2002 - (RSX-S)/2 = Rally

mazdeuce wrote: The car was advertised as "it will turn over with a battery and it should run". Neither of those were close to true.

I'd say the amount of work is analogous to typical "should run with a battery" regardless of point of sale. LOL

Man, some of you guys have the best builds.

Pulled the water pump in anticipation of thr new one coming. Looks fine but inside but the weep hole is crusty and horrible. Leaking around the shaft I suppose.
Hooked the horn up to the steering wheel button, so that works. Found a spot for the little battery. This isnt a forever solution but it's the same battery I ran in the Civic with success and it lets us move the car safely which we can't do with any of the other batteries around. Properly identified the cut wiring for the low beams and high beams. Also identified the wiring for the third brake light and license plate lamp, neither of which are there but both need to be for the car to be legal. Going to a junkyard tomorrow that has an RSX in stock. My list is 12 items that are missing or broken, and it keeps getting bigger.

For the missing 3rd brake light and license plate lamp, can you get away with generic stuff? Random adhesive LED lights are CHEAP.

We have a lens for the third brake light and the plan is to use an LED unit behind that. Just need to make it all work. I bought a pack of 8 of them with the idea that we can have interior lights and engine compartment lights and tool box lights and lights everywhere!

Well that's great that you're getting the wiring figured out. I wonder why it was all cut, that seems counterproductive.

I think they probably wired it up so that lights, cooling fan, starter, and a bunch of other stuff could be controlled by switches on the dash instead of the steering wheel controls. In theory then the diver keeps his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road and the co-driver does all of that other stuff. However, all of that wiring was gone when we got the car so it left me to guess at what had happened. Add to that the cutting of the bundle that I think went to the ABS pump and the AC, both of which are gone, and then inside you are missing all HVAC (no blower sucks, we're working on that) radio, all of the airbags, seat sensors, interior lights and more. Some things unplugged, some cut, none labeled. It's probably not as bad as I first thought it was, but sorting it has me using wiring diagrams and the multimeter a LOT. I'm always amazed when my car friends don't own a multimeter.

The RSX was pretty picked over when I got there but it still had a bunch of parts I need to make the car work. Back to work!

One thing you guys might want to look in to, is instead of a crazy factory Fuze box, go for a bushman RTMR or RTMR. Far more organized and can be fully sealed against water and dust intrusion.

In reply to Gaunt596:

That may be in the future for sure. Right now we're trying to get the car operating as stock so we can move forward.

I only had an hour between when I got home and when I had to pick up thr kids so I attacked the underhood fusebox. For $11.50 I got a new underhood fusebox to replace the one with all of it's mounting tabs broken off. The story is that the RSX in the junkyard had it's tabs broken off as well (apparently by the guys who molested it taking out the cams and transmission) and I was bummed. The fuse box flopping around was one of the things bothering me. On the way out of row I passed a civic of similar vintage and took a peek. Looks the same......I pulled the RSX box and carried it over and sure enough, they had a different part number but appeared identical so I emptied the Civic box (fuses and relays cost at the yard) and grabbed it. Side by side at home it looks like a score! Further analysis revealed that they were almost the same. Same plugs, same fuses, and same relays except for a set of contacts that was missing for one relay in the Civic box. I pulled them apart to confirm that everything really was the same. Everything as identical except for thoe contacts so I swapped them over and reassembled. I did check the bottoms to make sure the plugs went to the same fuses and they did. Thanks for your parts bin building Honda, you glorious bastards. Installed and incredibly happy.

Your rate of work never ceases to amaze me. When this appeared I thought it would be shuffled to the back of the Grosh for glacial progress. As usual you've proved me wrong in a good way.

Did you sell the Rx7?

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

This needs to get done so I can send it off to live with the co-owner. He was talking about spending the next six to nine months sorting it on the weekends. I decided that owning even part of a non running car was unacceptable, and the initial information suggested maybe a week of work. It's more than that, but if we can get the title sorted this will be street legal and driving around very soon which is the best part of owning a car. The RX-7 went to live with a friend in Austin. I didn't really sell it to him as much as loan it to him to go do awesome things. He's already done his first track weekend and is signed up to do a wheel to wheel rallycross in a few weeks. If it's still alive when Deucekid#2 comes of age maybe we'll re-adopt it.

