needed to test out if the wheels would fit, needless to say I think I have enough room for my brakes...
needed to test out if the wheels would fit, needless to say I think I have enough room for my brakes...
updates!!!
the exhaust is done and in!
dynod it and made about the same power but more power longer in the RPM (needed for shift points) and much much smoother,
a few tweaks still to go but major updates are still being done to the car:
like body work!
not just cosmetic but structural too... time to fit XL halos in this bitch!
as well as my self...
but that also means now the exhaust is going to be fully protected:
part of this whole seat/exhaust work is new underbody protection:
I think I will need to move the exhaust after sno*drift a bit more centerward as its very difficult to get at the joint but I don't think this exhaust is going anywhere... but I did have to use engine paint on the codriver tunnel to prevent it from probably catching the paint on fire... that would be bad...
no more exhaust damage like from 2017 summer sno*drift:
(co-driver holding up exhaust that i ran over. v-bands are not rally friendly when the exhaust is gonna get ripped off from dragging...
Nice! Good luck at sno*drift!
how close is the exhaust to that underbody protection?
In reply to artur1808 :
too close! i forgot to trim the smaller piece and the overflushness of it was pressed onto the exhaust and it melted on my 4th run! need to trim it and in general relocate the exhaust closer to the center so I think im gonna stuff it with heatshields and send it for this weekend and fix it afterwards.
For anyone not following 100 Acre Wood this weekend- I'm sure Kevin's back hurts today but this photo was probably worth it:
You guys were absolutely flying in both literal and figurative sense. Every time I look at your rally times I get a chuckle about them starting you right behind us at STPR in 19 (And we all know how that turned out lol).
And also thinking back to the two of us battling for the championship at GLDiv rally cross years ago. I'm still just a glorified rally crosser with a caged car, you guys are the real deal.
new RX-7club avatar!
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
oh man it was a hoot, still decompressing everything but glad we did and glad we didnt roll i was expecting things to go bad quickly but in reality it took the event pretty well only had to change the front brake calipers/pads and replace a brake line (broken during the brake process) a broken wheel and a bent rear lateral link that we hit back into submission.
uhh after typing all that it doesnt seem like normal abuse though. Those fast stages are tough to keep momentum, we are only started doing our notes together really this event, I knew those stages (roughly) from sno*drift so it wasn't totally blind like this one and trusting we had the notes right was tough but committing to the faster corners when you're ready to grab 4th gear and hoping it stays on the road is another thing all together. No fear of minutes lost in snowbanks here so doing tight corners was no problem the car rotates well but doesn't do uphill middle of third gear well. Im really tempted to go to a 4.78 rear end from mazdatrix and I learned that my car has terrible water intrusion and hitting the water crossings needs improvement (driver and car setup) but I have a plan for that... next year.
anyways here is the in car from the jump:
youtube was ruining the quality
No real updates, no real car damage either. Here is our bleeper/blooper reel from the event:
next up? Wheels are on order (BRAIDS) as I am now using wheels as a consumable... ~1.5 wheels per rally ruined on average now and about 1 or 2 new bends per wheel per event for the ones that still hold air.
Rear brakes need to be sorted out, I'm looking at willwoods; I just need someone to make the adapter bracket for me, as my "regular" source has grown too big for this small fish, even though it was his idea... but I digress...
Rockers and floor will get finished/repaired, i have a giant metal piece bent already as a rough cut so just need the time and welding gas to do so. maybe pin stands will get added? who knows!?
I still need to check compression and go from there, if I get a clean bill of health (or at least compression in the 80 psi range) and it still starts (its been cranky lately... cold) I will work redoing the intake, I can drop 40lbs of metal and clean up the engine bay meanwhile fix my water ingestion issue which was a problem at 100AW. I haven't had any attention on that car as I have been doing the broverlanding mods to the truck to support rally service and camping plus wedding and other shenanigans, just waiting for this financial storm to pass before I can go spendy spendy again.
fire suppression is on there too because I want to run some ARA rallies as much as I gripe about it I will still likely do some even though I think next year will be a NASA year.
floors and pinstand ( apparently now?) are getting finished up then when my shocks return from overhaul i can have the car mobile again. Lots to do before LSPR in october but at least the fire extinguisher system bottle is mounted so all thats left is run lines/nozzles.
rebuild some of the rocker and floor and tie it into the the new cross car bar that runs behind the the rocker for added protection, also always do the through the floor selfie when available.
