Build thread

[speedjunkie]

I ordered the Haltech TPMS kit from UPP here in town a couple weeks ago and paid for overnight shipping so I could get the tires mounted and everything installed before I left for Florida last Wednesday, but they didn't come in until Tuesday so they refunded me the overnight cost and I took the wheels to Brett to get the tires swapped that night. I didn't install the kit until last night though, and I checked it in the app tonight to make sure everything is working. It isn't perfect, it's off a couple PSI, but at least it should let me know if there is a leak. It was kinda difficult finding a place to mount the receiver because it's kinda big, but I was able to jam it in next to the shifter on the side of the tranny tunnel, at least until I can maybe get an extension cable for it and run it further back. I got tired of having everything mounted in the airbag cubby and it's supposed to be closer to the center of the car anyway so it can read all four sensors.

The Redline CV-2 grease for the ball joints came in while I was gone so I lubed those last night too and got the front wheels back on. It's all ready to put back on the ground but I'm hesitant because I still want to swap the clutch slave cylinder and I HATE jacking the car up and down. But I'm so ready to just drive it again and I haven't made any progress on getting the Jeep slave to work, nor have I heard back from the machine shop about modifying the old slave.

The tires are a bit taller than I'd like, but they're not too different than the ones that just came off.

I changed my fuel pump wiring at the ECU to use the stock fuel wiring, but as soon as I connected the battery the fuel pump turned on. I didn't even have the key on lol. I remember having weird issues when I first built the harness and this might have been one of them. I just swapped it back to what it was and I'm going to stop messing with it. I'd love to use the stock system, especially since I modified the wiring in the relay box, but oh well.

[speedjunkie]

I took the car out Friday night and quickly realized I needed to raise it back up another half inch on the passenger side and 5/8" on the driver's side. Around right turns I rubbed the entire turn. And I also have decreased turning radius, even more so than before, since the taller tires are hitting the frame in front under the headlights. So I'm definitely going to have to cut out some metal, but I'm wondering if it would negatively impact the washer tank and coolant overflow tank.

Yesterday I picked up the slave cylinder from C&G Machine and got the fittings I needed to make the line for the Jeep slave cylinder, so after I adjusted the suspension, I put together the stock bored out slave and pulled out the current slave, only to realize the bleeder screw bore and thread pitch are not the same. The current one I believe is M6x1, and the one on the old bored out slave is M8x1. I then realized brake fluid was not dripping slowly but very quickly forming a large puddle on the floor. I really should have verified this beforehand. Ugh. I tried installing the slave again so it would stop leaking but realized I could cap it off instead, so I did that and went and bought a bleeder screw assortment from Autozone from a kid that didn't know jack squat about vehicles, and especially not bleeder screws. One of them had the right thread pitch but didn't bottom out because the old slave uses a ball bearing at the bottom and therefore has a longer bore than the bleeder screw can reach. And unfortunately, I lost that ball bearing when I removed that screw a few weeks ago, so hopefully I can find another one, because I don't think I'm going to find a bleeder or speed bleeder that will fit correctly. OF COURSE I'd modify the only slave cylinder that has a completely different bore. And it was almost the cost of the FEED slave cylinder! I paid C&G $232 to bore that out. Double ugh.

[speedjunkie]

I heard back from C&G Machine with a quote to bore more slave cylinders. 5 for $213.75 each, 10 for $211.50 each, and 15 for $209.25 each. So basically it's still not really worth having them done once you add in the cost of a 4Runner slave cylinder or rebuild kit. The JEEP slave is a real bargain though if you can get it to work. I think I paid $22 for it, and you have to buy a couple extra fittings, and the line and it should be good.

The bored out stock slave cylinder really made a difference. It feels like a stock clutch again. Although because I have about an inch of play at the top of the pedal, combined with the decreased effort, clutch engagement is a little ambiguous. I guess I'll have to adjust the rod on the clutch pedal so there isn't so much play, or no play. I imagine the JEEP slave will make it feel like an 80s Toyota Camry lol. My Dad had one of those Camry's in the 90s and the pedal felt SO soft.

I was riding like a monster truck so I adjusted the suspension height again last night. It's amazing how much of a difference just a little adjustment makes. I raised the car half an inch and at the tire it was more like an inch, and I just realized the suspension geometry is the cause of that confusion haha.

