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  • Originally posted by YOLO7 View Post
    Great to see another update and man your car looks fantastic! Congratulations on the wedding, I'm glad you made your deadline and the parade of cars was a sweet touch. Lucky you to find a woman supportive of all that - sounds like a keeper.
    Oh she is. Had to put a ring on her.
    Was really stoked to have all the boys there, for a while it looked like none of cars were gonna make it lol


    Originally posted by leaferiksin View Post
    I love this thread so much, it never disappoints.
    Thanks!

    Originally posted by DawsonLiri View Post
    Congrats dude for both!

    Cars came out great at the end
    Thank you!

    87 RX7 5.0 (driftcar)

    Comment


    • Love everything about this <3
      My BMW E36 318ti Steel Blue Compact build thread -
      http://www.stanceworks.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=88271

      Comment


      • been meaning to post this artist for quite some time but lol haven’t posted enough,





        Anderson Paak, smooth, kinda funk, I think this counts as rap but doesn’t feel like it most of the time. There is maybe 2 songs I don’t like on both albums combined. He has a new album out, listened to it a few times now and its not bad but its like these albums.

        as usual, a lot has happened since my last update.

        I had a few, well actually a lot, of loose ends that quickly arose even from driving the short time I had.

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        I don’t know why I took this but i guess it looks cool

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        I realize I hadn’t really posted a photo of the interior. Many of the things that aren’t finished are in the interior. The shift knob is a 3/4 tube, the gauges aren’t mounted, the factory coolant temp kinda works.

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        the shift surround isn’t sealed, and this lets a lot smell in mostly but also noise.
        but the connector for the relocated window switches fits nicely. Cage doesn’t allow me to have armrests where the original switches were so BMW style fits pretty good. And they light up, though thanks to china not evenly. They are just pressure fit with tape, but I need to solder on the wires I think as the spade connectors are too tall.

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        the other thing not done is the bracket for this. I also tried swapping the front and rear masters and much improved braking feel, was reeeeaaaalllly stiff with the 3/4 bore on the front 5/8 rear, but that required so much leg force. Swapping them around it feels like power brakes again kinda. Anyway this is the bias adjuster hidden behind what used to be the front speaker cover. My plan here is to hold the cover on magnetically.

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        also, obviously did interior lighting. Its wifi controlled too, as will be the underglow when I get around to it.

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        also couldn’t get my skirts to fit like how I thought they should so theres a zip tie behind the door, and 2 in each wheel well. the door ones a bit tricky to get right but makes the skirts fit sooo

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        and then I obviously took it apart, had to fix a few wiring goofs, I missed a ground, got a pinout backwards, small stuff. Dash isn’t too bad to get out but the top part doesn’t come out, or I didn’t try hard enough and risk scratching everything.

        the other thing that severely needed dealing with was the lack of front sunroof drains. I thought it would be fine just having rears so I capped the fronts. Well I was wrong, tray overflows immediately and drips onto my lap.

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        made an adapter with some silicone and tubes, was a tricky routing to get outside the car but managed, and it works.

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        made a semi proper shifter, shortened it a bit. Shifts much more solid, not sure if I still want to bother making a piece with bearings or something anymore. Link being level was preference, shifted really short otherwise.

        Untitled

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        now the real issue I was having was with my E brake, it really wasn’t working like I had hoped. Bracket and assembly had a lot of flex, and friction. Very not sure where to go from here, I don’t want to spend a bunch of money machining a better bracket and lever etc to still have it not work. So I dipped my toes into the deep end and built a better version but with material I had around.

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        I’ll fill you in on how that worked in a bit

        A thing I didn’t have time to do before the wedding but needed to be done before tech was a battery box. Hat tip to my garage mate Kris for help bending this.

        Per last time I built it to NHRA spec, sealed, vented, wall thickness etc.

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        I siliconed it to the floor of the car, so its kinda permanent, but tech legal which is important. Also can’t say enough bad things about this Motomaster battery. Returned it once already as they sold me a defective battery and now this one barely holds a charge so It’s going back as well. I’ve checked the car multiple times, theres no draw going on and if the thing is driven and put away for more than 24 hours it needs a jump, but is fine after its jumped.

        Theres this racetrack in Mission which is maybe 30 min away, and it has a road course but most of its use is the drag strip. The ownership wants very little to do with sports outside of drag racing. Every few years a rumour goes around that mission raceway is going to allow drifting blah blah blah. The options locally otherwise are Penticton Speedway (4-5 hours away), Western speedway (like 2 hours of driving but also an expensive 2 hour ferry ride), or Evergreen Speedway in Monroe (2-3 hours away, but a border crossing). Mission being super close would be great for the scene, AND IT FINALLY HAPPENED. One of the clubs that uses the road course jumped some hoops or something (I don’t know some people were up in arms, what else is new) and put an event together.

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        I wasn’t planning on doing an even until next year but I was also not going to miss potentially the only drift even Mission would host. Or if it goes well the first.

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        I took 0 pics that day as usual lol.

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        One photographer did take a pic or two tho, @project_604 tagged me in this photo which I believe was taken buy @alex.hruswicki

        For the first ever event it went pretty well. The leadership was quite unfamiliar with how drift events usually work but they brought in a few guys that have run them and are more familiar with drift tech rules and event proceedings. Missions track layout is also not very ideal for drift, most of the corners are far apart and require either FD car speed and or a ton of manji’s. They had 3 courses setup, a skid pad at the top of 3, turn 2 to 1, and 7-8-9 but you hair pin at 9 and return.

        Screen Shot 2018-12-20 at 9.13.27 PM

        I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was. The front tires I had (nankang ns-20) suuuucked in the rain and I had like 8* of front camber not helping it. So with no front grip, and I barely remembered how the knuckles felt to drive, never having driven this chassis and a lot of rain, it was kinda tough. Oh and my e brake didn’t lock at all. But thanks to the knuckles I didn’t spin as much as I ought to and most of the courses are low speed and have large run offs. So the risk was very low. The event didn’t allow tandems so I at least had no pressure to do anything but struggle though the course.

        My car also overheated in staging, for some reason the ECU decided to not sure on either fan. I jumped the relay and the fans just stayed on with ignition and that kinda solved the issue. Car had a really hard time cooling down after a run though, even with the 170 t stat it never stayed that low. So theres an issue there to be dealt with.

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        front splitter doing its thing. I did go off track a few times but a lot of this mud was just kicked onto the track.

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        gave it a good bath when I got it home

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        even in direct golden hour sun my iPhone doesn’t really do the colour justice.

        So I figured id do a few more meets, fiddle with a few things and park it for the winter and tackle anything else once it was off the road. But then another event came up, Pentictons final event of the year and a week before they had 9 drivers signed up and the weather looked dry. There was a good chance my garage mate Kris was going to just be able to make it after getting his car tuned. So I signed up and paid. Changed the alignment and traded some 17 tires I had for more sticky ones. Kris’ tuner got sick and cancelled his tune so he and another buddy came up with me, and lol because I can’t tell time we were late.

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        again, I take terrible few pictures at events. There was a comp but the winner was already determined because he was untouchable all season. The S13 in that pic, Dylan Zupanksi I think won the day and the season, then proceeded to blow his motor (again) doing a victory burnout. I think he’s had enough of swapping KA-T’s and is doing something else next year, but he’s one of the best drivers I know and his KISS and seat time> all philosophies are smart and working for him. He took me for a ride along or two and basically scared me with how close and fast he can be with like 200hp battling much more powerful cars. Have much to learn before I can get even close to him.

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        17 cars made it out and basically all of them were good drivers (except meeeee) so the flow was really good and I got a fair amount of seat time. Car drove much better adding some SAI to it and reducing camber to about 5*. Still 0 toe front and rear, I think adding toe in or out in the front is the next thing to try. Was starting to pick Shawn Browne’s mind and he and Dylan run toe in, where Dan a few other guys I know drifting FC’s all run toe out. Actually I feel like most people with drift alignments favour toe out. Was struggling all day to keep the rears turning tho, very unusual feeling with the V8, but towards the end of the day Shawn encouraged me to change something, do a few laps, change something do a few laps. So I tried adding caster, kinda felt better. Swapped my rears to the 1552’s with those crap Nankang’s on them, car felt great all of a sudden, I had much more control. Then of course they debeaded (they had debeaded sitting in the driveway the week before) so that kinda ended the day as we were out of time.
        I took the t stat out, after a bunch of reading it seems that a dual pass rad adds enough pressure to the system to ensure that water gets into the nooks and crannies of the head and rad, my issue hasn’t been keeping the temps up as much as down. I could do a few laps before having to pull off to let the thing cool, we were basically hot lapping when the comp ended. Fans definitely need to come on earlier and probably come on regardless of speed. Rad needs ducting too and I’ve noticed that the bumper opening is below like 80% of the rad so airflow over is probably nil when the fans aren’t running and Ford set them so stinking high, the things basically ready to boil over when the high setting kicks on. I read somewhere that most overheating problems are actually an airflow problem, I believe thats true for me as well.
        I’m also not used to receiving compliments on my car, especially after doing a few terrible runs in a row lol. I’m glad people appreciate it though.

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        keeping the fitment tight, rubbed quite a bit on this track actually. E brake still barely did anything, getting pretty frustrated there. Might buy project Mu D1 pads and try that but I’m close to giving up on the cable all together and have the handle push a rod or something.

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        but 2 events down and no real crashes or damage to speak of. Had a small giggle when I lined up for the first time that day Shawn told me I’m gonna want to take my bumper off or the transition off the bank will eat it. I told him thats what the splitter is for.

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        I took it off a bit later and its a lot thinner on the front lol but its doing its thing and I’m happy with it. I also entered super early on one layout and nailed a rim that was beside a bunch of tires acting as a hair pin (don’t ask me why that was there, obvs a bad place for it),

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        Next time I’m up there I’ll have to get pics of Dan’s 1UZ FC and my other buddy Caetano’s FC. Both are white, both are good and yet very different.

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        did one last meet up for a shop opening before the insurance ran out for the year, this photo is from Ryan Benoit of Dodologic, still not sure what witchcraft he pulled to get it to look this well lit and it was really dark outside.

        Actually we went to a street spot after that, on a dry cold winters day. Took it really easy as I do on the street and am kinda starting to feel comfortable in the car. E brake is the biggest thing I want to fix, but the alignment and knuckle turn speed I’m beginning to understand.

        So with “winter rebuild season” upon me, time to start tidying up a bunch of stuff.

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        took the door cards, skinned them and trimmed for the speakers. I went out to the local fabric store and went hunting for the right material. Originally I was just going to get like sub speaker box carpet, but found something a little classier but still dark and hopefully easier to clean. But because it’s been so cold I don’t trust the glue to stick so I haven’t tried doing it yet.

