring was more of a pain than I wanted it to be, and I'm not happy with how I rigged it up in terms of cleanliness. It will work for now. I'll post more details later.
-Motor feels freaking awesome... love the torque. Doesn't take any effort to get the car moving
-LS7 clutch is very soft, easy to use, surprised me
-MGW shifter is awesome too... very short throws w/ the beefy t-56
-Had water leak from steam tubes, because I used a gasket when I didn't need one (the design of my steam tubes has an o-ring on the water port)
-Had water leak from lower rad hose, no problem to fix
-Had water leak from expansion tank side ports threads, no problem to fix
-Had water leak from expansion tank side port to steam tube hose, no problem to fix
-Funny how I had water leaks up the *** but nothing else
-Barbed fitting to overflow tank (from expansion tank) is tiny.... 7/32 windshield hose fits perfect. Local stores don't carry water hose that small.
-My brake master is leaking, I have to check on that

Other than that... I love the car. It's everything I hoped it would be just around town... can't wait to give it some stink! :gruffy:

 

Hey Mike! Yeah man, being in the military keeps me moving. I leave in May and wont be back for 3 years. I hope your FD will be done by the time I get back..lol.

I don't blame you for not wanting to spend the cash, I'm kind of tired of dropping cash into my ride. . gets old when you really don't see much progress.

Yeah, I'm sure it will feel like a different car with that setup. You aren't a bad driver, most people aren't that great either, just go out there and have fun. That's what I do..lol. Auto-x sounds fun, I have never done Auto-x. Okinawa here I come!

 

So, finally had the car aligned and corner balanced today. Didn't get the updated clevis/lug fitting yet, but didn't want to wait since Mazfest/Sevenstock is coming up. See attachment/pics. Nice tech write-up HERE.

Here’s the summary (all weights are in POUNDS, distance in INCHES):
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Basics:
-1993 Mazda Rx-7 (FD) touring
-Little more than ¾ tank fuel
-NO A/C
-YES P/S (stock mazda rack + f-body pump)
-Full interior (mostly.. see notes below), no BOSE or glove box
-2002 alum block/heads ls1/t56 (Camaro z28 pullout/rebuild)
-155 lb driver
-Samberg setup (radiator/intake/mounting/bumpsteer correction kit)
-Pettit Trak Pro Stage 2 adjustable height/damping coil over shock setup
-Gram Light 57 optimise wheels (17” diam), 235 (f)/265 (r) tires
-Otherwise stock suspension
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Results:
-Car weight (no driver): 2907 (before, /w twin turbo rotary, no air pump, stock wheels, 1/2 tank gas was 2790)
-Car weight (little fatty in driver’s seat): 3062

-Front weight/distribution: 1531/50%
-Rear weight/distribution: 1531/50%

-Left Front/Right Front: 802/729 (delta = 73)
-Left Rear/Right Rear: 804/727 (delta = 77)

-LF+RR: 1529
-RF+LR: 1533
-Cross weight delta: 4

-Left Weight/Right Weight: 1606/1456 (delta = 150)

Fender Height (in):
LF/RF: 25 1/8 | 25 1/8
LR/RR: 24 7/8 | 24 15/16

NOTE: date is wrong.. not sure why they put 7/11 on it. maybe dreaming of slurpees?


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cliff’s notes:
-tech was surprised how close I got the toe on the front (eyeball job )
-went pretty well except took them a couple trips back and forth to the scales to set the corner weights
-have a little bit of play in the toe control link on pass side (not to mention a curbed wheel.. dammit!), not too bad but it won’t get any better
-guys at shop were amazed the car was that balanced (front/rear in particular) given the motor setup
-had a little more than ¾ tank of fuel, just filled up day before and drove about 20 miles before I went to shop (probably down a gallon or so from full)
-I must have put on some weight b/c last time I weighed myself (when I was working out/surfing all the time… about a year ago) I was 140ish.. I stepped on one of the corner scales and I hit 155. Damn.. I’m only 5’4” or so.. so if you run the BMI (body mass index) calcs.. I’m obese. Time to trim some fat
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I like bullet lists. Lots of words here… if you don’t want to read details, just look at the attached pics & excel spreadsheet or the text document with the raw data. The torque is scaled funny so you have to convert it using the hp & rpm readings (did that in the excel file).

-Went to Haddad Motorsports for dyno time/tuning
-Made about 350 whp/340 wtq
-I was expecting anywhere from 350-400 whp, true test will be on the drag strip/track, dyno hp measurements are all over the place depending on lots of variables
-I let their pro work the tune with a Dynapack chassis dyno (you have to remove the wheels to bolt up the hubs)
-When I rolled in, WOT runs were not sorted out (only part throttle, for the most part, the WOT stuff was hacked a bit, good enough to run but not optimal)
-First two WOT pulls were 300-310 whp
-He reworked the open loop speed density & MAF tunes (timing/fuel) over pretty much the entire fuel/timing/etc. maps
-They can program the dynapack with varying loads, it's pretty sweet
-I had a strange whistle/supercharger sound coming from the engine/ehxuast and wanted to get them to help me figure out what the hell it was before really beating on it
-First couple of pulls, they noticed the sound, the shop owner Mike Haddad thought it may be an exhaust restriction/backpressure problem (read: stock cats & fbody manifolds & too thin piping & bad bends, etc.)
-They plugged in a pressure sensor before the cats
-Made some 4th gear pulls, measured backpressure vs. rpm
-See plots in pics. The tuner said an old rule of thumb is that more than 1-2 psi of backpressure on a car that is going to be beaten on is generally not good for performance (and it keeps more heat in the exhaust track... that's bad for exhaust valves and pistons, etc.)
-They said my exhaust sucks Yeah I already know that :P I want to keep stock exhaust manis/cats for emissions
-At the end of the day, the car feels great. Having 300+ ft-lb torque @ the tires to use for most of the rpm range makes me smile
-They think I could make another 30-50 hp if I redid the exhaust (long tubes, bigger piping, high flow cats, 4" rear muffler)
-I'm broke so that's not going to happen soon, not to mention smogging it
-The tuner, shop owner, and techs were super cool. Great guys to deal with

Anyway, car runs great. I ripped on it the whole way home. I love torque! Can’t wait to put it on track.

