1994 RX-7: Xcessive LIM & Fuel Rail install (in progress)

[scotty305]

Finally finished installing an Xcessive Manufacturing Lower Intake Manifold (formerly marketed under the "Ground Zero" badge) , Xcessive 4-injector fuel rail, 4x 1000cc Yawpower/Injector Dynamics injectors, and a few supporting mods on my otherwise stock engine. The install took longer than expected, this thread was originally created as a checklist of what still needed to be done.


History:
Bought the car in January 2004, it was bone stock with 45,000 miles. It has seen a couple years of occasional autocrossing, some daily-driving when my other car was down, quite a few trips up and down the local mountain roads. It's now at 87,000 miles and the coolant seals are on their way out. I've had an AEM EMS and wideband installed for a little over a year now, managed to learn a bit about EFI tuning without hurting the motor so that's been fun. Before I tear the engine apart for a rebuild, I've decided to upgrade my manifold and fuel system; I'd prefer to test new things on the old motor in case anything goes wrong. As of now the car has been down for a few months and I'm hoping to have it back on the road before January (edit: finished in August!).

This project was largely inspired by Dan Chadwick's build:
http://www.rotarycarclub.com/rotary_...read.php?t=243


Parts Sources:
Xcessive Manufacturing - LIM & Fuel Rail www.xcessivemanufacturing.com
Yawpower Injectors www.yawpower.com , purchased from local vendor www.apexspeedtech.com
AEM - Honda-style Fuel Pressure Regulator www.aempower.com , purchased from local vendor/tuner MP Tuning www.MPtuning.net
misc. metric bolts, vacuum plugs, clamps - King Bolt located on Grand Ave in Covina, CA (no website)


"Done" List (complete):
Remove UIM, rats nest, OEM fuel rails, twin turbo assembly
Fabricate & install blockoff plates for UIM: AWS
Remove coolant lines to throttle body, fast idle warmup cam
Modify OEM turbos: hammer heat shield closer to turbos for increased clearance
Modify OEM turbos: bend coolant return line (photo below shows coolant line before bending)


Modify LIM: remove material from rear runner to allow clearance for secondary turbocharger



Modify LIM: remove material from front-upper mounting point to allow clearance for turbo oil feed pipe (note the new angle of the turbo coolant line)



Modify OEM UIM bracket (supports front of UIM near throttle body). The OEM LIM is angled toward the rear of the engine bay, while the runners on the XS LIM go straight up. This moves the UIM forward by about an inch. Among other things, the bracket pictured below needs to be modified. You can see that the notch no longer lines up with the mounting point on the UIM.


After taking the photo above, I made a vertical mark (using a Sharpie) where the bracket should be bent to meet the UIM. This bracket is part of the solenoid rack, which I disassembled. I clamped the bracket in a vise and used the vise to straighten out the top bend. Then I used a bending brake to bend the bracket at the mark that I had made. The mounting notch needs to be extended down; straightening the bracket and changing the bend location makes it a bit taller. Modified bracket shown below:





Test fit LIM & fuel rail

Modify OEM solenoid rack (remove all hard lines). Removing the rats nest of hard lines was easier than I thought, all you need to do is remove those awful phillips screws. PB Blaster helps, although I had to slot some of the screws and remove them with a big flathead driver.


Add FPR flange to Xcessive Fuel Rail
I built a couple of mockup brackets to mount the a universal-style Fuel Pressure Regulator with AN inlet and outlet ports, but after purchasing some AN fittings it became apparent my original idea wasn't going to work due to the size and packaging constraints introduced by the fittings. In the end, I switched to an AEM adjustable FPR that uses a flange and an o-ring and is designed mount directly to an OEM Honda fuel rail. After taking a close look at a Honda fuel rail, it's just a flat flange with a hole for the fuel and two threaded holes for mounting screws. Luckily I have a co-worker who can weld aluminum so I fabricated a simple flange and had it welded to the XS fuel rail. Doing this eliminated quite a few potential leaks: my original plan used six fittings and a short section of AN-6 fuel line to accomplish the same task. Be careful if you attempt this... the XS fuel rail mounts are not symmetrical and I put the mounting flange on the wrong side of the fuel rail on my first attempt (luckily it was only tacked on for the test-fit, see photo in post below).


The XS fuel rail originally included a metric threaded bung for installing the OEM fuel temp sensor. I opted to cut this off and tap the remaining hole for a 1/8" NPT fuel pressure sensor. Luckily the hole was already the correct diameter.




Heat and bend OEM oil filler neck:
Used a heat gun to warm the plastic until pliable, then installed the UIM and throttle body while holding the filler neck forward. Stuffed an old t-shirt between them to create a reasonable gap, then allowed the setup to cool. Repeated this process a few times until the gap was satisfactory. Bent the plastic nipple for the PCV valve forward using a hex key when it was warm.