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        Ordered a pair of these HGK steering wheel covers str8 from Latvia. Pretty nice for working on the car but not getting your nice steering wheel dirty.






        And now, this is worthy of its own post, nay its own build thread as theres a lot of change about to happen and a lot of long winded explaining going on.

        So when I first built the 1st V8 car, a 5.0 was not the dream. But it was really cheap and really simple as far as swaps go. Engine came up at a good time and price, same with the swap kit, and it kinda all fell into place perfectly. But when I bought the FC I had a different dream for it. Before I discovered drifting I just liked cars. I had heard about drift, kinda knew what it was but bug didn’t bite me yet. And what kind of cars does a poor fresh out of high school kid play with? before you say Honda’s, my answer is just FWD econoboxes. I had a protege 5 which I started by doing little stuff, then bought coil overs, spent a lot of time on Mazdas247 and learned to most of it myself, with help here and there from my dad or the techs at Kal tire where I worked at the time.



        Man I loved this car. Was pretty reliable, until I really got into messing with it then it left me stranded once, but I learned so much from doing it. I switched jobs from Kal tire to Futureshop doing 12V installs, so I now had access to a lot of wiring things. Sometimes I still miss that job I just wish it paid more.



        Hoping these photos work as they are on Photobucket, which has single handedly ruined forums. I see Flickr is going to be updating to a similar system, you have to pay a monthly if you have over 1000 photos (i have 1700 lol) so looks like I may have to open a 2nd account.

        But anyway, this is my roots. I swapped a KLDE from a 96 cali spec Ford probe I bought for dirt cheap. Threw in a clutch, light flywheel, eBay headers and painted a bunch of stuff. Sounded lovely, had a ton of midrange torque, still got decent fuel economy and did a 15.6 (I thinnnnnk, been years) in the 1/4 mile. But then I found drifting and bought an FC and its been downhill from there. My dream was to combine the two but at the time there was no rwd swaps completed, there was no transmission options available as theres no factory trans that bolts up. The intake goes through the firewall, exhaust doesn’t fit, coolant piping is fwd biased, the oil pan is front sump. There was just too much fabrication that I couldn’t do 6 years ago. But I’ve been keeping my eye out for what others have done with these. In the last few years theres been a bunch swapped into miata’s, frankly an ideal car for them, but on that note I think this engine would have been a killer candidate for the FC had it not been for the rotary part of RX7. USDM spec makes 170hp at the flywheel and the JDM makes 200hp, very similar to the 13b-re. There’s a girl in the UK that makes an adapter plate to bolt it onto a stock Miata trans, but this has some really bad compromises such as cutting a large part of the bellhouse to fit a starter adapter. I think I have a better solution to this but we’ll get to that. Since that kit, quite a few miata owners have started building a KL swapped miata, but you still need a custom exhaust, custom or modified intake that may or may not clear the hood, and the usual plumbing and wire that all swaps take. So needless to say not all of them have been completed and the thread on miata.net is a bit cold…. I also have yet to see anyone do this swap into an FC, I’ve seen it talked about but not done. Theres even one in a 944 that Larry Chen found and put on Hoonigans extra.

        I have been dreaming of doing this swap for 6 years; planning out how; taking what I’ve learned from other projects and mapping out how to apply it; spending hours comparing pictures and trying to separate folklore from fact (you thought mustang forums were bad for info? LOL) to finally come to the point where I’m ready to start. I planned a lot of things in this chassis to be ideal for this engine swap, and the layout of it I’m planning.

        These engines are usually pretty cheap, but at least where I am finding one can be a bit of a challenge. They came in 2nd get Probe GT’s, MX6’s and certain year 626’s and Millenia’s. MX3’s got a K8, which is 85% the same except for the fact its a 1.8L, and 2000+ 626’s got a variant called a KLG4 which has a coil pack instead of a distributor and a few other changes (no not cast cranks, they still all seem to be forged). Every now and then I would search the wrecking yards websites and craigslist and even borrow my wife’s Facebook account to check marketplace to see if there was a steal of a deal on either a running car or a parts car. Well Pick a Part in chilliwack happened to have 2 vehicles in stock with KL V6’s and both of them hadn’t been there long and cherry on top they were having a sale that weekend. Unable to find anyone to go with me I packed up and headed out solo prepared for a long day.

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        One engine was in a 97 probe, other was in a 97 626. I scoped both of them out before starting on one, the probe had a bunch of newer parts, was cleaner and looked better maintained except for the timing cover someone broke. So pulled the engine on it in about an hour and a half, remembering all the past had taught me lol. Couldn’t get the torque converter bolts though, the crank would spin but only like 20 degrees. Thought “maybe its the park pin or something” so pulled apart what I could get off the trans, still nothing. Eventually got annoyed and set the thing on the ground, flipped it over and pulled the pan to find a snapped rod. Great. I was hoping to get 2 half decent engines out of it but I guess this ones a mock block and hopefully the heads are still good. Went over to the 626 and did the same, but since I had just practiced this engine was out in like 35 min. Also some one had come before me that day and helped, lol they also took the distributor and wires out of it which I have a feeling was the very reason that car was there to begin with. For some reason people always pull the plugs and then leave the hood off so water gets in, the probe engine this was the case but the 626 the hood was left down so there was no water in it. I checked that it rotated before pulling it this time and found car had some signs it was sitting a while before it was scrapped, again leading me to believe the disty failed (ignitor’s are super common to fail on these). Pulled it out got the trans off, figured out a way to at least lose the trans from the probe engine and keep the torque converter, and then pulled a car with 2 engines on it to the front. Everyone was a comedian lol “oh did you get enough?” “can you carry all that” etc. When I got there I asked the guy what I needed to take off to count for the sale they were having, he was pretty vague and said they were leniant. The different guy I talked to gave me conflicting answered but basically said “only the heads and oil pan”. So rolled it back out, lifted them with the ghetto engine pullers they have and stripped almost all of it off both engines, left a few sensors and chose to leave the alt and power steering pump on the probes engine. Wheeled it up again, dealt with a 3rd person and she asked far less questions and after like 8 hours I was loading up and heading home, sweaty, covered in filth and with a huge smile on my face.

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        Unloaded, headed to the Good Vibes christmas dinner fundraiser. Came back to it a few nights later and started to deal with what I had.

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        The one bolt holding the flex plate onto the crank stripped, they thankfully didn’t notice or care not sure which. I welded a bigger nut onto it and impacted it off no problem.

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        I’ve never seen a flywheel spacer this big on an OEM application before

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        probes engine, well it was a little harder. Had to make some strategic cuts to get a wrench on the torque converter bolts, got that off and the flex plate as well.

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        Heres the KLDE bell house pattern that I will need to adapt to this:

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        A t2 transmission that I’ve had on a shelf for about a year and a half, came up for a good deal and I jumped on it knowing this was the plan. There was a guy also in the UK that swapped a KL into his 3rd get FD rx7 (he called it project casper), he used the stock trans and made an adapter plate and I think this is the logical trans choice. They are known to handle 500 ish whp on rx7’s, and stay fairly strong even through clutch kicking really aggressive clutches that rotaries tend to run. Aaron Parker makes me question this as I think he went through 7 on his pro-am build before going dog box, but I think he’s past 500 whp. But it bolts into my car (thats a lie as my car is an auto tho) I already have a driveshaft for it and its supposed to fit in the tunnel etc. Not sure where exactly it will sit as an eccentric shaft sits higher than a crank shaft does but all in good time.


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        preliminary mockup looks good, none of the bolt holes look like they line up lol, which means no conflicts on the adapter.

        This is my proposed solution for the miata guys, 13b patterns are all the same, and the FC N/a and miata trans are the same to my knowledge except the bellhouse. They are integral bellhouses so you’ll have to swap the front halves but then you have a trans with the starter already on the back in basically the same place as Crapenginfering’s kit. While I’m not sure about the input shaft, alternatively you could swap the miata trans tail onto a rx7 transmission.
        /that

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        Found the snapped rod, usually #6 is the rod bearing that fails on these engines, but this was #1. They are known for having oiling issues especially in autoX where the pan can risk the pick up oil starving. High Rpm’s are also frowned upon, it seems crossing the 7500 redline is dangerous. The theory is oil pump cavitation, I’m going to try and use a few trick Schuuman oil pumps came up with, but theres a company called Boundary that makes a billet oil pump gear set which may also solve some of the issue. Id like to be comfortable sitting on limiter at 8k rpm, as thats what drifting will do to it.

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        not the worst I’ve seen, but not that clean either. These engines have a lot of clever engineering going for them (I feel like I’ve down sold them the whole time) and one of these things is a split block. Theres a few SAE papers published on the KL and one of the things they said was they experimented with block materials and main cap design and found that a split block like this was the best at subduing resonance and maintaining bore alignment. The rumour is that a designer from Porsche was snatched for help developing this engine, and this feels like a trait inspired by Porsche (yeah I guess their flat engines they really don’t have a choice).

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        there you is. somehow didn’t split or even penetrate the block which is how I missed it in the yard, but the timing cover broken to check if the belt had snapped should have been a tip. I guess the mechanic who worked on it didnt know these are non interference engines which happens to be another awesome trait about them.

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        was a bit tricky and require some help to get this apart, but not like I can use the block ever again.

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        I also learned that you cannot install the pistons from the bottom

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        with that sitting on a stand spinning freely again I took the 626 engine and shrink wrapped it, built a little cart and slid it under my shelves. Long term plan for this one is to build it up as a built motor. The rods are the weak link in these, after 300-350hp they bend. The easiest upgrade is Millenia S rods which are pretty hard to come by and still OEM spec I beams. Before Probetalk died I found that a few guys were using 347 stroker rods and custom pistons, but i’ll cover that later.

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        stripped the probe engine right down

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        I’m taking 1000 pics of everything as it gives me reference for research later. Garage is no longer 2 steps outside my door so I have to plan ahead as much as possible

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        The rear bank all 3 rods were bent/broke, head gaskets looked ok so I’m not sure how this happened. Kinda seems like water got in somehow

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        now I also found a great deal on a T2 clutch, thanks again Ramsay.

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        Lightweight flywheels on rx7’s are 0 balanced and bolt onto an auto rx7 counterweight that then bolts onto the eccentric shaft with a single huge 250ft lb torque spec nut. The project casper built did the same thing I’m going to, he built an adapter that bolts the v6 crank to the rx7 lightweight flywheel, the rx7 counterweight pattern is much bigger than the KL pattern so it isn’t complicated. Pilot bearing is easy this way, I see it as safe so long as I use a similar grade material to what the crank shaft is made of and good hardware. This is something I’ll have to outsource though, as I don’t have a lathe.

