In reply to MrChaos :
Everything is more expensive than a 9", and also if you go back to page 1, the overarching advantage of the 9" is that by lightly machining a "Thunderbird" pinion flange, a Mazda driveshaft will bolt up. Every other rearend has a much longer pinion face to axle centerline distance. Being able to use a stock driveshaft saves lots of money.
I have never spent more than $150 for a gearset, the Locker was $200, Summit has bearing sets in stock for $100, etc. 9" is cheap and common because it is cheap and it is common in a positive feedback loop.
More Ford parts.
KYB AGX for Fox Mustang. Need to trim width of sleeve to fit where RX-7 shocks are meant to go.
Was a little unthrilled while installing because the arm powered shock dyno suggested they are much weaker than the shocks I took out. But on the road, oh wow. On setting 4 the car is completely sketch-free while doing stupid things on an on ramp.
Took off work at 3pm so I could run to teh Batcave and get the RX-7 so I can align it. Some notes:
4 is too much stiffness. Has some nasty mid corner oversteer as the car takes too long to take a set. AGX adjustments are very coarse, trying 3. (Fronts are at 2. 1 is way too soft and 3 is way too stiff, so 2 is the least wrong at that end)
Still have nasty drivetrain vibes. Worse, maybe, but I only really care about when loaded with the trailer, which alters the pinion angle. Or rather, I have the angle set to be correct when towing, and it's wrong when not towing.
Got the car on the alignment rack, and the numbers are right where I want them. The funny thing is the rear numbers were all zero. 0.0 degrees camber and 0.00 degrees toe on both sides. I thought I accidentally had the machine set for 2 wheel only, so I bumped a rear head and it changed the reading. At least I know the rearend isn't bent yet and I did a good job of guessing the measurement when I was squaring up the rear links in the garage the last time I made a axle centerline adjustment.
Turned on the laptop and got a gmail ping: Rallycross is postponed to the 2nd. Well, crap, one of the few times I am ready in advance and it gets shut down.
Spent the week leisurely doing light maintenance and repair unworthy of pics - welded a crack in the header, reset the wideband, etc.
This morning:
Did not see any salt trucks out, although if I see them later today, the RX-7 hibernates until May.
Shhhhh. If there's salt on the road when i get home i'll be sick because I need to drive the datsun across the street to hibernate in the trailer
In reply to Patrick :
Well, no salt trucks were seen, and I am now down here at Evan's watching a whole lot of potato and onion and pierogie getting turned into food.
But there are Significant Ignition Problems in the RX-7.
My current plan is to clean out the distributor cap tomorrow, and then fail to go any further because it is end of season.
They brined the freeways and main roads in Columbus last night.
In reply to dculberson :
Not so far as I have seen anyway, cross fingers.
If my tablet took better photos, this would be an image of an RX-7 on a trailer. The rear suspension does look very nice, and turbo Miatas make really cool sounds.
Also, Evan's diff is actually louder than mine.
WOT run up Upper Twin. I am hoping it is just the fuel pump or something. I should be able to fix that and still drive it home.
Does every rotary drive end with a call for a fire extinguisher?
Stampie said:
Does every rotary drive end with a call for a fire extinguisher?
if you are doing it right
It's a better alternative than pouring exhaust valves out of the muffler. I'd driven about 60 miles at that point under really bad lean-surging conditions, at more or less WOT the whole way. Probably damaged the transmission and rearend from all the bucking and stuttering, but I'll worry about that when I get to it.
I was expecting the exhaust system to be orange when I got out of the car. I could smell very hot rubber/plastic, like burning insulation right before an electrical fire breaks out. After 20-odd years and who knows how many hundreds of thousands of miles of RX-7 ownership, I have never seen the exhaust overheat warning light come on before. It came on partway up the hill shortly after my downshift to first. There's a temp sensor in the floor. Mind you, I have witnessed dull red exhaust systems, and have had things like gloves melt to the floor, and the light never came on for that, so I was expecting something Chernobyl-like.
Sitting in Columbus reading info on wideband controller/gauge sets. Plan is to hit the auto parts store and get a fuel filter, which is the cheap diagnostic, and a chain cutter if Evan does not have one. If the old filter is clean inside, or plugged with metal and not dirt, the next step is a trip to Jeg's for a fuel pump and a wideband controller. Probably going to spring for the NGK Powerdex AFX unit, but will settle for an AEM. That MTX-L+ is a POS that needs to die if it wasn't already dead.