I added some PIDs to the Torque app to monitor tire pressure, they're from a foreign Ford of some type. They didn't work, I assume because Haltech doesn't have it on the list of available PIDs that they allow you to monitor. That would be really cool if they changed that or made their new app available to the Elite line as well.

[speedjunkie]

Yesterday we did a fun drive through the mountains on our way to Podium Karting and the Shelby museum. Everything was going well, and the tires are crazy sticky, but then when going down a big hill, I heard clanging. I pulled off and couldn't find a problem at first, then I noticed the driver's front brake caliper laying against the inside of the wheel. The top bolt had fallen out and the bottom one was loose. I guess I forgot to tighten them down. We tried a wheel stud from Jason Drobeck's Mercedes but it was too big. I tightened the bottom bolt and kept driving, albeit quite a bit easier. I ended up driving on it the rest of the day until after we left the museum and I went to Brett Mayden's house and he lent me one from his car.

I did have a check engine light sporadically all day, and sometimes it wouldn't clear. I looked it up on the Haltech site though and couldn't find it on their list, and google searches didn't show anything either. Once I got back home I connected the laptop and discovered it was a tire pressure sensor issue. The right rear sensor had lost signal, although I'm not sure if it was continually that sensor or if it had changed. I'm going to swap the RR wheel to the front and see if it persists, and if it stays at the rear I think it's an issue with the signal reaching the receiver, so I'll have to move it further back requiring me to build an extension harness. Right now it's by the shifter, but more on the passenger side of the tunnel.

I had some issues getting the slave cylinder bled, but Russ came over and helped me bleed it again Friday night so that's sorted now and it feels fantastic.

The rear suspension creaks when going over bumps sometimes, so I'm thinking I'll need to lube the lower control arm bushings.

And I need to raise the car up a bit in the front, and I'll probably raise the rear too a little. I'm going to check preload on all the corners because the front passenger side rubs on right turns, and I'm going to match preload and height side to side. I didn't get the alignment done on Friday, and now I'm glad I didn't. Although it could have saved me from losing the caliper bolt had Brett noticed it.

[speedjunkie]

Last Tuesday, they had tech inspection for the PPIHC, and Rob Dahm blew the PS pump that was on his car. Probably the same one that I sold him a year or two ago lol. They put the word out that they wanted to buy one. I started pulling mine, although I didn't want to sell it initially, I was going to just let him borrow it. Then I realized if he's going through them that fast, I probably didn't want it back haha. I was almost finished pulling it when I got word that they had one. So I reinstalled it and drove it a day or two last week.

I went to Fan Fest on Friday and met him in person finally. I've talked to him a few times over the years and we were in a facebook group together about 10-12 years ago, before he made it big. Aaron Parker was in that group too, coincidentally. I think they're the only two that have made it big though haha. Tyler Shielke (lives in the Denver area with the grey FD) was in that group too. Anyway, I didn't make it to the meet up they had years ago at SevenStock and pretty much everyone else in the group did, so I hadn't met Rob yet. I told him and Isaiah (his mechanic I guess? lol and RX-8 owner) about pulling the pump a few days before. Later that night, I got word they blew the pump again lol. So I pulled mine off the car and took it to Isaiah out at Raisin Canes on garden of the gods rd. I hung out with him and a few other folks (who all turned out to be in the Colorado drift community, from Denver and Loveland) for about an hour until midnight. They decided to borrow it until they knew for sure they needed it and wouldn't be successful just rebuilding the previous one. So Rob paid me for it on Sunday after the race.

A lot of words that don't really make much difference, but it was cool to be helpful. Apparently they needed a few other parts too that others in the area provided.

I ordered a new pump from Napa Friday night after I got home and it came in today, but I would rather have an original OEM pump (plus the Napa pump doesn't have a pressure sensor on it and I wasn't able to get mine back from the one I sold to Rob), so I bought one from Jim Thompson on 7club and it'll be here tomorrow. It has less mileage than my original pump, but the old one was rock solid and in a weird way, I'm kinda sad that one more original part isn't on the car anymore lol. Now it's just down to the front subframe, PPF, diff, and fuel tank. I'm not sure anything else is original. Oh, and the passenger headlight cover too lol.

[speedjunkie]

The car did well yesterday for 7s day, aside from a couple small issues.

The two rear TPMS sensors lose signal repeatedly after driving a couple hours, or maybe it's due to the speed I was traveling at the time, I'm not sure. It usually comes back quickly, but sometimes it takes a while. I'm going to swap the fronts to the rears and see if I have the same issue with the front wheels, showing that the receiver needs to move further back. I'm going to build an extension harness for that anyway. All the batteries read 3v when they're connected, so it's not due to dead batteries.