Modify OEM y-pipe:
The front runner on the new LIM interferes with the location of the factory Y-pipe. Chadwick rotated his primary turbo compressor housing, tilting the y-pipe away from the LIM for more clearance. I've never rotated a compressor housing and was afraid to damage my stock twins in the learning process. Instead I trimmed some material from the y-pipe, changing the angle of the mounting flange and removing a little bit of the lip near where the rubber coupler mounts. I also switched to a thinner rubber coupler to allow for a little more clearance (the old coupler was hard as plastic, I doubt it was making a good seal).



Bend or replace OEM hard pipes that mount to primary turbocharger:
Since the turbo oil and coolant lines needed to be bent, the OEM hard pipes for the turbo control, wastegate control, and prespool needed to be bent a little to clear them. They also needed to be bent to clear the fittings on the front of the XS fuel rail.




Got started on the solenoid locations and vacuum line routing. I'm not going to re-use any of the original "rats nest" hard lines since most of them would be unused or blocked off; purchased some high-temp plastic tee's from McMaster-Carr. I also built a couple of brackets to mount the wastegate and prespool solenoids on the solenoid rack (the XS fuel rail interferes with mounting them in the OEM location).





Install new wires for injectors, add fuel pressure sensor, re-wrap most of engine harness:
Turns out the injectors use a separate power wire that isn't shared with anything else in the harness so this was easier than I thought. The white wire going to the blue connector (top-right of photo) is the wire used for the injector power, the pin is the same one that is used for the injector pins on the ECU connector. While the harness was out of the car I removed a few unused connectors and added a connector for the fuel pressure sensor. I also moved a few wires at the ECU connector to match the changes I made to solenoid locations. For instance, I moved the Turbo Control solenoids to different locations on the solenoid rack because this made the vacuum routing easier. This required them to use different plugs than the original factory wiring harness, so I moved the wires for those plugs to different pins on the ECU connector. So now even though the Charge Relief solenoid has been moved to a different location (and now uses a different plug) it is still controlled by the same pin on the ECU.


Plug OEM primary injector holes:
Called Racing Beat and asked if their injector plug kit for the older 13B engines will fit the 13B-REW. The plugs needed to be cut about 1" shorter but after cutting they fit well (see photo above). I've got exact measurements if anyone is interested.


Modify Fuel Rail flange, shorten bracket height:
Previous setup leaked when tested under pressure. Fuel injectors didn't seem secure enough with the Xcessive bracket height and the Yawpower spacers.




"To Do" List (incomplete):
Clean up new fuel line routing & lengths (current setup works but could use clamps and brackets to further ensure the lines don't rub).
Clean up vacuum vacuum lines, permanently plug unused nipples on UIM



More photos and updates to follow... thanks for reading.

[scotty305]

Finally finished installing an Xcessive Manufacturing Lower Intake Manifold (formerly marketed under the "Ground Zero" badge) , Xcessive 4-injector fuel rail, 4x 1000cc Yawpower/Injector Dynamics injectors, and a few supporting mods on my otherwise stock engine. The install took longer than expected, this thread was originally created as a checklist of what still needed to be done.


History:
Bought the car in January 2004, it was bone stock with 45,000 miles. It has seen a couple years of occasional autocrossing, some daily-driving when my other car was down, quite a few trips up and down the local mountain roads. It's now at 87,000 miles and the coolant seals are on their way out. I've had an AEM EMS and wideband installed for a little over a year now, managed to learn a bit about EFI tuning without hurting the motor so that's been fun. Before I tear the engine apart for a rebuild, I've decided to upgrade my manifold and fuel system; I'd prefer to test new things on the old motor in case anything goes wrong. As of now the car has been down for a few months and I'm hoping to have it back on the road before January (edit: finished in August!).

This project was largely inspired by Dan Chadwick's build:
http://www.rotarycarclub.com/rotary_...read.php?t=243


Parts Sources:
Xcessive Manufacturing - LIM & Fuel Rail www.xcessivemanufacturing.com
Yawpower Injectors www.yawpower.com , purchased from local vendor www.apexspeedtech.com
AEM - Honda-style Fuel Pressure Regulator www.aempower.com , purchased from local vendor/tuner MP Tuning www.MPtuning.net
misc. metric bolts, vacuum plugs, clamps - King Bolt located on Grand Ave in Covina, CA (no website)


"Done" List (complete):
Remove UIM, rats nest, OEM fuel rails, twin turbo assembly
Fabricate & install blockoff plates for UIM: AWS
Remove coolant lines to throttle body, fast idle warmup cam
Modify OEM turbos: hammer heat shield closer to turbos for increased clearance
Modify OEM turbos: bend coolant return line (photo below shows coolant line before bending)


Modify LIM: remove material from rear runner to allow clearance for secondary turbocharger



Modify LIM: remove material from front-upper mounting point to allow clearance for turbo oil feed pipe (note the new angle of the turbo coolant line)



Modify OEM UIM bracket (supports front of UIM near throttle body). The OEM LIM is angled toward the rear of the engine bay, while the runners on the XS LIM go straight up. This moves the UIM forward by about an inch. Among other things, the bracket pictured below needs to be modified. You can see that the notch no longer lines up with the mounting point on the UIM.