-mike

 

this is impressive . love it mike

 

Here's an out of car vid of my last four timed runs of the day. Was not driving well, I was all over the place on the last 3. Kinda frustrating... I was having trouble with the slaloms. I could have def. run faster in 99% of the track I could probably use some better tires, but I figure I can learn a lot with my current setup first.

LS1-RX7-FD (out car view) Sept 11, 2011 PCA OCR Auto-X El Toro Airfield, CA

 

Check it out. You can see me screwing up pretty much every turn Run 3 was a total waste... was just screwing up one turn after another.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yl5TLjzfIE&NR=1

 

Quick vid I slapped together from my last autocross 09/11/11 @ El Toro here in sunny and expensive SoCal

09/11/11 PCA OCR LS1 FD Rx7 spinouts autocross

 

I deleted the out of car vid from the earlier post and broke it up into individual runs.

Out of car vids
run1
LS1 Rx7 FD PCA OCR El Toro Autox 09/11/11 Outside View Run 1

run2
LS1 Rx7 FD PCA OCR El Toro Autox 09/11/11 Outside View Run 2

run3
LS1 Rx7 FD PCA OCR El Toro Autox 09/11/11 Outside View Run 3

run4
LS1 Rx7 FD PCA OCR El Toro Autox 09/11/11 Outside View Run 4

 

Welcome to the LS world, you'll never go back now! I've one several swaps with Hinson and granny kits but never tried the samburg kit. How do u like the kit?

 

Haha, dude torque is soooooo much fun. I love it, driving the FD around is so much more fun with instant torque, the car feels so light with all the torque, before the car actually felt "heavy" if that makes any sense, at least until boost came on (and torque ramped up).

The samberg stuff is great. The engine cradle bolted up perfect. The diff cradle/support was a pain in the *** to install but it seems very solid. I get hardly any wheel hop, more like wheel spin (less shock to the rear end, etc.) The trans mount was a pain in the *** to install (I tried to do it alone... you really should have a helper on this one), you will most likely have to use some extra spacers/washers and/or bend the "ear" of the mount on the pass side.

Other than that.... no regrets, the car is better than ever now hehe

 

http://youtu.be/9P8r6clScGo

 

lol I didn't realize anyone was filming. I was trying to get the heck out of there before the rain hit lulz

 

Very nice build thread. You car sounds perfect.

 

Thanks man Great car for the street, it's not too crazy and it's just fast enough to keep me entertained. I beat on it all the time, the car likes it The only other mod I want to do right now is an oil cooler for track days... not to mention a paint job to clean up all the little scars. That can wait

Couple of recent pics:

Malibu drive with CYM FD & supercharged Mustang GT


Cars & Coffee locally


New CCW classics 18x10 +50, 285/30/18 Yoko Advan Neovas


New CCW classics 18x10 +50, 285/30/18 Yoko Advan Neovas


Compare 265/40/17 Dunlop Direzza Dz101 to 285/30/18 Yoko Advan Neovas

 

Bump for updates.

Do you have 285's on the front and rear?!

 

Hey man. Yeah. It's been done quite a bit before me. Only thing I recommend is you roll your fender in the front and you have to be a little careful with lowering the front too much or hitting huge bumps going fast with steering angle. I have adjustable height coilovers, they are a lot skinnier than the stock shock/springs... you may have interference issues inboard side if you don't have coilovers. You could probably space the rears outboard a bit, but then you should roll the rears too. I'm rolled all around. The grip is amazing with these wheels/tires compared to what I had before

This is a good thread on "max" wheel/tire sizes for the FD:

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...l+tire+fitment

And another one on general "fitment":

https://www.rx7club.com/suspension-wheels-tires-brakes-20/fd-wheel-tire-sizing-416251/

Check out norotors.com for updates, I try to post cool stuff here when I can

You can start here, this is a track day back in February. I'm going back in about a month

http://www.norotors.com/index.php?to...7369#msg147369

Feb 2012 track day out of car view (kinda long, skip forward a little and watch a lap to get the idea)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhKhpJF03vg

Same day, in car, just some of the cars I passed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiREy...eature=channel

C6 Z06 carbon following me and yellow rotary FD (same guy who puts on our private track days offered to film, how cool is that?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roUak...ajeq_aiMW9VRE=

Same day, in car, long video. I should have edited this but was too lazy. Jump ahead a few laps to get the idea, I start out pretty slow to get the motor and tires warmed up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOBlj...feature=relmfu

Pic from Cars & Coffee in Irvine, CA about a week or two before that track day

 

Thanks for all the info and links. Been doing a lot of reading on here and on norotors. I finally picked up my 93 RX7 and I'm anxious to get going on my build!