I'm forgot that soldering requires either finesse or a third hand, both of which are in short supply this morning. I did get the wiring for the starter done, the grounds sorted, and started on the headlight wiring.
Soldered. Heat shrinked. Re-taped. And working. This side at least. I'm at the orthodontist with Deucekid#2 hoping that I can get him back to school soon enough that I can get the other side done and then test the power windows to make sure they work before heading back to the junkyard tomorrow to get the hatch and a few other things. We decided we want the car to be water tight, so a new hatch it is.

Get some self adhesive shrink wrap! Makes a water tight connection and helps reinforce the wires at the solder joint, they become brittle there.

So now I'm curious, what soldering iron do you have? I have one but it released the magic smoke the other day and I'm in the market. Also your a wizard with electronics, and I feel like my focus build will be taking a very similar path to yours.

I have a really old pistol type soldering iron that I like when it isn't being moody because it heats up quickly, and I have a reeeeeealy cheap pencil type that heats up plenty hot but you have to give it 10 minutes to get there. I did all of this soldering with the pencil type except for the wire to the starter solenoid. That was thick enough that it carried away the heat faster than the iron could make it so I had to buy a mini butane torch to do that one.
And I'm far from being an electronics wizard. Not even close. I'm much better suited to sorting wiring on pre-1975 cars. At that point they're more like pipes for electricity than modern computers with wheels. All of the work I'm doing now is on the old pipes style circuits. Very easy to do.

Got free of the orthodontist with some time to spare, annoyed Mrs. Deuce when she called to talk to me about the upcoming trip because I was unbundling wires while talking to her and she said I sounded distracted.
Got the headlights all soldered up. Everything works. All of thr lights, turns, and flashers. The only thing that doesn't light up are the running lights high in the housings. The plugs have power so I suspect the bulbs. Anyway, I have enough light for the car to pass a safety inspection, so that's kind of a big step forward.
Surprisingly both power windows work, though only from the drivers side, so I have little electrical sorting there, but not much. I put the drivers window down, unscrewed the track and installed the window rubber that I got at the junk yard. Reassembly was successful and now the window goes up, down, and seals from the elements. FedEx says the water pump and other assorted things should be here this afternoon. I'm considering a late night to get that side of the motor buttoned up.

It's alive! And very angry.

RSX

Codes P1166 02 sensor 1 malfunction, P0141 O2 sensor 2 malfunction, and P0341 Camshaft sensor I correct phase detected.
The 02 sensors don't bother me for now, the second one isn't even in the car, but the camshaft sensor is a little worrying as the very last thing that the car had done to it was a timing chain (if people can be believed). Runs. Needs work. Almost got it to where I thought it was when we bought it. I'm happy.

Very very angry. As a rally car should.

You win the internet for the day just because of that sound

What wheels are those? they look like they might have the amount of setback I need for the Molvo.

In reply to NOHOME:

I have no idea. Co-owner bought them for RX wheels for his Civic a couple of years ago.

Back to the junk yard! I had a list of small odds and ends, most of which I got and then left on the ground, and two big things. The first is a new dash and dash bar. This is mostly because some idiot PO has cut so much off the bar that the steering column can't be properly secured. Pete came with me and was very proud of getting it out. We also pulled the hatch. Yes it's heavier than the gutted plastic filled hatch it has, but with the advantages that you can see out of it and it's waterproof. This car will be spending some time outside and on the road so both of those things are important. Car is on the lawn because we drove it outside! We let it warm up and the cooling system seems good so far. The battery light was staying on indicating no charging. Poop. Took me a few minutes of tracing wires, but sure enough, I found the wires to the alternator plug cut. I did a hasty patch job to test whether this would fix the problem and it did! Just need to properly solder five wires and that's good. Now I just need to track down the source of the cam phase code. I'm hoping it's the v-tec stuff and not actually a cam that is off a tooth.

I know that car as i have codriven in it and my buddy Paul built it. I can tell you a lot about that car and can say it has been neglected big time since it was sold. Cage is current and it did have a NASA logbook. We were able to pull of several top 5 OA times in that car. If you have any questions feel free to ask...

This is same car in video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3cc7dkAFko

NGTD wrote: That really looks like the RSX that Mark Tabor used to run out west. However RRN shows results with him in 2005 and up running an RSX - it shows in some as 04 and others as 02. Many people don't use Rally Computers anymore. With Pace Notes or Jemba the need for them has almost disappeared.

Not the Tabors car. This car was east coast all its life built and campaigned by Paul Ferreira and me as a codriver an event or two till it was sold to someone in Texas.