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        I’m going back and forth on what to do for the bell house though. Adapter would be easiest but they eat up precious space in the engine bay, and they use cone allen head bolts which I don’t like that much. Alternative options are making a new bell house, something ive always wanted to try, even though it kinda seems more complex to do than an adapter. Keeping the centre true through both patterns and during welding might be a task. Neil at SCG is helping with the CAD part and he doesn’t think replicating the back of the bellhouse that centres the input shaft and has some oil passages would be hard, but I think it will and it’ll be hard to know if you’re bang on until it eats transmissions over time or something. Currently thinking of cutting/milling the bell down to a flange that I could just bolt a plate to and that would be the transmission side of the bell. Serial Nine’s CD-Pro kit that adapts a CD009 to a JZ is very similar to what I’m thinking, I just don’t want to bankroll casting a bellhouse for just me as I’m sure selling them would be a waste of time.

        moving onto the next problem to solve, the intake manifold. Stock ones put the throttle body through the firewall, which is a shame because the stock manifold is an engineering beaut. That SAE paper also outlines how they experimented with runner length and what it does to the power band. The intake has 2 sets of butterflies that change the runner length while using the plenum volume to do it and provide really good torque from low down to the rpm where the manifold chokes the flow. Back when I had my probege I didnt have a working tach and often hit limiter, the power never dropped off with the stock rpm limit and I credit this to the headers/exhaust I ran. I was worried that straying from the stock manifold would ruin the engines power curves, which is one of my favourite parts of it. But the more reading I did into manifold design, the resonance properties that make it work are built on acoustic waves and that all changes when air density changes. So as soon as one adds forced induction basically all of that engineering is thrown out and your power adder decides power curve shape. I also really like the look of Itb’s and almost want to make it a high comp n/a for that reason, or boost it through itb’s but then they need a plenum and that kills the look. High comp N/A sounds like a lot of work for little payoff too, as these engines are 9.2:1 USDM (KLDE) and the JDM variant is 10:1 (KLZE). Best N/A I know of is a guy in Puerto Rico with a 323 hatch, I think his makes 270whp and he’s done a lot to get there. A turbo makes great noises and just is where I want to go.

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        spent a bunch of time studying the LS engines intake, also a clever mix of runner and plenum. 3UZ does something similar and I kinda like the look of those, provided I have the hood clearance I may try something similar.
        the stagger of the intake ports makes 180* bends that kinda blend into the plenum look very possible.

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        pulled the v8, bought a dolly and rolled it into the corner for a while. This swap is going to take a while, the V8 will be in a time out until spring where it will go back in the car so I can still drift in 2019. I will probably be selling it to pay for some of the bigger ticket items of the v6 swap.

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        so lets see what we’re dealing with for room. Cannot express how excited I was to actually do this after so long thinking and speculating.

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        now obviously this is a very rough idea, the trans isn’t fit and I don’t know for sure where it’ll end up. But everything looks really good, cylinder 1 is inline with the towers which I think still counts as a front mid engine.

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        hood clearance is muuuuch better than the 5.0.

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        for comparison heres a similar photo from when I first mocked up the v8 in the old car, keep in mind thats without the distributor.

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        again rough idea because I know theres more room than this because the hood kinda curves over the middle

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        was hoping the crank pulley would end up behind the steering rack, but it happens to be right on top of it. I still have plenty of room for an oil pan though, because the stock KL is a front sump I will have to remake the pickup and pan.

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        I’ve definitely already alluded to the fact I want to turbo this swap, and with so much room for activities I’m thinking V mount. It feels like a classic rx7 thing and I can’t really get a clear idea if they work better or not but guys drift with them successfully so I guess ill make it work lol. That intercooler is kinda big but as i’m seeing with Kris’ car I’m thinking that actually might be better.

        IMG_0670

        the piping gonna be really short, and yes while larger intercoolers hold more air, take longer to fill and introduce lag I think the benefit of keeping the charge air cooler/denser kinda makes it worth it. Kris’ car has a high mount intercooler and I think airflow is his problem but his core heat soaks and then his ECU dials back power and knock begins to happen. I plan to do a plate to separate the intercooler and the rad, should keep heat soak down when sitting. This intercooler is a damaged one I had sitting around, kinda a shame as it was a nice HKS core but its a bit old and corroded anyway.

        IMG_0667

        I’ve gone back and forth a lot on single or twin turbos. I’m going to try and talk to our local turbo wizard and hear his thoughts but, I think that the lesser of 2 evils is shorter hot side piping vs slightly longer cold side. I’m thinking 2 really short log style -ish manifolds with a turbo on each bank should spool the best, and while having 2 turbos means that the cold side will be a bit longer so they can meet at the intercooler inlet. Twin turbo also just sounds cool so theres that.

        I have mocked it up with the old civic turbo from the stag build, while that K04 has a long compressor housing it does have plenty of room on both sides for the turbo, manifold and engine mount. I currently have two 2.5” exhaust tubes meeting a 3” with the V8 so I think keeping that is ideal.
        I’m undecided what turbos to run though, with so many parts of this build being experimental I am game to buy some cheap or used turbos and see the results before going another step ahead. I will likely be taking the long route on this swap, I enjoy building cars and learning the why and the how along the way as opposed to just bolting on what we know works and not worrying about it. I don’t see that as wrong, just different, and it will likely result in more driving of ones car but thats only half the fun for me.
        I have spent a bit of time learning to read compressor maps and messing around with Borg Warner’s Matchbot software. I’m either really off or OEM turbos are really undersized and favour low rpm a lot, prime example is subaru TD04’s on WRX’s and such. Punching in the engine numbers into Matchbot and those turbos are so far off efficient long before red line. Not many people have done twin turbo KL’s, I found one on youtube and he used a pair of TD04-15g’s I believe, which on paper seem pretty big but there were also designed to run higher psi than what he was using. The determined safe psi for a 9.2:1 KLDE is 8-10psi, any more and you’re guarantee’d to bend a rod. I’ve also spent a while reading on 3000gt/stealth twin turbo setups as those are 3.0L and have a bunch of upgrade options. Stealth316.com was also pretty useful for getting info on the mitsubishi turbos. 300zx also use a variant of Garret looking turbos, and while those and RB26DETT turbos are appealing they use all kinds of flange mounts vs coupling, and id rather having coupling partially for looks and partially for convenience. However even stock RB26 turbos are $$. Mitsubishi turbos kinda seem old tech, but there is plenty of upgrade options for them that are off the shelf available. Then I took another look at the turbo I had from the honda, I knew it was off a cx9, turns out its a 3K turbo which is now Borg Warner. Getting accurate info on these turbos is also pretty tricky as theres a lot of variable parts and they affect characteristics. But they are also very cheap to get aftermarket versions, upgrades do exist and theres a ton of VW 1.8t’s that use the K03/K04 hybrids etc. They mostly use couplings and the exhaust side has a small compact internal waste gate and a easier to deal with looking flange then the mistu turbos.

        k04-0025

        using a website with a guide I mapped out a K04 in use for twin turbo (so half the displacement of 2.5L, 90% VE across the board and 10 psi as the max gauge pressure) on Matchbot and took the data points and laid it out on a K04-0025 map. Someone with more knowledge chime in here but to me that looks pretty ideal for top end while still maintaining decent spool. Ideally I’d like 10psi by 3000 rpm or sooner without choking at 8000 rpm. Spool seems to be a black art as far as calculating, too many variables to be sure but so long as its not surging. It would also be great if I can find a turbo thats comfy at a higher psi like 15 or 20 so when I do build a stronger motor its a matter of swapping it in and not changing much else.

        I also plan to take advantage of modern ECU technology as this has come a long way and gotten a lot cheaper in the last 6 years. The ECU/wiring/sensors will easily be where I spend the most time and money, I believe that is the backbone of every good engine setup. Good engine management can perform better, save your engine from damage and communicate problems better than factory ECU’s.

        Anyway, hope I didn’t state any facts wrong lol, hope you enjoy reading me explain many of my thought processes (I tried to nutshell them) and that you’ll keep coming back as I update more even though the thread title is now going to be wrong.
        Last edited by Teeson1111; 12-22-2018, 01:50 PM.

        87 RX7 5.0 (driftcar)

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        • Originally posted by Steven_318ti View Post
          Love everything about this <3
          thanks man

          87 RX7 5.0 (driftcar)

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          • wtffffffffffff lmao

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            • hope everyone had a good christmas/new years whatever lol. The days that the stat holidays landed on worked out well for time off from work this year, relaxed a good bit and got a bit of time to work on my car. Weather wasn’t even too bad yet.

              side note, I’m also getting emails pretty much daily from Photobucket and Flickr about my accounts being over the new storage limits, so I’ve started a new Flickr account. Photo bucket is dead to me and I really hope flickr doesnt pull the same stunt. But if like 1/2 my photos go missing thats why and I’ll have to deal with that when it happens.

              Now the last post I had shown the first mock up with the engine. I was too excited and impatient to try and line up the transmission first, but shortly after the first try I dug the t2 trans out of storage and put it in place. I don’t have a stock trans mount or crossmember and since this chassis is an auto originally the mounts are in different places and don’t line up anyway. So that leaves me with the driveshaft (which I have) and the shifter hole to get the trans roughly in the right spot.
              I put the trans in roughly the right place, then lined the engine up with the crank into the pilot bearing hole on the crank. It will likely sit slightly further forward maybe A 1/2” than the pics.



              To my surprise it actually sits further away from the firewall then I thought it would.



              height is another thing I’m unsure of now, the V6 has a crankshaft which sits much lower than the 13B eccentric shaft (which is why the rx7 tunnel is so big) so either the trans will sit lower as a whole or the engine higher. As it sits right now I may even be able to use the OEM KL oil pan (not sure if I want to lol, being that its mean for an engine mounted in fwd) but need room to clear the intake manifold etc. But I also don’t want the trans scrapping the ground.















              Tons of room for activities



              the steering shaft is a mile away



              crank pulley is still over the steering rack, getting closer to the oil pump housings home now though… need to get the trans and engine mated together now before going any farther forward there. Still lots of little things to figure out though.

              [img[https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7889/33263042718_01a2748ce8_c.jpg[/img]

              shoutout to my buddy Craig for hooking me up with a junk rear iron to help with the trans mockup. I’m not a rotary guy but I’m still an rx7 guy and am grateful to have friends who are both lol.
              Gave that thing a good pressure wash before doing anything else.



              my family got me a good bunch of tools for christmas this year, chop saw being one of the highlights. Id also love to have a belt sander for doing the manifolds but we’ll see if thats in the budget later.

              Neil at SCG does CAD. Like real deal solid works and 3D printing stuff for all the brake kit adapters and anything and everything else. He’s been instrumental in the transmission adapting and making a file so I can get flanges cut for the intake and exhaust. Measuring out the transmission pieces actually wasn’t that bad. Neither of us had done it before, so we are learning as we go but everything revolves around the centre of the crank. Measurement from there and then apart and once you’ve done all of them like twice its pretty accurate.



