My new car!

[chickenwafer]

So for the hell of it today I decided to pressure test my intake system for boost leaks. I don't know why, but I've been thinking I have one. Probably because it takes more turns than I thought was necessary to get more boost with my manual boost controller. Regardless of the reasoning, I'm glad I did!

I found a MAJOR leak hissing away near my primary injectors. I'm still not 100% sure if it's just an open vacuum nipple or if the primary injectors aren't sealing and causing a leak, but whatever it is, it's BIG. The hissing is very audible even with my compressor set at 20psi and the system won't hold much (if any) air pressure. It's amazing I could even hold 12lbs of boost with my turbo!

So I need to pinpoint this leak and go to work. I doubt I will have it fixed before the cruise but I will try. To avoid stressing the turbo I'll just run my manual boost controller open for w/g spring (10psi) if I can't fix it before the cruise. The worst part is once the UIM is off to investigate the leak I can't pressure test anymore. Someone should make a blank LIM gasket that's solid so you can pressure test from the LIM down haha.

[speedjunkie]

I might look into that LIM pressure tester piece actually. I can get a plate water-jetted and then weld that onto some kind of manifold with a compressor fitting.

[Shadowden]

sounds like an easy piece to make actually. Sorry to see a lot of you guys considering moving away from the FD.

What would you go to?

[chickenwafer]

I might look into that LIM pressure tester piece actually. I can get a plate water-jetted and then weld that onto some kind of manifold with a compressor fitting.

I actually thought about seeing if your water jet guy could make a lim blank and you would just need an air chuck fitting to pressurize the system the rest of the way. I wonder how much it would cost?

sounds like an easy piece to make actually. Sorry to see a lot of you guys considering moving away from the FD.

What would you go to?

I'm not considering selling for financial reasons. I could sell it to pay off some debt and put the rest towards a nice down payment on a house. I'm not desperate, but it would give some breathing room.

I almost guarantee if I sold this FD I would buy another 5-10 years later. Not sure how I would build it, I'm sure there would be all kinds of different parts and options then. But I love rotaries so I'd be back.


On another note, I ordered some injector o rings and grommets from Atkins today so hopefully they fix the leak and I'll be ready to go before the cruise.

[chickenwafer]

Got all the wire, crimp connectors, and two 60 amp relays to wire up the fuel system. Also got the grommets for the injectors.

When Eric was up here on Sunday he helped me take off the UIM and fuel rails. I put the grommets on the fuel rail, lubed the o rings so they would last longer and not tear during install, and put the rails back in. I forgot when I first installed the fuel system I did so without the wiring harness, ignition coils and bracket, turbo oil feed, etc. so it was much more difficult to install them but I got it done.

Hooked up all fuel lines, plugged in all sensors in the UIM, bolted the UIM back on and the lastly the throttle body charge pipe. I held my breath as I performed a boost leak test...and...NO LEAKS!!! So happy! I was incredibly nervous there could be another leak I didn't find, but nope!

Also pressure tested the fuel system to make sure I had the rails in tight before putting the UIM back on. No leaks either.

For the fuel pump wiring, I was planning on taking pictures, but I got busy and wanted to put in the fuel system, so I didn't take any pictures haha. But I mounted the relays to an aluminum bracket and mounted the bracket to my battery bracket. Measured out the wiring lengths, crimped on the connectors, bolted up the relay, and done.

So now I just need to remove the fuel pump hanger, re do the wiring inside the tank, drill a hole for a grounding stud pass through and then seal the grounding stud and power bulkhead with fuel safe rated RTV. Put it all back together and test.

[speedjunkie]

Actually about all I did to help was try to move the wiring harness and whatever else out of the way while you were pulling it out. I was eating the rest of the time lol.

[Shadowden]

I'm guessing it is in the thread already, but since I can't see pictures at work, do you have a nice shot of your engine compartment> IF so, I'll check it out on the home computer.

I'm getting attracted to the idea of a shave and tuck. I'm not sure how serious I am as it would require loads of work and put the car down for a while. I don't think I would be able to take it as far as the picture below, but I find it very desireable.

[chickenwafer]

True Eric, you do love your Quiznos!

Shadow, here is a current pic of my engine bay:



It's not tucked by any means, it's something I'd really like to eventually do though. I'm also getting a little more adventours and deleting things I deem "unnecessary" such as the old school, 3-channel ABS module, hard lines for the ABS, etc. I think that will clean up the engine bay much more.

So last night I wanted to finish the car so I removed the fuel pump hanger assembly and re-did all the wiring in there with the high quality 10g wire and crimp connectors I sourced for the relay system. I also drilled a hole in the hanger top and ran a bolt through with PLENTY of sealant as a grounding stud for the pumps. The grounding stud is then grounded with a 4g cable to the chassis on a clean ground (verified with the trusty multimeter).

I ran everything through the grommet in the fuel pump access cover and connected it all, put the cover on then tested the system. Key on, I could hear the pumps prime and saw pressure, so I knew it was functional! I decided to ground the fuel pump circuit in the diagnostic plug under the hood to double check- all good! My fuel pumps even sound a little different now...like they're getting full voltage and amps for once! I let them run on full blast for a minute or so, the new wiring and relays didn't even warm up!