I'm a dad now so these next 2 months are going to be hard to project but we shall see how crunch time goes once I can work up a routine and balance work...
LSPR is not being missed.
Got the rockers/floors repaired so now there is real metal once again under my legs and not just my ass.
I'm pretty sure I'm gonna need 4 unique pin stands though.
was able to get the bodywork done in time to make to Detroit's Dreamcruise and help paint the road black:
managed to ride with a few other rallyers too
had a fan give me a RX7 hotwheels so that was pretty cool, Yeah I'm still on old wheels and bald tires but these have arrived in time before the next event:
I'm breaking 1-2 wheels per event and I'm getting 3-4 new bends across the set every event, I never thought that wheels would be a consumable in a race car...
meanwhile work on the frankenwankel motor 3.0 is in action, no more streetports for me - its time to throw the purse at it and see what happens.
lots of prep work and porting ahead but all the major puzzle pieces have been acquired, which includes a new intake system entirely, since I have gained 10lbs of unsprung mass on each corner I will remove 40lbs of sprung mass off of the engine; with a little help of this guy
/teaser
fresh from Austraila :)
Lets play a game...
its called... what gear am I in? hint - I have 205/50/15s on currently.
more updates to come meanwhile I am prepping for LSPR in 2 weeks.
If you guessed 3rd gear or 4th gear you'd be wrong.
the correct answer is 6th! I finally managed to find my unobtanium gearset, the problem is that the 5.12 ring and pinion is no longer available and a bit too aggressive but what speed shops like Speedsource do to fight this (back in the day and now) is to EDM wirecut the pinion off the donor shaft, weld on that pinion you want and then turn the OD back to the size you need for a bearing on the existing shaft. This comes in a variety of sizes because the differential housing of this is common with other vehicles/makes/models so bolting on the corresponding 7" ring gear is very easy.
enlist some help with your gear guru buddy and then you're off to the races!
this is a 4.875 ratio with the pinion mod done by speedsource that I got off of a circuit racer - apparently all the popular road racing rx7 community has these scattered everywhere and I was able to get it 2nd (3rd) hand.
Doing some other cleanup and prep for the next rally I managed to get my exhaust in a more serviceable position and replaced the muffler, based on the articles here and from what I've heard (hearsay) that the burns stainless was a quality muffler to try, it is definitely louder than the old one but the construction is pretty top notch and the price reflects that. very lightweight but has a great sound to it, managed to replace the cat and redoe some exhaust hangers too. I need to count the number of times I've replaced the exhaust on this car - it could probably buy another rx7 but I don't think I want to know that value...
Either way, new catalyst after a romp session had it glowing like a lit cigarette
wheels/tires/alignment/oilchange are next
Ooo, I'm beyond jealous. I was at VIR last weekend and all I could think about is how I could use a shorter rear end. For smoothness it's best to leave the car in 3rd and 4th the entire time but there are a few areas where I'd get a massive acceleration boost from dropping into second.
I don't know of any shops that do this today.
In reply to infernosg :
I had to root around a few rotary circuit racer/road racer groups and found a guy who had a set spare he was willing to part with. here is a before and after:
before:
and after 
excited to see how this performs at LSPR in a weeks time, should make more 3rd gear more useable and 4th gear for long straights. shouldn't need 2nd gear unless its super tight/hairpin and first gear will basically just be for launching.
The event was awesome and we managed 2nd place in class!
due to a penalty (would have been 2nd in 2wd by 13 seconds without that, first in class) we took from being late to control because of a door handle issue but the car still runs but lets not talk about its hot or cold start issues.... so we move onward to chipping away at the new motor.
Inconel 718 time, just need to polish it up.
75% of our times were in the top five 2wd all weekend, 100% of the time we were top ten 2wd.
here is an onboard night stage where we were first in 2wd!
fidelity101 said:So I have been lacking in the updates recently. Well I traveled all last week for work so that sucked, didn't get any wrenching in.
A little bit of cardboard and a little bit of thin aluminum and some patience I managed to cut up the stock bracket and mock up something I can turn into a real bracket. So here is the tacked up beast. I used 3/16ths steel. Seems sturdy right? :p
Here is the final product:
My welder friend is a bit of an artists so he put his signature on it (smoky the bear) and added some flare for me lol.