              I brought the bare short block over after a good clean and we measured it all and, drew it in CAD and printed it out on a vinyl sticker plotter. Can speak to the accuracy level of the printer but easily below 1 mm. The vinyl is also pretty cheap and prints in seconds vs 3D printing. After about 3-4 tries we had all the holes lined up on the dowels and the crank centered.





              did the same for the trans bellhouse inside and out (using the 13b rear iron mind you)



              We did the same for the exhaust flange, but this was much harder as there is no good datum in each direction to measure off of. At first we used the head surface and that worked for a couple of the holes, then we used a framing square and positioned it on the studs to get the rest. Ended up being difficult but after more tries than anticipated it was pretty dead on.



              made the shape a little more pleasing to the eye and more like the factory manifold

              Vinyl has this nice side benefit of being sticky. Using a bit of water you can stick it on the surface and still slide it around to line everything up.



              Same same with the intake side. I think we shrunk the port size by 10% or something after this. We found it easiest to have some of the mating surface showing so we could see the gaps were even. Then measure the gaps and do the math to shrink it.



              lol this is a time consuming process.


              I am a Mac user and it turns out that not at all surprising the industry does not use OsX. There are very few options for CAD programs that work on macs and I wasn’t really interested in paying for them to be a let down. The computer I have is an older macbook pro and its specs aren’t enough to run Solidworks or anything like that even if I dual booted windows onto it.
              But I found a fairly ghetto software that kinda works called FreeCad.



              part of me just wants to learn but also to be somewhat independent when it comes to building my own parts. However I would probably be laughed out of the room if I tried to send these directly to a machinist as I don’t think the program makes true circles/arcs. Anyway, I made this as an illustration for the flywheel adapter. Its a simple enough piece to be made on a manual lathe.

              interesting tid bit,



              ^ T2 pilot bearing, the easily destroyed needle bearing kind. It mounts in the Eccentric shaft



              ^ KLDE pilot bearing the good ball bearing kind. The KL’s mounts into the flywheel limited by the crank.

              They have the same size ID, so I went and bought a KL one that was in stock and $12 and what do you know it fits on the T2 trans.
              So that was an easy solve

              another interesting thing I found was the KL crank and the 13B counter weight mating surfaces (where you bolt the flywheels to, in the 13b’s case an aftermarket lightweight one) are both proud of the trans mating surfaces 10mm. Makes the adapter just a little less complicated to make





              ran into a bit of a snag here. In the last update we were looking at potentially doing a whole new bellhouse. But I wanted to use a T2 flywheel and clutch and had already bought one for a screaming deal. The flywheel is too big though for the V6 bolt pattern on the bell. I must have spent a week thinking/comparing/deciding what to do.

              The V6 and the 13B n/a have the same size flywheel. Same size friction surface, same tooth count, same part numbers for clutch discs (according to ACT’s website).

              But the power holding and clutch options are far more limited.

              If I really wanted a new adapting bellhouse, which is pretty tempting I would use a lightweight 13B flywheel, and a 13b n/a clutch kit.

              But I decided on using what I had, the T2 stuff. More surface area, more power holding, more clutch options and its been done before. An adapter plate also seems less complicated and easier to make than an all new bell housing.



              One of the other things on my to do list was to find a COP that fits.
              This is a VAG coil I believe the “R8” coil, which theres a few sizes of that look the same except for length. The coil pictured is from a Jetta and this photo was stolen off Nico club or something for SR20 conversions. The R8 coils are the same but red. Really good coils apparently and they can handle a lot of hp.



              So i did what you’re not supposed to do and wasted my local parts store’s time and bought one after measuring a few others to see how it would fit. I knew that Honda D17 coils fit almost perfectly except the mount bolt has to be cut off. The VAG coils are suction fit or wedge fit so this isn’t an issue. But they stick really far off the head and I didn’t love the look.



              I’ll keep in mind as a back up but I knew there was a better option out there at least for fit.

              Spent a lot of time surfing google images for different coils, narrowed it down to about 5 potential candidates and went back to the parts store, wasted more of Jordans time and came back with 2 more strong potentials.



              Land rover/jaguar coil. These fit most of it ok, the rear head valve cover would require some weird twisting of angles and the front head one position doesn’t really fit at all without some cutting.





              The fiat 500 coil. Theres a few options under fiat 500 but this is for i believe the non multi air USDM version. Not the cheapest coil of the group. It also has one flaw



              its too fat.

              By approx 1 mm.

              Racked my brain for a while for a way that wouldn’t be crazy hard or require machining to open that up a bit. I bought a small engine hone for $20 that compresses small enough for the task. Took a while and you won’t be honing any small engines with it after lol



              but it works.



              Did a hole in each head, confirmed fitment with a spark plug and we have a winner.

              The land rover and a few others also hit the bolt that holes the valve covers on. I figure I can deal with that using allen taper head screws or something it just doesn’t look nice having them all twisted different directions. Many of the other coils I tried were too large in diameter. There is more pictures of the fitments on my flickr account if you want to see more.

              I could list all the coils that i tried/measured but it’ll be easier to list the ones that I didn’t. There is 2 other coils that I know fit, BMW off an e46 or something and CBR1000 or other pencil coils. The BMW coils I think are just plain ugly and not locally stocked. The CBR coils are also not something I can get from an auto parts store and they are passive coils (don’t let the connector size fool you, the Fiat coils are smart coils). The ECU I intend to use is actually capable of powering them, but i’d rather not. The CBR coils use a screw type spark plug, I found there is a spark plug that is the right thread pitch, length, reach etc and screw type that will fit but its for a 1974 VW westfalia. Limited heat ranges and options there deterred me from that route.



              I’ve read before and had it saved that a few KL ITB conversions used honda fuel rails. But they said Honda J23a fuel rails. Im not a honda guy but I don’t know what a J23 is lol. I figure that must have been a typo and he/she meant j32a. So one day I’m jump starting a v6 honda accord that we have at our garage.
              “Wouldn’t that be funny if this is the right engine?”

              pop the engine cover off, take a peak with a flash light and whaddaknow (again) they look like the right ones.

              That weekend I went out to a junk yard, had a list of things to look for but started with those. First v6 accord I walk up has the intake stripped off and all I have to do is unbolt the fuel rails. I took a caliper with me just to check and they are bang on 97mm. jackpot.

              I later learned that RB26 fuel rails are also 97mm spacing, so cutting one in half and tapping for a fitting is an option for prettier rails.

              I also grabbed a DBW throttle body and pedal off a 2005 ish Chevy Equinox. Went all through the yard trying to find a pedal that would fit with little to no mods, I even brought an rx7 pedal with for comparison.



              While its close and may work as is its also a metal pedal, most of the many other cars I looked at were all fully plastic. This way modifying it is simpler and will be more reliable.



              the throttle body itself is also what I wanted. Was trying to find a Toyota one as I like the connector more but these are cheaper and theres a bunch of them in the yards. Keeping the matching set of throttle pedal and throttle body may have its advantages later. But the TB looks cool, the “backpack” hangs on the right side and the connector is in a good spot. The blade is a 70mm best I can measure without taking it apart. And its an OEM piece, which I like. Oh and it uses an O ring to seal which is another plus.



              Did some quick testing with the multimeter to confirm what wires are the TPS pots and which are the motors. Same with the pedal, was thankfully pretty straight forward.

              [img]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7812/32196374307_c3a406426a.jpg[/mg]

              a friend gave me an old hood with a few dents and bad paint, and I made it into a “will this clear the hood?” hood



              I cut the webbing off after but this will make it easy to figure out what will work for the intake manifold etc and later if I do some fancy ducting for the V mount







              taking photos of things is key. How am I gonna make a trans mount thats simple, poly urethane preferably and won’t interfere with the speedo cable.

              [img[https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7881/46224181055_4e87b50ed6.jpg[/img]





              its a start. Neil had some china special poly mount kicking around, I think it’ll work.





              Reference photos again, this time for finding oil and water passages and engine mount locations. Both pics are upside down lol but the bottom one is the drivers side of the engine. that odd shaped port thing is the factory oil filter pedestal. I made some engine mount plates but forgot to take pics.



              went back and forth comparing prices etc etc but ordered these off amazon prime shipped next day. Trans dapt universal engine mounts, high duro rubber and If I decide I later on solid mounts its pretty easy to change. These engines are very smooth at least in fwd config so we’ll see.

              There is a shop local to me called Spectrum Motorsport Solutions that specializes in custom turbos and manifolds, the local turbo wizard I referred to is the owner Chris Scremin. I went over there one night and he graciously took like 2.5 hours to educate me about general turbo things and to talk about my setup. I legitimately can’t name a better person to do what Chris does, he built and maintains test equipment that some turbo companies don’t even have. Before he started doing Spectrum full time he was building and spec’ing turbos for OEM applications and similar things. Even if your not local they can still build turbos and high quality manifolds for a variety of cars.

              I won’t give too much away yet but he is working on a pair (yes pair) of turbos for my car, and I can’t wait to start mocking them up.



              I said I couldn’t wait.



              so back to using the Honda’s turbo just to get an idea. The honda finally went to scrap after sitting for months with the window cracked open. We did finally fix the leaks and it blew out spark as soon as it hit boost lol.



















              Looks like theres room for everything to fit and still be easy enough to access all the bolts etc.





              Local company to me Serial Nine did a run of red shift knobs, I had to have one. I always like the HKS weighted shift knobs, and while I liked the shape for the most part of Serial Nines knob the colours weren’t what I was after. I like supporting locals when I feel they do good work and such. I asked them once what it would take to get a red knob, they told me due to the order of manufacturing that it would pretty much take making a run of them. Well they made a run lol.
              You can adjust the weight of it with a slug insert above the thread adapter, I went with the heaviest and it feels good like that.



              [img[https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7923/46414709084_aa2fe9a6f4.jpg[/img]

              With the turbos sorta figured out but not in my hands, neil’s 3D printer was down, and a bunch of other things figured out it was time to address some of the issues my car has with the V8 in it. The handbrake just does not work. The cable has too much friction in the tight radius 180 bend its in. I’ve spent enough time on it and I don’t think its going to get better if I made the master cylinder mount more friction free. My original plan was to make the stock handle push a master cylinder mounted sideways in the centre console with the reservoir in the cubby. Then Im like well what if it pushes a rod hooked to a master hidden in the cubbies? Then somehow the cable idea got in my head and I thought it would work better.

