1988 Turbo 'Vert Project

[ITSWILL]

I call that second picture the armpit or the rotary, it seems to catch everything.

I would check the one way valves, mine were always going bad.

[toplessFC3Sman]

Armpit of the rotary... pretty accurate.  And you were right, none of the OMP injectors would hold any vacuum, so I'm on the hunt for a good set now.

Got a bunch of small stuff done over the past couple days, like threading & plugging vacuum lines I don't intend to use...



Also started some of the plumbing to plug up the coolant passages from the rotor housings into the LIM, and instead will be pulling coolant from the nipple on the back of the rear iron, running it through the tube on the BAC, and then to the turbo.  To do this, I removed the coolant return nipple on the back of the water pump housing & plugged it with a small NPT plug, and cut up and attached some compression fittings to the water lines on the turbo so I can run 3/8" hard lines with just a short section of tube to connect everything.  The compression fittings were for 3/8 tube, while I think the original fittings were 10mm, so I had to drill out half the compression fittings slightly (royal pain) and carefully sand everything down so it should seal up well.  It seems to fit well now though.


Also found something that could have been affecting low-speed boost.  Must not have been paying attention last time I assembled the TB & elbow!


Then, dove into cleaning the engine & bay a bit.  Basically just attacking it with degreaser & water & a couple scrubbing brushes.  I'm pretty happy with how its going, although I still have the drivers side to do, and some of the bay, and the underside...



Anyway, I'm on the hunt for a good set of OMP injectors now - anyone have some I could buy off of you?

[ITSWILL]

Nice throttle body elbow mod!  You are welcome to my omp injectors. I just have to find/test them.

[toplessFC3Sman]

Yea, when I noticed the TB like that, it was definitely a head-palm moment.  Shouldn't affect any of the tuning though (although it would affect max boost), so at least I won't have been tweaking the maps to account for my bone-headedness

If you can conveniently get to the OMP injectors, that would be great.  Otherwise, it looks like plenty of people over on the 'club have spares for cheap - lots of people running premixed I guess.

[fidelity101]

Yeah I just pulled 4 off of a motor, you can have them if you want. I also have s5 omp but i think i can sell that on the boards.

[toplessFC3Sman]

I got a few for cheap from the 'club and they arrived today, so reassembly has started!  Thanks for the offer though!  Speaking of OMP injectors, the ones I received look markedly different than what was there.



The ones with the cylindrical tops that appear to be two pieces were what came on the engine (granted, I really don't know the history of the engine, but most bits seem to be S4 turbo, possibly JDM judging by the intake manifold), and are the same as I remember the injectors from the S4 N/A that was in the 'vert before the swap.  The new ones are much simpler looking, and have a hex instead of the cylinder to house the one-way valve.  Any idea what the difference is?  S5 vs S4?  Just curious...

Anyway, today I jacked up the engine by the transmission, removed the mount that goes through the oil pan, and pulled the pan.  I had installed the Banzai oil pan stiffener, as well as the mazdatrix plate between the oil pan and the block to try to cut down on oil sloshing, about 2 years ago, and the gaskets were leaking a bit of oil, so I pulled them all apart, cleaned everything up & re-assembled, hopefully with less leaks.  It was a bit of a chore, but at least without any of the manifolds, the alternator & water pump housing etc on the engine, I was able to jack it up further to get more clearance between the front and the sway bar/steering rack to reinstall everything cleanly.  Only one picture, since I didn't want to bring my phone underneath the car in the mess of fluids that was accumulating


Once that was reinstalled, on to the cooling system.  The waterpump housing is now reinstalled with a new pump, and I got some freeze-plugs to plug the holes in the rotor housings that feed the turbo through the manifold.  I'll be bending some hard lines to run from the nipple on the rear iron up to the tube on the back of the BAC, and then down to the turbo feed to replace the passage through the manifold.  By not having nice, toasty coolant there, it will hopefully drop air temps going into the engine (not that I have a way of measuring them that close to the ports at the moment), and will keep the coolant from eventually seeping up into the "armpit".


Front one done, rear one open for the picture.  The LIM, gasket, and o-rings are reinstalled now too, and the fuel system and new OMP injectors are all hooked up as well.

I'm definitely excited to be re-assembling at this point - can't wait to drive her again!

[toplessFC3Sman]

Got a little bit more done over the past two weekends.  Two weekends ago i removed the radiator & oil cooler and gave them a good cleaning & flushing (although it appears they didn't really need it, still good to know tho), and repaired the oil cooler mounts.  The rubber was a bit torn on one of them, so that got cleaned & glued back together, and 3 of the 4 studs holding them to the car were so rusted they just snapped off at the sight of a ratchet, so I drilled them out, tapped what was left for some left-over M6x1.0 studs from the oil pan stiffening kit, and threaded those in while tightening a nut on the back-side to help lock the studs into the mount.


