Build thread

[speedjunkie]

Did you get any aN lines for the flux capacitor?

Your build is now way over my head.

Nah I got everything I need for the flux capacitor lol.

LOL, you'd understand if you had an RX-7 too. Come on, you know you want to. Although you might be divorced shortly after that LOL.

Ok, who's going to be ready first for DGRR?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you will be ready first lol. Although if I just took both days over a weekend and had all my parts available, I could probably knock it out. But getting the parts is the problem. I may just stick with my current IC and everything too, depending on how close I'm getting on time.

[PXRdriFT]

Yea, I'm narrowing my focus a bit. I had a million things to do and wanted to start them all. I decided to hold off on anything not related to having my engine out and focus on getting it back in. I'll take care of that other stuff in small bites.

[yoojeankim]

dang.. overhaul again?!

[Shadowden]

Nah I got everything I need for the flux capacitor lol.

LOL, you'd understand if you had an RX-7 too. Come on, you know you want to. Although you might be divorced shortly after that LOL.



I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you will be ready first lol. Although if I just took both days over a weekend and had all my parts available, I could probably knock it out. But getting the parts is the problem. I may just stick with my current IC and everything too, depending on how close I'm getting on time.

I'm already shopping for my next car. The rx7 hasn't gotten onto that list yet. I might totally change it up and go with an old Caddy or similar.

[chickenwafer]

Are you talking the vacuum hose reference line to each wastegate? Don't you have a boost controller though? I would still try to keep each hose equal length if possible. It's not really going to change the wastegate operation that much, but if one hose is significantly longer than the other, then the wastegate with the shorter hose could possibly react quicker. I think it's splitting hairs, though.

[speedjunkie]

Yea, I'm narrowing my focus a bit. I had a million things to do and wanted to start them all. I decided to hold off on anything not related to having my engine out and focus on getting it back in. I'll take care of that other stuff in small bites.

I'm thinking about doing that too lol. Just stick with the turbo swap and nothing else. But I'd REALLY like to get it as clean as possible so I may go ahead and so the intercooler, radiator, power steering cooler, etc. That stuff really shouldn't take me that long though. I'm also probably going to mask off most of the engine bay and try to respray some of the area next to the turbo that got all dinged up. Maybe I will take a week of leave haha, but I think I'm just waiting on parts now.

dang.. overhaul again?!

Since it's still burning oil, it required an overhaul. I'm just going by Dave's mantra of "while I'm in there" again lol. The turbo swap itself wouldn't really take that long. Hell, if that's all I was doing I'd be pretty much done already. It's just all the extra stuff and then waiting for parts too. Ugh.

I'm already shopping for my next car. The rx7 hasn't gotten onto that list yet. I might totally change it up and go with an old Caddy or similar.

Caddy CTS-V? Please say yes. LOL

Are you talking the vacuum hose reference line to each wastegate? Don't you have a boost controller though? I would still try to keep each hose equal length if possible. It's not really going to change the wastegate operation that much, but if one hose is significantly longer than the other, then the wastegate with the shorter hose could possibly react quicker. I think it's splitting hairs, though.

Yep, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Alright, I just wanted to make sure I'm on the right track. I'll try to keep them the same length then.

[speedjunkie]

I spent $330 today on some fittings from Summit, along with speed bleeders for all four corners. Yikes. I still need some way to get around the coolant feed on the rear WG, but I came across a 45 degree 4AN male/4AN female fitting that should give me enough angle to put on the 6AN adapter. Now I just have to buy it. I also bought a 120 degree fitting to use in place of the coolant banjo fitting/90 degree fitting. It should fix the problem, I hope. If not, I may be screwed haha.

First thing I did when I got home was drill and tap the spare WP housing to see if the coolant sensor would work there. It sure did! So I did the actual WP housing and it looks like it will work out great. Now I just need to extend the sensor wiring. I also used a multimeter to make sure the sensor would be grounded. Since my housing is powdercoated, I guess it will have to get it's ground through the alternator. I'll check it again when I reinstall it.





And this is basically what it looks like right now...


I also tested the length of the oil feed hose to the turbo and it's just the right length. Now I'm just waiting on the last 45 degree fitting to make it work. Also waiting to wrap it with any excess heat sleeve I may have.

When I removed the heater hose from the WP housing, it was welded to the housing. One thing to remember...if you ever get stuff like this powdercoated, make sure they don't coat where the hose will be.

[RX-7 Chris]

I think it's missing something, haha

[speedjunkie]

Yeah I'm kinda going the opposite direction of where I WANT to be going right now lol. But being stripped down is where I need it right now lol.

[speedjunkie]

I had a fairly light night tonight. I had two packages when I got home tonight. One was my AN fittings for the boost control solenoid. The same fittings I had ordered from A-Spec but never received, and I got them from ATP Turbo in just a couple days. I believe I'll be avoiding A-Spec from now on. Once I put them in, I realized that these must be 1/8 BSP instead of 1/8 NPT, but I screwed them in anyway. The thread aren't off by that much LOL.


The other package was the bracket for the oil catch can from Adam. It's pretty sturdy. The only problem I can see so far is that the holes to mount it are JUST too small, so I'll probably file those down or something. Knowing my luck this will be in the way of something else and I'll have to make more modifications lol.


After that, I pulled more of the water temp sensor wire so it can reach where it's mounted now. Then I removed the old coolant line to make way for the line to go to the wastegates when it gets here.

