Years in the making: Franken Wankel! 1986 RX7

well I have some serious downtime at work today and I've been putting off posting this here for a while, but mostly been too absorbed with the truck but here is the whole story behind why I got the truck in the first place... for the race car! however it didn't start out that way...

So all of this starts sometime in the spring of 2006

The vehicle is originally from SC and has zero rust, had about 145k on it and 45-55k (or so he claimed) to be on the atkins rebuilt motor that was in it. picked it up for 1800 with a bunch of extra parts and yes it is a factory 2+2

my old 240sx next to the FC, the short while when they shared the garage space heh. This was the first car I bought (first actual car was a 90 corolla rust bucket) nothing special just a decent stereo, short throw and a catback with some rimmmmmzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Hella reliable though... (no pics avail :( )

mods completeled already:

PIAA yellow fogs

Atkins streetport

3mm apex seals

Tokicko blue shocks

K&N intake cone filter

Centerforce clutch (utter crap)

Walbro 255 fuel pump

NGK plugs/wires

The owner had smoked and had nasty ebay seats in them as well as cut a hole in the hood for the intact that was just gaudy... so I fixed it with duct tape for a while.

meanwhile later that summer:

grabbed some red turbo 2 seats, a new sticker and some more rimmzzzzzz

the new hood I was supposed to pick up:

he had the scoop molded, it was aluminum and it looked great, however he didnt like the way his new hood fit with the body kit.

So I bought his new hood:

the car is ready to go back to college for another year! Also note my dads pretty sweet stock prelude, yeah in high school I used to think that the lude was very fast...

if it looks gaudy its okay, its going in for paint soon... I had friend in the autobody program. Also the mis matchness blends in well at the college because its pretty hillbilly...

and BAM! its paint time!!!! and upgraded tail lights but still 4 lug rockin on 14"s

and primer! oh my god i can see my hack job stereo, I used to be pretty E36 M3ty at these things...

aaand the finished product! note more lude shots.

so now this brings us to about jan 2007

this was a nice surprise:

no more emission testings, horay state law changes!

so I decided to paint my OZ rally wheels that I snagged off of a lancer in the early days of craigslist they are now owned by another GRMer and the paint has actually still lasted...

I mixed a few spray colors and I dubbed it gunmetal bronze.

now with it on the car with stock height and tiny tires, total 4x4 status and terrible offsets:

now its time to turn this into a nice street car now that I have the body done and the vehicle running very well:

also a bunch of old car repair, bearings brakes bushings and hoses. pretty normal for DDing a 20+ year old car

now its the following fall and I decide to use my car a guinea pig for a class project relating to flow bench testing. So I tried my hands at porting and polishing the throttle body, removing some redundant and E36 M3ty systems and then some.

now the car is more street classy with a bit of a drop and a red interior, the stock one was nasty. oh and you cant forget wood, wood is very important in being classy:

radio got stolen though, damn kids...

then the motor blows, I tear it apart over winter and it is mostly carbon. just naaaasty.

So I pick up a 91 block and have some free time to mess with stuff. so I upgrade manifolds and internals with the newer motor, also paint - why not.

engine bay.... yuk!

eventually I swap it in and its good and dandy then I overheat it in the summer and it goes downhill until I ultimately pull it out the end of 2009 and get ready for an engine build through winter of 2010.

COMMENCE PARTS ACQUISITION!

yes this was my room in college.

soo many rotors!

the trick was to part engines out, buy them usually for free or beer. disassemble, keep parts I want and then sell the others I dont!

So my throttle body porting experiences went well that I did several of those to help fund my project and more porting practice because it will come in handy....

its christmas time!

engine gettin ready:

There should be more photos of the build but they are lost aircraft rotary engine cooling seals

a tackle box works great for organizing my plethora of used hard seals:

turbo exhaust inserts and then I polished them. much better than what stock is:

here are some more engine build shots aka, how I spent my spring break 2010:

okay engine goes together well and I try megasquirt out on the new engine but my wiring harness is very bad and old so I gave up and went side draft carb.

also, some of this started to happen:

and the at the time dd:

fidelity101 wrote: COMMENCE PARTS ACQUISITION! yes this was my room in college. soo many rotors! the trick was to part engines out, buy them usually for free or beer. disassemble, keep parts I want and then sell the others I dont!