              My fear is that thing wouldn’t clear the seat, but before I cut anything I took a small piece of rod and drilled a hole into the cubbies where there would be room for a larger rod to get through the gap between the roll cage tube and the FC’s chassis. It kinda looked tight but it looked like it would work. Grabbed a piece of ready rod from work and welded a few nuts together to see how this was gonna go. The bracket flexed a lot and actually so did the floor it was bolted to. I was gonna need a brace to the cage. The ready rod also flexed badly and I expected that





              Added some angle iron to the ready rod, took a piece of tube and welded ready to it for a brace to the master bracket



              clears the seat, and man does it work. Took a big pry bar between the rear wheel lugs and with the handle even 2-3 clicks up I couldn’t turn the lugs. I would do the same test with the cable setup and it would maybe do that on full lock with two or three times the pull force. I have started re-making the bracket and bought a rod to make this a permanent finished product, and I can’t wait to finish it.

              Also noticed this the other day



              the black and red was supposed to be -8AN, I don’t know why it took me this long to notice that its -10. In a way this is better but now my oil cooler and the adapter off the block are -8. Im not likely to even use the oil cooler until the V6 is in, but I guess ill need a new oil cooler….



              Big thanks to my buddy Rami for all the help with my laptops, I’m not particularly good at computers but he is.



              So with functional windows I downloaded the Moates software for tuning the V8’s ECU



              the software for the ECU master Black, the Ecu I want to buy. A lot learned from being able to fiddle with the software.



              and just cause the Link ECU software as I’m helping a friend get his RB25 Neo running on a Link.

              I have been doing a lot of reading and watched so many Haltech and HP academy videos/articles. I have a pretty good grasp on how it works but without practical application its all pretty worthless. For my buddy’s car I’m just going to help get it to idle and run, I don’t want to learn how to tune on someone else’s dime lol. Imma fiddle with the V8 a bit before the v6 is ready to go and then I hope to be able to do it all myself.





              Neil got his printer back up and running and printing better and more accurately than before. We were pretty confident these were good from the stickers so these are really just to check our work. These flanges are good to go, next up is the bellhouse flanges and figuring out a way to ensure that both centres are lined up. Those two flanges took 15 hours to print.

              87 RX7 5.0 (driftcar)

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              • Comment


                • Love this thread man, awesome work as usual
                  sigpic

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                  • Originally posted by EasySpeed*Inc View Post
                    Love this thread man, awesome work as usual

                    Thanks! That means a lot coming from you, your thread/fab skills are way above mine.

                    Forum was down for a bit there but it’s back and I have an update brewing. Getting it together for the evergreen open drift on March 31st if anyone else is going lemme know.

                    87 RX7 5.0 (driftcar)

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                    • holy shit -- amazing work

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                      • Woo boy have I been slacking on updating this. Had some computer troubles where I didn’t have a computer for a bit, then my external hard drive with everything on it failed and I still haven’t got most of that back but thankfully got pics for this from a different back up yadayada excuses excuses.

                        Been a busy summer though, Im gonna do my best to keep it chronological ish from where I left off my last update.



                        My plan has and had always been to play with the V6 this past winter and throw the V8 back in it for this season then finish the swap come winter. I had made a goal to get the v6’s engine and trans mated and mounted in the car before putting the v8 back in but that was taking too long so I just stopped and threw the V8 back in. I also needed to address some things that didn’t work very well or weren’t done yet to get it ready to do another event.



                        Starting with my hydro setup. Ghetto test bracket proved the concept worked so I took my time and made up a nice bracket, welded it up and smoothed it out. Me and kris’ thing at the time was to make stuff that looked like we bought it, not built it in our garage.

















                        got some solid aluminum rod and drilled and tapped both ends for the rod end and master pushrod. Once in place and painted black I think it will be pretty discrete.






                        Another issue I was having was the speed sensor was rubbing my crossmember and had started to leak. So I heated the area with a torch and gave it a tap with some old socket and got a perfect shape for clearing the sensor. Quick spray of paint and was good to go.









                        At the very end of the last drift event I broke my shifter handle at the weld. So I took that apart and re welded that stronger too.



                        Was sick of hearing the rattling noise that my quick and dirty air intake bracket made so I made a better one out of thicker aluminum. Mounts solid now and doesn’t flop around anymore



                        Started finishing the ducting for the rad, as at the last event cooling down was a real issue for it. Which doesn’t make sense to me as I’m not running a crazy hp setup, I have big fans and an aluminum rad. Yet can do like 3 laps before I have to let the thing cool down and catch up *spoiler alert I later figured out all the reasons why*





                        So this was going to be really hard without a way to bend sheetmetal nicely. Watched a few youtube videos on making a DIY style sheet brake and gave it a shot.



                        I got a bit lazy and rushed as I learned later was the most important part of it, aligning the pins. But it works pretty well and I now can build a better stronger one…



                        So got the bottom tray started, I needed it to scoop from the bumper opening and force air up into the rad.



                        Tangent

                        I don’t usually bother/care to insert parts of my real life in here but, got married last year which means we were due for a real honeymoon. We had long ago chosen Iceland and wow was that a cool trip. One of my highlights however was seeing these crazy 4x4’s that they take on the glaciers. They run the biggest balloone-ist tires that once on snow they deflate and this actually floats the vehicle on the snow. They were everywhere, many tour companies run ones make from Ford F350’s and Econoline vans, but I saw F150’s and many others but I thought Id share these 2 Toyotas I saw gassing up








                        back to it, I also didn’t want to melt my clutch slave again (old chassis I did but the exhaust was closer to it) So with my new found bending abilities I whipped up a quick heat shield







                        I know no gold tape or nothing but simple and worked. Didn’t have a clutch problem this year

                        We’re going into summer now but for the rainy days its still nice to have a functional heater core. Lines have been looped this whole time, so quick china order and 3 weeks of shipping later




                        Also got some new hood pins bolts as mine are mangled on the ugly looking rad support I have. Also got some reservoir caps that match and a duct that I thought was going to be bigger (lol all the reviews stated this and I didn’t listen) I was planning to use for getting some clean cold air off the bottom of the rad ducting to the air filter buuuut now thats a later problem.



                        New season means new fluids all around



                        It also sadly meant it was time to warranty this stupid battery for the 2nd time. The first battery they sold me was almost 5 years old. nobody tested it before selling either. The 2nd battery they sold me was over 2 years old and would start the car fine unless it sat for more then a day. I figured I had a draw and chased it endlessly. Figured the battery was likely the issue, took it back and they didn’t have any in stock so they sent me all the way across town. Guy at that location asked me what car it was in to which I said “its irrelevant” and he proceeds to tell me they wont warranty it if its not in an approved vehicle. I had already explained how much time and effort Id wasted on this thing and I was about lose it when he said that but he added “but i’ll make an exception this time”. Ya you better

                        Long story short these batteries are terrible and if I wasn’t so cheap and so committed to it id have just bought anything else by now



                        Painted the hydro rod black and put the interior back together. Its possible to remove with the seat in place but its quite an ordeal.







                        Cant say I love the look of the brace with the coupling nut but it works and Ill dream up a better solution later





                        Made some brackets to mount the passenger seat in. Nice that theres no need for it to be adjustable. I just cut up an extra pair of stock seat sliders and welded away. Typical me I painted them black too



                        I think this is 3 tries later to get a result I was happy with. The big cut in the middle is for the front jack point tube to slide through.





                        Wiring simply zip tied under the rad to the bottom. Hindsight being 20/20 I’m not sure this was the best, it introduced heat into the conductors from the rad…





                        but it at least looked nice, was hidden and secure and safe in a small collision



                        So the last thing that really needed to be addressed was the ECU tune, mostly the rad fans.





                        I had a spare ecu connector so I made a setup for powering the ecu up so I could load tunes etc at home vs needing it all to be plugged in at the garage. I later just loaded stuff on the ecu by bringing my laptop with me but this gave me a chance to sit down and figure out the software with the ECU awake and make sure it kept the tune etc. Im very keen to learn tuning, but man standalone ecu’s seem so much easier then these factory ecu’s are to fiddle with. I suppose thats because they really weren’t meant to be messed with vs a standalone which by design is meant to be changed and is user friendly. Ive read there are people that can change parameters by loading the calibration onto a spread sheet and know what numbers to change, thats wild. Binary Editor simplifies the process but theres a lot of terminology I don’t understand and frankly even Ford in the late 80’s/early 90’s is way more advanced then most standalones are. Meeting emissions requirements and having a much higher bar for drivability, as well as the fact that they are tuned by engineers makes there just more going on.
                        But I barely know what I’m talking about so I left 98% of it alone and disabled some emissions stuff my car doesn’t have anymore, bumped the idle up a bit higher then stock when the low speed fan kicks on and most importantly changed the temp that the low and high speed fans kick on at. That was after a whole season of messing with it, can’t recall what I all tried first…



                        So went on down to evergreen. Pitted with Matt and a bunch of other hot boi cars lol, only knew a few guys though.
                        Matt was practicing the 5/8ths bank with a few other pro-am cars that day



                        This FC was another pro-am car, I go out to do my first lap and some IS300 blew a motor and oil downed the entire track so we had to kill around 40 min…


                        photo credit Josh, @pitbull_drifter

                        Car felt pretty good, whatever alignment settings I had left it at were working for me. However it did one lap and starting overheating in the line up, soooo pulled off and spent way too long (any time is too long, I **** working on my car at events) and figured out the breaker for the low fan had popped and the high fan wasn’t turning on. I did bring my laptop but if course it was dead and I didn’t bring the cord. I don’t know how i went this long and frankly it’s embarrassing but the high speed trigger off the ecu was pinned wrong, I couldn’t get it to trigger so I just tied it in with the low speed and put a switch within reach to manually turn on the fans.

                        Once I dealt with that the next time I went out was good, except that they started doing this “tandem mayhem” where they just hot lap a careless tandem layout and all the try hards and wild childs go out and almost crash into each other/me. Survived but would not do again lol.
                        Pitted after that and ate lunch, then went to fire it up again and first run out something felt wrong. Started overheating, had no power, then it would have power again, then not. blew the dipstick out. So I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what was going on, no oil and water mix but the blow by was a concern.

                        Matt had also had a rough day and wasn’t sure what was wrong with his engine but towards the end of the day there were running this new experimental layout that after I rode along with my buddy Travis I really wanted to do. So I lined up behind Matt and proceeded to get lost in his smoke. I have never followed a car that makes that much smoke, absolutely blind on transitions. Chasing him was hard, his car has twice the hp and is set up for Pro am so I just followed shallow and did my best to keep up. I stayed within a car length and was blown away by that fact until he told me he just blew the tires off and wasn’t trying to lose me lol. Then we switched and I had told him to give me a bit of space just in case I threw a rod mid run or something and well. He didn’t


                        photo- TNewport_photo

                        was the best runs of the whole day, felt good man



                        truck hit a milestone on the way home





                        got a bday gift from my inlaws, was recommended to me to not buy any with grip tips or silicone fingers or anything as they would just wear off quick. Interestingly I see a lot of pro drivers/etc with gloves like that but I don’t get a few new pairs a year soon
                        Really comfy though, I like driving with them on. Suede wheel grips fast and still slides, gives you good control. Cant use my phone though, so thats a downside..





