Another FC 5.0 "race car" thread!

[unii]

glad to see progress!
hows the fit on the grannies kit? me and a local guy were comparing notes and there was quite a bit of fighting to get the engine in place..

I have a trick for my sunroof, ill have to explain with pics when i update next. taking the sunroof assembly from 50 lbs to about 6 lbs lol.

I took mine apart and I'm going to make just the metal part bolt in with some mounts off my cage.

[Zach Thomas]

glad to see progress!
hows the fit on the grannies kit? me and a local guy were comparing notes and there was quite a bit of fighting to get the engine in place..

I have a trick for my sunroof, ill have to explain with pics when i update next. taking the sunroof assembly from 50 lbs to about 6 lbs lol.

It actually fit really easily for the engine at least! I don't have the rubber trans mount yet so my transmission is just supported by some chunks of wood shoved between the Granny's bracket and the trans case I think it helps that my kit already had some holes slotted by the guy I bought it from

And do tell on the sunroof! I know a lot of people that end up making a panel to replace it but they kind of hack it up. I am building this car primarily for track use, but I don't want to have a whistling and leaking sunroof lol. So I'm curious to see what you come up with!

I'm hoping to get a little bit more progress this week and next because after this quarter ends I will probably be living at work for a few months I'm glad to be employed, but Boeing really needs to rehire everyone they laid off last year. Picking up the slack isn't as easy as one might think!

[Zach Thomas]

No pictures to update with, dash and wiring harness is completely ripped out. Lucky me the guy that owned the car before the friend I bought it from completely hacked up EVERYTHING behind the dash half the fasteners were missing, wiring was hacked a bit, etc. Oh well.

On the note of wiring, trying to get my heater to work standalone has been a nightmare. I think I've spent 6 hours tinkering with it already and all I've got it to do is illuminate I think my heater control might be bad, hopefully the local junkyard still has the base model S4 I saw there last time I was there....

[Zach Thomas]

I beat the dirty cheat that is the Logicon heater control. Stupid me assumed a wire I didn't hook up was for AC, but it wasn't! Only thing that isn't working is the blower, but my test setup for all of it was extremely sketchy so I think I might just have something loose. I tested the motor standalone and it was worked fine.

I know, completely worthless update and a "WTF does this have to do with the 5.0 swap?" but it's the small successes that keep me motivated. I will likely be working 60+ hours a week starting Monday so this might be the only update for a while. Plus I have parts coming today for my ragtop and my wife's CBR to lower both...once the FC is done I will only have one stock height car - my wife's Hyundai haha.

Oh, also wanted to post that I fixed my driver's side door handle thanks to this thread: DOOR HANDLE FIX FOR FC Saved me some cash, only took about 25-30 minutes. Don't waste your money on another handle that will break too, just hack it together with that fix!

Edit: local parts store is ordering my trans mount ($15, gotta love domestic part pricing lol) so hopefully I'll get the trans in before I start living at work.

Second edit: Picked up trans mount, no updates worth creating another post for

Trans mount - $12

Total so far: $1947

[Zach Thomas]

My ghetto build has been moving along still, albeit extremely slow.

Got my ugly as sin S5 tails set in place to start more wiring:


I'll be cleaning those up down the road and fixing the broken off chunks. For now nothing is getting cleaned cause I want everything mocked up first! In the bottom of that pic you can see my supposed Feed bolt in cage. I probably won't even use it, and I haven't even bothered to see if that's even the actual brand of it. Oh well, it was included with my shell so whatever.

I also got my nearly mint manual door cards ($20 on ebay for the pair with armrests and crank handles!) mounted up. Too bad they're in such good shape because I want a black interior so eventually I'll do something with them. Racecar or not, I want a matching/nice interior!



