Author Topic: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project  (Read 37080 times)

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Offline toplessFC3Sman

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1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« on: October 30, 2010, 08:16:02 AM »
This is pieced together from a couple places, and over a number of years, and is still on-going.

I bought the 7 back in the winter of 2004, and she started out as normally aspirated like all of the convertibles in the US. The day I bought her:


147 crank hp in a car weighing in at approx 3000 lbs was just not cutting it though, so the upgrades began as time and money allowed. As she sits as of Early June, 2008 (about a year after I moved out to MI, she's still my only car at this point):

Powertrain: (Didnt really need the engine swap... but wanted it!)
Full S4 turbocharged engine (rebuilt) and drivetrain (including pretty worn clutch-type LSD) running stock boost of 5-6 psi
Ported wastegate (to avoid boost spikes with the laughably small internal WG)
Racing Beat cat-back exhaust (love the sound, and the unit that was on there was really rotted out anyway)
3" Downpipe, midpipe and main cat replacement pipe.
Corksport FMIC and piping
Generic aftermarket intake cone filter
MegaSquirt engine management system (self-assembled and tuned)
Innovate LC-1 Wideband
1000cc/min secondary injectors (to support more boost in the future)

Suspension:
Eibach rising rate springs
Tokico Illumina shocks
Solid bushings on the front suspension
Front strut tower brace
16"x7" S5 Turbo wheels in Kumho Ecsta ASX rubber

Braking: (not much was needed here, 5-lug FC brakes are very capable units)
Cross-drilled and Slotted Brembo blanks
New pads
Stainless Brake Lines
DOT-4 fluid

Appearance: (not been my first priority)
New convertible top
Sealed beam to removable bulb headlight housings
Re-skinned seats


Thats where the car stands right now, and I'd estimate she's putting about 200 hp to the wheels. However, everythings been built with the goal of turning up the boost in mind, all thats needed is a boost controller (and probably an EGT gauge and probe to help with ignition tuning) to hopefully put down somewhere between 275 and 300 hp as a final goal for this car, power wise. I also have a Torsen LSD sitting around waiting to be installed that I just haven't gotten around to yet.

After the mechanicals are all finished up, then it will be time to start addressing the cosmetic needs.







Where I worked on her at my parents place in NJ before moving to MI, as well as when she popped the coolant freeze plug there on a visit over christmas break (yea, its late-spring in the pic, I didn't have time to fix her until then when I made it back out after classes)
« Last Edit: October 30, 2010, 08:23:14 AM by toplessFC3Sman »

Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« Reply #1 on: October 30, 2010, 08:24:27 AM »
September 2008:

First, on inspecting the brakes, I realized that one of the slider pins for the rear calipers was snapped off and the caliper had twisted, which had thoroughly destroyed the pads (about an inch of pad material left on one side of the pad, nothing on the other), so I got a complete set of Hawk HPS pads and a new rear caliper. At the same time I replaced the Master Cyl since it was having some intermittant problems with the seal/valve separating the reservoir from the cylinder, and found that I needed to replace a front caliper too because of frozen pistons. So, more than half the braking system is rebuilt or new, and the remaining two calipers were still in great condition, so I didnt touch them. At the same time I also painted the brake calipers black and the wheels a graphite-color.

Next, I got a fuel pressure gauge and a boost gauge from Prosport since their gauges matched the Innovate G3 wideband gauge I already had, and the autometer boost gauge was pretty inaccurate. I got the fuel pressure gauge to try to diagnose a seemingly random stuttering problem I had on occasion (which happened to be due to air in the fuel lines that was just stuck at a local high point). However, once it was in I discovered that the Walbro 255 lph fuel pump was completely outflowing the stock FPR, and the rail pressure was hanging out at an almost constant 60 psi for the past 2 years. Unfortunately, that meant that the fuel tables in the tune i'd been working on since then would be off by a little bit and would need to be re-tuned once I got an FPR that was capable of flowing enough fuel.

Around the same time, I relocated the wideband's body from the transmission mount to the chassis, since the transmission's heat and vibration during a long drive seemed to be affecting it. Since moving it, I've had no problems whatsoever with the LC-1, even with the 600 mile drive from NJ back to MI.