I thought I was done for the night so I ordered a 3.5" coupler, clamps, and a 90 degree aluminum pipe so I can make the CAI. I was going to order piping for the wastegate dump tubes, then I remembered I had a pipe from a couple years ago that I got for another project that I never started, so I tested it and it fit perfectly.

So I went ahead and cut that up into the pieces I need for the dump tubes and I'm going to take them to get welded tomorrow. I decided to go ahead and see if I can get the IC modified tomorrow too, so I put it about where it needs to be and made markings. Hopefully that can be done too.

This is actually moving faster that I thought it would. I just hope I can keep this up.

[Shadowden]

Glad its going better than imagined.

Hearing the troubles you guys are going through with fittings and running lines, and new brackets for ICs, radiators, etc. makes for interesting reading.

I imagine you have a welder you use regularly given the number of things you have had done. MAy have to get his name from you at some point (battery tray).

[speedjunkie]

Well as long as I get my parts on time, i.e. soon, I'll be happy haha.

Is it actually interesting reading? You must be joking. I fall asleep even typing it. LOL Mainly I'm using this as a log for this project. I just wish I'd been this detailed throughout the whole thing.

Yeah I have a couple different places I go to. There is a guy at It's About Time (IAT Welding) that I used to take all my stuff to, and I still do sometimes, but since Tom Beauchamp did my manifold I dropped off the intercooler and dump tubes with him today. He said it would be about $170 to modify the intercooler and the dump tubes would be pretty much nothing, and I'll get it all back around the middle of next week. It would be cool if I could have it sooner, but that's alright since I'll be waiting for parts anyway.

[chickenwafer]

Let me know if those w/g coolant fittings work. I basically conceded that I'm not running water cooling...ug.

[speedjunkie]

Why don't you get one of the banjo fittings? I don't think this stuff would work for you anyway. Or which ones are you referring to exactly?

I'm not feeling too motivated tonight haha. I might work on it anyway though, I got a few more parts in. I got those injector plugs from Mazdatrix, but now that I look at it, I'll have to modify the spacers on the secondary rail bolts. I need somewhere to attach something to hold the plugs in. Maybe I'll just use the original dummy injectors and just chop off the top of them so the rail itself can hold them down. That was the plan originally, but I need to use the injector spacers with them if I do that. I also got the 4AN/6AN expander fittings, and the 45 degree and 90 degree 4AN male/female adapters to use on the turbo oil feed line. I'm only using one of them because I already have a 45 degree on the engine side of the line, I wanted to get them both just so I'd have them both if I got the wrong one, so I wouldn't have to wait for another one to ship. I also picked up Mike's radiator today and I want to mock that up to see where it would sit so I can start working to modify mine. Oh and I got my 3.5" piping, coupler and clamps from Frozen Boost today too. Ugh, so much to do haha.

[speedjunkie]

I hardly touched the car at all this weeked. I got a few parts...the box of fittings and 4AN line from Summit, the fire sleeve, two more fittings from Summit (the 10AN ones)...

Last night was horrible. NOTHING wanted to work.

The firesleeve sizes I ordered were too small. On their website, it says the AN size of the sleeve...that's not the size that will work with the line you want to cover, that's the size of the sleeve itself. ARGH! So I'm ordering a couple sizes larger now.

I pulled all the fittings off the wastegates to put thread sealant on the threads and reinstall them and finally tighten them down. I dropped one of the washers down into the engine mount hole, which is a HUGE PITA to get out. So I had to remove the manifold after I tried getting it out and ended up pushing it further into the mount hole and losing it. I finally found it later. Whew.

I installed the 10AN fittings, one on the turbo and one on the drain tube to the engine, to see how long the drain line would be...the turbo wouldn't install because the fitting kept hitting the front wastegate, and it was a PITA to install the fitting on the turbo itself anyway. So basically now I'll be installing drain tubes on each end to just use a hose and clamps, since I don't have room on either end for the fittings and I can't get them lined up right (to face each other) due to clearance issues.

I tried the 120 degree fitting on the firewall side of the turbo and it STILL won't fit. This stressed me out for quite a while last night until I realized I could just run the coolant the opposite way through the turbo. Now I just have to find a way to use a banjo fitting on the engine side of the turbo since now I won't have room between the turbo and LIM for a regular fitting. Right now I'm thinking about just trying to heat up and bend one of the coolant banjo fittings so it will go out past the plug on the lower coolant port. If I can't do that, I'll just get a small spacer (if I can find one) and an extra copper washer and use that to space it out from the lower plug. (On the EFR turbo, there are two coolant ports on each side, and the plug for the other port sticks out and won't allow the banjo fitting to seat properly with the hose hitting the plug)

I've also decided against using stainless braided line for the wastegates (vacuum and coolant). Dave told me I could use regular hose, but so far I tried fitting the 3/8 hose into a 6AN fitting and had a pretty tough time with it. So if I can't find anything I will order some softer braided hose (nylon or whatever) and use that instead. I'm just dreading making the lines out of AN, and since I'm covering it all with firesleeve anyway, it doesn't matter if it's stainless braided or not. Plus softer, more flexible stuff will be much easier to bend into place if need be.

About the only thing that went SOMEWHAT right last night was putting the gold foil heat shielding on the firewall next to the turbo. And even that isn't great, since I didn't put it back far enough so I'll have to put more on tonight LOL.

I should be getting my IC and dumptubes back today. I still need to mock up the radiator and figure out where to get the new brackets welded. I'll probably do that tonight and drop it off at the welders tomorrow, along with mocking up the IC to see where to put the mounts for it. That's assuming I get it back today.