Nice Ferris State sweatshirt....

So remember how I funded my engine build with other engines, now I'm doing that with a wrecked FC, got extra suspension bits and turbo drivetrain parts which allowed me to do this:

new bushings and bearings and lines and everything! much nicer.

but this was left of the shell when i was done...

and more racing and more fun and now its time to go more race car on this summer project 2011:

rhino lined the interior

Just finished re doing the engine bay, stripped and gutted. Just finishing the rewiring this week. perma sleepy eye setup to come next week, no more bulky motors and pop up system.

Folded aluminum dash and AL door panels in the near future, before the end of August.

some progress at TRF

aaaand of course, more of this (winning!, not the catch phrase but just getting better through seat time)

so I've always wanted to do this to the headlights but my execution was not as good as I had hoped for but it still worked decent, much lighter now too.

Also, I have become addicted to tires at this point, mostly rally ones...

more re-working on the engine bay, nasty stock radiator, "new" fans

meanwhile at work...

I haven’t updated this in a while but there haven’t been too many changes, but basically I have just been going through some things. I decided to clean up my electrical fuse panel: Before:

and after

Did some more of this:

Then I went racing, did a 2 day event in Ohio for rallycross. Took 3rd overall in my class for the weekend, would have taken 2nd but I blew one run really bad and almost got stuck. Still had a good time, the 2nd place trophy is not as nice because it doesn’t open beer bottles : Also from that event it was very dusty and I realized that my air filter had basically failed and I had to create a ghetto filter for the rest of the event.

So after that I do some more racing, go to Muskegon for furrin group’s 1st rallyX. My first run I blew the clutch. 3rd to 1st shifts make clutch angry. It was stuck engaged:

got a little muddy at another event:

Decided to further enhance my air filter situation by longer horns and new filters

then I race some more and loose a nut on one of my suspension bits causing the toe to change in corners and the axle separated: fixed it and drove home but DNF for that day after the 1st heat.

But I have more success later on: I have always hated my cooling system, mostly just tired of going through stock radiators. So I call my friends at griffin

and some help from TRF again on mounting (I cannot weld, especially aluminum)

I never have cooling issues now, except when I went to this magical place called snowdrift!!!!!!

REAL wheel drive!! You can also see the rallyX 911 that has its own build thread in here. The MI rally group is pretty massive, I went to snowdrift and ran into many many many friends.

I required lots of cardboard to keep it from over cooling with the radiator and hood setup.

So here is the current fleet (not in current weather conditions)

except the front bumper is slowly becoming sticker bomb, with actual stickers and the suburban has some updates soon too with new engine and headers :)

fidelity101 wrote: : Also from that event it was very dusty and I realized that my air filter had basically failed and I had to create a ghetto filter for the rest of the event.

Chunk of air filter still ziptied to my antenna

Where was that other nasty dusty event at? Because

is 12 kinds of badass photo.

That photo is from crystal MI for DET SCCA rallyx. I wanna say it was august, it was dry and hot.

Its located right next to a dirt circle track and when its off season for the roundy rounders we get to play in the dirt track that end sup in the field.

next up on the to do list ( in no order)

seats/harness

fix doors (driver side now doesnt latch closed and passenger only opens from the inside.

new engine (she is 3 years running strong on all used parts but she is getting tired...)

diff or trans overhaul, clutches are worn in the diff but I do have a rebuildable rx8 trans sitting in my garage that I need to do something with.

fidelity101 wrote: Its located right next to a dirt circle track and when its off season for the roundy rounders we get to play in the dirt track that end sup in the field.

Yes, it rocks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtoL_9RSl_E&list=UUHszecM_VueZiwaM3YE7r6Q&index=1

But I've only ever been there in the winter, never when it's summer and dusty.

