8 Second Street Car >10k. (79 Mazda Rx7, Turbo LS)

Can it be done...?

$3000 roller, stripped alum interior, cage, 9” rear, ladder bars, tubbed. Came with fuel system, driveshaft headers, coolant system w/ fans, MSD 6AL/distrib, tires, shifter, Tach, gauges. Setup for SBC/th350)

Cleaned up the engine bay a little before starting. Pressure washer and BBQ grill rattle can paint job.

Sold the “custom” headers, Radiator/fans, fuel system, Ign. system for $550.

$7550 Budget Remaining

$220- 2002 JY 5.3 LS engine with 2 damaged pistons. Sold 5.3 truck intake manifold and injectors for $50.

$25 for 2 random JY LS 5.3 piston rod assys. Cleaned up, gapped rings, installed. Used all original bearings/hardware/gaskets on bottom end.

Traded the higher compression (small CC) truck heads for the 6.0 heads with the big 71cc chambers. With the 6.0 heads, dished pistons, and LS9 head gaskets it puts my Static compression at 8.6:1! Did some crappy home porting… Left ports nice and rough for turbulent airflow. Lapped valves by hand.

$60 China head studs. $80 for a set of LS9 head gaskets.

$100 GM LS9 camshaft (211/230 @ 121 .55x lift.) Factory lifters and push rods.

Valve springs Pac1218 $140 (price went way up on these recently, not sure why?)

Autozone timing set and cover $80

800+HP long block for $565…? We’ll find out!

Budget remaining =$7035

This is gonna be fun to watch! 8 seconds is srsly fast.

Holy crap this is cool.

In for the ride!

Have my doubts since there is so much more to an 8 second car than the warhead up front, but I am rooting for ya.

Looking forward to see how it comes out!

I may already know the answer...

Nice!

Holy shmoly. I'm very interested in the mechanics of making something like this hook and not tear itself apart.

Yes, I would say that it is fairly easy to make an 8 second car greater than $10k

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater-than_sign

Grammar police aside, looks like a cool project. Keep up posted!

A drag car build on a grm budget. I'll be watching, even though I ain't been down the strip in a long time.

Nice. Can't wait to see more.

Subscribed!

mainlandboy wrote: Yes, I would say that it is fairly easy to make an 8 second car greater than $10k https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater-than_sign Grammar police aside, looks like a cool project. Keep up posted!

Doh! I can't even change it... I'm calling that a mathematical error so I feel better. Needs a little moderator help!

ForceFed86 wrote:

mainlandboy wrote: Yes, I would say that it is fairly easy to make an 8 second car greater than $10k https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater-than_sign Grammar police aside, looks like a cool project. Keep up posted!

Doh! I can't even change it... I'm calling that a mathematical error so I feel better. Needs a little moderator help!

When I lived in Nigeria the locals had a great expression to cover just this situation...Listen to what I mean."

LS9 camshaft, huh? I'd always heard it was the LS6 camshaft that was the cat's pajamas for turbo builds.

NickD wrote: LS9 camshaft, huh? I'd always heard it was the LS6 camshaft that was the cat's pajamas for turbo builds.

Yup, everyone else heard the same thing. Making the used LS6 cam/intake prices go through the roof. Can't buy a new one reasonably either. LS9 has more lift and brings the power on later in the rev range. Better for keeping factory rods alive.

Bought a complete LS1 for $1100. (harness/ecu/accessories and all)

Pulled the oil pan/pickup, Intake TB, Exh. manifolds, water pump, alternator, starter, crank pulley, injector rails to use for my build.

Sold the power steering pump/brackets, AC compressor/ brackets/lines and MAF/injectors for $375. Sold the ECU and harness for $200.

Installed the truck accessories and pan off the 5.3. Sold LS1 engine for $700

Made $175 and got my pan, accessories, manifolds, fuel rails, for free!

Remaining - $7210

Time to get the big boys out of the way….

Used Power Glide -MVB, T-brake, additional clutches, TH input shaft, factory 1.76 gearset. $700

PTC 9.5” Billet converter $950 (ouch!) Used Megasquirt 3 ECU and harness $650

Used 4303 Magna Fuel pump $300

Craigslist used S400 75mm turbo T4 $625

Remaining - $3985

Let's hear the rest of the story, if you already know it, don't make us wait!

($60) Used LS to SBC mount adaptor plates (dirty dingo) (engine literally dropped right in with these. No motor mount work since it was originally setup to run an SBC.

Mocking up the turbo hot-side piping.

Cut a big hole… Mounted the turbo on steel bracket form the junk pile.

Welded Vbands on the LS1 manifolds. ($65 shipped. Ebay lot of 5, 2.5” vbands/clamps)

Flex coupling, 2.5” mild steel piping, and T4 flange ($90)

Lot of 6 4” mild steel bends from “Toots Performance” on Ebay. $65 shipped. Sold 4 of these for $20 each.

4” Vband and clamp ($28).

“T” merge hotside with waste gate priority. Crappy design, but I ran out of room and patience.

Ebay 44mm Waste Gate ($65)

Original merge pipe… I later moved this up a few inched for ground clearance.

$3692 Remaining

This just keeps getting better.

Awesome build.

Nice change of pace to see a drag build here

Alum fork lift “mini” radiator (Seen above) 14x14x3.5 core. Overstock from Ebay ($90 shipped) Had a buddy weld larger “LS” inlet/outlets on it.

You can see the original baby 1" inlet/outlet here.

Ford Taurus JY radiator Fan ($40) Cut down the shroud and glassed it to fit the small radiator core snug. I had the glass, but say ($20) in materials?

Pulled it all out, quick coat of BBQ grill paint and it’s ready to drop back in… (you can see I moved the merge pipe up a bit for clearance here.)

Mocking up the turbo cold-side piping.

3.75 to 3” 90 ebay coupler for TB. ($15) Ebay 3” universal charge piping and coupler kit $89 (sold 1 180 bend for $25)

Intercooler Ebay $120 shipped

Ebay 50mm Blow off valve $60.

Ebay Oil drain tube and fittings $45

Fuel system

120lb used china/bosch knock off injectors. $200.

Factory fuel rail AN8 adaptor ($18- ebay)

FPR –Mallory $125

SS fuel hardline (brewing company thin wall) $50 for 50 foot. Expired aircraft SS braided line from work (free) Golden rod tractor supply fuel filter ($30) An collars and B nuts ($22)

$2793 remaining.

FPR

SS brewery line with Farm supply filter.

4303 pump with used aircraft SS lines

Getting close.

Moar!!

I was able to use most of the wiring and gauges already in place. Lights, IGN,Fan, fuel pump switches and all were ready to go. 2 gauges in pods on the right are new.

WB02 $200 Ebay Trans temp $35

Sold the 12ft of bat. cable, battery box, optima battery, charge lugs in the rear for $100. Made an angle iron bracket from scrap metal and installed a 22lb PC925 battery up front. ($140)

$35 ebay turbo blanket $25 Apex ebay filter.

$110 shipped Used Ex-nascar 3.10 gear set. Lightened and polished.

$72 trans cooler with old electric fan I had laying around shop welded to it ($20?). Mounted in back. $40 ebay fittings/hose.

$2236 remaining…

Coke bottle engine pre-lube setup… free!

We have Turbo noises!

https://youtu.be/uukGWUnQOWw