                        my birthday was pretty good to me, my dad found a really good deal on that vise which we later learned that Record vises are really good and usually expensive. But he found it on craigslist and painted it and its great.
                        The belt sander is my new favourite fab tool, I use it a lot. I was hoping for one that would be big enough to flat manifolds and stuff, this is it.





                        Soon got home, did a compression test and #7 was quite low. So replaced the head gasket and the intake manifolds etc. I did something wrong though because when I went to put water in it my oil level mysteriously rose



                        great use of brand new oil…. le sigh. So I did the upper and lower intake manifold more carefully and that was better.

                        onto the next thing though, I’ve had these catch cans on a shelf for some time.











                        Took some detailed photos, these needed some attention just FYI. There was some coating ready to flake off and a few burs here and there but all in all not bad for the price. And they are baffled. Im not sure the in and out labels are accurate. My thoughts are they should be vent into the can and vacuum side (I’m trying to keep them closed, don’t enjoy oil vapour all over the engine bay) should pull through the steel wool filter.



                        made a cardboard template and after a few tries got it really good. I like the Radium dual catch cans like a lot and was going to that look without the price tag (they also don’t fit where I have them)





                        marked, drilled and tapped the tops. These are supposed to mount on a little bracket on the back but I like this look better. I also wanted the holes to be completely symmetrical and could swap cans on the bracket without issue.









                        I had long ago planned this and to use these rubber feet things from MSD I had laying around







                        Somewhere around here I had decided and registered for Driven Vancouver so I had a bunch of interior stuff and loose ends to tie up before a show.



                        Went down to my local Home Depot racing and found some plumbing pieces that were pretty close to the right size as my “greddy gauges”



                        then took the factory vent bezel and trimmed it up to dangerously thin





                        So that was a start. Haven’t done this kinda work since I installed stereo’s
                        Same drill for tweeter pods





                        A belated birthday gift to me, TF works happen to have these in stock (they didn’t at christmas) so I jumped on it





                        These are one of the best things I have spent money on. The new hydro setup worked but still not what I was hoping for. However with these, night and day. Locks effortlessly and predictably at any speed. This opened up a whole new world for me as id never had an e brake that worked never mind could rely on. But the effort level to pull vs lockup was a bit off.



                        Anyway back to body filler. More rigid the better here. Used to use this stuff, smells weird but easy to work with and fairly strong for these interior pieces.







                        lay, sand, repeat. While I was waiting for that to cure I started on one last thing with the hydro. I had been swapping between the hole I drilled and the hole for the screw that holds the cover together. Felt like it wanted to be in the middle of the two. but couldn’t get away with drilling another hole so I just ovalized the one and welded a washer there. This had the side benefit of reducing a lot of slop.







                        Carried on with the gauges









                        lots of sanding in between. Lost count of how many layers this took. used a sanding block where able





                        The pods I wanted to look symmetrical but actually aren’t, aiming with sound quality in mind which i realize is fully pointless in a drift car but sue me



                        First layer of primer, always so telling… I think I did 3 layers before paint.





                        dyed my sunroof panel black, it now looks better then the rest because its clean lol



                        Painted and installed the completed pods and gauges. I had used Satin black and should have used flat black or even SEM trim black but since I used Duplicolour i was stuck to that cuz mixing brands of can paint is risky. They can react sometimes and then you have to sand everything off and start over.





                        Cant recall if I ever brought it up yet but my garage mate had parted out his skyline and bought what happened to be my old JZX. He had finished swapping a bmw trans in it. Should have done that when I owned it cuz it is ridiculously awesome manual.



                        Bought this a long time ago but this is the material I had bought for wrapping my door cards.













                        Another thing I haven’t done since I worked in car audio







                        So heres how things are looking as its loaded on the trailer for Driven. Vancouver has been cursed with a certain police officer handing out VI’s like free candy (I’m not going to get into it) so I took no chances, pulled the plates off and towed it to the event.











                        I so did not enjoy this event. Not only was it a long day (at least roll in was later) but there wasn’t as much to look at as previous years. I only knew a few people there so I hung out with them all day. The vibe was just not good, the indoor part of the venue was all paid commercial spots and the outside was all the common people that just wanted instagram followers. Everybody was pissy when they didn’t win an award, and the atmosphere was just toxic from my point of view. I had a few people ask about my car which was cool but not in the same way that people interact at a drift event. The most fun I had all day was during the low car limbo contest and I figure that was because I actually got to drive my car. I also happened to be the lowest static car there but once I was eliminated some v8 ***** screamed through my window so that was pleasant. Everyone’s attitude at a drift event or even a meet is just different in a way, hard to put my finger on. I am really turned off of car shows as a result
                        I also really wish I had painted my hood.


                        So with that lesson learned or so I thought, I decided I’d keep it to drift events only.



                        based on the walk through on grannies speed shop website I calibrated my tach with a battery charger to a V8 signal





                        had to add a resistor as the factory calibration pot doesn’t alter it enough (not surprisingly really)



                        Next up was a private day me Neil and Kris and another buddy had booked pre the drift Union Invitational. We had the track thursday, friday was booked and saturday/sunday was DUI.
                        We have never driven all together before besides knowing each other and drifting separately for years. So planned to go up there early thursday morning and I had to come home saturday night but was a good dudes trip.



                        Car was kinda all over. Wasn’t cooling down fast at all, mid day I found that only 1 fan was plugged in. oops.



                        this was a first. never bent a tie rod shank without breaking something else. Understeered and hit the transition from flat to bank. Ran down to lordco and bought a new one, but of course it was a slightly different length. I adjusted it to steer straight but the wheel was crooked and the rack wasn’t centred so I had more angle on one side then the other.
                        Me and my friends did 3 laps together lol.
                        Was a good day for my driving progression though, got more comfortable with the car and its behaviours. Was acting up a bit at the beginning of the day but by the afternoon it had started behaving, engine performance wise.



                        had a small incident where the steering wheel was on the dash while it was parked idling in the driveway, wheel fell off the dash and hit the button on the e brake and rolled into Kris’ truck’s steel bro dozer bumper. I wasn’t too phased though , its a drift car and this kinda thing would happen anyway.

                        Mission drift day #1 went really good. I hadn’t driven the track before only seen the lay out. They are doing these “Drift and Drag nights” on Wednesdays once a month, its literally such a cool thing that you can go on a random week night to the local racetrack and wath/partake in drifting. Something i wasn’t sure I’d ever see at Mission. They seem very keen to keep doing it though, there is definitely money to be make as the drifting has 4 to 5 times the amount of spectators and the registration usually sells out day of. Because they are running the drag strip at the same time it means the track space available is limited as the return road still has to function. So its kinda a big loop that you do twice. Kinda technical, not super flow-ey imo but a lot of fun when you get it right.
                        Car ran good again, felt good. Took my mom and my wife Jenna out for passenger rides and my welder buddy Andy who hadn’t ever been in my drift car besides me drifting for all these years. Barely killed a set of used tires too. it even stayed cool basically hot lapping. Would do a lap, jump back in the kinda short lineup and do another continuously.

                        another loose end was the bulkhead connector mounting of any kind.





                        drilled 4 holes and carefully grinded out the rest with a bit until the connector just fit.

                        At this point I was planning on drifting an event at mission raceway and Villains Sportsland in September. I was out of used tires so I splurged on some of the cheapest tires that we can get locally but actually are half decent and a set of Anatares for steer tires. I also wanted to be able to run the matching set of enkei’s because against what I had just said I booked another car show. But hear me out this one was different.
                        Super Street had asked for the Goodvibes guys specifically to show up at an event they were hosting at LeMay museum in tacoma.







                        had some help from my sister again getting the rear quarter fixed







                        finished dealing with a bunch of little things that I did not want outstanding at a show of this level.



                        Me and the wife woke up at the crack of dawn (legit 5:00 am) and met up with Tito, Jordan and Ian and all rolled down together (except Tito, he went the night before) and hung out all day. The venue was super cool, staff were organized and the vibe was great. I hadn’t even paid before arriving and I found the editor who I had been emailing about paying and gave him cash he barely seemed like he cared lol. Was more excited to see that I had showed up. Cars were spaced out and posed nicely, and my goodness the caliber of car in attendance was high. Im talking about build quality, not just in dollars spent and e fame.
                        I was also happy that I drove that far both ways without any issues, car drove fine and ran good all day and all things considered isn’t even that uncomfortable for a drift car.

                        I did however hit a real problem in the border lineup on the way home. The fans stopped coming on even with the manual switch. Pulled to the side and let it cool down enough to attempt to find a fix. Figured out that my weather pack connectors had all melted/arced and were all useless. I had some electrical tape and a few zip ties so I cobbled it together and made it home. Took them out and just straight crimped them for the next event except for the ones on the rad. I have to conclude that the type of connector I used are just junk. The crimps themselves were fine but the connection between sides of the contact was weak and arced and then arced some more until they were melted. Three different points failed and there were all in different points in the car, interior, behind the dash, engine bay. So I won’t be using or recommending those anymore (not sure I ever recommended tho lol)

                        So along came the next mission drift day, bought a spot from a buddy who had to work. Spoiler:





                        didn’t go as smooth as the last one. Car was all over the place again, one lap ran good and strong, next it blew the dipstick and had no power. Drove off after a half lap a few times. Seemed temperature related which made me think it was a sensor issue as it was like flipping a light switch. Fans also came and went, when they worked it stayed cool, when they didn’t it got hot. But it was a weird balance between keeping it hot enough to behave and not over heat. Then to top it off I got lost in the dark following another car, went a bit wider then him and smacked the tire wall they had on the hair pin.



                        theres this one spot where if you don’t think about it and set up for it the turn before, even 2 turns before you’ll go off track and hit this literal ditch that had formed from people dirt dropping. I went off in the worst way and exploded my side skirt into 2 pieces. Wasn’t allowed to go get it either until the end of the night. So I spent half the night with 1 side skirt and on the side that most corners don’t favour photograph wise.

                        I don’t have Facebook but Trevor Ball I believe posted these and friends sent them to me. He took pics at both events and you can tell based on what wheels are on my fronts lol









































                        Lots of good looking photos in there, but I just can’t help seeing the missing side skirt and the front signal out every time. 80’s power jams while drifting are my jam. Having a radio in car is cool too, I would crank it when rolling out into the first entry and there was times off throttle where I could hear it but it just feels cool I don’t know. Rap works for me too but not in the same way. Car acting up was ruining my head game and 80’s jams were making it better. I have a spotify playlist, I’ll see if theres a way to share it and that will probably be the music portion of this update.