Which brings me to the most recent mod... an Aeromotive A1000 adjustable Fuel Pressure Regulator. I needed an assortment of AN fittings and an impossible-to-find metric adapter to thread into the end of the fuel rail. It didnt help that Summit messed up my order (and recommended o-ring fittings that didnt actually come with o-rings) 2 times, but oh well. Anyway, I decided to install the FPR on saturday, the day before an autocross. This involved taking the upper intake manifold off, which isn't that hard to do; i've done it at least a dozen times before. Anyway, all of the fuel system stuff goes well, and the FPR gets plumbed up in under an hour. Now time for reassembly.
As I'm bolting the UIM back on, the bolt (an M8x1.25, 90mm long) that goes right in the center snaps in half under the lightest of pressure. "Shit, I must have overtightened it last time and stretched it". Well, off to the hardware store to try to find some way of replacing it. The only metric bolt long I could find that was enough to replace it was an M10x1.5, 100mm long, so I'd need to drill out the hole and re-tap it. There are no outlets anywhere near my carport; i would have needed at least a 200 ft extension cord (if not more) to get to it, so I had to buy a cordless drill and borrow taps and bits from the lab that I work at. Well... its 4 pm, I want to get the car back together and ready for the auto-x, but now I'm stuck with an un-charged drill that has just about no power, and no time to charge it if I want to work while its light out. I tried just using the drill bit in the tap handle and spinning it by hand (with marginal success), but it would have taken forever, so it was time to get creative. Hmmm... 12v drill... 12v car battery... let me find some wire. And it worked fine, allowing me to drill out the area to be tapped as well as the hole thru the UIM that the bolt needed to pass through pretty quickly. Well, with that done, I put the UIM back on and began bolting up the throttle body.
Just my luck, as I'm tightening the last nut holding the TB to the UIM, the ratchet slips and breaks my intake air temperature sensor. CRAP! It's now 6:40, and I need to find one of these things fast! Parts Galore out off of 8-mile in detroit has a few 2nd gen RX-7s, maybe they'll have one. I was able to get Andrew to drive me out there, and we arrived at 7:27, with enough time before the posted closing time of 8 pm to grab the part, pay, and get out of there. Except... whats that note on the door... As of today, Parts Galore will be closing at 7:30 instead of 8. And no amount of asking nicely/begging/pleading was going to get us in. Time to turn back around and think of something new.
Hmmm... Pal has an RX-7, and is no longer using his rotary, maybe he'll have one. So Zach gets a few frantic texts asking for his number, responds quickly, and I leave a message for Pal. He gets back to me quickly too, but isnt sure where it would be if he still has it, and won't even be home to look until after midnight, so that path won't work. (Thanks again for your help though, Zach and Pal!) At that point Andrew and I decide to go to the meet, and I'll just either run with a bunch of resistors in place of the IAT sensor, or try to fix the broken one. The car will have to wait til the morning of the autocross to be put back together, have the tuning adjusted, and everything troubleshot... cutting it close.
Fortunately that night, someone on MIrotaryclub.net responded to my frantic plea for the IAT sensor, had an extra one, and was going to the same autocross! (Rotaryrescue - very appropriate name - you are AWESOME!!!) So all I had to do was get the car there, for which a very slap-dash, hacked fix to the broken IAT sensor was necessary.
So, the next morning I'm out in the rain re-assembling, and on the drive there I'm trying to tune and make sure I'm not going to be running too lean at full boost on rt 14 in the rain and traffic, while having andrew and three other friends following me to the autocross, wondering why the hell i'm driving like a madman. Oh well, it was completely worth it. By the end of the drive, the car was running pretty well (if a bit rich), and I was able to compete in the autocross. I've done a little bit of tuning since then, and she's running just about as well as she ever has.

Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« Reply #2 on: October 30, 2010, 08:34:12 AM »
Nov 23rd, 2008:

Well, just got thru the most recent batch of trouble, this time with the Megasquirt. The whole time i've had it, i've been using the MS1 processor, which is a motorola processor circa early 90's. The MS2 processor is basically a direct replacement, and i've had it sitting around for almost a year, but the code for it hadn't progressed to the point that it would work well for a rotary until about a month ago. I got my hands on a bit of the alpha code for it, and tore into the MS to make the necessary changes.

