Another cheap rx8...

Crank has been done for a few weeks.  Got new bearings for the engine.

While reinstalling my pistons, the motor got very difficult to turn over...  weird.

Now, I'm waiting for new piston rings.

While waiting for parts, I took it upon myself to paint the engine (cause why not).

I also took the driveshaft back to where I had it made and they added .75" to it.  For free!

I'm hoping to get the engine finished up this weekend and get it installed by my birthday.

So, I slacked on pics....

Engine went back in and everything assembled.  Neigh or Dan came over and helped tidy a bunch of wiring!

I primed the oil by turning it over several times with the coil pack unplugged.

Fired on first turn of key and settles into a grumble idle.

I let it warm up to finish topping off the coolant.  Then dug into why the grumble idle...

Plug 4 is not the same as plug 6 and vice versa...  swapped those around at the coil pack and et voila!  Smooth idle and normal revving!

Drove the car to the local lowes foods and had a beer with the neighbor (Dan).

Afterwards, car wouldn't start.  Battery is E36 M3.  I need a bigger capacity battery.  Trying to revive a 12 year old optima to put in right now.  I'm tired of the small battery dying after 3 days of not being used.

In other news, still has a slight vibration at 60 mph.  This is after getting a new driveshaft made and checking the torque on all the wheels.  This all started after changing the ruined diff buahings... maybe I need to go back to stock?  I'd like to find the issue.  Maybe an angle issue with the drivetrain?  Last I checked, it was .6 deg off from each other.  I would think that would be about perfect...

Rob, when you get back from racing don't forget auto-x alignment and stickier 205 tires. 

❤️ - Dan

Nice work and great driving this weekend! It sounds gooooood.

I really love this car. 
 

Your RX7 parts donation was greatly appreciated.  They shall live on!

Now I need to re-read this thread SLOWLY! 😊

Thanks for updating the thread yall!

I will post up my thoughts from the weekend when I get time.

For now, my punchlist of what I want to get done with the car:

1) get rid of vibration.  Holleee sheet it is annoying.  Might go to separate mounts for the diff and Trans to allow for some fine adjustability.  I'm gonna attempt to safely jack the rear of the up and crib it in place and have somebody run it up to 60mph to see if I can clearly see anything bent / vibrating.

2) add something to stop the wheelhop on drag launches.  It was much better this year, but not great 

3) get rid of the raspiness between 3 and 4k rpm.  BTW, 70 to 83 mph is 3 to 4k rpm...  long drive.

4) add MO POWAH baby.  I got a line on a nitrous kit in budget.

5) work on the alignment for autocross.  I also want to see how much work it is to remove the passenger and rear seats to lose some weight during the event.

I just picked up a Dynamax resonator to try to kill some of the Drone and raspiness on the Baja at the same RPMs. I'll let you know how it works. As far as wheel hop and vibration goes I found that a better power plant frame bracelet and rear end mount Mayday drastic difference and we'll hop on my Miata. Delran batwing bushings help immensely as well. So maybe two birds with one stone in separating your trans and rear differential mounts as well as some Delrin bushings to fight the wheel hop and the vibration at the same time

Yep.  Already have a dynomax resonator.  Made zero difference.  Ugh.

I already installed the delrin bushings.

Let's see how the separation of church and state...  ermmm diff and Trans goes.

Edit.  I'm also going to install a bumpstop basically pressing on the diff nose.  It helped the 2nd gen immensely. 

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

Bring girls in back seat to add cuteness and score more concours points! (Or some kind of theme with a neighbor participating and helping to add lightness)

bbbbRASS said:

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

Bring girls in back seat to add cuteness and score more concours points! (Or some kind of theme with a neighbor participating and helping to add lightness)

He had Crawford and I, we was cute enough.

QuasiMofo (John Brown) said:

bbbbRASS said:

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

Bring girls in back seat to add cuteness and score more concours points! (Or some kind of theme with a neighbor participating and helping to add lightness)

He had Crawford and I, we was cute enough.

For hellen keller maybe. 

wvumtnbkr said:

Stuff to make it great:

Fix the serpentine belt situation (it's riding a bit weird on the crank pulley).

Fix the clockspring and redo the alignment (it's a bit touchy at highway speeds).

Wire in the reverse lights.

Put a new shift boot on the shifter (the one I used got pinched and is already torn).

Find a way to plumb in the ac compressor and charge it.

Get new tires.

Get some way to use my phone in the car for audio / calls.  Might need to Pony up for a legit touchscreen radio.

Just as an update....  all of these things have been completed.

AC works as well as any other rx8 (not great, but good enough).

Clockspring was fixed.

New low quality head unit that I picked up from a local parting out a few wrecked rx8s was installed.  Has wireless Android Auto (annoying I think).

Still haven't wired the reverse lights....

Still have a vibration issue.

Plan to start swapping the transmission with my spare and see if that does anything.

If not, I might need to call in reinforcements!

It's possible that I buy a cv type driveshaft for 99% of the year and shove the U jointed driveshaft in the car for the challenge next year.

Just drove this beast tonight.  It's fun!

Not very fast.  But turning into a good car!

Th3 ac and defroster worked (it was raining).

Radio worked.

Spun the tires as I wanted it to.

Made sick sounds out the back.

Not bad for a car with far less than $4k in (all in). 2k with challenge math.

Me want turbski and 12 second passes now.  Lolz.

wvumtnbkr said:

Just drove this beast tonight.  It's fun!

Not very fast.  But turning into a good car!

Th3 ac and defroster worked (it was raining).

Radio worked.

Spun the tires as I wanted it to.

Made sick sounds out the back.

 

Not bad for a car with far less than $4k in (all in). 2k with challenge math.

 

Me want turbski and 12 second passes now.  Lolz.

Im going to try hard to have the miata done and sorted for this year's challenge. Id love to actually compete with you and angry. 

The rx8 is such an awesome piece of equipment. 

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

Thank you!  That means alot!