'86 RX7 Rally Car

If you can drive/Co drive together marry her! LOL seriously though, that's great.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ wrote: I've put about 160 miles on the car since getting it inspected- in the last 30 or so, it has had an occasional miss around 6k rpm... I'm thinking the fuel filter is full of whatever poop was in the tank, so I ordered a new filter/strainer combo.

Drove it to work today (50 miles!) and it repeated this twice. Ordered a fuel pump for "while I'm in there" purposes.

Hey, remember this?

irish44j wrote:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ wrote: WMWR is a real possibility if the car is behaving itself, but the real goal is to have it ready by the first local NASA event- ESPR tarmac if they run it at the usual time in the spring.

Get it behaving so we can have a RWD shootout with 3-4 e30s, a Volvo, a 240z, and you :) aka see who gets stuck the least haha.

Guess who the first two registered entrants in R2U are for WMWR?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ wrote: Hey, remember this?

irish44j wrote:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ wrote: WMWR is a real possibility if the car is behaving itself, but the real goal is to have it ready by the first local NASA event- ESPR tarmac if they run it at the usual time in the spring.

Get it behaving so we can have a RWD shootout with 3-4 e30s, a Volvo, a 240z, and you :) aka see who gets stuck the least haha.

Guess who the first two registered entrants in R2U are for WMWR?

Clearly the two most bad-ass first time rally drivers in WMWR history...

Replaced the fuel pump, old one didn't look too bad- I'll keep it as a spare.

aaaaand things just got serious

You'd think that maybe the skid plates, or the beefy suspension, or the seats and harnesses, or the bigass lights would flip some sort of switch in my head, but no... these stickers were the point at which I went "huh, well look at that... I have a rally car!"

Test drive confirmed fuel pump fixed the hesitation issue. Car is packed up for tomorrow's Rallycross- I'm not bringing the rally tires for two reasons:
-it's going to be muddy as berkeley and on grass, so the snows will be better for those conditions
-it's going to be muddy as berkeley and I really don't feel like changing wheels in those conditions

and within 5 minutes of that last post, my new cooling fan thermoswitch arrived. I installed it, and it seems to be what I want: the fans come on when the temp gauge reaches its' midpoint.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ wrote: Test drive confirmed fuel pump fixed the hesitation issue. Car is packed up for tomorrow's Rallycross- I'm not bringing the rally tires for two reasons: -it's going to be muddy as berkeley and on grass, so the snows will be better for those conditions -it's going to be muddy as berkeley and I really don't feel like changing wheels in those conditions

Will it be very muddy tomorrow...? I have never been to the Kempton site before and was thinking of going.

Thanks Ross

In reply to Ross413:

Out of the 6 or so times I've been, I think it has been dry once. Since it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow, and has rained a lot recently, I assume it will be a swamp.

In reply to ¯_(ツ)_/¯:

Thanks for the heads up. I thought tomorrow was meant to be sunny and hot, guess I was way wrong... Build a boat PA. Hope to stop by anyway just to check it out.

Thanks Ross

edit. Glad the car is getting sorted out. Always nice when it starts to come together after a rocky start.

Well, it will be 'hot'. But also 1.2 inches of rain, midnight to 2pm. I think im gonna regret going.

In reply to Ross413:

Don't let that stop you- E36 M3ty conditions are part of the authentic rally experience!

FYI, I'm not gonna make it up there tomorrow (yay, I have a 30" crack across the WRX windshield from a rock hit today!). But thanks for the co-drive offer!

BMR RallyX 1/10/16

Hey remember this?

RedGT wrote: Well, it will be 'hot'. But also 1.2 inches of rain, midnight to 2pm. I think im gonna regret going.

We got there, stood outside in the rain while the organizers tried to wait it out, then worked the course in the rain while the AWD cars took 2ish very muddy runs, then the event was cancelled. It was a very E36 M3ty morning.

On the bright side, the RX7's roof no longer leaks, and it drove to and from the event with basically no issues. The hesitation on acceleration happened once while getting on the highway leaving the event- I still need to figure out what's causing that, but I have a theory. I think that the switched ignition wire I tied into to run the relay doesn't have super consistent voltage- if I switch the fuel pump override on to give the relay power directly from the battery, the hesitation doesn't occur.

damn, that sucks. Happy I didn't come up lol. Exact same thing happened to us up in New York last fall....2nd day of divisionals they let the AWD cars run first and then said it was too slick for the RWD/FWD cars to get around the course and cancelled it.

btw, did they say if they're gonna reschedule it (since it was a divisional challenge series event)?

In reply to irish44j:

No- they said the next event will most likely be on 2/6 but there was no mention of the divisional thing.

They have now said Feb 6 will serve as the divisional make up.

That sucks, glad I did not drive 2 hours to watch that... Came down with strep throat though, even without standing in the rain all day.

Sorry to hear the miss is back. More wiring is always fun though right... Better to have this happen on a cheap weekend rather than an NASA or RA weekend.

Thanks Ross

RedGT wrote: They have now said Feb 6 will serve as the divisional make up.

IDK why they don't wait until the weather improves so as not to risk another mud cancellation, honestly....Having it this early sucks for a good chunk of dibisional-level competitors who have their cars down for the winter doing things to them, lol.

That said, I may push to make that one anyhow :)

So I tested the car a bit more and managed to get it to do its' hesitation thing with the fuel pump override switched on. I added a ground wire from the battery directly to the chassis, checked the wiring at the MAF and main ignition connector, and went for another drive- it still does it. I think my next step will be to clean all of the grounds I can find in the engine bay.

3600-3800 rpm? yeah grounds, all of them and clean the coil brackets and where the brackets attach to the chassis.

(ground points: behind cluster, under airbox/maf, block, under UIM rear attachment bracket, engine, firewall by wiper motor, driver side shock tower, and under the trailing coil brackets)

Usually a small small small tiny vacuum leak can follow with it. spray some carb cleaner at the secondary injectors, are you're grommets still rubber? Most become hard plastic by now.

fidelity101 wrote: 3600-3800 rpm?

No, all over the damn place but typically more like 5-6k rpm. Sometimes happens 5% of the time, sometimes 25%. Always at WOT.

Planning to clean all the ground locations you mentioned, I'll add the leak test to my list.

Cleaned all grounds with the exception of the one I'd need to pull the intake manifold for- no change. No vacuum leaks. No codes.

Just to be specific about the issue, this is a full-blown ~1 second loss of any power at WOT. It's as if I killed the ignition entirely, then it comes back like nothing happened.

Found the Bastard!
After my last post, I fired the car back up and did the time honored "grab and wiggle relevant looking things in the engine bay" diagnostic procedure. This black box (almost 100% sure it's a MAP sensor) on the passenger strut tower makes the car stumble when you wiggle it. Unplugged it and went for a drive- no hesitation, no cutting out! It feels like it's down maybe 10% on power compared to running with it plugged in.