FC RX7 5.0 race car thread

[Teeson1111]

RX7 FSM. Get to reading The wiring diagrams aren't too bad to learn, after a little bit of studying.



So is it all painted yet?

wow! what a find that site is thanx! thats gonna save me so much time with the body harness. its like the veryusefull.com for RX7's

and ask and you shall receive:






this week (ya week) was all Kings Of Leon. They came to town a short while go and I saw them with some friends, man what a good show. I basically love everything after AKA Shake Heartbreak (still not sure what I think of that album and the one before it) so I was rocking out while sniffing paint fumes.

so first things first, rolled the car outside; well okay I took apart my engine stand to make a dolly and the wheels were getting stuck on the gravel even after I layer roofing tiles to smooth it out. So I grabbed my dads truck and pulled it outside haha. Then degreased and pressure washed the whole thing yet again. oh and this was after taking a wire wheel to everything just to make sure there was no surface rust or anything.



then spent a late evening scrubbing the entire thing with acetone (or "ace-tone" as sean kept calling it) shoutout to alex and sean for getting high on paint fumes for/with me!



then built the "booth" and put the car in it



(apologies for iPhone pic)

my lens isn't wide enough for a decent shot of the inside but you get it..



my paint preheater system. better known as warm water in a bucket.



The weather played nice too, didn't rain this week, humidity was low enough. No super strong wind. I waited till late afternoon/evening to paint when the air is warmest. Kept a heater in the booth over night as well, to let the paint cure quicker.

now I didn't take many pics, the dust level inside was crazy. I was doing my best to vent it with the door but I didn't want to risk my camera.
primer dust too is the worst



and I ended up need close to double what I started with for paint



I used:

4 cans of primer for Engine bay and seams around car
4.5 cans (had a 1/2 leftover from before) for the underside/wheel wells and back.
4 cans for the roll cage. turns out round is hard to paint.
5 cans for engine bay
8 cans for interior
2 cans of this:



did light coats of bed liner in the wheel wells, underside and floor of the interior. Turned out awesome, my buddy did this in his jeep in place of carpet. looks really cool, is super tough and masks over spray etc. Did the wheel wells to hopefully prevent rock chips.

I'm also amazed it only took 2 cans to do all of that



so sometime later

oh and disclaimer: I took these right after I pulled the booth down, so there was a decent amount of dust everywhere and on everything. So if a spot looks bare or oversprayed its probably dust. coverage was pretty good on everything.







roll cage was a huge ordeal to mask so I could paint the interior...















did all the areas that after its plastidipped won't be covered in dip. door jams behind bumpers etc





with basically 0 regard for overspray lol



Overall I'm happy with it for spray cans. The cage is a bit rough, the spray pattern on the cans makes it really hard to not have it run. but its rust proof and the whole thing cost me maybe $250 in paints and supplies. now I just gotta wait a week for the paint to fully cure and then start putting everything back together. As of this weekend I'm 2 months away from my goal of driving it to my buddy's wedding.

Gonna have to fill the time while I wait this week with small things, still have a diff to clean and a bunch of small stuff to paint.

[Zach Thomas]

Still looking good, I wish I know more about wiring I would love to rewire my entire car, currently my dash and turn signals don't work. Time to learn lol

RX7 FSM. Get to reading The wiring diagrams aren't too bad to learn, after a little bit of studying.



So is it all painted yet?

[Teeson1111]

Rattlebombing the whole car or....?

nope, well almost.
cage, engine bay, interior, and underside. basically everywhere I welded and where paint was remove, but I'll be keeping the factory paint intact as its a good base for the 'dip

Still looking good, I wish I know more about wiring I would love to rewire my entire car, currently my dash and turn signals don't work. Time to learn lol

chances are its a bad solder joint in the switch, these cars are notorious for those going bad.
great time to learn though, very useful skill

[LaMaR-]

Still looking good, I wish I know more about wiring I would love to rewire my entire car, currently my dash and turn signals don't work. Time to learn lol

[Zach Thomas]

Rattlebombing the whole car or....?

[Teeson1111]

teaser:

[Zach Thomas]

Lol completely overlooked your pedal setup I had it in my head you were using the stock master so I didn't even look at the pedals, oops.

I loved Arctic Monkeys' first album, their second and third were eh. I haven't listened to them in forever, didn't even realize they had a 4th and 5th album. Time to give those a listen.

I need to pick up those exact dash pieces as well, there's a local junkyard with a base model S4 that I think still has them. The sunroof looks good, I'm curious to see how it works out! I'm the whiner that still wants a semi-streetable car since I've never even driven on a track and have no idea if I'll even like it

Cars looking good overall and the subframe parts look great!

