The Shaolin's Turbo Rotary Rocket - Cracked Manifold? Pg 12

[The Shaolin]

1986 Mazda RX-7 GXL
My Saturn is a street car I can drive on the track. I want this to be a track car I can drive on the street.

Kept this one under wraps for ahwile...I've been working on it on and off since September or so. Hope to have it "finished" by summer.

I drove an RX-7 all last summer that was previously neglected pretty hard. By the end of the summer, the second and third gear synchros were all but completely shot, the driveshaft was broken, and there was nasty rust in some pretty key spots on the car. I didn't have a title for it, either, so I kept the engine and parted the car out.

I bought this car whilst looking for a transmission. She wanted $300 for the transmission and $1000 for the car (just about complete minus engine), 4 extra alloys and lots and lots of parts. I showed up with $400 cash and took the whole lot. I've since made at least $400 selling parts out of the bins or interior of the car, so I definitely came out ahead.

Some info

-1986 13b twin rotor rated at 146hp
-All emissions deleted
-Racingbeat road race header into 3" straightpipe, single exit. THREE cats removed
-Variable dynamic intake manifold from later model - adds up to 20whp and raises the redline to a juicy 8,000
-Car was painted a blue-ish shifty purple...was originally dark silver.
-I have a nitrous kit for the car, planning on jetting 65-200.
-Interior completely gutted, healthy weight reduction
-Rear steer eliminator bushings installed
-Solid motor mounts
-Manual steering rack swap
-Brand new master cylinder and front calipers, rebuilt back calipers, clutch master and slave
-misc gauges, custom aluminum hood, fiberglass gauge pods all purchased but not installed.

Please give me money for:
-Coilovers or a spring strut combo. They actually make some really nice springs and adjustable struts...some people say that coilovers are only worth it if you plan on corner-balancing the car, which I do not.
-Standalone fuel/spark system so I can run way too much nitrous. I was leaning towards the RTEK, which is a factory chipped ECU with a serial port on it, but now I'm thinking about the megasquirt.
--Turbo swap (eventually). I'm not terribly attached to this engine, so Imma see what I can do with it N/A and then blow it up.

Hoping for 150-165-ish WHP plus nitrous.

Progress is limited as I can usually only work on it one weekend a month.

[The Shaolin]

Here's the car as it sits now. I've made a ton of progress since it got into this garage.



The pictures kinda suck...my garage is dark and the flash overexposes them...the car is cleaner than what the pictures seem.


Got the engine in for the second time a few weeks ago.



Oil cooler installed today




Here's what the interior looks like right now...got the ECU all wired in, and the wiring for the gauges done.



Got the driveshaft installed and the rear hubs off to install new wheel bearings. I'm working on removing the bushing at the top of the knuckle.

[The Shaolin]

Priorities in the next few days:

1) Get the ass end back on the ground, make the car roll-able again; install rear calipers and get the brake system bled all the way through.
2) Run all vaccuum, fuel, and coolant hoses in the engine bay. New fuel filter.
3) Install upper intake manifold, throttle body, throttle cable, second fuel rail.
4) Drain the fuel tank of whatever 6+ year old gasoline is in there, put a few gallons in and run the fuel pump to make sure the lines are clear.

[The Shaolin]

Here are some older pictures:

New steering wheel and gauge cluster and ign cylinder installed:



My other money pit and my first RX-7





The engine after I took it out of the car....I guess I had taken off the intake manifold by this point, but the rest of it is intact.




The engine before I dropped it in. I didn't take it apart, but I did take all the emissions off, delete the oil injection and install new intake and exhaust manifolds.









BLING!

[The Shaolin]

Grr...

Sent the rear hub carriers off to have new wheel bearings pressed into them. ($35 a side plus $40 per bearing)

One of the hub carriers came back in the same condition I sent it off in...the hub wiggles inside the hub carrier...which usually means you need to replace the wheel bearing....so I might need a whole new hub assembly.

Not happy.

[The Shaolin]

One step forward, two steps back.


Maybe more than two.


Accomplished:

-Fixed wobbly wheel bearing. Needed to be pressed in farther.
-Drained differential, filled it most of the way, need to rig something up to pump the rest in.
-Installed rear hub carriers, calipers, rotors, and pads.
-Installed header, purchased new nuts for manifold studs.


Holy fack, it looks like something!


