Murz' 1986 Arctic Silver GXL aka Silver

[murz]

I wanted to check bearings for any damage, which both stat gears have considerable amount of wear. Rotor bearings are fine. But yeah pretty much haha.

[fidelity101]

I can't tell from the photos very well but the rear iron looks to be in great shape! how are the other irons and housings?

[murz]

Irons and housings are fine, one housing has a bit of edge wear, but it's near the exhaust, so it should be fine. Irons were in really great shape. All coolant seals were fine, the outer ones seem re-useable, but I'd rather just replace them all. Apex seals (3-piece) seemed fine, I didn't measure them out yet, but I've got some super low mileage 2 piece seals I'll throw in there anyways. Side seals and springs looked fine as well. Rotor bearings and gears are fine as well.

The only pieces that were worn were the stationary gears, there's a bit of copper showing. Also the E-shaft has a questionable area, but it might just be part of the initial factory weld, I'll have to compare with a few other E-shafts I have.

[fidelity101]

yeah sounds like its time to grab some s5 stat gears and a new o-ring kit and call it a day.

don't want to give it a streetport while its opened up?

[murz]

I've got S5 stat gears too! Yeah, I think I do want a bit of a port job... I like stock port, but this car has big plans.

[murz]

So, after much brainstorming, the plans for this car have changed once again. The initial plan was to re-build the engine throw on the stock T2 parts and eventually go with a hybrid BNR turbo.

Having the FD and its turbocharged rotary goodness, made me re-evaluate this car's destiny again. I've always said you need a fun running car and a fun project car, it can't be both for maintaining sanity(for me at least.) 

The T2 was fun while it lasted, but I think it's time to go back to being Naturally aspirated.

The Plan:

4 Port Turbo engine will be rebuild with a bridge port. Replace S4 gears with S5 gears.
- Half bridge or Full bridge?
- Utilizing stock Turbo rotors (these should utilize more power in the upper RPM range)
- Utilize the Turbo 2 intake, to get things running then go ITB!
- Create a custom exhaust, with long primaries (I'll utilize a RB header in the meantime).
- Megasquirt or some other aftermarket ECU. Carb'd??

-Dyno the thing and hopefully make over 250whp.
-When it gets to become not fast enough, throw on an EFR type turbo.

What do you guys think?

Will's project we're working on, Widman's bridge ported FC and the Anniversary Racing site helped inspire this.

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[ITSWILL]

So I assume the FC will be the project car.

I wouldn't mess with an NA 13b if that's the case ( I know that's exactly what I'm doing  but I'm mostly doing it to be cheap and have fun).

I would go all out right away, either turbo bridge port or an engine swap.

[murz]

That's sort of the point with my car as well, I can't really afford to go all out with it off the bat. I want the tuning experience as well of wiring it all up with a standalone ECU. Plus, I'd rather experiment with an NA rotary than a Turbo rotary.

The turbo will be the 2nd phase, I'd love to have this car at least running somewhat before Winter, so I can start building up stuff over the winter.

[murz]

Yesterday I was able to bring my old 6 port engine I rebuilt over to my house from the old place. I plan to take it apart and re-use the seals, and while I'm at it, might as well even re-use the housings too.

[ITSWILL]

Makes, sense. Sometimes it's better to have it up and running than just sitting around.

[murz]

What a ride this car has been. It's been two years since it's last ran, in this time the car hasn't seen any attention as it's been sitting in my mom's garage. Finishing school, getting a much more demanding job, buying a house, oh and buying an FD, may have been to blame (Mainly the FD part) for its lack of attention.

A week or two ago, I finally pushed the car out of the garage for the first time in two years, washed the car down, then later that night, ordered everything i'd need to rebuild the engine. The car is going to go back together as it was two years ago, however i might get fancy and add a small to medium street port. A converted P/S rack is going in (thanks to ITSWILL for selling me it) so I can finally experience a true manual steering rack.

All the engine parts have been cleaned up nicely, and awaiting for final assembly and or paint (irons and housings). I've replaced the faulty freeze plug, and will replace all of them as well for extra insurance (some had a bit of pitting going on).

Right now, all that's left to do is to figure out what I want to do with the ECU, it will run on the stock ECU at first, but immediately I need to go with something else that can handle higher boost levels. Currently thinking of getting another PFC, or go the easier route and go with an adaptronic and learn to tune it a bit on my own, there's also haltech too. Funds are obviously a concern, hence why I'm leaning towards the adaptronic plug and play unit.

[ITSWILL]

megasquirt

[toplessFC3Sman]

Definitely start with the OEM ECU, that way you aren't getting into unknown territory (stand-alone) while also trying to debug other problems. Its much, much easier if you know you're starting with a fully functioning engine, wiring harness, sensors, injectors, spark system etc than trying to troubleshoot everything electrical at once.

I'm also a big fan of the megasquirt, especially for the DIY learning, but Kevin has certainly had issues with his which I'm sure you're aware of. If you want to learn (or at least aren't afraid of learning) how the electronic & controls side of the car works, I'd highly recommend the megasquirt, but it's not quite a plug-and-play sort of system. As an oddball option, there was also an effort on the RX7club to pull the processor off of the OEM ECU and replace it with a set of headers and flashable chip so that you can essentially be tuning the OEM ECU with all the control loops and whatnot that are already in place. The biggest downside there is the likely lack of support if things don't go well since its just a small group of people doing it, and the limitations as far as speed, table size, memory etc that go along with a chip designed in the 80s. Plus, for going NA to Turbo, you'd need to read up on it a little bit to see if you can scale the tables and change the limits for them, as well as use a bigger MAF or replace the MAF with just the MAP sensor altogether, etc.

Good job replacing all the freeze plugs - I had one pop out on me when I was back visiting my parents in NJ a number of years back, and of course it was one of the ones right behind the flywheel...

[ITSWILL]

I ran an Rtek for a while without issue. unfortunately they aren't supported any longer.

[murz]

I've always wanted to do Megasquirt, and might even still later down the road. Right now, MS is pretty intimidating and far from plug and play. I have a stock S4 ECU that's on the car now, and has ran just fine two years ago, I had a 1.7 RTEK unit too, but that never worked right, my guess is something was wrong with the board thinking about it now?

Since RTEK is gone, buying a used one can be pricey now, as compared to what they went for previous to the company announcing their discontinuation. Though, if I come across one of the later models for a good price i'd probably go for that.

This is why i'm partial to the adaptronic, it's plug and play, you tell it your car's basic parameters (AFR targets, timing, rev-limiter, overboost, Fuel inj size, etc.) and it sort of sets it self up with a base map. And further tuning it from there would be less daunting if the base map is good to go.

For now I'll use my stock ECU and come up with a decision, though if anyone is selling a Fuel Cut Defender, let me know.