FC3S Murray's never ending build...ending in a V8
 

Hi all,

I HATE to do this but my build thread is in the "other" forum. I figured if anyone is interested, by all means take a peak. I will continue to update on this forum as well.

http://www.rx7club.com/showthread.php?t=694027

I have it up on jack stands right now fixing a coolant issue that I should have known better to "rig". I will have it back on the road by next weekend and am planning on hitting the dyno late May or mid June.

Here are a couple pics of the "finished" product(quotations because it is ever changing :))

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w...y/apr09001.jpg

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w...y/apr09028.jpg

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w...y/apr09021.jpg

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w...y/apr09024.jpg

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w...y/apr09027.jpg

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w...y/apr09014.jpg

I am a HUGE S4 tail fan!

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w...y/apr09012.jpg

Engine...

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w...toalbum018.jpg

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w...toalbum016.jpg

Current set-up with a couple extra goodies

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w...y/apr09007.jpg

interior

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w...y/apr09010.jpg


Thanks for looking and as I promised, updates will be here too. Cheers!

that is a sexy blue!

Nice color, very clean... what color is that?

I dont want to jump to the "other" forum to read the entire thing, lol..

Thanks. It is 1999 Honda SI Electron Blue with a Ferrari/Glasurit clear.

Damn I love your car! I've been looking at your car ever since I signed up to 7club. I think I remember asking what tire size your were running out the back. 265 right?

Never Ending Build
 

Very clean car. Looks superb!

Wow FC3S Murray.... the attention to detail is impeccable. Great job. Great choices on everything in the engine bay and the final product really shows how time and attention to detail pays off! Extremely clean ride!

Thanks guys!

Great looking car. Love the color.

Update: Bad news sort of....

I have a hair line crack at the dowel casting on my rear iron. It is slowly seaping oil, about a drip every 30 seconds. I was in denial at first and I replaced o-rings on my pedistal, sealed the Oil Pressure port, ect. But i watched it seap from the casting and I just uttered, "F*CK!"

It IS the S4 rear iron so I guess it just can't take even 360 whp. So sad because I just was about to dyno.

GOOD NEWS is I am going to order a brand new rear iron from Mazdatrix and from what Kevin Landers told me Mazda will send me with the iron with the BEEFIER casting. Kevin says he hasn't ordered a S4 rear iron BUT S5 he has and it was beefier.

So I will take the engine out, pull the bad iron CAREFULLY, trace the port job since I have no template, Port the new one, put in new water seals and o-ring and original side seals. Kinda risky but this is my ONLY option right now. Mazdatrix and Racing Beat techs told me today that they have done the procedure and both stated, "just don't move the engine around a lot once tension bolts are removed."

Gonna be a while before she is back on the road due to moving in to a new house we bought BUT never the less this still isn't as BAD AS A BLOWN engine.

Will update wiith pictures during the removal and install. F*ck me sideways man!

Just ordered a new S4 13BT rear iron from Mazdatrix.

Mazdatrix confirmed that Mazda does send a new unit with the beefier casting, so I will only have to port the new iron as opposed to having to deal with buying a S5 rear iron and enlarging the rest of my S4 ports to comply with the 1/8 '' S5 larger port.

Mazdatrix recommended that I buy a new rear rotor housing since they state all cracked rear iron motors "oval" the dowel hole area on the rear rotor housing.

I am skeptical since I do not push high boost and the rear iron did not explode on me.

I requested some measurements from them regarding limits on the rear housing since the FSM does not specify in the ENGINE secition and the TECHNICAL INFO section as well.

I am awaiting a response.

Stay tuned

Mazdatrix got back to me and said there is no measurement check because mazda wasn't expecting people to push these little pea shooters this hard.

To sum it up they said if there is any wiggle in the dowel pin once i remove the rear iron, the rear rotor housing should be replaced.

I also am going to measure the hole with a caliper and see if it is uniform.

Man, I am slowly losing patience with rotaries. This isn't my first time either, this would be engine # 6 if this one dies. 1 a year: 3 to mechanical failure, 2 to stupidity and 1 to TOO much power. haha.