Also ordered a complete lockset (mainly for the ignition switch) with a key off eBay...$110 I don't know why, but it pained me so bad to spend the money on it. But I wanted to keep the factory ignition location. The matching door locks and trunk just happen to be a bonus, cause even though I was missing the key I was just gonna leave the car unlocked all the time

Total cost:

$1947
Manual door cards: $20
Ignition switch w/key (plus door and hatch locks): $110

Total cost so far: $2057

Broke the 2k mark. I won't lie, I was hoping to be a bit further along at this point of spending. But I haven't been including any of the costs I've recouped. Which is probably somewhere in the ballpark of $250-$300 (the car was a shell...not much money to make back!).

Next update will be another few weeks. Hoping to start more wiring and doing my manual headlight conversion (I'll do a fairly detailed post on that).

EDIT: also, because I'm car ADD I might be selling my 62 Ragtop bug and buying a Miata I swear I'm not a Mazda fanboy, in fact I ***** everything Mazda made until I learned more about the RX7s and Miatas. Regardless of what happens there, the FC is my baby and she's here to stay.

[Miroteknik]

Is no one going to talk about how you bought your V8 for the price of $Burger.99?

[Zach Thomas]

Lol I thought it was a pretty good deal myself! For $350 I didn't expect to get nearly as much as I did. Especially now that I've seen inside of it and everything looked so clean. Should run just fine Now if only I had more time to work on it...

Not as great of a deal, but I am supposed to pick up another set of S5 tails and a full set of Turbo 2 calipers for $150! I don't need either, but my S5 lenses are pretty busted up and these ones have an ugly "custom" paint job on them but I should be able to sand and polish them up. I'll keep both sets, use the worse pair on track days so I won't cry if I tap a wall. The brakes I'll end up selling the fronts most likely and keep the rears so I can run a dedicated, separate hydraulic ebrake! I might end up close to breaking even on the deal overall depending on how clean the front calipers are.

[Zach Thomas]

Yeah so progress has been almost negligible lately the radiator blew up on my WRX so I had to waste a week spending all my time prepping the Subie for the new radiator and bumming rides to work until the new radiator finally showed up. Then I went to the dunes in Oregon last weekend to ride my Banshee and now here we are a month later will hardly a worthy update But I did take out the little beast this morning and gave her a wash, the car hasn't been moved an inch since I dropped the engine in because I still didn't have the trans in til a couple days ago (just laziness on my part that it wasn't in sooner). So there are finally no blocks under the oil pan to balance the engine and I can roll the car around!

Bought some foxbody valve covers, looks like I'll be doing a little modifying to get them to fit (as I expected):


The pic makes the paint on the car look so much better than it is in person lol



And you can see the giant mess I've made of the wiring so far:


But I bought some of these to help clean up the wiring:


So hopefully over the next few weeks I can get the wiring mostly buttoned up. I might need more fuse blocks, but we'll see what ends up happening with the wiring.

I also decided to say screw it for the sunroof motor, the mechanism is completely rusted and stuck in place. So after breaking a few pieces I'm on track to do a manual conversion of some kind. More on that when I figure out how I want to approach it.

So the running total has gone up a little bit:

Grade 5 and 8 bolts for the trans: $15
Foxbody valve covers: $20
Fuse blocks: $25
Transistor for heater + random interior plastics from JY: $20

Running total: $2137

Also, saddest thing ever was the greatest $500 CL deal I've ever seen. But I didn't have $500. Full 5.0 conversion less engine and trans, guy had a clutch setup, driveshaft, exhaust, granny's kit, distributor, engine harness, all kinds of stuff that came from a driving swapped car. Ugh. Oh well!

EDIT:
Adding another $30 to the total for an order of a bunch of terminals from Digikey. I went with non insulated crimp types, which are used on old aircooled VWs and other German cars. Despite the jokes (and truths) of German cars having awful wiring these crimp connectors are pretty nice. Totally overkill as I'm sure the crappy aluminum (or tin, whatever they use) pre-insulated ones at the local auto store would do just fine. But how else can I justify spending $60 on a fancy ratcheting crimp tool?

New total: $2167

[Teeson1111]

I like your choice in fuse blocks ;D

glad to see progress! ill stay tuned for the fox valve covers, as I have a set waiting to go on. Getting my car running is my first priority but I wanna know what you do to make them fit. what alternator are you using? I have a big 3g alt that gets in the way of the valve covers as well as our SN95 intake...