Somewhere along the line, I shorted something out accidentally, and then my secondary injectors stopped working, so I was limited to under 110 kPa and under 4k RPM (I could have changed this, but thats about where I run out of fuel with the primaries anyway). Well, back apart it comes, just to find one of the traces in the PCB has been burned up (yep, thats where the short was...). A jumper wire later, and the secondaries are working again, but now for some reason the car is running rich as all hell, and all attempts to correct it do nothing. Same pulse-width as before, but now the car is at 10 or 11:1 AFR, not 13-14. However, it was somehow still drivable, so the amount of fuel was changing with load and speed requirements. It wasnt a bad reading on the wideband, it really was on the ragged edge of drowning itself in fuel most of the time. Well, I re-checked all the connections, tried it with both MS1 and MS2, replaced a couple of the power transistors, and still the same thing. Leaned out all the maps so that the pulsewidth was basically just the injector opening time, still running rich. Brought it inside and hooked it up to the oscilloscope, but the output pulsewidth was exactly as reported thru megatune and responding fine. Hooked it up to a relay coil and 12V to simulate the inductance of an injector, and the output was still fine, yet it didn't work on the car. I need the car for a trip back to the east coast on Tues, so its desperation time. I just went thru and replaced most of the components in the injector circuits that I had replacements for, and miraculously... IT WORKS AGAIN! Most of what I replaced was in the flyback dampening portion of the board, and I suspect that one of the mosfets in there that was failing with the higher flyback voltages, allowing the injector to see ground for longer than it should and staying on for longer. Unfortunately in the period that it was running very rich, I think i burnt up my wideband O2 sensor, so i need to run around and find one tomorrow to replace it. But at least IT RUNS!

And for fun, this was my workspace, with the MS, my computer running megatune, an O-scope borrowed from the autolab, the stimulator card, and a power drill taped to the crank angle sensor to simulate engine RPM.


Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« Reply #3 on: October 30, 2010, 08:47:44 AM »
Jan 26, 2009:

Well, next installment time... since the pilot bearing is shot, the transmission needs to come off again to replace it. However, if it's coming off, I may as well replace it with a transmission that has working synchros in all gears, and doesnt whirr away in 3rd and 5th. Found a J-spec one from a reputable dealer on the 7club, so hopefully I can recieve it and finish the work in time to take the 7 out to at least one of the ice races and get some use out of the snow tires!

Feb 1st, 2009
Considering the "good" weather we had today, I decided to get started on the transmission removal, even tho I don't have the new one yet. Pulled the exhaust, underbody brace, and drive shaft in preparation, until the above-freezing weather melted some snow uphill from me and it turned into a nice cold stream running right thru my shoulderblades. I'm ready to pull the transmission, replace the pilot bearing, and throw a new tranny in there now tho.

Feb 8th, 2009
YES!

Transmission is out, pilot bearing was completely destroyed, but the inner bore of the E-shaft that it sits in appears to be fine. Just gotta wait to get the new trans, then it can start going back together Very Happy

Feb 11, 2009
shifter and tranny mount come on friday, and the trans should be here on monday! Going to finish up making the pilot bearing puller today, and hopefully in another week or two she'll be road-worthy again!

Feb 15th, 2009
got the transmission, hopefully it'll all go back together next weekend.

Feb 16th, 2009
Well, as far as pics go, i've only got these two right now from the most recent bit of work, but i'll try to remember to take more as I put her back together

This is the tool I made to screw onto the end of the autozone rented slide hammer to pull the pilot bearing. Its basically just a collet machined to the inner and outer diameters of the bearing, then threaded so that the teeth are forced outwards once its in place by a bolt. on the other end of the bolt I needed to weld a nut of the proper size for the slide hammer.





Note: at this point, we got a lot of snow... the parking lot got plowed and it was piled up a little bit uphill of the covered parking structure.  The days were warm enough to melt some of it, it ran down through the covered parking spots & refroze, essentially making a thick layer of ice that got so thick that at one point, the wheels appeared to be back on the ground (even though it was still on jack stands), and I couldn't slide the new transmission under it or really get under myself.  At this point I decided I really needed a DD, and took some money I had set aside to get one, so work on the 7 slowed a bit.

