RX7 Hillclimber Build Thread

Before going to a dinky steering wheel: the Jensenator has an unknown ratio manual steering rack and it had a 13" wheel when I got it. 22x10x13 Hoosiers made steering at low speeds difficult, to put it mildly. I stuck a 15" wheel on it, the difference was amazing.

About electric power steering: I wonder how hard it would be to adapt one of those electric power steering assists like my daughter's Saturn ION has.

http://www.fastfieros.com/tech/eps__electric_power_steering.htm

I was thinking along the lines of this: http://www.rx7club.com/fabrication-250/write-up-mr2-electrical-power-steering-conversion-847818/

I've heard about that but never seen it done. Pretty cool, if it works!

Oh thank god it finally came

If it helps at all, rx8's have electric racks may be worth a look?

Not sure if I want to swap the rack out, but it's an option.

The new impact wrench laughed at the axle nut last night. I'll be making some serious progress this weekend after I pick up my new daily driver Saturday morning!

Got most of the rear end pulled apart now. Need to push the top carrier bearing a little to release the carrier so I can burn out the old DTS bushing and install the new one.

Also need to get a pickle fork to pop out the toe links.

However, that's on hold today as it is SWMBO's birthday and she already let me drive four hours round trip to pick up my new daily driver from a fellow GRM member. It's a southern car and other than being a little dirty is MINT.

At a slight impasse. We don't have room in the barn right now to make my cage. It serves as winter storage and is CHOCK full of vehicles, including a new IT7 car for my buddy.

I'm thinking I'll just spend some of my saved cash on more parts for now, and if it comes down to it I'll have to sandbag at the spring hillclimb to avoid breaking out. Not optimal but it's out of my hands since all the equipment to make the cage is at the barn, including the bridgeport we use to fish mouth the pipes.

2 months time. Loads of time.

I just had to change out the lateral links on the back of my FC. It is not fun. I couldn't get the nuts any tighter or looser. I had to grind a pair of channel locks to fit on the top so they didn't spin when I used my impact gun.

I got the old ones out. Yay!

I had a parts car that has good lateral links on it. I thought it would be easy to get them off. After I got the nuts off (easy) it went down-hill. I tried a seperator (pickle fork). No good. I tried penetrant. no good. I tried hitting them with a hammer and a large piece of aluminum. No good. I tried heat. No good.

I finally welding a washer and a nut to the chassis of the parts car. I then ran a large bolt in the nut up against the bottom of the lateral link "stud". I hit that with the impact and it finally came out! Whoo hoo!

Not easy!

Good Luck!

P.S. the cheapest I found them was Mazdatrix at 177.00$ EACH. let me know if you find them cheaper.

Rob R.

I may be interested in any parts you are getting rid of.

Thanks,

Rob R.

Already have my replacements:

I don't have a huge amount of parts, but I do have an extra race header, the stock header/cats, full dash (blue) with no cracks, the locking cubbies from behind the seats.

Also have the super fancy stereo since it was a GXL model.

Why go for the adjustable lateral links? I thought there is an eccentric adjustment for toe as is.

Disclaimer: I have never messed with the eccentric adjustment. I may be making E36 M3 up.

More adjustment is always better. And these are much more beefy than the stock units, which gives me more confidence when I'm strapping 10" slicks on the car.

What are you doing about shocks/struts?

I have money to buy some and I can't find any good ones for a decent price.

i was really hoping to get the bilsteins but, they are NLA.

I have Koni yellows in the rear and KYB AGXs in the front right now. I'll run the KYB's until I can afford to buy Koni double adjustables and threaded housings from AWR.

Slow progress, but there's SOME.

Got my lexan in, which is why I posted a how-to remove windshields thread. Still struggling... I'll be tracking down the piano wire this week.

Rear hatch removed to make getting the glass out easier. Fun fact, the hatch and glass weigh 52 pounds.

I pulled another 5 pounds or so in miscellaneous stuff too and started removing the headlight stuff. I'm saving all the bolts and nuts I pull out to weight them all. It's a couple pounds so far.

Gotta get spending some money to get this thing up and running. Need an electric fan and to wire in my electric water pump.

Cage will (fingers crosser) go into the car in early may.

Also had to so some wire repair on my Civic today after the harness rubbed through on the intake manifold. Nice design Honda. Hour later and it was repaired and loomed to prevent future problems.

That was a deeply unpleasant job. Had to keep heating up the cold knife with a torch to get through the sealant, which meant a LOT of unpleasant fumes. I didn't weigh the windshield yet, but it actually didn't seem that heavy.

Time to get cutting. I did most of it but didn't take an after photo. Forgot how easily Lexan cuts.

How did you cut the lexan?

Did you take out the hatch window yet? If so, how did you do it? Picture of teh tool or process?

Thanks!

Rob R.

P.S. what are your alignment settings and spring rates?

I cut the lexan with a jig saw using a medium tooth blade on the lowest speed.

Used a cold knife for the windshield, haven't tackled the hatch yet because I'm dreading it...

No alignment settings yet since the suspension hasn't been finalized. I'll likely aim for -2.5 camber in the front and -1.8-2.0 in the rear with toe set to zero all around for a starting point.

Forget what my spring rates are... I think around 400 front and 275 rear - softer than most because hillclimbs aren't smooth.

Had a club board meeting last night so not much work on the car. I did weigh some stuff though.

Stock RX7 windshield = 26 pounds

3/16th Lexan replacement = 10 pounds

I'll take it!

Hillclimbing isn't for the faint hearted.

Stay on the road, kids, or your suspension will look like this.

It looks like you need one of these, 15lbs if you are allowed to lose the metal hatch frame. If not, your lexan will weigh in at 4lbs, the stock hatch frame is 17lbs and most of the weight is up top near the hinges. [URL=http://s264.photobucket.com/user/bsedanrx2/media/039.jpg.html][/URL]

That would lighten my wallet more than it would the car. I'll be taking a hole saw to my hatch to remove some weight.

Other updates... The car's suspension is back in the car for the first time in 6 months, including new AWR camber plates and the fancy-pants control arms posted above.

Got my electric fan installed, but not wired in. Waiting to install my electric water pump until I get my block off plate for the OEM unit.

Header installed and waiting for the rest of the exhaust system, which will be cobbled together from an IT7 exhaust and some existing 2" tubing I have. It will remain a true dual system for now.

Did I mention the first race of the season is this Sunday and I'm cutting exhaust tubing with a hacksaw? This will be fun...