Where do you live in Illinois?

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid:

I was originally from the Aurora area now I live by Detroit.

Oh ok, I saw the Illinois plates

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: Oh ok, I saw the Illinois plates

Yeah I went to college in Michigan and never wanted to leave lol.

great to see an Rx7 put to good use, I did the same at Beaverun rallycross with a white 2nd gen as well.

fidelity101 wrote:

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: Oh ok, I saw the Illinois plates

Yeah I went to college in Michigan and never wanted to leave lol.

I went to College in Ohio and I couldn't wait to leave.

westsidetalon wrote: great to see an Rx7 put to good use, I did the same at Beaverun rallycross with a white 2nd gen as well.

Where is Beaverun rallycross located at?

Also with the removal of the rear sway bar the car tends have more grip off-road

fidelity101 wrote:

westsidetalon wrote: great to see an Rx7 put to good use, I did the same at Beaverun rallycross with a white 2nd gen as well.

Where is Beaverun rallycross located at? Also with the removal of the rear sway bar the car tends have more grip off-road

Beaverun is now called Pittsburg International Raceway, the rallycross was in a adjoining field on the track property. This was back in the day when Tirerack sold Kuhmo rally tires(2001?). We also rallycrossed our GRM 2004 challenge Eagle Talon, where I managed to hit a hay bale(bent intercooler) and also broke a rear spring perch all in a days work,lol.

I may have missed it but why did you have cooling issues doing the snowdrift? Snow and mud caked in the radiator?

The rally lights on the hood just look so at home on there.

fidelity101 wrote: Yeah I went to college in Michigan and never wanted to leave lol.

Music to my ears :)

I have to get the Saab on the road so I can come out and play.

Where do you find all the used rally tires and what do used tires cost?

crankwalk wrote: I may have missed it but why did you have cooling issues doing the snowdrift? Snow and mud caked in the radiator? The rally lights on the hood just look so at home on there.

Nope! Radiator is clean as a whistle! The griffin radiator, shrouded w/ spal fan, virtually no heat soak under the hood, vented hood, all these things scream cooling efficiency, and when its 8 degrees outside as soon as I hit 50mph I watch the temp go from 205 to 160 degrees in a matter of seconds.

When I had TRF weld the brackets for the radiator I also had to modify the lower inlet to a smaller diameter to mat up to my stock size and also retain the heater core so I have defrost for ice racing and winter rallyX and etc.

Oh and I also wrapped the header and added a minor heat shield for the intake manifold but I don't think I have photos of that, it is wrapped all the way to where the cat-back bolts up.

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

fidelity101 wrote: Yeah I went to college in Michigan and never wanted to leave lol.

Music to my ears :) I have to get the Saab on the road so I can come out and play. Where do you find all the used rally tires and what do used tires cost?

I cant remember honestly, its pretty random most of the time. On my phone dials I found some on craigslist in Chicago and then I found that mass of gravel tires on special stage forums, they were shipped from AZ on a pallet. I organized a group buy with a bunch of locals.

However I would leave MI for CO but the automotive industry isn't there but there is some need for heavy equipment and trucking but thats more retail side and dealing with the end user is brutal (current position)

Yup I forgot about that, anyways here is a shot of the wrap job.

Also for your GRM-ers my roommates back burner project. One of the factory AMC eagle stage rally cars, it has an AMC390 v8 in it, that swap was done in the early-mid 90s. Runs and drives just not all sorted through yet.

Recent rallyX, brought gravel tires to an ice fest. not a good day, it also gave some great warning signs for the impending rebuild... Lots of oil burning, clouds of it. It didn't help that I had a bad plug wire causing some missfire, that is sorted out and runs "better" (read smoother, since it still makes clouds of oil)

har har, a wankel that burns oil. insert v8 swap jokes here.

Engine build pictures soon to come, almost all parts have been aquired and porting has been decided for engine #5 for this car :)

Expect updates on fancy engine within a few weeks. Hoping to have this engine last the next rallyX on May 25th.