March 20th, 2009:

It finally melted by this past weds, and on thursday evening, after 2 hours of benchpressing the transmission, its back in!!! Now just have the slave cyl, driveshaft, heat shields, exhaust and shifter to put back on. Some pics of the car and ice, and this was nowhere near the worst.






Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2010, 08:52:27 AM »
April 6, 2009:
Well, the transmission is in, the whole drivetrain is back together, and the exhaust is mostly hung. I just need to bolt the mufflers to the back of the y-pipe, but it sounds damn good right now (loud as hell, but yea). Also, one bolt on the underbody brace broke and is stuck in the hole, and the other hole in that location stripped out, so i need to get under her with a drill and tap and clean that mess up too. Other than that tho, she'll be drivable very soon. She started right up on the first try, and the new transmission seems to be golden.

In other news, just ordered the parts to build an add-on EBC for the megasquirt so i can finally up the boost on her.

April 23rd, 2009:

Since sunday's supposed to get a little bit of rain, i had the potenza's thrown on today as well as an alignment. Got to do the first bit of top-down motoring of the season too, and am currently waiting for the wing mirrors to dry so i can put them back on the car. Then its off for a much-needed wash.

It was pretty interesting transporting the tires, since they just barely fit in the car. I loaded them up, then realized that the only gears i could get the shifter into were first and second, and fourth if you gave the tires a good shove, b/c of the tires on the pass seat. So I had to push the car out of the parking spot, and then drive carefully down to firestone (i have lifetime alignments there and needed one since i replaced the tie rod ends) to get them taken care of. She's running well though, and i've fallen in love with the engine note all over again.

July 14th, 2009:
Well, MS2 has permanently installed for the past 3 months and is working great! I finally got megasquirt's electronic boost control installed all the BC issues sorted out; now I just need to tune the PID settings for it and possibly adjust the target boost table at partial throttle for more predictability in corners, but that shouldnt take too much longer. She finally has some of the outright speed that her engine note promises, and is definitely fun.

Aug 23rd, 2009:
Whelp... the turbo has decided to destroy itself and blow all manner of oil smoke out the back, so time for another one. I'm throwing on a spare stocker I have for a little, and then its GT35 time...

Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2010, 08:54:50 AM »
Aug 29th, 2009:
A bit of a turbo fiasco... I had my parents send me the spare stock turbo I had at their place, and when I pulled it apart for inspection, the turbine had definitely injested some apex seals in a former life and was not in very good shape. Soo... had to order another one, from a seller I trust from the transmission and plenty of good reviews, and its getting here on monday.

I need to swap the turbine housing from my current one onto it though, since its from a later series so I need the old housing to get it to bolt up. The old turbo got pulled today, and is definitely the culprit. One of the turbine fins has lost a large chunk, and the washer I welded over the ported internal wastegate has melted and fallen apart. Check out the pics below.






Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2010, 09:02:32 AM »
Sept 15th, 2009:

Well, cleaned up the old turbine housing and put a nice solid chunk of stainless steel in place of the melted wastegate flapper. In the meantime, I received and tore down the spare turbo, to find that it had definitely injested some apex seals at one point in its life, and altho not completely unusable, it was pretty much junk. Sooo... ordered another one from a seller i had dealt with before, received it on a tuesday evening (when I was driving back to NJ on weds), tore it down and put the modified turbine housing on it, and re-assembled tues night.

Fortunately, the new one was basically immaculate, so no worries there. I got it installed with the old turbo blanket (which was beginning to come apart), go to start the car, and... its running rough as hell and rich as hell. I see the coolant temp, IAT and TPS are jumping all over the place, and eventually track down a broken wire in the harness that I must have pinched when installing the turbo. Sooo... find the wire, run a new one around the outside of the car and twist it onto the end of the harness near the megasquirt. Fire it up again, and things are much better, now its just the IAT thats messing up... good enough to drive with as long as I dont boost; it'll get me home anyway.