Spring is out and the rotaries are popping like the spring time flowers. Sorry to hear about the iron, look at it this way, a few hundred bucks and you can push more power ;)

BTW....... LOVE the color, LOVE the tails :suspect:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w...9/DSCN0748.jpg

Thanks man. Your color is great and unique. I need not mention the tails since "our kind" are slanderized for such hideous 80's tail light obsession.

I HOPE this is jsut a remove and replace job. If that rear rotor housing is fucked so is my hope to have it out this summer. With the new mortgage, a rebuild is gonna take enough time and money to let damn old man winter rear his ugly head again up here in Montana by the time I am finished.

Wife and daughter make free time very very slim.

...............................man I am losing motivation to even stay in the rotary scene. Never ending bullshit!

Rotaries - only the strong survive.

Hang in there man. I can tell you from experience, mostly bad, expensive, and of the setback variety. It's worth it when they're done. Very few cars can make my pants tight when I drive them.

I know I know. I got my new rear iron in today. Will post up some pics when I get home.

Pretty beefy new casting.

So after a couple calls to some rotary performance shops and a little critical thinking I decided to order 3 new side seals as well.

I figured since I am putting a brand new iron on there is no reason to use the old side seals and prolong the break in time. The new seals will not have near as many imperfections and will break in the new iron faster.

I am still in the air over how long I should break in the new iron/seals. I am awaiting word from Kevin BUT I think I am gonna play it safe and go 1500 miles. :(

That is a shit load of city driving but it beats rushing it and popping the motor. At least I have the engine tuned for the most part and will only need to add a little more fuel on the top just for added safety until I see what this new port on the rear iron flows like.

Speaking of the port, I am going to send the bad iron and the new iron to Rotary Performance in Texas to match port since they were the orignal builders/porters of this motor.

I am a little reluctant leaving the engine torn apart for that time frame BUT I will have that SOB safety wired snug. I bet I use a whole spool of that shit. :)
I REALLY wish I could just send the new iron to Chris and have him do a "standard" street port but unfortunately they built this motor so long ago who knows if the port template has changed. It just isn't worth the risk of the new iron having a larger OR smaller port then the rest of the engine and risking a different AFR per rotor chamber because of air flow differences.

Pics up soon as soon as I move into my new house next weekend. It is amazing how much crap can pile up in your garage over time when building these cars. I am HORRIBLE at saving shit.

That sucks. Don't give up. Your car is truely amazing.

Thanks. I won't give up, I have too much shit specifically for this car. Would be a huge loss to my wallet too.

Kevin told me that break in is almost none existant on side seals. GREAT news!!

Yeah I wouldn't worry too much about the mileage with regards to side seals bedding into that iron.

Biggest thing IMO with fresh items like irons and housings (or bearings) would be getting a few heat cycles into the part(s) before laying down the law.

Best of luck bro, we should have a rebuild race! :lol:

I would hope you win. You got to be damn fast at it now. lol :)

:suspect:

Good luck Murray. Most important thing with breakin, I have found anyway, is a few good heat cycles. You can do 1500 miles at once and they won't be broken it too well. A dozen heat cycles would be plenty I should think. Beautiful car, clean project, glad to see you're sticking with it

-Brian

Is this the "how many bloody rebuild races can you have in a season" smilie :lol:

Sorta, it's the I went to the dyno/comp test today and got 3 bounces of 113 on the front and 3 bounces @ 113 on the rear and one @ 88. So we think a side seal got stuck. We were going to dyno today but the convo went like this
So Dave, ya wanna strap her down and have some fun?
You're gonna break her if you do
Really? I've put ~2k+ miles since the overheat.
Yeah, but not on the dyno.
No, but really?
You want me to call Enterprise and reserve a car for you?
:rofl: So we just hung around and shot the shit for a few hours.

So yeah, gonna be doing pretty much exactely what Murray is doing. Popping the rear plate, fixing what's bad, and reassembling. THEN go back to the dyno, up the boost, and the rev limit. Personally, it's the boost that I want, I kept working the sequentials on the trip home, my rotary lord those things spool like a bejeezus. Without paying attention I hit the boost cut ~2k in 5th. Boost cut is 14psi right now. SICK SICK SICK response.

So yeah Murray.... you game?

