My new car!

speedjunkie · Postby **speedjunkie** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:14

I think only the passenger side locks actually, so you'd have an angry dog chomping on your neck in no time lol.

Learjet45 · Postby **Learjet45** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:14

You could try contacting this guy for the seats:
http://www.jimmys-rx7.co.uk/used-parts-rx-7-series-3-fd.html

I had never heard of rear seats in the RX7. I know that some car makes included useless rear seats for insurance purposes, but I never knew Mazda did this for the RX7 in Japan. So I was intrigued and googled a bit and stumbled across http://www.fd3s.net/rear_seats.html and I believe that first link is to the guy who he bought the seats from.

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:14

Thanks for the links man! I already found sets in good condition (one on EBay and the other on the national RX7 Forum) so if those fall through I'll contact that guy.

I've done a little more research on the rear seats and apparently they were optional on RX-7's in Canada and the UK as well. The USA was the only country to get the FD with no rear seat option. No R1/R2 models had rear seats anywhere, and the other special edition FD's (Spirit R, Bathurst, SP, and Type-RZ) had rear seats either.

The whole reason for the rear seats is for insurance purposes because in Japan insurance for sports car (defined as a 2-seated in Japan) is extremely expensive, around 3-4 times MORE to insure. They are also more expensive to register and plate in Japan, where a title and reg can run you over $2000 for a sports car. Having the utterly useless rear seats (for humans) doesn't hurt performance and saves customers money in the process. Intriguing stuff.

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 9:14

Just found a set of MINTY fresh JDM rear seast with only 20k miles on them and hardly ever used, scored a pretty deal on them IMO. They are also currently in Texas so hopefully they will be here quickly. Woot! Rear seats!

Problem is they are obviously black and I have a tan interior. The seats include everything so I'll have black from behind the seats, so I'll still need black door panels (biggest item), driver and pass kick panels, and door sills. If it looks too funky I will swap my tan headliner for a black one but I think it will look OK.

Postby **RX-7 Chris** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 9:14

it'll probably look fine.

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 9:14

Yeah, I think it will look fine, especially since I'll have tan seats still for a while until I get them recovered. I want to get the tan seats recovered in black leather with the centers in perforated leather (for ventilation), contrasting red stitching (will be matching) and built in seat heaters in the butt and backrest.

I will have the rear seats I just picked up also get the contrasting red stitching treatment so they will match the interior well.

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:14

Got my plate renew reminder deal in the mail today confirming I do indeed need an emissions test...grrrrrrr!

Instead of getting the cat welded in and risking the chance of rotating a flange or mis-aligning something, my friend Matt (Alpha) reminded me of butt-joint exhaust clamps so I just just cut the pipe and clamp in the cat and rotate it so no chance of a flange getting rotated or anything.

Now I just need to see if I can find some 3" ID butt-joint exhaust clamps. All AutoZone had was the stupid little u-bend metal rod and clamp assembly which won't obviously work. So I might have to order them from Summit, which isn't too bad since they have 'em for cheap but then there is shipping cost and wait time.

Hopefully I will get to an emissions station sometime next week then if not next weekend and get this done.

I also received my new NGK 9's plugs and block off plates from Banzai (talk about fast shipping) and the PowerFC and resonated midpipe will be here tomorrow!

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:14

(Double posting because I could not do one large post for some reason, website kept saying "internal server error")

Side note- I LOVE LOVE LOVE Banzai Racing. I wish they sold more because I would only buy from them if I could. I ordered the spark plugs, block off plates, and PowerFC Sunday night. First thing Monday morning (8:30 AM) I had an email with the two tracking numbers (they went out in separate shipments) and a thank you. It was awesome.

By contrast, I ordered my RX7Store resonated midpipe on a Friday night (two weeks ago this Friday). Order goes through I hear nothing. So on the following Tuesday I email them asking if it went out. I get the informational response of "yes", that's it, no tracking number or anything. Then on Thursday I email them again and ask for a tracking number, they reply the next day (Friday) with a response of "Tracking number is 1zXXXX, here ya go..." literally, with the implied attitude of "how dare you ask for that" or something. The best part was it didn't even actually ship until that Friday! They told me 3 days ago it had shipped, so they straight up lied to me!

It just boggles my brain how companies can operate so differently. Banzai treats customers with respect and I'm pretty sure has never wronged a single customer. They even sent me a Christmas card and before this last order I've only spent around $500 with them! I was blown away. But then you have other companies you have to email and get the runaround in order to find out if they haven't scammed you or not. It makes me worry if I have a problem with the product I purchased they will leave me out in the cold...if this midpipe shows up dented or broken I'm probably screwed.

/rant, just though I'd share my experiences

Postby **RX-7 Chris** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:14

You aren't the only one to have problems like that with rx-7store. I think it was Huzer that had trouble with them buying an exhaust for his rx-8.

I've had a ton of luck with Mazdatrix and onlinemazdaparts.com

I also hear good things about Atkins and RE-Speed.

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:14

I've heard of issues with RX7Store but I gritted my teeth and ordered from them anyways when I knew I shouldn't have. They had the best price on a resonated midpipe, by far, so I went with them.

