Build thread

[RX-7 Chris]

I will be going to the show, I got the go ahead to leave the house. Lol

[speedjunkie]

Lol. Meet you there?

I'm trying to get people together to meet tomorrow night too. But I understand if you can't make that too lol.

[FDEEZ]

Hey Eric. I've been away from the Springs for quite a few months, and just got back in town. I'm going to take my car down for surgery after this weekend. So if you're looking for another rx7 to join the fun, just let me know the time/place. Btw, great job on your progress!

[speedjunkie]

I was wondering where you've been. You're definitely welcome to join! I'm planning the meet tomorrow night, going to the car show Saturday morning, and I'm hoping to make it to the Golden Super Cruise.

And thanks!

I confirmed that there is continuity between the connectors and the only thing I noticed was one of the wires on the stock part of the harness is the wrong color compared to what the FSM says, but I think Jesse had swapped that one when we had the harness out early last year because the original was too worn. Anyway, I turned on the AC and checked for ground on both and still got nothing. So that indicated that it's due to either the AC switch, blower motor switch, or thermoswitch, and because both the radiator fans come on with the AC switch and the blower changes speed with the blower motor switch I figured it was the thermoswitch. Tonight I looked at it and it wasn't even plugged in! So it's fixed right? Nope. Still didn't work. So I'm going to jump it tomorrow and see what happens.

I might have an idea of how to fix the horn issue, but I'm probably wrong lol.

[speedjunkie]

I may have spoken too soon on a couple issues being resolved. I still hear clunking coming from the rear, and I still get the starting click issue sometimes. The starting click issue could still be due to the way I have the other gauge wiring, which is how it was originally for the power wire too.

I'm going to do some more testing on the AC system by grounding one of the wires to the chassis, it's the wire that tells the ECU there is a ground so the ECU will then turn on the compressor. I'm pretty sure I can only do that temporarily, just to see if it works, because I believe it would leave AC on all the time. But I came across this thread on 7club that talks about the MANA system using 1-2v instead of 0v to ground and aftermarket ECUs don't recognize it as being grounded. My system is MANA and that would make COMPLETE sense for my situation.

http://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generation-s ... u-1003982/

[VRx8]

I did the starter booster mod on mine and the click click starting issue went away.

[speedjunkie]

I had that installed when I still had the battery in the engine bay, but since I hooked the battery cable straight from the battery to the starter, I got rid of it since it was redundant. I also have the battery ground going straight to the transmission, and I'm using 0 gauge on both of them. That starter booster did get rid of the issue when I had it years ago, but this is a newer issue.

[FDEEZ]

I'm off starting tomorrow. So if you want help troubleshooting your starting issues, let me know... I've got all my starting issues solved. Since my parts arrive Friday, I have some free time before I start tearing my car down.

[speedjunkie]

Thanks! I'm not in a huge hurry to figure this stuff out anymore this year, I'm more concerned with finding a job now lol. But I'll hit you up. Thanks for the offer!

[speedjunkie]

Regarding the AC system, I jumped 1E straight to ground and turned on the AC, it didn't work. That is the wire going into the ECU to tell it to give ground and turn on the AC. So apparently even if the ECU was being told to turn on, it still wouldn't. I jumped the wiring coming out of the ECU, 1L, and it engaged the clutch on the compressor immediately. When I turned on AC it was supposedly working, but the air never got cold. Chris told me something else to try but I haven't done that yet.

I took the gauges out the other night and started rewiring the gauges. I used a lot of the splices that Dave calls vampire clips, like these https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013BC8MZ8?psc=1, and I will never use these again. I found a couple more wires that weren't making a good connection, so I changed how I wired them. I think this was my persistent problem with the fuel gauge, it wasn't getting a good connection and wouldn't let me set the levels. It was also my problem with the cruise control, it wasn't even touching bare wire.

For the fuel gauge, I ran the gauge wiring all the way to the rear and spliced into the wiring coming out of the fuel hanger. Now it's working consistently. Well, I believe it is anyway haha. I know the gauge needle moves, but I had reset it when I first unplugged it because when I tried it again it didn't work at all and I thought it lost it's setting. So I'm not sure if it will actually move with the fuel level.

I had three wires for cruise control spliced into the stock wires using those same vampire clips so I decided to splice them the same way as the others. I tested the cruise control after that and it works! It only works up to 50mph, but it still works lol. I'm working with Bobby to see if I can get it adjusted.

[speedjunkie]

I drove the car tonight and I didn't have any problems starting it. But now the e-brake light stays on hahaha. So I'll look into that to see if it's the switch or the light for some reason. And I did verify that water injection still isn't working. My fuel gauge did move a little but I'm still not sure about it's accuracy, so I'm going to look into that this weekend.

[speedjunkie]

I reset the fuel gauge last night, so that's good. And tonight I removed the cruise control board that Bogdan made and gave it back to him to do some testing. He said he's going to make another board a little different and do some testing on it. There is also a lot of talk about this in one of the threads on 7club. I guess Dakota Digital makes something similar that works and for $20 Speedhut will modify their GPS speedo to put out the correct signal. But I think Bogdan's board will do everything I need it to do with the stock wiring. Very simple setup.

I didn't look into the ebrake light yet. I have a hunch some wire is resting on the circuit board on the back of the gauge cluster and applying power to the light, but we'll see. I drove the car today and I just love it so much haha. It's so fun, and it's finally set up just the way I like it. For several years it was modified to the point that I didn't like driving it anymore. Now it's just awesome, back to what I really like.

[speedjunkie]

Well the ebrake light was an easy fix. It went away after I topped off the brake fluid haha. I didn't realize it would light up if the fluid was low. Turns out the brake line was still leaking, worse than before actually. This time it was leaking from both ends, I guess I hadn't tightened it enough on the upper end when I installed the new one. Jesse was pumping the brakes while I was under the car and it was leaking pretty bad. I had picked up some more fluid from 3Zero3 Motorsports, I forgot how pricy it was.

Sunday I went for a drive with some other car guys west of Denver through the mountains. I don't remember where all we went but I know we got up to above 11k feet. It was a great drive. I did have clicking start issues again, so I guess I'll be digging into that again. Ugh. I also figured out my lean spot is at 3500-3700 in every gear. I was told that I was shooting flames quite a bit on that drive. WOOHOO lol.

[speedjunkie]

Cody told me yesterday that he did a fix to his starting click issue and it cleared up the problem. Basically ran a wire directly from the starter cutout relay connector to the starter, which I think Chris basically eluded to before haha, except I think Chris was talking about running it from the ignition switch all the way down. Either way, I did that today and I'm hoping it fixed the problem. So far it's working but I won't know for sure until I try it a few hundred times haha. It seems to creep up after the car has been driven for a while.

I started looking into the horn issue and I'm still confused. According to the FSM the wire for the horn goes through connector X09 which is one of the connectors for the airbag harness. I think it's one the impact sensor plugs into, which makes no sense whatsoever.

I picked up some rubber vacuum elbows to use on the current washer nozzles and also some 90 degree washer nozzles to swap in. I'm still waiting to see what I'm going to use. I'd kinda like to do a conversion to mount the nozzles on the wipers but I think that would be a lot more work. If I can at least clean up the hose routing I'll be happy.

I also noticed that I'm still leaking brake fluid. It's really starting to piss me off.

I stopped by PCS Motorsports today and talked to Travis about doing some street tuning on 17 Oct.

[RX-7 Chris]

Yup basically what I said lol. My thought was to bypass all the relays and wiring but try it like you have it and see if it works.