In other news, ITS ALLLLLLLLIIIIIIVVVVVEEEEEEEEE. Here is the traditional 1st start video, well 1st run. Was too busy to get the phone ready for cranking and etc.
http://youtu.be/t1gbv0im_6U
Took some trial and error stabbing the distributor on the RB main pulley but it eventually fired right up. I let it run for about a half hour, check for leaks, only a few (minor) leaks so I'm gonna chalk that up as a win.
The plug I made for the factory turbo oil feed location on the front iron does not seal very well. I may be able to get away with just adding copper crush washer. Factory hardware is banjo bolt anyways for this location...
16psi rad cap on radiator, 13psi cap on t-stat neck. 13psi one does not have bleed off port. Thus leak. I will have to add an overflow port on the FD rad cap housing or go to a higher pressure cap. Griffin radiators lowest PSI for their caps is 16psi :/
Heater core outlet to radiator - (hence the t-shirt/rag in video) the outlet on the radiator is closer to 3/4 OD and the outlet on the heater core is more like 5/8ths OD. Right now I am having trouble finding a coupler for this issue.
Other than that I started to aim the headlights and bodywork might even go on later today. All that's left then will be clutch slave line, which I might have found the solution for and should arrive when I return from visiting family for Christmas.
on this day it ran for its last time.
RIP 11/21/2021 franken wankel #2
not a bad run from 12/22/2014 and a lot of different configurations throughout the life. (carb/megasquirt/haltech)
the first time I drove the car on the new motor was 1/1/2015
Oh yeah its dead...
the last time it really ran was loading it onto the trailer leaving the last rally so thats a win in itself!!
so time to announce the 3rd frankenwankel motor #3! its still 2 rotors but every new motor comes with some new goodies or ideas so here are some teasers:
rx8 rotating assembly (franken wankel #2 uses the e-shaft currently as a drop in swap but this goes a bit further) utilizing titanium hardware (the ti hardware is stupid I know, but I was going this far so I said F it...) and the whole assembly is rebalanced within 1 gram. There isn't much lightening you can do here outside of the racing beat pulley shown and the rx8 shaft (1/2lb lighter than the rx7 e-shaft)
so I had to find other areas to reduce mass:
rx8 rotors have been modified... extensively
to the untrained eye this just looks like some cool light weighting and some poor machning marks but what we have here is:
well we can't just do all this fun work and not let it breathe better can we? hell no! The stock intake is far too heavy and cumbersome so its time to drop some weight and increase the filtering and let some of these ponies breathe, here is a teaser for the intake. Trying to 3d print a collector out of aluminum for this as well:
just need to fill in the blanks with some tubing once I figure out the desired runner length
more on the intake soon but until then here is the intention:
Nice!
Who did the machine work?
Very nice! When my current motor comes apart next I'm planning on doing the same with RX8 rotors. I'll also be paying attention to you intake manifold design. I like my current powerband but the manifold leaves a little to be desired. Because it's intended for a IDA it has unequal length runner to keep the carb vertical. I'm also curous how that flange will work out. I see a few guys make them but I've also been a little concerned about the rapid transition from circular to oval port shapes.
In reply to amg_rx7 (Forum Supporter) :
I had Chips motorsports do it for me, he is local - long lead times but quality work so I had dropped these off well in advance.
I'm not so concerned about the circular to oval ports but with enough design time if someone could use some CFD software and identify the best geometry to make, that could be printed then welded onto a blank flange which would be cool but thats above my capability and network.
In reply to fidelity101 (Forum Supporter) :
I should clarify by "concerned" I mean "not ideal." You may end up giving up a few hp but in the grand scheme of things it probably won't be noticeable. The convenient of being able to use circular tube for the intake manifold probably makes up for any small losses. As for ideal, you want the intake runners to transition as smoothly and gradually as possible from the round shape of the IDA-style throttle bodies to the oval ports at the engine. Ideally, you also want the intake area to gradually get smaller as you near the engine with the port area be final size. The only real way to do this feasibly is with a cast manifold. I spoke to EFI Hardware about having a one-off cast manifold made to my specifications (equal length runners, 50 mm inlet diameters to match the TB, outlet ports to match my engine, etc). They quoted me something like $1500 AUD, which honestly seems low for a one-off cast part. Speaking of EFI, I can't tell from your picture but did you opt for the tapered bore TB?
In reply to fidelity101 (Forum Supporter) :
If only I had known I was a leader in RX7 fashion back in 2015
Can't wait to see what you do with the new engine
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