I have issues with the OBD adapter disconnecting every time I punch hard into boost, but it reconnects quickly. I'm not sure the cause of that one, maybe some kind of limit in the software on boost.

I haven't had any issues with the OEM power steering pump, and I returned the NAPA pump.

The driver's front wheel still contacts the fender under harder cornering even though I raised it a bit, but the only thing I can think of is that when I adjust height, I don't take into account my body weight haha.

I did have to make a hard stop at one point and the brakes performed flawlessly, and the stopping distance was super short. But I'd kinda like to do it again while measuring though, like a 60-0 stop.

Michael Gagne, the guy that repairs gauge clusters, has started building harnesses for the alternator that adds a silicone resistor in the sensing wire and stabilizes the output voltage. So obviously I'm thinking about doing that too haha, but Jason told me I can change the calibration in the ECU to basically do the same thing. So we'll see.

I forgot that I got the brake caliper bolts cadmium plated, and it's all but outlawed in the US now, and it's going to drive me crazy not having one of the bolts the same as the others lol. Not sure what to do about that.

[speedjunkie]

I contacted Haltech about the TPMS sensors losing connection and they said they don't usually have an issue with the receiver not being close enough on regular cars, so it shouldn't matter where the receiver is mounted. I did move it to the airbag pocket just in case it was getting too hot in the tranny tunnel. I also swapped the front and rear wheels just to be sure it wasn't a distance issue. I took the car out yesterday for a few hours and didn't have any problems, but it was pretty cool yesterday, so if it's heat related it still might show up later. Haltech suggested sending back the whole kit for a new one but I don't want to have to pay to get them removed and reinstalled again, in addition to having the car down for a week or more while I'm waiting for the new kit, especially when I hadn't done all the testing I wanted to do yet to ensure they were bad. One of these weekends when it's hot again I'll drive the car back up to Denver and do a really long drive to really put them to the test.

I contacted OBDLink about the dongle disconnecting from the app during hard boost and as soon as I took the car out Friday night and did a bunch of hard pulls (and verified with more pulls yesterday), of course the problem didn't repeat itself. I had removed the cables from the airbag pocket but never disconnected them, and put them back. Then Saturday I moved the connection to behind the dash just inside the panel on the passenger side and verified that it was still good yesterday. I figured if I finally have it sorted out and won't be connecting and disconnecting all the time, I might as well move it and make room in the airbag pocket for storage if I need it.

I've moved as many cables out of there as possible, including the HDMI cable that isn't even connected anymore since the Joying head unit doesn't have an HDMI port. I also moved the USB tuning cable to the glove box so I can run it through and still close the glove box and it doesn't look funny having the cable coming out of the airbag pocket. I'll hide the TPMS receiver somewhere behind or under the dash too if it doesn't give me issues anymore.

My only recurring issue at this point is the stupid fuel level gauge still. I cannot figure out why it won't give me accurate readings. It constantly jumps around. The only time it's sometimes accurate is right after I fill up, and even then it doesn't always go all the way to full. But if I leave the car sitting for a couple days, it seems like it never gets off of empty. It's really getting annoying.

[speedjunkie]

I haven't done anything with the car for a while, partly because I've been trying to do more house-related work, and partly because last weekend we thought we were going to have to put Smokey down. His back legs don't work anymore and he's incontinent, so we're cleaning up after him all the time. But otherwise he's still begging for food and wants to be near us all the time. Last Thursday it looked like he had stopped eating and drinking, which is when I'm planning on sending him across the rainbow bridge, but once we took him off the floor and put him back on the bed, he was eating and drinking and all happy again haha. Little scammer.

I was messing with the old EFR 7670 turbo last night and decided to see if the stock oil drain line would fit, and the holes line up but they will need to be drilled out. Also, the line has an angle to it that will most likely hit the wastegate actuator bracket, but I was able to bend the line so it points straight down. Now it should clear OK, but I'll probably need to twist it so it points to the engine and I'll most likely need to make or at least modify the other line that attaches between it and the engine.

[speedjunkie]

We ended up putting Smokey down on Aug 30th, in the living room at home. That really sucked, one of the most emotionally brutal things I've gone through. And we got his ashes back last week. Not sure when we'll get another dog, but it will definitely be a rescue, and we'll get more than one. We're doing pretty well but it'll hit us on a regular basis still.