                        to deal with one of those things right away







                        I had ordered led strips from china to fix that burnt out bulb. The housings on the pair of S5 signals were trash so I made these to replace



                        running light uses the single centre strip



                        signal flash uses the outer 2



                        looks retro mod to me. I like the Type X LED conversions you can get and this reminds me of them in the way that the light doesn’t come from a central bulb but an array.

                        At this point I kinda stopped and re-evaluated where I was at. Villains was close and if I wanted this car to be presentable I had a lot of work ahead. The fender was dented in beyond repair, the front bumper was cracked, a piece missing and would need to be resprayed. same for the side skirt. I was also not keen on dragging a car that far that I wasn’t sure was going to run right when it got there. So I cancelled my time off request and put the V8 setup for sale. Was more bitter sweet then I thought, when I sold it it meant I could bankroll the larger pieces of the v6 swap but its also been in my car for like 5 years now. Its a shame its been acting up, more frustrating to me that I can’t figure out why. I felt it was wiring related, and the harness has been through many revisions and changes but I couldn’t justify building a new one when I’d rather just sell it and move on.

                        So that concludes the V8 portion of this now improperly titled thread.
                        As of right now I have sold all but the grannies kit with driveshaft. I had it listed for a month or so as a package and kept getting people who just wanted the engine or the trans so I caved and sold the engine to a mustang guy and the trans to a guy building a mercury. I did sell some swap specific pieces to local guy who’s probably reading this right now lol.

                        I have really really really been wanting to up my wiring game, I have done a lot of wiring on this chassis and I kinda **** all of it but the chassis side at least works well so I’ll leave it until I can afford to do a PDM or something like that. I have spent so much time on friends cars and my own messing with factory harnesses, and they suck. I’m keen to build new harnesses with new wire that don’t have any corrosion or heat damage or bent pins or whatever else arrises.

                        The first step to this is of course tooling





                        I already have some crimp tools and a good heat gun but I wanted to be able to do Deutsch stuff, so this was a major purchase. And its not even the good stuff, at this point I can’t do the real deal DMC crimper. Maybe one day but these are still designed for Deutsch terminals and just take more time to be careful doing as I understand. I am addicted to HP Academy videos and will probably buy their motorsports wiring series at some point. I spent hours just reading and researching and learning about proper methods and what tools are meant for what and what techniques are to be used where. I’m a construction electrician by trade, I work with electricity every day and while they are very different things I’m finding the fundamentals and the things I learned in school and even find on the job are applicable to this. Ive even learned stuff that make me better at my job. I think thats my favourite thing about the internet, the abundant source of knowledge it can be (caveats aside).



                        Im also spending some time and money just assessing where to buy materials from. Im ok with buying the wrong thing just to be able to learn. And most of this stuff in small quantities is cheap. Finding the tools that work and practicing using them and figuring out how to plan doing this stuff is what counts. Knowing it isn’t enough in my opinion.





                        Potentially the most expensive single piece car part I’ve ever bought. An EcuMaster Black with an EDL-1 data logger. This is a huge part of my car building philosophy as of late. Im spending my money on the engine management and if its good and well setup it should be able to sense and shut down if any other part fails. Logging allows you to see things you wouldn’t be able to otherwise. Bonus the EDL comes with a 4 gig SD card.

                        So many things to talk about regarding the V6 build. I was pretty busy this summer just maintaining the car through the season, but while I waited to sell the V8 I focused on it.





                        not great pics I know. This is the back of the front or drivers side cam. It has a slot in it that is actually offset that turns the distributor which is also the cam position sensor for the KL from the factory. Now it would be easiest to use the distributor as is, the stock disty has a cam sensor built in as well as an internal ignitor but id just leave that connector unplugged. I believe I posted a photo of it before and the distributor is huge. Its also ugly and designed to have a rotor and cap on it.



                        After much googling I found that a NA Miata CAS was supposed to fit as is, this photo is one on a KLDE actually. But alas they are a bit hard to find and expensive new. They are also kinda big and without having one on hand to know how much room it would take to get in and out and given that they are however many years old I explored other options.





                        My hope here is to ditch the distributor all together and just use the cam “tooth” as the cam position trigger. With a Vr sensor stolen from a for focus (uses an EV1 connector, ideal)



                        The one on the right should work nicely as its taller then the needed length to stick past the head and still bolt onto something



                        I’ll need to lathe a piece to replace the distributor. The later KLG4 engines had a piece that blocks the hole, i’m just going to drill a hole in it and tap a bolt for the sensor to mount. May have to mess with it to get the air gap right however.




                        next up was revisiting the ignition coils. I follow 3D_Magic_Mike on insta gram, the dude is a wizard with CAD and 3d printing. His datsun truck is wild, but thats not important. He is building a turbo 1UZ and they happen to fit a VAG coil quite nicely in their valve cover. I had found a Fiat coil that I didn’t know much about and would have a hard time getting to replace but it fit with little modification. But I really like the look of the VAG coils, and the later variants are all pretty reliable. The true “R8” coils that are red are the same as the black ones, but that coil sticks up too high for me. I also don’t think I need to worry about tapping out the 200hp a cylinder they are allegedly capable of. So pictured is their baby brother from an Audi A3, same coil more or less but slightly shorter meaning less turns and a bit less juice. I bought the cheapest coil I could find on the internet as I was not about to cut up an $80 one from Lordco so a $20 questionable coil seemed great.

                        The next sequence of photos is just as I made it shorter and shorter how it fit





























                        So here I ran into a problem. I can’t make this front one sit as low as all the rest meaning I either keep them all that height or trim the valve cover. We’ll come back to that later



                        Found a deal on an Mx6 engine on craigslist. Met a cool dude named Chris who had a turbo MX6 with a couple neat bits on it, this engine was his spare. But lol he decided if his built engine blows that would probably be it for that car and he’d just part it out. We talked for a bit about the engine he built and he later gave me all the spec sheets and other info he had collected over the years.

                        I have this back burner set of ideas for making a cheap forged rod and piston block, as I’m sure I will one day get bored with the power the stock rods are capable of.

                        Anyway I now have 3 of these things, a mock block, one of questionable condition as a backup or to build one with and now a known good runner that will be the engine I actually fire up.

                        Stripped it of everything I wouldn’t need and got a few things off of it that I didn’t actually have, one was an intake manifold.



                        While I’m still not 100% sure on what I’m going to do for a manifold I wanted a way to jig a complete one in case its all one piece vs 2 flanges.

                        Ill take a minute to explain what I’ve been thinking lately. I’ve spent a bunch of time researching about the Helmholtz effect and using the resonance of the intake manifold to kinda force air into the cylinders, which is what Mazda did with the VRIS system the factory intake has. I was fearful that losing that would ruin how these engines drove, they have a flat feeling torque band that comes on early and stays. Couple hard truths here though, the Helmholtz effect while an advantage is still a small difference. A VE gain of maybe 5-10% at best and only for a certain window. It’s also effected by so many variables, air density being one of them which means as soon as the engine is in any amount of boost the whole thing changes where the resonance is. I thought then I would just make it resonate at 3000 rpm and be not restrictive at higher rpm when the turbo is doing the forcing but that math is hard, proprietary and to a degree I suspect the engineers involved had to make a few guess and tests before getting the result they were after.
                        This is also engineering for an N/A engine built in the early nineties, where are we at today?

                        There is actually quite a few twin turbo V6’s now, Ford Ecoboost being amoung the better known, but Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Cadillac, Nissan/Infinity and Porsche all make TT v6’s. Many of them are twin throttle body as well, a design I was not looking to use.





                        This is an intake for the Ferrari F160 engine used in Maseratis. Apparently the block design was/is a Chrysler Pentastar engine but what matters most to me is the fact its a modern designed single throttle body twin turbo. Just looking at it you can see the MAP sensor location, at the back. And its just a really simple design, no real frills, no port injection either, plenum is kinda small compared to what I though it should be. They didn’t bother with any resonance effect either.
                        The ecoboost manifold is very similar, I know that engine is a truck engine designed for low down torque, but the Ferrari engine I would expect to rev a bit higher and have more top end hp, I suspect maybe turbo sizing has more to do with engine behaviour now then things like the intake manifold.

                        So my current plan is to make a simple design, I was struggling thinking how to make it where I could still put the fuel system on it and be able to take it on and off the car without making special tools or something. Neil suggested using silicone couplers like the Focus RS used to, I recall Papadakis did the same for fredric’s corolla when they kept cracking manifolds. That car holds like 30+ psi of boost and nitrous, if it works for papa Steph it’ll work for me. I wanna try making one out of carbon fibre or something neat but I see that as being quite a project and maybe make a simpler one until I have time to get crazy.



                        It had been too long for this as Neil and I barely remembered where we left off with the adapter. But once we found the correct files we got a few test pieces laser cut in order to check that we were on the right track with our measurements



                        also got my buddy travis to lathe me a “puck” to maintain centres between the patterns. One side has a step that fits on a 13B iron and the other on the KL rear main seal bore.







                        After 3 cuts with changes in between each version we had all the bolt holes lined up and centred. So we sent off to cut one more that had both patterns on it and one with the combined shape. basically the final piece but much thinner and cheaper if it was wrong.



                        Stacking those pieces on top of each other gave the dowels enough room to sit on something and the whole thing seems to work. At this point its hard to know if the centre is dead on yet. My research found that as much as 0.030” out could cause trans issues, but seeing that is pretty much impossible.



                        We cut the final one with the shape to have a removable plate for the trans input shaft. This way we could still put the same piece on both block and trans while using that “puck” to ensure fitment on the KL block.

                        [img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49010464653_d50f58cc1a_c.jpg

                        With both plates stacked and sitting on dowels, I made a ghetto electrical tape spacer to make the pilot sit centre





                        And using as many bolt holes as I could (many of the trans bolts miss the block completely) I bolted it together and hung it



                        At this point I was just being impatient lol, We know its going to fit. I want to do a final check with the bellhouse bolted to the block but the flywheel adapter needs to be made still..



                        This meant it was time



                        I need to update my profile picture



                        sitting on jack stands waiting for me to spend hours staring at it fiddling with a tape measure.



                        Somewhere in this time the Pro am season ended, I had been helping Neil run our friend Shawn Miller’s car, and half way through Brennan Walstrom as well. I’ve always been into seeing how the teams at FD function, I follow a bunch of drivers and a few team members on the social medias and I now have a new understanding of competitive drifting. Going somewhere in drifting is about much more than just you and your ability to drive a car. Running one car well is a lot of work and coordinating and planning and running 2 cars is even more. All I really do is show up at evergreen on raceday and swap tires in the hot pits, download logs from Shawn’s ecu and wait lol. Neil puts the effort in during the week before to make sure that both cars were as ready as they can be for battle.
                        It paid off too, Shawn is one of the best drivers I can say I know personally, Brennan is also a good driver (I believe he’s a stunt driver/coordinator for a living too) and they did really well all season. Shawn came 3rd overall and Brennan 2nd which grants them both a Pro2 license. This pic is from Driftcon after dark where Brennan showed up after working all night with a hurt motor and won the event sealing his position. He and shawn had to battle each other in top 8.