After taking the photo above, I made a vertical mark (using a Sharpie) where the bracket should be bent to meet the UIM. This bracket is part of the solenoid rack, which I disassembled. I clamped the bracket in a vise and used the vise to straighten out the top bend. Then I used a bending brake to bend the bracket at the mark that I had made. The mounting notch needs to be extended down; straightening the bracket and changing the bend location makes it a bit taller. Modified bracket shown below:





Test fit LIM & fuel rail

Modify OEM solenoid rack (remove all hard lines). Removing the rats nest of hard lines was easier than I thought, all you need to do is remove those awful phillips screws. PB Blaster helps, although I had to slot some of the screws and remove them with a big flathead driver.


Add FPR flange to Xcessive Fuel Rail
I built a couple of mockup brackets to mount the a universal-style Fuel Pressure Regulator with AN inlet and outlet ports, but after purchasing some AN fittings it became apparent my original idea wasn't going to work due to the size and packaging constraints introduced by the fittings. In the end, I switched to an AEM adjustable FPR that uses a flange and an o-ring and is designed mount directly to an OEM Honda fuel rail. After taking a close look at a Honda fuel rail, it's just a flat flange with a hole for the fuel and two threaded holes for mounting screws. Luckily I have a co-worker who can weld aluminum so I fabricated a simple flange and had it welded to the XS fuel rail. Doing this eliminated quite a few potential leaks: my original plan used six fittings and a short section of AN-6 fuel line to accomplish the same task. Be careful if you attempt this... the XS fuel rail mounts are not symmetrical and I put the mounting flange on the wrong side of the fuel rail on my first attempt (luckily it was only tacked on for the test-fit, see photo in post below).


The XS fuel rail originally included a metric threaded bung for installing the OEM fuel temp sensor. I opted to cut this off and tap the remaining hole for a 1/8" NPT fuel pressure sensor. Luckily the hole was already the correct diameter.




Heat and bend OEM oil filler neck:
Used a heat gun to warm the plastic until pliable, then installed the UIM and throttle body while holding the filler neck forward. Stuffed an old t-shirt between them to create a reasonable gap, then allowed the setup to cool. Repeated this process a few times until the gap was satisfactory. Bent the plastic nipple for the PCV valve forward using a hex key when it was warm.




Modify OEM y-pipe:
The front runner on the new LIM interferes with the location of the factory Y-pipe. Chadwick rotated his primary turbo compressor housing, tilting the y-pipe away from the LIM for more clearance. I've never rotated a compressor housing and was afraid to damage my stock twins in the learning process. Instead I trimmed some material from the y-pipe, changing the angle of the mounting flange and removing a little bit of the lip near where the rubber coupler mounts. I also switched to a thinner rubber coupler to allow for a little more clearance (the old coupler was hard as plastic, I doubt it was making a good seal).



Bend or replace OEM hard pipes that mount to primary turbocharger:
Since the turbo oil and coolant lines needed to be bent, the OEM hard pipes for the turbo control, wastegate control, and prespool needed to be bent a little to clear them. They also needed to be bent to clear the fittings on the front of the XS fuel rail.




Got started on the solenoid locations and vacuum line routing. I'm not going to re-use any of the original "rats nest" hard lines since most of them would be unused or blocked off; purchased some high-temp plastic tee's from McMaster-Carr. I also built a couple of brackets to mount the wastegate and prespool solenoids on the solenoid rack (the XS fuel rail interferes with mounting them in the OEM location).





Install new wires for injectors, add fuel pressure sensor, re-wrap most of engine harness:
Turns out the injectors use a separate power wire that isn't shared with anything else in the harness so this was easier than I thought. The white wire going to the blue connector (top-right of photo) is the wire used for the injector power, the pin is the same one that is used for the injector pins on the ECU connector. While the harness was out of the car I removed a few unused connectors and added a connector for the fuel pressure sensor. I also moved a few wires at the ECU connector to match the changes I made to solenoid locations. For instance, I moved the Turbo Control solenoids to different locations on the solenoid rack because this made the vacuum routing easier. This required them to use different plugs than the original factory wiring harness, so I moved the wires for those plugs to different pins on the ECU connector. So now even though the Charge Relief solenoid has been moved to a different location (and now uses a different plug) it is still controlled by the same pin on the ECU.


Plug OEM primary injector holes:
Called Racing Beat and asked if their injector plug kit for the older 13B engines will fit the 13B-REW. The plugs needed to be cut about 1" shorter but after cutting they fit well (see photo above). I've got exact measurements if anyone is interested.


Modify Fuel Rail flange, shorten bracket height:
Previous setup leaked when tested under pressure. Fuel injectors didn't seem secure enough with the Xcessive bracket height and the Yawpower spacers.




"To Do" List (incomplete):
Clean up new fuel line routing & lengths (current setup works but could use clamps and brackets to further ensure the lines don't rub).
Clean up vacuum vacuum lines, permanently plug unused nipples on UIM



More photos and updates to follow... thanks for reading.