Anyways, like I mentioned earlier, I had planned on taking pictures of everything, but I spaced it and just wanted to work through, so I didn't. But here are some installed pictures:

Overview of the battery in the spare tire well (soon to be copied by Eric) with the relays mounted on the battery brace:



Close up of the relays, bracket, and wiring:





Lastly, I also got these spiffy 16oz spill-proof plastic containers from the Container Store. They are designed for toxic chemicals or something so they are guaranteed to NOT spill. I got 3 to use for containers to store my premix oil and motor oil since the quarts, once opened, will spill EVERYWHERE. So I think these will be a good solution to keeping my hatch dry once again:



I have tomorrow off so I'll be doing some road testing of the FD to make sure it's all good. I think my AFRs may be a little rich since my pumps are now finally getting the full power they can handle. Hopefully my boost threshold/response has also improved as well due to fixing the boost leak.


Last pic- a quick teaser Brent (Tnerb) sent me of the photoshoot we had a couple weeks ago, a preview of things to come:

[RX-7 Chris]

I like that container idea.

[VRx8]

Yeah the ABS needs to go! I've been thinking about deleting mine as well. JTurton7 deleted his and looked good fairly cheap. I think my spare tire is gonna go as well lol, that setup looks real good!

Looking good !

[chickenwafer]

Thanks guys. The spill proof containers will be put to the test on the cruise this weekend. If they don't leak then, I don't think they ever will haha.

Yeah Eduardo, I hate the abs, and it looks ugly, so I think ditching it will not only save some weight and improve braking performance but also significantly improve engine bay looks.

[chickenwafer]

So took the FD for a spin today to make sure everything was working good. Of course, she didn't disappoint and I almost got stranded!

First off, my fuel gauge has stopped working. The needle is just sitting at the dead bottom of it's travel. I went and got fuel, too, just to make sure and no dice. So I think the sender unit may have gotten damaged when I had the fuel pump hanger assembly out of the tank. Great. I'll probably have to wait to fix that until after the cruise. For now I just kept my gas receipt and will watch my trip odometer, I figure averaging around 10-12mpg in a safe bet LOL.

So driving around my AFRs were MUCH richer. In boost before I was consistently hitting 11.5-11.8AFR is boost (had it nailed down real well) and cruising 14.7-15.2 in vacuum, 13-12.5 in spool up. Well, now I was cruising around 13-13.5, spool up 10.5-11, and boost was deep in the 9's!! I had to pull around 15-20% of fuel from the boost map, I got it back to around 11-11.2AFR in boost before I noticed something wrong...

I ripped it for a boosted pull and smelled coolant, and lots of it. Glanced to the PFC Commander and it's reading 98*C water temp...I've never exceeded 92*C water temp yet with the new v-mount and that was on a mid 95*F ambient temp day, today was only around mid 80's F. So I knew something was up. I was fearing the worst, a blown water seal, a stray rock punched a hole through my radiator, something.

Luckily I noticed this quickly and was only a few miles from home. I turned around and limped home, A/C on full blast to keep the fans on the highest speed to help keep coolant temps low. I was lucky, the highest water temp I hit was 99*C.

Got home, shut the engine off, and immediately popped the hood...I see coolant spraying around from the rad cap. The cap is loose! So it wasn't holding any pressure and it was obviously leaking since it wasn't sealed. I wipe down the coolant that had escaped around the water neck and on the turbo, some was even sprayed on the underside of the hood.

Let it cool down and began to think how this happened. Did the pressure somehow increase so much to spin the cap free? Unlikely. I then remembered I took 2 engine bay pictures last night when I wrapped the car up (one of which I posted above in a previous post). It's hard to tell from that picture but the rad cap is indeed spun loose. I must have knocked it loose when working on the car, taking the intake manifold apart and working on the fuel system etc.

Here is another picture of the loose rad cap, I didn't even notice it (the "wing" on the cap should be straight 12 o-clock and 6 o-clock in-line with the overflow hose on the cap, you can see they are at around 10 0-clock and 4 o-clock)



So that's a sigh of relief. It could have been something much worse. Luckily it was just because I'm stupid and didn't double check everything. Well, lesson learned! I topped off the coolant (took nearly half a gallon! Oops) and started her back up and let her idle for a while, no sign of leaks or anything.

Now I just need to fine tune the AFRs in boost a little more since my test drive got cut short from the coolant leak. Also need to figure out the fuel gauge but that isn't as important.

[Shadowden]

Nice catch! Have a fun cruise. I doubt I will make it up there given the road report.

[VRx8]

Is that damn pfc lol. Im going haltech as soon as I can.

[chickenwafer]

Nice catch! Have a fun cruise. I doubt I will make it up there given the road report.

Thanks! What road conditions? I drove up to the entrance today and everything seems fine. Eric and I drove a shortened version of the cruise last weekend as well and it was great.

Is that damn pfc lol. Im going haltech as soon as I can.

I'm not having any problems with the PFC, it's working great. My AFRs were rich because I did a proper fuel pump re-wire so the pumps are finally getting full voltage like they're supposed to. So I tuned previously with a struggling fuel pump system. Nothing to do with the PFC.