Seems like it, he left here about 30 minutes ago and hasn't come back yet so that's a good sign.
In reply to EvanB :
Well, I'll keep my phone on me since i'm his next oh E36 M3 stop before the batcave
Probably damaged the plugs. It misfires pretty badly over what I assume is 7k or so. (Tach goes haywire over 6) Or the fuel pump may be dying due to it having had to process whatever that crud in the fuel filter was.
Definitely hurt the transmission. The gearset is "racking" fore and aft pretty bad now. 2nd gear has been popping out for a while, and to be honest I wanted to see how long I could get out of this trans, it's been in for almost two seasons. Time to yank it.
But if I yank it, I'm going to want to fix the clutch so it disengages fully, and I think the cause of that is a warped flywheel. And possibly pressure plate. More money to have to spend on it.
I kind of do want to hit the 2 day day/night event to cap off the season, and possibly this car's career (it started at a day day/night DRSCCA event, too) but there's a lot that needs to be done.
I mean, I have like 175 transmissions for you.
In reply to Patrick :
And I still have three 5-speeds on the shelf, along with two 3N71 automatics, a T5 with Mazda adaptor, also the Mazda to Jerico bellhousing.
Not that I need all that for the car, but once you get locked into a serious transmission collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.
Oblique movie references aside, the whole trip up I was fantasizing about double Cardan U-joints. Or finding someone with a lathe who can machine a flange to spigot a driveshaft-type CV joint like VW/Audi used, and then bribing Terry at Henderson to make a driveshaft for me with it.
Still can not exceed 70mph without a whole lot of buzzing and shaking. I know some of that is in the trans because about 40% of it goes away with a downshift to 4th, but a downshift to 4th is also superfluous because I never really need to be turning 5500rpm to go 75-80mph no matter how steep the hill is. For those not paying attention, that is a clue that this is how fast my driveshaft is turning.
I don't really get it. With my '85, I had been running about the same ratio, with short little 205/60-13s instead of 195/65-15s, and I could cruise all day with the engine singing at 5000+ in fifth gear. And with my '80, I used to take the Turnpike to work and I'd park the car at about 115-118mph (about 6500ish driveshaft RPM) because there was literally no other traffic on the road, and I was 20 and had an RX-7. I am really starting to think that the pinion flange that I had machined was not machined true. That, or there's something screwy going on with the Locker and its many degrees of freefloat. I guess I COULD try throwing a spool in there just to rule that out, since spools are really cheap for 9" rears, but I also really like being able to turn on city streets without the front tires skiing.
I kind of want to see if I can adapt a rotary to a Duratec type bellhousing, so I can run an ND transmission and the 2.lol gearset.
I think what I will do is replace the spark plugs, test the fuel pump for flow, and if the fuel pump is bad, cancel my entrance to the 2-day. I really should be focusing on other things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvI6uv6dQoE
That said, it turns out I won an eBay auction for an ultra rare TWM dual DCOE manifold for a 4 port 13B.
Looks like I need to get Lumpy rebuilt.
Knurled driving back from the rallycross in a turbo NA: "BPT is awesome engine to drive! It goes booOOOOST"
Knurled driving home in the RX-7: "Berk having a crazy high driveshaft RPM, what can I do to bring it down?"
The Internet: "Here are more rotary specific transmissions, and also some parts to make your 260 horsepower bridge ported 13B a 300 horsepower bridge ported 13B"
You win this round, Internet. But not just yet, I am going to focus on other things while I gather parts and direction again. And maybe find a set of plugs and see about going to Hypothermiafest in a couple weeks.
You're love/hate relationship (maybe addiction) with the magic spinning Doritos is comical to watch unfold. That's all, carry on.
This happened.
Then, last night, this happened.
Lookit the size of that trunk, you can fit four bodies in there!
That is an RX-8 trans, a series 1 RX-7 trans, a series 4 RX-7 trans, and an FB 12A trans (series 2 and 3 not really externally different).
i think the S1 was the "RX-3" unit - it bolts in to RX-3s, and was a not uncommon swap for a 4 speed unit.
I got Blizzaks on my siznack
What is interesting is that the treadwidth is at least 1/2" narrower than the Coopers, so they look stretched on these 8" wheels.
Also, definitely time for brakes. Front:
Rears have plenty of life, but I want to do them just because.