However, at that point I notice some smoke from under the hood. The innards of the turbo blanket appear to be burning. It takes a solid 2 hours with some big wrenches to tear that thing into enough pieces to be able to extract it all since it was firmly clamped between the turbo and the engine (not at the flange, just b/c of the positioning of the manifolds). At that point, its 5 pm, the car is finally running well enough to drive, I have a shitload of little scrapes and cuts on my arms and hands, my body is itching all over bc of the fiberglass in the blanket, I still need to pack the car, and I'm feeling disgusting.

Oh well... I eventually made it back to NJ by about 4am after all that, and then 9 hours of driving without being able to look to the right or behind me b/c of all my stuff. The harness is now pulled, Savannah is prepped and put away for storage, and I moved a lot of that junk back out here in the Saab (Annalie) for at least the next 6 months. Its been a long few weeks.

Jan 10th, 2010:
The wiring harness is finished up (rebuilt from scratch, just using some of the stock connectors that were hard to find), and ready to go back into the car. That'll prob happen this spring one weekend when I fly out to NJ, fix her, and drive her back.

Figured I may as well update this since I was updating the motorcycle's thread too.

March 30th, 2010:
Wiring harness is back in, and she made the trek back to MI yesterday flawlessly. Almost Auto-X season!

March 31st, 2010:
Well, unfortunately it looks like all is not good with her; I still need to sort out why boost control isnt working, and she's leaking coolant pretty badly. It seems to be pooling on top of the engine, and then running down; I'm surprised I didn't have any problems on the drive back out to MI. Anyhow, a lot of new hoses, gaskets, and a new thermostat have been ordered, and I should have the parts to find the leak on friday, in time for the weekend. Always something...

April 3rd, 2010:
The coolant leak seems very intermittant, and I should get a chance to take a better look at it today. I got the boost control working though, a fly-back diode burnt itself up and started shorting between 12v and ground whenever the boost control would start to work.

May 11th, 2010:
Well, new thermostat, coolant hoses and some of the gaskets are in, as well as the mazdatrix oil pan baffle, banzai racing oil pan brace and hardware (what a PITA to install when one of the engine mounts bolts through the oil pan, and the whole thing is about a half-inch from the steering rack), and camber bolts in the front, so I can get the camber adjusted when I go for an alignment too.

Then, an alignment later today in prep for the Toledo auto-X, and a new windshield tomorrow since the old one randomly cracked badly about 2 weeks ago.

Major apparent coolant loss was actually an air leak in past a radiator cap that didn't fit quite right; it sealed up when under pressure from the coolant, but as it contracted when cooling down after running, it allowed air in the system instead of drawing from the overflow bottle.  Glad thats the case, and its not a coolant seal!

Aug 2nd, 2010:
Pulled the turbo and exhaust manifold to install an EGT probe and take care of a small oil leak from the turbo's oil drain tube. While there, I think I finally found the source of a small coolant leak I've been trying to trace for a year or so. The leak was always along the bottom joint between the engine and the transmission, however all lines back there were always dry and sealed. There was some small staining running from the gasket between the LIM and the block down to the front of the transmission. Coolant runs from the rotor housings through the lower intake manifold to the turbo, so the o-rings that seal the LIM to the block must have failed. After pulling the manifold, one of them had disappeared entirely, and the other looked like it had slipped out of position and been partially crushed the last time it was assembled, leaving a gap for a leak. I ran out of time for reassembly last night, but hopefully this evening I can get it all patched up and ready to go; just need to chase a few threads on the aluminum intake manifold.

Aug 03, 2010:
Intake manifold is back on, and exhaust mani & turbo are ready to go back on. I had to tap the EGR hole in the exhaust mani as 1/4" NPT to block it off, and then cut/grind away the tube that was sticking into the manifold. All of my little dremel grinding bits, plenty of the cut-off wheels, and a bit of hand-filing later, and its looking ok. Eventually I'd like to run two thermocouples at the outlet of each rotor (or even better, a divided manifold like the S5's), but for now this'll do.











Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« Reply #7 on: October 30, 2010, 09:06:54 AM »
Aug 9th, 2010:
It all went back together fairly smoothly, but unfortunately there seems to be a small coolant leak from the banjo fitting for the coolant drain. Even more annoyingly, this requires pulling the turbo to get to. Oh well, a couple more hours of wrenching after work this week... Hopefully she'll be trouble-free for the rest of the summer after that though.