                        I’m not going to say too much more about next season as much of it is still undecided but I’ll be back helping out. Shawn’s bmw is not legal for Pro2 so we (mostly Neil lol) will be building a new car soon I hope.

                        Back to my dark garage though










                        Preliminary position, its sitting on jack stands transmission and under the oil pan. I started by levelling it side to side with the car and front to back with the car. I got the crankshaft centre of the engine bay (based off the original frame rails not my tube front), I know FD’s the engine is offset from the RHD drivers position but I don’t believe that is the case with FC. I also lined up the transmissions shifter up with the hole, and tossed the driveshaft in just to make sure it was front to back correct.

                        tacked together some engine mounts. Still haven’t decided what I want these to look like as a final product but I had a strong feeling they were gonna have to change a bit so these are just to get the engine where I want it so they are ugly.





















                        SO MUCH ROOM FOR ACTIVITIES

                        Off the bat it sat further forward then I had hope, and thats even without the extra 1/2 that the adapter plate will add. I had already screwed up my engine mounts in this regard, they had no room to slide the engine forward.



                        the real big issue that could arise if the engine was too close to the steering rack is the oil pump pickup tube would be on top of it. I was hoping the front of the oil pump housing would just be overtop of the rack just as with the 13B. At this point I had good hood clearance and more firewall clearance then I even needed. Good room from the steering rack and good room from everything else for turbos and downpipes.





                        Now the transmission had a slight issue even in the stock position. The speedo cable hits the transmission mount, remember this is an auto chassis and the crossmember mounts are already in the wrong place, but I was basing where the trans sat off my memory and pictures I could find of doing a manual conversion. I don’t really understand how this hits as I don’t remember it being a problem before and looking at Xccesive manufacturings crossmember for swaps it doesnt look like it should be a problem.
                        Thankfully I have like 4 of these cables sitting around for some reason, so I trimmed the collar piece to the bare minimum on one in rough shape and that wasn’t too bad to do.



                        So I started moving onto the rest of the big pieces





                        Intercooler was one I had laying around, it has a big hole in the bottom so its also junk but helps to mock up. Rad is the same mishimoto just flipped upside down to put the outlets on the passenger side. Better suited I think, I don’t want to have too much going on on the drivers side as it will get chaotic quickly. Aesthetics are still very important to me but I also want it to be easy to work on and functional.

                        While I chewed on all that and the options for where everything would go I got a new toy.





                        Got a smoking deal on a mini lathe, I have been super interested in owning a lathe for some time. I now understand why machining is its own trade as theres a lot that goes into doing it correctly. After much research I settled on trying to grind my own HSS bits and it appeared to work decently so far.



                        But then I started the machine at full speed, this is a belt driven lathe and they need to be slowly sped up. So I shredded the belt and haven’t used it since. Ordered 3 wrong belts so far lol, I have another on the way that I now think is the correct size/tooth

                        As time goes on I’m more and more into the idea of just making my own parts. Theres certain things where I’d like to be able to buy at any given parts store but I find that aftermarket parts kinda suck half the time and with the right tooling I think I can do better. I may even have to do it twice before I’m happy with it but thats all part of the fun for me. I’m not on some fake reality TV show with unrealistic deadlines or anything. I’d like to get a mill next and that would almost give me the ability to make anything I can think of. And if its too big or complex I know where to outsource stuff to. Jack of all trades, master of one maybe lol. Id like to be good at wiring.



                        I also broke the lighting strip on my side of the garage soon it was time to spend a bit on actually being able to see what I’m doing. These 2 LED lights made such a difference. I want 2 more lol.

                        Now after much deliberation, I had decided to move the engine back 1.5 — 2” and hopefully lower. I had the room for the oil pan depth, I could still get at the clutch slave and had room for everything that needed to run behind the engine. But this all kind of hinges on the cam sensor. I’d really like to find a way to spin up a cam on a bench with the sensor mounted and see if I get a usable signal pattern.





                        Moving onto another potential issue, fuel rail/injector clearance.



                        A friend of mine was going to larger injectors so he sold me his ID1050X. This is another area where I believe its worth it to spend some money. These are some of if not the best injectors money can buy, they are also much bigger then I will need pretty much ever lol. But they can handle small accurate amounts of fuel insuring idle quality blah blah blah. I read too much lol.
                        I can take the blue spacers off, these injectors were for an RB26, and get them pretty short. I’ll need to machine the lower intake manifold to allow these to fit somehow… still working on the best way to do that.



                        Scored me some giant aluminum blocks to make into welding fixtures for the intake and exhaust manifolds. Found a local place that picks up and re sells scrap material from machine shops and such. 1/2 price of my local metal supermarkets so you bet I’ll be shopping there going forward.







                        Bought some transfer punches and man that it was way to do this kind of stuff.





                        Same time I went to a local hydraulics place and spent way too much on JIC/AN plugs and hose plugs. Really like how these look when servicing stuff but more importantly they keep dust out and prevent stuff from leaking out of lines all over the floor.

                        Modified my engine mounts to be able to slide the engine back and forth











                        Much happier with how this looks and clearances up front and around where all good. Then I decided to lower the whole thing a bit which meant I cut up my engine mounts and basically started over.



                        Borrowed the neatest digital level from Neil. I did a bunch of reading and had a better understanding of setting up driveline angles. So I yanked the shifter turret that was in the way and put the engine where I wanted it with the engine crane and started over.





                        I found an easier way to build temp engine mounts was to take some thin round rod and easily cut to length tack it on both ends, do the other side then check all your measurements again. I got a friend who had the subframe and driveshaft out if his car to measure the distance from the bottom of the shift surround plate on the tunnel to the middle of the output shaft to give me an idea where the trans should be. I learned that engines are usually tilted back 2-4* and that the pinion angle and the output shaft angle should be within one degree. The digital level had a false Zero feature so I didnt even have to do math.

                        After I got the engine sitting where I wanted it, engine mounts welded up strong enough to hold position ensuring I had room to slide it back and forth a bit I bent a mockup for the transmission crossmember before cutting the real deal out of 1/4” plate.







                        Before I final weld it I want to make sure the shifter it going to line up.



                        The factory T2 trans shifter turret actually looks pretty easy to modify. I read a thread where a guy shortened it to the absolute minimum, he cut and welded everything closer to the bolt holes. Then redrilled the hole in the selector rod and cut it shorter (in that order). You can find it on Rx7club with some searching. What I found instead was that NA Miata and FB Rx7 use the same style of turret.



                        This is a NA miata (moar miata parts lol) and it looks really close. I’m tracking down one locally, though I’ll probably have to buy a whole trans to get it. I should be able to swap the selector rod as well and not have to modify anything.



                        Got the first bunch of wiring connectors and such I ordered and some hardware from McMaster Carr I ordered for the adapter plate. Somehow I can never seem to spend less than $100 there, I always like buying extra hardware I guess.





                        Got the final adapter piece back from water jetting. Need to sandblast it and get it tapped (I’m not going to risk hand tapped 5/8” plate lol) and counter bored for the bolts and transmission dowels.



                        Borrowed some mock up turbos from Spectrum Motorsports. Chris has been a huge help and given me some solid advice so far, he’s been working with these Borg Warner turbos lately so not only did he have some junk housings kicking around he has a lot of data to go on.



                        but since they aren’t mine I’m taking care of them





                        traced out and cut some plates to place the turbos and build the fixtures from.



                        In a dream world these would be symmetrical and my manifolds would be symmetrical buuuuuuuut no















                        Those hawk eyed of you will notice that I actually placed these on the old motor mounts but I have verified them with the new ones and so far everything clears.
                        I also decided to make more work for myself and not use the factory tensioners or brackets (might use parts of them) to place the alternator and power steering pump.They are on the opposites sides of where I want them for this chassis, the power steering line is going to be 3” long this way and the bulkhead stud for the alternator is on the passenger side. They were important to have roughly in place for getting the turbo positions correct. I also threw the factory oil filter pedestal in there just to make sure it would fit if the one I intend to build doesn’t work out for some reason or another. Its big and in the way so ideally I won’t be using it and instead be using the remote filter with an oil cooler this time.

                        Another note, I was sliding the engine/trans back and forth to accommodate the bellhouse adapter thickness. My current plate is a 1/2” shy of the real thing so I was measuring off the crankshaft to the true front and moving depending if I was working on the trans or the engine side of things.

                        The Borg turbos are cool because they can have the water cooling ports on the same side of the turbo, I’m using them facing the block and planning to utilize thermal siphoning. I have mapped out where to get water feed and return as well as oil feed and return for both and ordered the necessary fittings from China. I’m doing my best to plan ahead as the shipping times are usually a month.







                        Now stuck between a “7” mount or a “V” mount (> mount?) setup. For sure want to do it this way, I’ve always planned it this way. Drivers side turbo will have to cross to the passenger side pre intercooler. It will also have to pass probably under the bell house/ oil pan area in order to meet up with the exhaust as theres a starter in the way on its side. Almost like there was never intended to be an exhaust down pipe there or something…
                        Really like the way both look from certain angles. The V mount to me makes it seem like theres more room in the engine bay. But the 7 means I can fit an even bigger rad in if need be. Instead of a 14” height I could go up to a 19” and still clear below. Id like to try and reuse this rad, try and save some costs somewhere.

                        It’s taken me over a week to find time just to type this out, so I already have more to add to it. When I have time anyway lol.

                        Questions? fire away.
                        Last edited by Teeson1111; 11-12-2019, 06:47 PM.

                        87 RX7 5.0 (driftcar)

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                        • I only see 2 pics out of 7 millions
                          Pls fix

                          FB: @DumbassCarCrew - IG: @fruttolo_dumbasscrew

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                          • Originally posted by Fruttolo View Post
                            I only see 2 pics out of 7 millions
                            Pls fix
                            I had the image tags wrong, fixed now. Not sure why it sized them differently though

                            87 RX7 5.0 (driftcar)

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                            • Glad to see a huge update on this one.
                              Insta Mintyhinrichs

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                              • It took me a whole evening but this was so satisfying to read and watch.
                                Only thing I am thinking about tho is this, on a kind ov V-mount setup shouldn't the rad and intercooler always meet up at the top? Or the air will escape without passing through the intercooler?
                                I like the "v" more than the "7" btw.

                                FB: @DumbassCarCrew - IG: @fruttolo_dumbasscrew

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