I had my 13 year old brother work the pedal while I bled the brakes. I made sure he knew that the middle pedal was the brakes. After 20 minutes of him pumping and me disconnecting various lines wondering if my new master cylinder was shot, I finally tried pressing the pedal myself to be rewarded with the sound of air shooting out the back of the car. He thought the dead pedal was the clutch and he had been pumping the clutch. Idiot. Haha.

(That is funny because my other brother, when he was about the same age, pumped the gas instead of the brake, and this brother makes fun of him for it)

Anyways.

20 minutes of good brake bleeding. Filled the reservoir twice, pedal is coming up, caliper is superlubed and starting to move, things are looking great, when I hear something fall off the back of the car somewhere, followed by the sound of squirting liquid.



FACK FACK FACK.

I split a hard line. I guess I would rather it split now then when I'm driving, but now I'm going to bend new brake line from the proportioning valve in the engine bay all the way back to the rear calipers. Considering running new fuel line while i'm at it.

WTB: Lift.

At least I have all week off, so hopefully I'll make some real progress.

[The Shaolin]

I got sick of laying in puddles of water, engine oil, coolant, gear oil, brake fluid and gasoline, mixed with dirt, kitty litter, rust, leaves and god knows what else, so I pushed it out of the garage, cleaned it out and pushed it back in.

It looks like a car again!!!

[The Shaolin]

Parts are showing up!

There's one part for my Saturn in this photo, can you spot it?



Getting tons of work done, although tonight was frustrating. I was out in the garage until 3 am last night...got the header installed, which involved removing a heatshield, got the brake line replaced back to the rear axle, just need the tee and the two shorter lines.

I wirebrushed all the rust off the wheel wells and down the entire left side of the car, brushed on some rust remover gel and then scrubbed it off a few hours later. I then sprayed it with some awesome rubberized undercoating stuff and the car looks great. Hopefully it holds up and slows this damn rust.

I finished almost all the engine wiring, sans a few sensors. I hooked a battery up to it and nothing exploded! I jumpered the fuel pump test port and ran the fuel pump into a bucket in the engine bay to clear the lines, everything worked wonderfully!

Running fuel lines. Problem: Tight clearances.
Solution: Remove intake manifold

Problem: Can't get at nut against firewall
Solution: Remove lower intake manifold

Problem: Can't get at nut above header.
Solution: Remove auxiliary port actuators

While I had all this shit apart, I went back and fixed some stuff I was afraid would leak later with either RTV or more permanently with quicksteel putty.


Today I tried installing the ebrake. I couldn't get the damn driveshaft out of the way, so reaching around it, I installed the first part of the ebrake cable (back to the splitter) mostly without problems, except for the fucking brake grommet. I have NEVER had good luck with ebrake grommets, here, or the three pairs of Saturn ones i've done.

I'm pretty sure I need to remove the driveshaft so I can get the rear cables replaced, but it's still fucking stuck. I had the car jacked up on one side, so I tried jacking the back end up....and I notice fuel is leaking FROM THE RETURN LINE which hasn't had a hose on it yet. Explain that to me.

So, I jacked the whole car up, got a jackstand under all 4 corners, should make it easier to get underneath. The driveshaft is still fucking stuck, and the fuel leak has slowed, but is definitely still dripping. I replaced the send hose to the fuel filter and I have a hose from there running to the fuel rail, all of which is dry. The return line right by the engine bay is wet and dripping and I can't tell where the fuck the hole is, as it's not wet around it, I didn't touch it there, and I don't even know how there's fuel in the return line to begin with

[The Shaolin]

Every day, my "to do" list shrinks significantly.

The last two days I've been in the garage till 3am and..whoops...4:30 am. I just kept working until I was tired. No clocks out there.

Some stuff I've done recently:

Vacuum lines
Radiator hoses
brake line back to rear axle and one caliper
repaired fuel line and ran the rest of the fuel lines
Installed secondary fuel rail with upper intake manifold and throttle body
cursed a lot
hung the exhaust tonight
removed some heat shields
drank some beers
installed one seat
cursed more
finished rust proofing the bottom of the car

The exhaust is almost right. I don't have it quite high enough but it hits the axle if I go any higher...granted, the axle will be higher with the car on the ground but I still don't want to hit it.

and so, ladies and gentlemen, I present you the final "to-do" list before this bad boy takes to the streets.

