Build thread

[RX-7 Chris]

Nothing like car parts in the kitchen, lol.

My wife would kill me, lol.


Maybe it was one of the hose connections?

[speedjunkie]

Nothing like car parts in the kitchen, lol.

Yep lol. When I rebuilt the engine back in 2008, I did it in the dining room of my house back in NC lol. One of the guys in Norway (I think that's where he is) washes his engine parts in his dish washer lol. I haven't done that yet lol.

My wife would kill me, lol.

Maybe it was one of the hose connections?

Yeah I figure this will end someday if and when I get married lol.

I think maybe the o-ring leaked on one of them, but who knows now. He moved the pipes around while leak testing and I did see a bubble or two, but once he stopped moving it, it stopped. So I have no idea.


I went looking for foam today. I went to Hobby Lobby, Lowes, ACE Hardware, and Timberline Foam and Upholstery, and I found some stuff at the upholstery shop and I got some basic weather stripping at Lowes. I also found a place that sells RC foam and supposedly they moved from GA to here a couple years ago. It looks like they have some stuff that might work too so I emailed them to see if they did move here.

I also picked up some black model paint to try to fix my fan speed AC panel indicators and I used a toothpick to apply the paint and I guess the end of the toothpick was still too big to get all the parts I messed up without getting on the letters. I guess I'll have to use a needle and a magnifying glass lol. Actually I think I'll just try to get a new piece to start over.

[MtnHighRX-7]

Try these guys in denver http://www.b-dco.com , you can get there # off the website. I used them afew years ago they had all kinds of stuff for diy-ers. I believe they had foam for sale as well.

[speedjunkie]

Well crap, I already ordered from McMaster-Carr lol. I cleaned the blower box the other day and I put it back together with foam I got from the Timberline place. I started thinking about the fact that the flapper doors next to the heater core will need to have higher heat tolerances and I don't know what that is for the foam I got locally. I put a pot of water in the oven at 215F and left it there for a while, then took it out and held the stiffer foam against the pot and it was fine, but that's so ghetto I'm not sure if it was even close to accurate lol, and I really don't want to take any chances since it's such a PITA to pull out the dash.



I used the headliner foam where they had the softer stuff, but I put the open cell portion down, glued to the door, with the fabric on top in the hopes that it will last longer that way than the original stuff did. And I put the stiffer foam where they had the stiffer stuff. Both of these are a bit thicker than the old stuff but it seems to work OK.



And the weather stripping on top is coming off so I think I'm going to have to spray Duro adhesive on that too so it will stick better.

I also got the Adaptronic ECU yesterday. It shipped super fast!

[speedjunkie]

I forgot to update this the other day when I got my gauges. I took some pics but it's too late to post them right now. I'll do it tomorrow. I got the holes in the gauge cluster "skeleton" expanded to fit the new gauges, and they still need to be molded in, but today I noticed that the faces of two of the gauges are off center, so I think I'll be sending those two back to be fixed.

I took my AC parts (evaporator, compressor, and lines) to my buddy Travis Flesher at Craig Auto today at lunch to get them flushed out since the lines were open in the engine bay for five years and were probably full of who knows what. He flushed everything and I had it all back after work today. He even buffed and polished the lines he knew I'd be using. GREAT SERVICE!

I ordered some foam from McMaster-Carr and got it a couple days ago. Tomorrow I'll be finishing up rebuilding all the HVAC boxes so I can put them back onto the firewall and put the dash back in. I still have to put the vent ducting back into the dash first though. I took them out and cleaned them. I also pulled the passenger airbag but quickly realized it will be more work to pull the dash cover off of it and mold it onto the dash, so I guess I'll be reinstalling the airbag lol. I also have some repairs to make to cracks in the dash.

I'm also going to pull the rear bins out and relocate the battery, I hope I have time for that tomorrow. I think I'll be able to complete everything tomorrow and have it all ready for the gauges by the time they get back. I may even be able to source a condenser that will fit and take the car to Craig Auto to get the lines made.

And I bought a dryer that belongs to the other system that came on the FDs, and sourced the holder for that dryer from a guy in VA, just in time for Oscar to tell me he had all that stuff at his house and he'd give it to me for free LOL. Oh well.

There is quite a bit going on and I feel like I'm forgetting things. Maybe tomorrow I'll remember lol.

