I also maybe decided on the direction for this car. With all the effort to clean it up I am thinking of mainly using it for a street car and fun commuter for nice weather. I have also wanted to try a few track days at Mid Ohio but the Miata is too leaky and rallycross focused to use for that so I think this may be a good option.
A. I remember when you were finishing up the 240 you mentioning that you were never going to paint another car again. Skipping ahead to the punchline: "...And this time I MEAN it!"
2. I was going to post a picture but I don't want to ruin your Vision. But if you are going where I think you might be going, I am all for it.
D. So, is porting back on the table? Also I have acquired way more 6-port carbureted manifolds than I could ever know what to do with, in the process of assembling my '81, which I wanted a 12A in but kept buying 6-port parts for, for some reason
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Yea, I know. But this time it will be different! And easier! After this one I won't paint another car.
It doesn't need to stay stock but I would still like to stay reliable. Another goal is to clean up and simplify the engine bay a bit.
In reply to EvanB (Forum Supporter) :
Reliable with nonturbo is easy, just make sure the oil and coolant stay cool. And don't use the rev limiter as cruise control.
Browsing youtube and found some inspiration for something close to what I am going for (minus the t2 hood and spoiler).
Also probably not real Watanabes since I am not going to drop a challenge car budget on a set of wheels.
I got most of the stuff removed from the engine bay yesterday and pressure washed it for the last time. Now I need to start prepping to paint it. No pictures since it looks mostly the same as the last picture but a bit cleaner.
For some reason whenever I am searching for pictures of what I want it to look like everything is a turbo. It's like 98% of FCs are turbo so I should be able to find one anywhere right?
All Japanese market FC were turbos.
Someone told me once that in some markets, all manual trans were turbos and automatics were nonturbo.
Even the European market 6-ports were weird, they used butterfly valves in the intake manifold for the auxiliary ports instead of the sleeve. You saw how much I hated those sleeves.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
TIL. I was wondering why all the FCs in that video were turbo. Even searching Google image for rx7s all the ones that I am drawn to have the turbo hood. I guess that says something about what I want the car to be (but not turbo).
Getting to the rebuild of the spare 13b that came with the car. Pete came down and looked it over to see what I need.
One of the obvious things is cleaning. All the parts look in good shape but the rotors are caked with carbon.
I have a parts washer that my neighbor gave me a few years ago. He had it filled with kerosene and I wanted to put it in the basement so I drained that and put in a gallon of water based parts washer degreaser and a few gallons of water. It didn't work well and it was never heated. In hindsight I should have left it in the garage filled with kerosene.
Opening up the lid after a year or two and it doesn't look great.
After draining about 6 gallons of the cleaner and nasty sludge it is looking better. Unfortunately the brake cleaner I used for the final cleanup peeled some of the paint off of the tray supports. I hit that with some random spray paint to hopefully keep it from rusting and I will let that cure before I refill it.
I remembered I have a couple 5 gallon buckets of degreaser (Spray Nine Earth Soap) that is good in heated parts washers up to 180°F. I picked up a bucket heater from Menards today that says it heats up to 180°. I'll try that along with the degreaser to see if I get better results.
How much to just drop the parts at a machine shop and have em hot tanked? If it's like a hundred bucks that might be worth it.
That would be the easy way. The previous machine shop I used closed and I haven't found a new one. Then I have to deal with dropping them off and following up until I can get them. I also want to see how this setup will work for the future.
You also want to keep all the seals organized...
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
That's the next part that I'll probably do tomorrow. Got a piece of plywood today and some router bits...
Here is what I did to my parts washer, I use low odor mineral spirits.
https://www.dezertrangers.com/threads/home-made-tools-hacks.239270/page-5#post-3968756
Sean
Tonight I made a big mess in the basement with the router because I couldn't be bothered to take it outside.
And hopefully ended up with a useable seal tray.
I need to scrape enough off the rotors to label the seals on the tray then get them cleaned up.
smokeysevin said:Here is what I did to my parts washer, I use low odor mineral spirits.
https://www.dezertrangers.com/threads/home-made-tools-hacks.239270/page-5#post-3968756
Sean
I like the idea of pulling from an external tank. I would like to get a filter setup on mine but right now I'm just going to work with what I have and see how it goes.
In reply to EvanB (Forum Supporter) :
Awesome!
Use the router to cut spots for the oil rings and apex seals and springs, too
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
I was planning on doing the apex seals. I'll attempt the oil rings, not sure how good my freehand circle will turn out.
And, done? The grooves for the oil rings turned out better than I expected. Everything fits and shouldn't move around.
Now I guess I should actually order some parts.
You may find that the O ring grooves are way too small, as are the apex seal grooves. Figure the apex seals are 85mm by 15mm, to give room for the springs too.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
I tested them out by putting the ones that were already loose in there. I didn't try any with the apex seals and springs.
In reply to EvanB (Forum Supporter) :
There are two sets of O ring holders per rotor face, though.
Here is the extra craptacular ones I made out of cardboard a while back.
No router, so I used cardboard and headliner glue. It sucks but it works-ish.
I see what you mean now. This is what I had.
The apex seals in that engine are the old 3 piece style that Mazda has not made since 2002, which puts a timeframe on when that engine was rebuilt. Even if you get genuine Mazda apex seals, they will be full-height (around 9mm-ish) two piece seals, which are much easier to work with. And 99% less likely to lacerate your fingers when handling used ones.
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