[Zach Thomas]

Filler neck on the valve cover will have to be cut and angled to clear the throttle body (no big deal, it's just some thin wall steel). The EGR casting on my SN95 is going to be ground down to clear, which is more biggie cause I was already going to have the EGR deleted. And I'm not positive on the SN95 alternator fitment with the SN95 brackets. I've read online on a lot of Mustang forums that it needs the alt case shaved down just a little but. Guess I'll find out fairly soon!

And yeah I hope you get yours running soon to tell me what to fix while I'm still assembling mine I'm really wanting to get all the wiring done in the next month and then I'll be back to attacking the engine bay and drive train!

[Zach Thomas]

.

[Zach Thomas]

Ain't nobody got nothing on my new ratcheting crimps:



Worth all 7000 pennies I spent on it, and it leaves a super strong crimp on these non insulated terminals that I bought from DigiKey. I'm not including the cost of the crimps in my running total cause I've wanted them forever and unless the tool is only going to be used on this project it doesn't count.

I don't really have any solid updates other than that, rewiring a car using it's factory switches but not all the factory relays and whatnot really blows sometimes. My wiring knowledge is minimal too so that doesn't help. But at this point we have working turn signals, heater control and taillights. Once I finish the body harness I can finally start wiring the engine. I will be so happy when the damn wiring is done.

Couple new costs:
100' of 14 gauge white wire: $15
2 prong electronic flasher relay: $12

New total: $2194

Edit (not worth a whole new post):
Used Steeda Tri Ax: $80

New total: $2274

These little things for the wiring add up quick, this is definitely an area where you get nickel and dimed badly. If you notice I've already spent over $50 on wiring supplies, and I still have to buy fuses (cheap individually, but they add up), a battery, heavy gauge wire for the battery, bulbs, etc. So sad, because none of these things are necessary to actually drive the car

Also, there will likely be no updates from me for about a month. Trip to Vegas next weekend and back down to Sand Lake the weekend after that Talk about going broke in a hurry lol

[mad-ass]

at least you are using good connectors, I just recently(ha, recently...more like 4 month ago) stocked up on my terminal supplies which costs me $100 easy.

good on you for buying molex crimper, good investment I'd say.

[Zach Thomas]

Thanks mad-ass, the investment was a little hard to justify but once I got the connectors and crimps in hand I knew it was the right choice

I have nothing new and exciting to update with, I did get an SN95 specific BBK CAI for $90 off of eBay which I was happy about!

But the only reason I haven't been working on the car lately is I picked up a new short term project last weekend....2001 R6 with a dead cylinder. Bought it for $600, have an engine being shipped to me from Florida that cost $1000 and the bike should be back in action by next weekend. Shortest project I've ever had assuming it all goes back together nicely.

Anyways, hopefully after next weekend I'll have some quality RX7 updates!

BBK CAI used - $90
New total: $2364

EDIT: some random shots of "progress" lol. Sometimes I get too sidetracked with small details and get nothing done because I'm trying to think of how to do something instead of just using it as is. An example is the wiper motor. You can see the before where the plug is mounted on it and looks crowded and ugly. So I spent an unnecessary hour extending the wires and relocated that plug to inside the car. Complete waste of time to most, but tinkering is what keeps me interested in my projects.





In hindsight, probably could've moved the ground to a lower point of the wiper motor to make it even more clean. I probably will later, since currently everything I'm doing is mock up only.

Also, here's the mess inside the car currently:



You can see the nice Steeda shifter and the hacking of the tunnel that I had to do to clear it. I made the shifter extension with some scrap steel plate. I might have to alter it for a better position once I get a drivers seat, but at this point I just needed an approximate setup to cut the dash and tunnel. You can also see the small mess of wiring I still need to clean up. After the engine harness is done I will be stripping the interior for paint and my updates might include pictures that are actually interesting

[Teeson1111]

Steeda shifter is the best! I had to cut the top mount he off though, in order to clear my dash. I still don't have a useable ash tray..