[speedjunkie]

Well obviously I haven't put pics up yet and I'm working nights right now, so I can't do it this time either lol.

I went with Al to U Pull & Pay Saturday morning and we raped some parts from the two RX-7s out there. Al raped the GSL-SE and I got a few parts from the FC. The heater core was laying in the hatch area and I noticed it used the same rod-holding clips that the FD core uses, so I took those, the oil cap and the heater core itself, just in case my FC has a bad heater core someday. I imagine they're near impossible to find these days since parts for the FD are practically impossible to find already. I was super happy to get those clips though, since you can't get them new anymore and The Clip House was closed Saturday and probably doesn't have them anyway.

Before the salvage yard I went to Performance Radiator and ordered an expansion valve. I got it today and it was the wrong one. ARGH!!!! I took it back and looked online and as it turns out, my car is using an expansion valve listed for a 1984 RX-7. So I called Autozone and ordered one of those, should be here in two days. It's starting to tick me off because that's the only reason I haven't put the evaporator box back together yet and gotten them and the dash back in the car.

The dash is pretty well back together now. I think I need to make some adjustments to the airbag because it's sitting kinda funky now. And the JB Weld and JB Kwik I used to mend some of the cracks in the dash is proving to be pretty worthless. As soon as I started screwing the metal structure back into the plastic part of the dash, some of the screw holes started cracking again right away. So I left it put together and JB Kwiked them again. I replaced the foam on the wiring harness with new foam. I'm not even sure why it's on there in the first place, but now it's new. I'm also trying to seal up any openings between the AC/heat ducting in the dash.

I gathered parts for relocating the battery to the rear bin and I pulled the bins today. I discovered that the bottle of coolant I had in the bin had leaked and the bin was half full. *Facepalm* Didn't know the bottle had a hole in the bottom. Anyway, it's all ready for drilling the holes and mounting the battery now. I think I'll do that tomorrow in the daylight instead of tonight after work.

I mailed the gauges back to Speedhut yesterday afternoon, so hopefully they'll fix them and get them back right away. I'm tired of not being able to drive the car on these nice, cool days.

I'm also looking for a different condenser, one that will fit better with my setup. The guys at Performance Radiator let me borrow their book over the weekend because it has sizes and specs of all the condensers for every kind of car. I found one for an MX-3 that would work well, but they're discontinued. I found one for a Miata that should work alright too and that one is still produced, so we'll see what happens. I have to wait to buy it until I have money again. I'm living on the remainder of money for my new windows for the house when they come in LOL. Buying that ECU set me back a bit.

I also figured out how to mount the new ECU and other logging accessories...which is to not mount them at all but jam them in there so they won't move...since there are no mounting holes I can use to mount it. I figured there would be, and I was excited about that, but oh well.

Now I'm trying to figure out how to hook up my EGT sensors to the computer AND the gauge so I can have both. I have a little dual EGT adapter box from FJO that Simon gave me but we don't have installation instructions, so I contacted FJO for that. I also need to figure out how to wire in the new gauges and the logging box.

[RX-7 Chris]

You could look at the expansion valve on my car.

[speedjunkie]

Really? Isn't it mounted under the dash? That's where mine is. Either way, it'll be here tomorrow afternoon.

Now I'm planning on going up to see Mike B Saturday morning and take a look at what parts he has. I really need to pay off the credit card and other things that I've bought recently, but Mike has a good stock carpet and this is the time to replace it since it goes up under the dash.

Today I went looking for battery cable for the relocation. Last time I used 4 gauge audio cable but I wanted to use actual battery cable. Went to Airgas and they didn't have what I was looking for. Went to Whisler Bearing and they didn't have anything at all. Then I went to Beauchamp Racing and asked Tom what he uses and he said he gets welding cable...back to square one. I stopped by OEM Parts and they didn't have anything, but I didn't look long either because I was in a hurry. Then I went to ACE Hardware and got the terminals I needed, and went to Hensley battery after that I they had exactly what I was looking for. AND it was welding cable, in red and black. WOOHOO!! So since I'm working nights with virtually nothing to do, I brought the cables to work and built them, using a vise to crimp the terminals and then soldering the ends as good as possible, but I've learned by soldering sucks lol. Then I sealed all the connections with heat shrink. I'll take a pic when I have my phone again. It's all good to go though.