Oh I am game! You might have me beat though. I have the wife hanging over my head with the death stare until we finish painting the inside of the new house. Two weeks and the games begin!!

Thanks for the compliments as well.

I just realized... I have the same head unit as you, battery, FPR, and same rail set up... I can't tell for sure, but I may have the same (or similar) turbo as you as well.

62-1 turbonetics. You my friend have good taste. :)

Hmmmm, well I just went auto-x'ing and realized that there are two things that I need - More RPM's and low end boost - sequentials. Can't get either until I get the motor rebuilt. Next event is June 7th, I'm hoping to make it.

June 7th...damn. You are pushing it close. Seems like enough time but you know how that goes with these fuckers.

Oh I know ALLLLLL to well. I still have hopes though. As long as I get her done for the 6/18 trackday @ Limerock I'll be happier. I'll be happiest if it was done tomorrow but that's just not about to happen.

Well I got my side seals in yesterday as well as my NEW inner coolant seal.

I love Mazdatrix and their parts availability BUT recently they have hit a rough patch with me in regards to their packaging perfromance. Last week I recieved my rear iron replacement parts(seals, o-rings ect) and inside the priority mail package they just shoved the inner coolant seal in the envelope....well that led to the seal kinking and cracking. I called them and they immediately said they will send me a new one.

So then yesterday I got my side seals in and the new coolant seal. The coolant seal was taped to a solid 8x13 cardboard sheet(good stuff) BUT the side seals were just wrapped in a zip lock bag with a thin foam 1/16 inch sheet wrapped around them. You would think this would be adequate protection for the side seals if it were shipped in a BOX, but instead they shipped it in another envelope. When I got the envelope you could see a curved wear mark that damn near cut through the packaging where the side seals were sitting.

I was about to kill the post man but after I opened it up and inspected them and found no damage I was cool headed.


You would just think some people would use common sense and put fragile items in a box. Anyway I need more coffee and sorry about the rant.

You would think so. :rofl:

Well we are moved into the new place. Almost time to rip into the FC. God knows that I better get on it fast because home maintenance is gonna take priority soon.

I got a hold of a cherry picker today...needless to say I am pretty damn stoked! I refuse to buy one because that is just wishing for bad joo joo.
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE011.jpg


I almost don't want to rip into her...she is still driveable and the weather is PERFECt now. Fuck!

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE006.jpg

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE008.jpg

Pic of the new house. Got it for a great price and is a wonderful home for our daughter. The FC better not break again or it is going to be sold because this S.O.B is gonna take ALL my time..


http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE002.jpg


Pics will be up soon of the surgery

Got a day off today so....started at 9AM and by 3pm it is ready to pull.


After about 1 hour.....
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE012.jpg

??My coolanted looked a little rusty considering it was brand new about 50 miles ago. Maybe residual coolant?? Be interesting to see the condition of my water jackets. :scratch:
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE013.jpg
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE014.jpg

Engine by about 1:30
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE015.jpg


Found this little bitch crack:banghead:. I wonder if I should go Banzia Mounts OR Mazdaspeed stiffer stock mounts? If anyone has input, please DO
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE016.jpg


Will update later this evening or tomorrow.

Looks like a stress fracture from heat cycling. I am personally running mazda comp mounts and like them. Not too stiff, not too much give. Still can't really feel any vibrations through the chasis from the engine but is able to provide me with a good feel when I get on it.

Looking good - I'd go MS Comp mounts, I use them now on everything.

And.......its out.
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE020.jpg

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE021.jpg


I bought this HKS 10psi spring for my HKFake WG. The member I bought it from replaced the diaphram and spring with HKS parts. He SAID the spring is the yellow 10lb spring BUT I hold 14.7 psi in 2,3 & 4th gear. SO i think he put in the purple spring from HKS which is rated in the 50MM at 14.7 psi.

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE019.jpg

If it is yellow spring inside like the seller said then that is impressive that it holds at a steady psi after the creep.

-----BTW is there anything I need to know before hand when I go to rip inside this wastegate? Any input on past mistakes or tips would be appreciated.



Surgery on the block starts soon.................




As for the mounts I think I will go Mazdaspeed.