I drove the car to work again yesterday and learned that apparently my fuel level gauge is working when it reads empty haha. It's been reading funky for quite a while so I got the point that I didn't trust it. I had reset the low level a couple weeks ago because I had it set way too high, like half a tank, so for the last half a tank I really didn't know how much time I had left. But it reads all over the place anyway when I do have more fuel. So I guess I'll be looking into faulty grounds on both the float and the gauge. Hopefully it's one of those.

[speedjunkie]

I was digging into the reverse camera functions and noticed that I can use a 360 camera kit and get a backup camera like newer cars with the bird's eye view. Joying doesn't sell a kit anymore, but they say you can use pretty much any aftermarket kit. We'll see.

I dug into the fuel gauge issue and I THINK I discovered the cause. I think the ground wasn't making good enough contact, so I ground away some of the anodizing. The needle shoots up quickly when I turn the key on, but it has gone to a couple different readings, so we'll see once I drive it for a bit.
20240928_191315 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

I also noticed the seal on the ground connector was pushed out of the connector when I opened it up. I guess the fuel expands the seal, because after it had been out while I was working, it shrunk back down and I could fit it into the connector again, which is when I took these pics. I suppose I should have looked into whether this connector seal would work sitting in fuel haha.
20240928_191511 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr
20240928_191748 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

I bought a couple little harnesses from JT4. I usually like to make these, and I was thinking about it, but for the alternator harness, I wasn't sure which diode I was supposed to get and didn't want to chance messing it up. The one for the alternator is made by Michael Gagne, who is one of the guys that repairs stock gauge clusters, and it's for smoothing out the voltage output from the alternator. I checked prior to installing it and it puts out about 14.4v, but was already pretty stable, and after installing it, it was putting about 14.9v and still stable. When I turned on a couple draws (lights, blinkers), the voltage would drop about .1 or .2v, but after, it would only drop about .01v. I haven't had any issues, I just like optimizing, or fixing problems that don't exist haha. The other harness is for a possible eventual swap to an RX-8 AC compressor. I already have mounts for one, and I have a compressor but I'm unsure if it's good or not.
20240929_182425 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

I haven't driven the car yet to test the fuel gauge fix or the alternator harness, but I'm hopeful to verify both this week. I was a little leery about installing the alternator harness since I'm using a lithium battery, but supposedly it's even better for the battery. That battery really makes me nervous though, even though I've only seen one instance of one catching fire.

[speedjunkie]

The fuel gauge has been acting better but still not great. So I'm at a loss now.

Last time I drove the car a couple weeks ago, I must've REALLY flooded it. I went into Chik-fil-a just for a couple minutes, tried to start the car again and it just cranked with no indication of starting. I turned off the fuel pump so I could deflood it, and the car started, and ran for several seconds before I turned the fuel pump back on. Yikes.

I've collected some things for a couple little projects I'll likely try to finish in the next couple weeks, with any spare time from house projects.

1. I'm adding relays for the power windows because the passenger window drops to 10v when rolling up. It's a common mod in the FC community but so far only a few FD owners have done it. I was comparing to an FC wiring diagram and wanted to keep the window lock function. The FC cuts 12v for this, and the FD cuts ground, but the effect is the same. After some testing on the car with a multimeter, I figured out the wiring. This is the FC diagram I'm mimicking. https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-generation- ... s-1144703/

2. The components I used for water injection (from SIRHC Labs) provide an option for indicator lights that the pump and solenoid are working/firing. I decided not to wire in those lights because I didn't think I needed them. I've since realized that my water level drops so slowly that it could either be leaking, evaporating, or injecting into the engine. It's easy to add the lights, I just need to find a place to put them, and I'm trying to decide if I want to be able to see them at any time or put them in the airbag cubby so I can remove the cover occasionally to verify it's still working. I'll have to add a wire for this to the pump relay, which will be a bit more work than on the driver, which already has a wire, then I just need to wire both lights to a ground. Viola.

[speedjunkie]

I made the window relay harnesses this weekend and added the indicator lights for water injection.