Aug 12th, 2010:
Got the turbo off, tightened that fitting, and the turbo is almost reinstalled. 4 more bolts, and then the IC piping, and refilling the coolant, and its back together. Definitely should be ready for sunday.

Aug 20th, 2010:
Uh oh, lots of oil smoke, especially when drawing a vacuum after boosting.  Hopefully its the turbo...

Sept 01, 2010:
I picked up a bunch of spare turbo parts from my parents house last weekend, and was able to assemble a full set of good condition parts (from 4 different turbos, not including whats on the car... yea, i havent had the best luck when it comes to turbos). CHRA from one turbo, turbine wheel from another, turbine housing from a third and compressor wheel and housing from the fourth.

Anyway, its currently making its way to AL to BNR to be rebuilt with a T04 compressor housing and exhaust clip, which with enough fuel, should get me to 320ish RWHP at 14 psi. Fun!!! Very Happy

Oct 6th, 2010:
mmmm new toy


Comparison with stock cold-side


It certainly looks very pretty, and should be good for 300ish whp at 12 psi, which is what i'm running on the stock turbo right now but probably only making 220 - 240 whp. I'm probably gonna need more injector before turning up the boost though, just to keep injector duty cycles below 80%



Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« Reply #8 on: October 30, 2010, 09:12:27 AM »
Oct 18th, 2010:
Well, I ordered some 870cc/min injectors for the primaries (1000cc/min for secondaries), and have recieved & installed them as well as going over the Oil injection system, Crankcase ventilation, and other vacuum lines to make sure that everything is still in good shape.  The turbo is on, and she's now running. Didn't get a chance to start tuning, but that'll be happening after work throughout the week. It seems like the new injectors have an even lower opening time than the old ones, even tho they're larger & the same brand. I need to play around with it more, since I shouldn't need to adjust the VE table at idle-ish speeds & loads for new injectors & turbo, but comparing datalogs from before & after I should be able to determine the necessary info.

Hopefully that solves the oil smoking problem too, although I have more & more reason to suspect it had been pooled oil in the plenums & IC that was being sucked through the intake; the insides of the intake manifold & IC piping were pretty soaked.

Oct 30th, 2010:
Just upgraded the code on the MS2 to version 3.0.3w (still in alpha), and its running very, very smoothly.  I've got a bit of the tuning done and need to work on the closed-loop boost control gains before going any further; that should be done today.  However, as far as I can tell, the BNR turbo has solved the oil smoking problem (although I've barely gotten into boost yet).  Out to do some tuning now!

Offline ~Groll69~

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Re: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« Reply #9 on: October 30, 2010, 10:05:29 AM »
Dam, you are giving me turbo envy.  i want to turbo my vert lol.  it was a long read, but you have done a lot of good work.  keep up the postings on it.
"Long Live Rotary"

An RX-7 is like having a slut as a gf! She will love you, but she will also screw around with the guy at the parts store, most of the local cops, your insurance agent, your apex seals, your bank account and your credit card!!!

Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« Reply #10 on: November 10, 2010, 12:51:45 PM »
Today was possibly the last day I'm able to drive her to work, since the RE01-R tires really don't work when it gets close to freezing, and when I leave in the morning, temps are usually right around 0*. Running well though, definitely quicker than the old turbo at 12 PSI, and I'm running up into the limit of the injectors at 15 PSI.  At 12 psi, 7000 RPM, the injectors are at a nominal 90% DC, although 100% DC would be much more than 10% more fuel, since the injectors are opening & closing 4x per cycle, so if you were to use each opening & closing time as continuous time, it would be a lot more fuel, but this is basically reserve for any possible overboost or situation that would demand more fuel.

Either way this is as much boost as I'd want to try to run with these injectors and just a hybrid BNR stage 2;  its actually less efficient at its peak than the stock turbo b/c the turbine wheel has been clipped, but it can make its peak efficiency at higher flow rates for more power.