I was about to cut into the rear bin to make room for the battery, but I couldn't bring myself to do it lol. So I posted on facebook and a friend in WA has a set of bins that are already cut.

I'd really like to get Alcantara suede and cover the dash while it's out too, but I don't think I have the money or patience to wait for that too. I'd probably take it somewhere to get done since I don't trust myself to do it without making a mistake lol.

I also brought the gauge cluster hood to work tonight to see if I could fix one of the mounting tabs. So far it's going alright I guess. I had some extra ABS plastic so I cut a new piece and shaped it to fit for the most part, then I tried to melt the plastics together but that didn't work lol. So I used JB Kwik, but it hasn't been holding too well on my other plastics so we'll see what happens here. I'm going to gob a bunch more on there though and drill the new hole and test it when I get home.

[RX-7 Chris]

I have an extra in the garage. Now that I think about it, it's an '83.

You can have it if it can be any use to you.

[speedjunkie]

Well I picked up the expansion valve today but now I'm not sure I'm even going to put it in haha. After asking around and learning these really don't fail that often, I've decided I'll take my chances and just keep this one in there. I'm sure this is going to bite me in the ### lol. Thanks for the offer though, Chris!

Here are the pics I hadn't posted yet.

Here are the gauges when I first got them and kinda what they'll look like installed...




In these two pics you can see how the faces are off center...



I took the steel structure completely out of the dash to fix all the cracks, some of which then cracked again when I reinstalled the steel lol.


The kitchen has been decluttered a bit since these pics were taken since I'm putting stuff back together, but this is what the kitchen and dining room looked like a few days ago. A wife's DREAM! lol




Removed the rear bins too in preparation for the battery re-relocation...


I thought I took pics of the dash put back together but I guess not. You can see in the third pic how I rewrapped the wiring harness with new foam. And I went a little crazy trying to seal up all the air vents in the dash. I put thin weather stripping around the defrost vents and I sealed the ends of that duct where it connects to go out to the doors...

[RX-7 Chris]

Looks good.

That kitchen is a mess, lol.

[speedjunkie]

Correction: The kitchen WAS a mess. Well, it is still a mess, just not as much with car parts lol.

Thanks!

[Brigdh]

Now I'm trying to figure out how to hook up my EGT sensors to the computer AND the gauge so I can have both. I have a little dual EGT adapter box from FJO that Simon gave me but we don't have installation instructions, so I contacted FJO for that. I also need to figure out how to wire in the new gauges and the logging box.

Since a thermocouple produces a voltage as a signal and not resistance (like most other sensors), you can just splice in a second wire and sent it to the second thing (gauge or ECU).

[iani1.1]

With a setup like that, I would never leave the car lol

[speedjunkie]

Since a thermocouple produces a voltage as a signal and not resistance (like most other sensors), you can just splice in a second wire and sent it to the second thing (gauge or ECU).

I'm not sure I follow.

So each EGT sensor has two wires and I put a k-type connector each one. I had that plugged into my gauges, via a little box for each gauge with a k-type connector on one end of the box and the wire going to the gauge on the other end of the box. The TC-4 has several hookups for EGT sensors, and you don't use a k-type connector, they just wire into the TC-4 connector like on a datalogit. If I was just logging I wouldn't have anything to worry about, I would just wire them into the TC-4 and then that plugs into the ECU.

The FJO box has two k-type connectors, one for each sensor. But they only have one wire for each output. My problem is ideally I need four wires for each sensor going in, one to the gauge and one to the TC-4. So not only do I not have 8 total for output, I step down to 2.

With a setup like that, I would never leave the car lol

What setup are you referring to? This is pretty much my line of thinking, because after all this I'm going to lose my house because the car is so expensive, so if I don't want to leave the car it kinda works out. LOL


I went to Denver tonight and picked up the carpet from Mike B. It's in pretty good shape and he gave me a killer deal. I'm going to use a carpet cleaner on it before I install it, then I'll try to clean up all Smokey's past messes on the living room carpet LOL.

I also just realized it may be a lot harder than I planned to wire my SPA gauges into the cluster. I was going to just cut the wires and put connectors in the middle, but I really don't want to damage the wires, so I may try to find connectors that work with the original SPA connectors and just make extension harnesses so I can disconnect them behind the dash. It would be a HUGE PITA to take the gauge cluster apart while it's still hanging by harnesses just to get those gauges disconnected.