-Install gauges (wbo2, egt, coolant temp)
-Fix wiring for electric fan and run to a thermoswitch
-Install dual pulley on the alternator to run two belts to prevent water pump slippage
-Install one brake line and bleed brakes
-Install one missing heater hose
-Fix the reverse lights and repair a splice in the PCM harness
-install intake


and that's really pretty much it. I'm going to make sure I can drive it and that nothing blows up or falls off and then comes the medium range goals:

-install electric air pump system to operate intake ports and dynamic intake
-install nitrous kit
-put some of the interior back together so I have some place to put the window switches. lol
-fill out the paperwork to get it licensed and insured.

lol, probably a realistic 40whp from the air pump mod and 75whp from the nitrous...wheeeeee

and finally, long term goals (probably this summer)

-coilovers
-brakes
-possibly new bushings and sway bars if I get ballsy
-tires and maybe wheels
-turbo swap if I blow up the engine

[The Shaolin]

well, fuck

I finally got the whole engine bay together and tried starting it. Dead battery.

I jumped it and couldn't get it to fire. Further checks revealed I had spark, fuel, compression and air, but no fire.

After a few hours of checking things, I decide it's just flooded so I use ether and get it to fire on that....

then I get it to fire on gasoline and it starts after a minute of cranking...and dies

two hours of checking for vacuum leaks later, I am stumped. I got it to run for about 30 seconds whilst working the gas, but I can't find a vacuum leak anywhere. I sprayed starting fluid on the outside of the engine trying to find it, but no go. I bought an adapter similar to a radiator pressure testor that hooks into the intake so hopefully that helps.



I installed the one remaining brake line I needed and I notice that A) the fucking gas lines ruptured in another spot and B) I'm leaking brake fluid from two points on the FRONT of the car. so I need another new hard line and a new proportioning valve


I'd love to own a car that doesn't frustrate me.

[The Shaolin]

Re: The Shaolin's Rotary Rocket - Nitrous'd RX-7

It runs! [img]{SMILIES_PATH}/evil.gif[/img]

[The Shaolin]

Re: The Shaolin's Rotary Rocket - Nitrous'd RX-7

Well, the car left the garage for the first time since AUGUST!!!! The engine doesn't idle without the throttle cracked, so I think there's still a vacuum leak. I replaced the leaky proportioning valve and bled the brakes all the way through.

The good:

-Engine felt great! Only had it up to 3k or so and had all the power it was supposed to have, didn't miss or blow up or anything. The wideband is reading off the chart lean, which worried me until I remembered that the wideband is right after the header flange which isn't quite bolted tight yet.
-The transmission in there was in unknown condition, but shifts like it's brand new. Score.
-The rear end was in unknown condition, but didn't blow up, and I tried spinning the rear tires and both rear tires hooked up nice. <3 LSD


The Bad

HOLY FUCK NO BRAKES!
Ordinarily, I would have checked the brakes before leaving the driveway, but this was very difficult to do while keeping the throttle cracked. I got into the street and the pedal went nearly to the floor and didn't stop the car so well. I used the E-Brake to get around the block

-Coolant gauge doesn't work. Not sure why. It's plugged in. Cluster may be unhooked.


It was pretty damn awesome to drive an RX-7 again, I really missed it. I was so happy, it was a major milestone tonight. Then I was terrified when I realized the brakes didn't work...and then I realized that I still have a long ways to go...

I've got 10 days to work on it before I have to go back to school. I hope to drive it back to school, or at least have it driveable.

Things to do in the next 10 days:

-Find vacuum leak and get engine to idle.
-Install idle air control (unless I can get it to idle okay without it, I guess)
-FIX BRAKES
-Insure it, get plates transferred to it.
-Install second seat
-Replace a leaky coolant hose
-Wire in the electric fan for the radiator to a thermostat and a switch
-Hook up electric airpump and get aux ports and variable dynamic intake working correctly
-Install standalone ECU (will be here Monday)

I've got nothing to do all break, and I should be able to get all that done with 4-8 hours a day of work, not a big deal.

[The Shaolin]

Re: The Shaolin's Rotary Rocket - Nitrous'd RX-7

Video of leaving the garage for the first time:

[DasPirate]

Re: The Shaolin's Rotary Rocket - Nitrous'd RX-7 -Now with Video

Sounds great.

[Ralliart16]

Re: The Shaolin's Rotary Rocket - Nitrous'd RX-7 -Now with Video

Sounds great.

sounds like a weed whacker lol