So I did get the PowerFC today as well! It's like parts galore in my garage right now:

And the new plugs and block off plates as well:

PowerFC is going in tomorrow afternoon as the weather should be gorgeous.

iani1.1 · Postby **iani1.1** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:14

is that the newer commander?

speedjunkie · Postby **speedjunkie** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:14

Yeah RX7store takes a while to ship stuff and they don't give you any information at all. The only place I know of worse than them is Rotary Shack. Simon waited on his ABS delete kit for about a year or so I believe.

I've bought stuff from FDNewbie and AutoRND and they took several months, but those were special circumstances. Well, AutoRND was anyway since they were being specially made in Japan.

I ordered the new LED Commander too so we'll be twins...kinda LOL.

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:14

Yeah Ian, new OLED Commander. Soooo much easier to see than the old version, especially in sun light. It's a drastically huge difference.

Also, UPS dropped off my RX7Store midpipe. It was packed well and a rather huge box that I'm pretty sure costs them more to ship than what they charged me. At least it showed up and it looks fine, no dents or broken hangers. I'll be pulling the midpipe this week to put in the cat, pass emissions, then the resonated midpipe will go in.

So today I filled the FD up and $60 later I had a full tank...damn gas prices! Pulled the factory ECU, installed the patch harness, got the PowerFC in, hooked up the Commander. I decided to leave the FC Datalogit out of the equation for now.

Turned the car on, Commander booted fine, so far so good! Went to the sensor check menu, no sensors out of spec. Gritted my teeth and turned the key...crank crank crank and it fired to life!

As expected, idle was a hunting for the first minute but it quickly settled into a 900rpm idle then gradually feel to it's 850rpm set point. Once it smoothed out, I turned on the A/C so it could learn "load" idle. It hunted again for a handful of seconds then smoothed right out. Turned A/C off and it went right back to 850 and solid like a rock. I was impressed! This is a full standalone ECU that is idling my FD at a curiously lean 16:1 AFR and rock solid idle out of the box, no tuning!

So I started to drive, and immediately noticed the throttle felt slightly "crisper", but not much. No hesitation anywhere in the RPM band, smooth like the OEM ECU. Never even came close to stalling or even sputtering.

Then the moment of truth...boost test. Got to my open "test n tune" road and dropped it into 3rd at 3k rpm and slowly rolled into the go pedal. Boost built to about 5psi (lower than normal) and AFRs were looking great in the mid 11's. The secondary turbo transition point is different and it came on around 4100rpm or so, then the secondary rose to 11psi like normal.

It felt slower initially, and I partially blame the transition between primary to both turbos. With the stock ECU, it's a rather abrupt switchover right at 4500rpm, almost like hitting a second powerband, because at that level, the primary is running out of steam and near the choke line of it's compressor map, if not already on it with a modified setup. The transition on the OEM ECU is so violent in 1st, 2nd, or even 3rd you could potentially break the tires loose if you were in a corner. In fact, I have broken the tires loose in a straight line in 2nd gear during transition when I was overboosting to 15psi.

With the PowerFC, is a much more gradual, gentle transition. I think this is also because it occurs sooner with the stock map on the ECU. Transition now occurs during the peak of the primary (instead of a few hundred rpm after it like stock), so it's still on full song and then the secondary just kind of merges with it- not shock or powerful change over.

I kinda like it, because now the car just generates trust in a different but still fast and fun way. Although I do kind of miss the visceral feeling of the violent transition. I suppose if I really want it back I can mess with the setting in the Datalogit to change transition to where it happens, but I don't think it makes the car any quicker.

So after toying with the stock map, I did feel it was slightly worse at lower rpm, and because I'm me, I loaded my own base tune I had made with the Datalogit. It was largely based on the stock PFC map but with a few tweaks. I also upped the duty cycle for primary turbo boost to try to get it back to at least 10psi.

New map ran perfectly. Idle was rock solid, no hesitation anywhere, and definitely some more pull. AFRs were slightly richer but not too bad, especially for a map I made on a computer at home. Cruising AFRs need some work but really that's about it.

However, even with 94% duty cycle on the primary turbo actuator solenoid, I can't seem to get more than 7psi out of it. I am going to order the dual manual boost controllers this week so I can just adjust it that way and hopefully get the boost I'm looking for. I think a 14-14 boost pattern would haul balls!

So I'm pretty happy with the latest addition and can't wait to get the boost turned up! At 11psi off the secondary I was still only seeing 64% max duty cycle on the injectors so I still have plenty of headroom.

Postby **RX-7 Chris** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:14

Good news

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Fri Mar 11, 2011 9:14

^Thanks!

Found a good deal on a new dome light/sunroof switch combo piece used (my sunroof switch is broken) so I purchased that this morning as well as submitted my Summit Racing order for the exhaust butt clamps and some cans on Dupli Color vinyl die and bumper paint I plan on redoing my interior with. Will post pictures when I do it!

Also found some Hallman Pro RX manual boost controllers on eBay for cheap so I bought two, one for each turbo. I should be able to dial in a consistent 13psi for each turbo so I think she'll pull like a raped ape!

My new car!

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