I'm not super happy with the harnesses, for obvious reasons. Somehow the smaller gauge wires ended up being shorter than the others once I started taping them up, I couldn't even finish taping them. But at least they work. The larger wires were so big I could barely get them into the connectors on the passenger side. I used 451M relays and connectors from Corsa-Technic and wrapped them with cloth tape.
20241102_211703 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

I also replaced the driver's window switch with a $15 eBay Chinese special with double auto down feature. My original switch had auto down only for the driver's side but it never worked. The new switch fit OK but not perfect, so I swapped the face from the old switch to the new one. The odd thing is after I swapped the faces, the window lock button on the new switch disables both windows (it should only disable the passenger side) and the old switch doesn't disable either window lol. So weird. The passenger window was only getting 10v when rolling up, and with the new driver's switch it was a lot faster already, but it would get slow again eventually if I didn't add the relays. They're pretty fast now.

The water injection components allow for two indicator lights, one for the pump and one for the solenoid. I wired those up last night and tested them tonight. They don't work lol. I'm not sure if there is an issue with my wiring, if something is broken, or if the settings in the ECU calibration are incorrect. I think it's still working, but I can't say for sure.

[speedjunkie]

I took the car out last weekend and had some issues.

It's been in my neighbor's garage since we've been working on the house and had a dumpster in the driveway. The battery was dead when I tried to start it, and I forgot the ATX-30 has the restart feature, so I jumped it with an external jump box. But while I was driving to a buddy's house (one of the new guys that just moved to town), the circuit breaker at the battery tripped, although I didn't realize that's what it was at first. The check engine light came on and I checked the code and it said overvoltage, which made me really nervous with a lithium battery. I closed the secondary battery switch that bypasses the circuit breaker, and cleared the CEL. Then I opened that one again and the CEL came back, and I remembered I never closed the CB again. The weird thing is the car kept running and driving even with the battery disconnected lol. But I've noticed now one of my SPA dual gauges is completely dead. I'm hoping that's just due to a blown fuse. And I'm having issues with my Valentine One radar detector now, not reading all the time.

[speedjunkie]

I finally got the car back in the garage last Sunday. It was REALLY dead, as was the jump box. I jumped it with the Pathfinder and it started up pretty quick, which is good because it was really cold and last winter it didn't want to start much. I also tried the REstart feature first and it didn't work.

I looked more into the SPA gauge and it doesn't look like I have a fuse in line, so I might be screwed. And I started looking at options. I've never really liked having a mix of analog and digital gauges aside from the extra info, so I haven't contacted anyone about repairing the SPA gauge. Although that would be the fastest and easiest fix for this lol.

I thought about getting two Speedhut gauges to replace the SPA gauges. The problem is Speedhut doesn't sell that generation of gauges anymore, they have a newer version out now. https://speedhut.com/news/comparing-led ... uge-lines/ I also thought about buying a pair used and having them change the faces to match mine, but they don't do that either. They also don't provide the square wave for cruise control with their new speedometers. I did total what it would cost for all new gauges and it was over $1300.

Another option was getting a Haltech UC10 https://www.haltech.com/product/ht-0680 ... ech-uc-10/. This would be super easy because I could just run a CANBUS to it from the ECU. Although I'd still need to figure out the extra stuff like fuel level, cruise control, the idiot lights, blinkers, and maybe a couple other things. The issues I have though are the price (it's about $2k), it's not as customizable, I prefer not to have logos other than Mazda or rotary related, and I like the stock gauge holes rather than one big display. I'd also have to buy a new gauge cluster plastic to hold it, so it would cost closer to $2500-3000.

The option I'm leaning toward now is building my own display and cluster. There are some in the works from at least one person, but I'm not sure when they'll be available. There was also a set made by someone that was thinking about producing them but decided against it. So far both of these people have been unresponsive.

This was the one that decided against making them. But I really like them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKf9Lr9VzfY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x4PbOhTpsU

This is the one that's being produced, but might not be in time. I'm also not sure whether the smaller ones will be available too, which is kinda the whole point of why I'm doing this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLDzJUBHrZU&t=788s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-mrZZjXhcs

I've never done anything like this so I'm a bit intimidated. I've learned a little in the past few days of research, but not near enough yet. I've found a few displays that should work, but I'm not sure which PCB I should get and what else I need, or how it will all connect. I thought about getting a flexible display so I could use one for the whole thing and bend it around the cluster, but it wouldn't be bright enough, if it would work at all.
https://newhavendisplay.com/2-1-inch-48 ... d-display/
https://www.adafruit.com/product/5806 - 2.1" round TFT display
https://www.adafruit.com/product/5793 - 4" round TFT display
https://www.andersdx.com/4.2inch-circul ... ifications - 4.2" display