STOLEN: My 1993 Mazda RX-7

Ranger · Postby **Ranger** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:14

Thanks! Yeah it's healing up fine. I have a cast on for another week but oh well. BTW, if you ever have questions about NASA, feel free to ask me.

What would be the benefit of using an FC coil? I said they don't go together because it just seems like an ass backwads system to me...at least the way mine is. To use something that doesn't fit on the car and then have to install a new ignition box, just seems a bit odd to me. As it is, the harness was just spliced together, it's a mess as you know. There is a huge piece of it in that area that's not connected to anything, my guess is it was for an alarm or something at one time. The spliced part may have been done for some other reason...but I'd like to put it back to stock just to clean things up.

Thanks for the offer on the IC, but with my cooling the way it is I'd probably be better off dealing with the lag haha. Plus I would need to relocate my radiator to go back top a stock IC. The rat's nest would be helpful though. Mainly I'm just still trying to figure out how I'm gonna get the thing registered...the guy who's helping me said it'd never pass without all the emissions equipment in place. Even if I had a cat and an air pump, it'd still fail, as strict as CO's emissions standards are. Last time I tested it, it was over 3x the legal limit. It's looking like I need to make friends with someone out in the mountains or something, haha. Welcome to owning a modded car in a state that's not tuner friendly...

Ranger · Postby **Ranger** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:14

Ok, I think I understand it now. The general consensus seems to be that using an FC coil for the leading plugs, along with a digital CD ignition box like the HyFire, is a great upgrade. From what I can tell it's not necessary to use this for the trailing plugs, hence the redundancy. I think it'd be fine to use this setup, in fact it will be a good upgrade for if I ever go single turbo / upgrade fuel system...BUT it definitely needs to be rewired, and I need to find a place to mount the coil, preferably NOT one near a fuel line LOL. Eric, do you know of any pages / threads that can offer advice on this? I tried searching RX-7 Club but their search is broken. Nopistons is down, too.

Ranger · Postby **Ranger** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:14

Whew, progress! Good progress. No more duct taped wiring :lol:

There were so many things wrong with this car though, not just the wiring. Turbos all wrong, OMP not receiving positive pressure (basically it was doing nothing), old / hardened / cracking coolant lines and one that was rubbing on the steering input shaft, etc. It's 10000000 times better than it was. The old harness for the leading ignition coil was laughable...I'd like to meet the guy who did it. It had wires with 10-15 breaks in them, i.e. one long wire that was actually 10-15 pieces of wire soldered together. Then it had sections where instead of cutting the wire to the right length, extra wire was just taped up in a ball. Anyway I'm hoping to have this thing running reliably by the bday bash, but we'll see.

speedjunkie · Postby **speedjunkie** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:14

Damn, good job! I can't stand when people do shoddy work. Sorry I never responded, I've been pretty busy over the last month or so.

Ranger · Postby **Ranger** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:14

No problem man, I've been insanely busy too. I haven't even been on this site much because of it. But I didn't do most of the work :lol:

Tom Huerta (previously of Rotary RX in NM) did it. I bet I could do it now though, since I now know how everything works. The ignition system on these cars is really pretty simple once you dig into it...it just looks like a nightmare from the outside, especially with the way it was. I'll post up before and after pics later. I'm still confused about the turbo control system though...it's a good thing I'll (hopefully) never have to touch it again.

speedjunkie · Postby **speedjunkie** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 9:14

Ranger wrote:...it's a good thing I'll (hopefully) never have to touch it again.

Yeah....good luck with that! LOL

Ranger · Postby **Ranger** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 9:14

It's alive!!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e5hlJLUM5k"]YouTube - FD RX-7 First start[/ame]

This car will be running good and registered soon. Right now I need to focus on finishing non-sequential mod...getting no boost because one of the butterfly valves related to sequential crap is stuck closed by default. Then once I'm getting boost I've gotta have it tuned. Anyway it is still wayyyy better than it was. Can't wait to start driving this thing again.

speedjunkie · Postby **speedjunkie** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 9:14

Congrats! How does it drive? Full boost?

Postby **RX-7 Chris** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 9:14

COOL glad you got it going. Now you need to make it to a meet.

Ranger · Postby **Ranger** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 9:14

No boost at all right now, there is one more piece to the non-sequential conversion that I need to do. There's a butterfly valve in the TCA that is controlled by the (now removed) sequential circuit...by default it sits in a closed position so I've got to wire it open. Right now when I boost it just does nothing pretty much because the boost isn't making it into the engine, haha.

And yes this thing will be registered hopefully very soon, so I can start making meets again

speedjunkie · Postby **speedjunkie** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 9:14

The TCA? I don't remember that acronym haha. Do you still have your second butterfly valves in the UIM? Or did you remove them?

Ranger · Postby **Ranger** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 9:14

Pretty sure those are removed but not positive. I can't remember what all we did LOL.

TCA = Turbo Control Actuator. It's part of the precontrol system. See this thread:

http://www.nopistons.com/forums/poor-mans-sequential-t38640-pid-494650.html/page__view__findpost__p__494650

I guess it's not really a butterfly valve, just some flapper door thing. Anyway it's gotta be open.

Edit: Nope, butterflies in the UIM are still there, unless they were removed previously. Apparently you don't need to remove them...only one you need to remove is the one in the y-pipe.

Ranger · Postby **Ranger** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 9:14

TCA is gone and the flapper wired shut. This little guy was causing a lot of problems...

It was actually already disconnected as part of the conversion, but that piece you see sticking out of it, was connected to a flapper door thing on the manifold. So now I have boost! Awesome, boost. Laggy, sudden freight train boost. It's like lag a second, lag another second, OH S**T brick to the head, boost...I'm honestly kind of scared to drive this thing, way more power to weight than any other car I've been in. I didn't really get to do anything with it though since it's not registered. And I can't find the title, which happens to be an out of state title. So looks like I won't be getting it registered any time soon. Mega fail.

Rolling fenders tomorrow and putting new wheels on. I'll post pics after it's done.

Postby **RX-7 Chris** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 9:14

glad it's fixed.

Yup mega fail for loosing the title.

Ranger · Postby **Ranger** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:14

Yeah I still haven't found it. There's like this black hole in my house where everything important disappears to. :confused:

Rolled the fenders this weekend and put the new rims on. They fit great, but the front right tire is getting cut on something when I turn the wheel a certain angle. I haven't figured it out yet but I'm not willing to raise my car lol. The rear needs to be lowered too, but I can't lower it any more without getting taller springs and/or removing the adjustment collars. The coilovers are max low and still not low enough...FDs are so weird. This thing is going to be slammed to the ground haha. My camera battery was dead but I'll probably take pics tonight or tomorrow.

I also bought a full delrin bushing kit, anybody have a hydraulic press I could use to get the old ones out? Or advice on how to do it at home? I need to get this done ASAP because all of the suspension bushings (and especially the diff bushing) are trash.

Oh and the more I drive it, the more I'm finding problems. I think the thermostat is stuck closed. Even driving the car with no boost for short periods of time, when I shut it off coolant is boiling out of the thermostat housing (you can add coolant here on FDs). Squeezing the hose that goes to the radiator, it's hard to tell if there's anything in there or not...it feels pressurized but I don't feel any water. There's also a small pool of coolant on the block that boils continuously for 10+ minutes after I shut the car off, so I've got a leak somewhere. AND I think I have some leaky fuel lines...I already fixed two, but it still smells strongly of gas. I'd like for this thing to not to go die in a fire after all its been through, we all know how these cars excel at doing that haha. Gonna have to go through it all this week.

STOLEN: My 1993 Mazda RX-7

Who is online