I need to do something about the TPS sensor though, the car has too much vibration for it to be very accurate on the highway & I keep triggering all sorts of acceleration enrichments when at WOT & higher speeds, but if I decrease the sensitivity then at low speeds & throttle openings it isn't sensitive enough.  Time to retrofit something better on there I guess

Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« Reply #11 on: December 18, 2010, 11:03:00 AM »
Wow... I really wish I had a RWD car for commuting.  As nice as the Saab is, you can't replicate the fun of driving RWD in the snow.  I just got back from (very slowly) cruising around the neighborhoods around my apt that are still mostly unplowed... most of the time was sideways or with spinning rear tires at 10-20 mph.  I only got stuck once, by about 3 ounces of snow that piled up in front of a wheel when I stopped at a stop sign with a rear tire on ice.  The limited slip diff definitely doesn't do much to limit slip anymore. 

When it warms up, I need to drop the rear subframe, and I've got a torsen unit from an FD to replace the clutch-type with, as well as put in a pinion snubber, inspect all the mounts, and probably install a camber adjuster (the single long rod that hangs down & adjusts both at once; I've seen way too many of the individual ones snap).

In addition, I've had an alarm w/remote start laying around waiting to be installed for quite some time, and I'll need to work on automatic lock actuators for the doors.  At the same time, I may as well install some new sound deadening in places, and take care of a number of the squeaks & rattles that the old girl has.

Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« Reply #12 on: August 13, 2011, 06:33:58 PM »
Well, I've been tackling a number of issues with the 'vert recently.  First on the list was the power windows.  They were painfully slow, and got even worse if you tried to use both at the same time.  In addition, I was having to crack open the drivers side switch every 2 weeks to clean off the contacts, since they were sparking & fouling up from all the current (since they switch the full motor current).  The slow operation was most likely from a lot of oxidized connections from battery through the switches and connectors to the motor and back, so what was originally 12V was more like 8V or 6V across the motor.  So... upgrade time. 

First step was to get a driver & passenger switch from ebay for a Mazda MPV (89ish model year), and solder on the connectors from the RX-7 switches.  I was able to just un-pin both connectors for the drivers side, and swap the metal spades from the MPV switch directly into the RX-7 connector.  The passenger switch I needed to solder the wires onto.  Then, its time for massive re-wiring time.  The problem with the old RX-7 switches was that they were switching the full current of the motor, so to avoid that problem next time around, I hooked up two simple SPDT relays per motor (one for +12 up and one for +12 down, they both rest at ground), so that they'll be switched by the door switches.  Another reason for doing this is that in the future, I could hook up an output from the alarm/remote start to the wires for the relays to actuate them.

Anyway, the combo of the new switches & relays has sped them up 3 or 4x since the power is coming (fused, of course) directly from the battery with minimal connections.

Next up, the fight against water penetration!

Offline ~Groll69~

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Re: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« Reply #13 on: August 13, 2011, 08:24:27 PM »
i would like to see your setup with the window.  I would like to repeat that for my wife's vert and if need be my coupe.  It sunds like a really great setup.  I need a solution for the vert especially and to get the passenger side working right too.
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An RX-7 is like having a slut as a gf! She will love you, but she will also screw around with the guy at the parts store, most of the local cops, your insurance agent, your apex seals, your bank account and your credit card!!!

Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: 1988 Turbo 'Vert Project
« Reply #14 on: August 16, 2011, 07:32:46 PM »
I'll try to take some pictures when I take the drivers door skin off again, but in the mean time, here is the way I wired it.



The way its done, all the relay for a window to go up or down needs to see is the +12 signal (the other side of the switch being connected to ground doesn't matter anymore), since the other end of the relay coils are always connected to ground.  One thing that I need to do is to disconnect the ground wire from the drivers side switch so that I can connect additional wires to the trigger for each relay & make them work with a +12 signal, such as for the alarm.  As it's wired right now, a +12 signal when none of the switches are being touched would just go straight to ground through the drivers side window switch.

Also, the all the power is being drawn through a new fuse I installed from the battery, rated for 30A (although thats probably a little high).  Therefore, even if the car's off, the relays could be activated and the windows would go down (although the interior switches still get their +12 from the switched accessory line, so they'll still function the same way)
« Last Edit: September 18, 2011, 05:19:30 PM by toplessFC3Sman »