As of now, the oil cooler is back in, the turbo with turbo blanket is reinstalled, a hard line was run from the coolant nipple on the rear iron to the connection on the BAC (still need to run from the BAC down to the turbo coolant feed), and the UIM, throttle body, and elbow/cap on the end of the throttle body are reinstalled (correctly this time!).  Still need to drop in the radiator, exhaust, and replace the suspension spindle that I bent, but getting closer

[toplessFC3Sman]

I was finally able to get a nice, long, uninterrupted stretch of time working on the car yesterday, and got it almost all buttoned up!  Radiator & fan in, the rest of the intake back on, made some more hard lines for the coolant feed to the turbo & the evap emissions system, replaced the spindle & hub that I bent, filled all the fluids back up, and she started right up! 


Didn't see any signs of leaking (although I didn't run her for very long), but did notice one little thing... I forgot the vacuum line to the FPR, which had been connected to the angled nipple on the inside of the LIM... So the UIM needs to come back off so I can re-connect that, but that should be pretty straightforward

[toplessFC3Sman]

Plugging that vacuum line in went without any problems, and I don't see evidence of any leaks yet.  Yesterday I made a new heat-sink for the wideband O2 sensor from some copper sheet (my fiance does some metal-work, so we had some conveniently laying around), replaced a bunch of the foam that was used to prevent air from bypassing the radiator & oil cooler with garage door liner, which looks like it'll work pretty well if it can stay stuck to the coolers, replaced the rest of the brake rotors and buttoned up a number of other small things.  All thats left is checking the trans fluid, topping off the oil & coolant, getting her off jackstands, and cleaning up the garage of all the parts, boxes & tools I've slowly brought over there.

[toplessFC3Sman]

Finally got to drive her around a little bit, and it sounds like the replacement spindle & hub has a bad wheel bearing.  Hopefully its just the bearing & not the spindle itself, and I can just swap in the good races from the old, bent one.  The engine certainly feels good, even though the new turbo blanket is still letting off some smoke as the turbine gets hot.

[~Groll69~]

ideally it is just the bearings that are bad.  make sure a pad isnt dragging, that could cuase some sound.  We have that with our jeep.  one of the pads is not fully releasing, cuasing some drag and noise.  I thought it was the bearings and replaced both rear bearings.  It still makes noise so only thing i can think of was the one pad looked like it had a lot of premature wear that cuased the noise.

[toplessFC3Sman]

Yea, I was hoping it was just a pad, but it makes noise whether I'm pressing the brakes or not.  Its noticably grindy-er when turning left & loading up the pass front wheel, and goes silent when turning right, unloading that wheel.  Maybe I'll get a chance to do the wheel bearing tonight.

[toplessFC3Sman]

Finally got around to the RX-7 again; my DD (Saab 9-3) has apparently been slowly leaking trans fluid, and started making a lot of transmission noise.  I stopped driving it relatively soon after that, and am waiting for trans output seals before filling it up again, but in the mean time I needed the 7 to get to work.  So, after work today I had time to pull apart the wheel bearing that was making noise, replace the bearings & re-pack it with grease, and it seems to be working great at this point.  She's back in action - at least for the moment.  The battery definitely needs to be replaced tho, and the tires are almost done too, but I'll get to those soon

[toplessFC3Sman]

Well... crap





Driving to work yesterday morning in the RX-7 since I finished the wheel bearing, merging onto the highway, and once up-to-speed, something doesn't feel right... Oil pressure is at 0, and there is a distinct oil smell.  I turned off the car, coasted to the side of the road, popped the hood (and got my hand covered in oil just reaching in for the latch), to discover...



One of the oil cooler lines I had made up by a local hydraulic shop about 4 years ago has separated from the fitting, and coated the previously nice-and-clean engine bay.  Maybe she's trying to keep herself from rusting since i fixed a couple of previous oil leaks?  Anyway, I'm pretty sure I caught it within 30-45 seconds of it happening, and the car was still running when I shut it off, so I hope there wasn't serious bearing damage.  She's been towed back to my apartment, and I'm going to have some new lines made up soon (after I'm done with my DD, the Saab, anyway), and hope for the best.

At the very least, not having a car to make the hour commute to work on friday meant I basically just took the day off, so I spent it working on the Saab, and should have that back together by tomorrow.

[toplessFC3Sman]

Got the front end cleaned up a bit yesterday and the oil cooler lines are removed, now I need to call around and find a place to rebuild them