[Teeson1111]

so these guys have been around for a while, but this latest album is really making waves around BC anyway



Arctic Monkey's older stuff was always kinda hit and miss for me, but this album is basically gold through and through.
Wich I was able to see them when they were in town a little while back, but I wasn't able to afford it lol #becauseracecar


filled in the key holes myself, was going to let a pro do it, but yolo





it worked with mixed success, its gonna need filler/bondo. But I really don't care for show car quality paint or anything, its too stressful lol.



cut that little bend off the front wheel area 1: tire clearance, to truly gain more I'll probably have to channel the frame however. 2: give the sway bar more room



which I moved really far forward. not sure how much tire clearance I'm limiting by doing this yet, but chances are I'll run no bar for drift events anyway. welded 2 bolts to a plate and then welded the whole thing to the car. Easier said than done for me and my lack of welding skillzzz

bought more thingssss!!



bus bars, bulkhead pass throughs.

they go like this



one for the alternator, one for the starter.

helped a buddy pull a clock spring for his Honda, and while we were there I grabbed some small pieces that I had either, lost, thrown out by accident, or never had.



will be painting the grey black with the dash etc

then I got a little carried away



took all the wiring I have, laid out what was important and proceeded to strip back all the loom from it. I will be cutting/de-pinning everything I don't need (which haha is most of it) then get the car running and loom it shortly after that. Just in case theres something I missed or want to add.



but man there was a lot of junk...



and now for the sunroof..

heres what I came up with



the tabs on the back overhang in the car, so you just place the back in first on the little lip



then (mock up photo) pin the front.



you can't take it off without having access to the inside of the car, it seals in a similar way to the factory mech, and its waaay lighter/simpler.

probably not daily friendly at this point, I don't know for sure it doesn't leak yet... but according to the PO it leaked anyway.


then just today I stripped, cleaned and painted my subframes. not the most fun afternoon but soooo worth is



gloss black is my new favourite colour

I hope to buy paint and plastic this week and lay some rust proofing (aka paint) on the car this next week.

[Teeson1111]

I don't know if I overlooked it, but have you had a chance to test out the Miata slave cylinder? You're keeping the stock FC clutch master right? Definitely asking this for the sake of helping myself

I'm jealous that you're willing to go without a heater, I feel the need to keep mine and there's a lot of wiring for that stupid HVAC system. I can't believe all the flaps in the heater system are motorized for a late 80s car...my 04 WRX even uses cables for the flaps!

No I haven't played with the slave using the pedals. And no I'm not using the FC's master, I have that reverse swing set to use

Ya gotta love that 80's japanese tech! FC has a lot of surprising things for its age.

but this is a track car for me, I can wear a jacket if need be lol. It won't see much use when a heater is truly needed

[Zach Thomas]

I don't know if I overlooked it, but have you had a chance to test out the Miata slave cylinder? You're keeping the stock FC clutch master right? Definitely asking this for the sake of helping myself

I'm jealous that you're willing to go without a heater, I feel the need to keep mine and there's a lot of wiring for that stupid HVAC system. I can't believe all the flaps in the heater system are motorized for a late 80s car...my 04 WRX even uses cables for the flaps!

[Teeson1111]

You sir, not only have a dope build going, but you're platform of choice is as underrated as your music choice. Great album picks.

Thanks man!

nice update, i like the placement of the ECU, are you taking out the heater core altogether?

Haha threw the heater core out a looong time ago.

[LaMaR-]

nice update, i like the placement of the ECU, are you taking out the heater core altogether?

[RedRyan]

You sir, not only have a dope build going, but you're platform of choice is as underrated as your music choice. Great album picks.

[Teeson1111]

small update

started a new job, so I've been a bit too busy to post an update.

but long overdue...



Young The Giant - (self titled)

most underated band around (in canada, my opinion) but their new album Mind Over Matter could change that. Alt rock with just a really good sound, a good album front to back. If you've only heard "My Body" or "Cough Syrup" give the rest a listen, its even better.

so finished the gauge cluster





and cut/bent/welded an ECU mount



have some room to put foam or rubber to dampen vibrations

did the same to the ignition module (TCI)



but first I took the time to fix Ford's genius. They put these stupid 5.5mm bolts to hold the TCI to the heat sink. So when the module inevitably goes bad, you have to grind a socket to get the bolts off, then replace the module. They don't sell the heat sink either.



so I drilled out the 5.5mm's and found some phillips head ones to replace them.

Made these real quick too



When I pulled the engine last time I spent more time trying to find bolts and washers then pulling the engine. The chain also hit the fuel rail.
These plates make it easy to pull and block off the EGR ports on the back of the heads.
I'll probably get some prettier ones CNC cut, but I think i'm going to mount the ignition coil to the one pictured first.

all for now, just saving up a little to buy paint. I don't want to rely on the weather (which is warming up..) so as a test I through a tarp over the car and put a heater under it. An hour later the car was an average of 20*. So I'm going to get some plastic and make a shelter for the car, and paint it in the shelter.

I also went back tonight and edited a bunch of typos and corrected a piece of information in the thread, just for the skimmers.

[Teeson1111]

awesome update bro, and super glad to hear about the alternator. Ill be sure to update my build as soon as deployments over.. Since Blake never updates his thread yours is the only one keeping me motivated.. Keep it up

ya man, looking forward to seeing progress with your car!
Blake appears to be busing getting sideways lol, lucky guy

So much update, I feel pathetic Good progress though, it looks like it's coming along great!

haha ya I managed a pretty productive week, thanks

Love it! I've been wanting to convert my Wilwood pull- type slave cylinder setup to a push style, so the write up on the Miata Slave conversion is awesome!

your experience with the pull slave made me lean to a rear slave setup. And the fact that the Miata slave was like $15 and readily available...