magnumP5's RX-7 Build Thread

[magnumP5]

Well, if you'll be changing colors on the exterior why not paint the engine bay a neutral color while you still can? Maybe an hour or two masking things off and you can paint the whole thing before it gets too cold. It should be nice this weekend. I would just hate to see such a beautiful build and car only to pop the hood and see a faded red engine bay. But then again, it's not a show car. Because Race Car.

LOL "beautifull build." I have a shiney engine and a clean interior but everything else is pretty faded. The paint in the engine bay isn't really that bad because it's only been exposed to heat. There are scratches in various places but it isn't too bad. At this point in the game I just don't know if I want to spend the time painting the engine bay. If I did though it would stay red or go white. If/when it does become "racecar" I plan on completely stripping the car, welding all the seams, welding in a full roll cage, and respraying everything inside and out; probably white.

I will cast my vote for white too. If the engine bay is pretty free of scatches and what not, then you could leave it red and use the factory exterior color as an accent with the other color (white) and it won't look so odd to have the red under the hood. Does that make sense?

Good point Larry, white/red certainly looks better than yellow/red (LOL McDonald's). Since I still have an interior the only red you'd see is under the hood and around the door and hatch jams.

 

[Lewis7789]

Well, no offense of course, but for someone who is pleased with the color of the Mcmaster Carr hardware, painting all the brackets and engine plates but then leaving the engine bay dirty, scratched up and faded doesn't make much sense to me, man. It really doesn't take long to paint the bay. Maybe 3 hours tops and it looks SO much better afterwards. Your engine bay with that beautiful motor and ITB's in a stock engine bay is like a girl with a butterface.

But I'll drop it now.

 

[tweiss3]

Well, no offense of course, but for someone who is pleased with the color of the Mcmaster Carr hardware, painting all the brackets and engine plates but then leaving the engine bay dirty, scratched up and faded doesn't make much sense to me, man. It really doesn't take long to paint the bay. Maybe 3 hours tops and it looks SO much better afterwards. Your engine bay with that beautiful motor and ITB's in a stock engine bay is like a girl with a butterface.

But I'll drop it's hot for you if you like

+1

 

[magnumP5]

Well, no offense of course, but for someone who is pleased with the color of the Mcmaster Carr hardware, painting all the brackets and engine plates but then leaving the engine bay dirty, scratched up and faded doesn't make much sense to me, man. It really doesn't take long to paint the bay. Maybe 3 hours tops and it looks SO much better afterwards. Your engine bay with that beautiful motor and ITB's in a stock engine bay is like a girl with a butterface.

But I'll drop it now.

LOL the McMaster hardware being shiny black was unexpected and I'm painting the brackets because they're made out of mild steel that would rust otherwise The engine bay will be thoroughly cleaned before the new engine goes in. I've already cleaned off a good portion of the passenger's strut tower now but that was just a test. The whole bay will be free from dirt in the end. I'll let you guys decide then whether or not you think it needs to be painted. The paint under all the dirt is surprisingly bright and shiny. Masking off everything: transmission, wiring harness, vacuum lines, master cylinders, brake lines, charcoal cannister, wiper motor, fuel lines, fuel filter, throttle cable, speedometer cable, steering rack, front subframe, strut tops, relays, fuse boxes, etc. would take days! I mean, it takes me 1.5 hours to mask one intermediate housing, LOL! At this point the car has been down for 1.5 years and I'd rather spend that time ducting the radiator or depowering the steering rack or rebuilding the engine or making a fiberglass fan shroud. Unfortunately while there're lots of things I'd love to do I really need to focus on those that I NEED to do to get the car running again.

 

[Lewis7789]

Understandable. Can we still be friends though?

 

[o0n8]

thepope did blue plasti-dip to his firebird and it looked closer to a baby blue. I'm not sure if he did plasti-dip then baby blue or just the blue though.

 

[magnumP5]

Understandable. Can we still be friends though?

I guess. You're still a poopeyhead for disagreeing with me though

thepope did blue plasti-dip to his firebird and it looked closer to a baby blue. I'm not sure if he did plasti-dip then baby blue or just the blue though.

I'm leaning toward this more and more. The only things that have me worried are (1) how easily it will come off of the areas with no clear coat remaining, and (2) how much weight the stuff actually adds. It's like liquid rubber in a can (LOL Flex Seal) and after 5 coats or so I can imagine that adding up to something. I have no experience with the stuff so I have no idea how much it weighs.

I finally got the last intermediate housing (rear) done last night and what a pain it was! I plan on spraying the inside of the back (where the transmission bolts) so I had to mask off all 18 surfaces for the tension bolts and I masked off the transmission flange to ensure I have a good metal-metal connection with the transmission. The starter bolts to the transmission and I want to have a good connect to the engine groud. I just have the intake manifold and a couple smaller pieces and everything will be ready for paint.

 

[magnumP5]

Weekend progress:

The last of my ARP hardware came in:

I finally got around to stripping the anodized coating from the throttle body pieces. Stripped (left) and unstripped (right):

Everything stripped:

Polished and reassembled throttble body. Everything is now bagged up and waiting for final instal:

I also got a lot of painting done. The misc. brackets and things are 90% done; sorry no pictures though. Intermediate housings painted:

For some reason the intermediate housings came out very glossy. I changed my painting style, which seemed to lay the paint on a little thicker and give a nicer fnish, so perhaps that explains it.

In other news I bought most of the materiel needed to make the fiberglass fan shroud: resin, hardener, glass mat, filler, more hardener, and some 1/2" MDF and fleece for the "buck." I still need to pick up a roller, wax, and PVA becase I don't want the fleece to be part of the final product.

On the ducting side of things I picked up some 1/4" foam board for mock ups. The more I think about it the more I want to slightly relocate the oil cooler. Right now the oil cooler and radiator are in "series" but air can flow over the top of the oil cooler, bypassing it altogether. What I'm thinking about doing is pushing the oil cooler back and laying it down, sealing against the bottom of the radiator for a "V-mount" setup. This way air that enters the front of the car has to pass through the radiator into the engine bay or through the oil cooler exiting underneath the car (will require cutting a hole in the undertray).

 

[mymmeryloss]

Everything is looking good but its killing me that urnot doing a flashier engine and bay...

 

[magnumP5]

Everything is looking good but its killing me that urnot doing a flashier engine and bay...

What do you mean; like bright colors, polished aluminum, and chrome and stuff? Bear in mind everything to date has been mock up so all the parts are being cleaned/painted before being finally assembled. The engine bay will be much cleaner when everything is done.

 

[sunkAlias]

I vote have her be running in the spring and save up the dough to roll the shell out for a real paint job. But I understand your priorities may be different.

 

[roy obanion]

I understand wanting to make the car derivable, and to do bits and pieces from there..

 

[magnumP5]

I vote have her be running in the spring and save up the dough to roll the shell out for a real paint job. But I understand your priorities may be different.

The upside to repainting is I can also get a lot of body work done. Overall it's in good condition; there's only one very small rust spot on the sunroof cover and some small dents/dings around but I'm pretty sure it was involved in an undocumented front end collision at some point. Getting it repainted would give me an excuse to get all that fixed. The downside is I could spent $2000 on body work that could get ruined in an instant on track.

I understand wanting to make the car derivable, and to do bits and pieces from there..

This is what I keep trying to tell myself. I keep coming up with new things to do that would inevitably add time. If it's something I can always go back and easily do later it can wait.

Case in poit: engine cooling. I've had this idea to rearrange the radiator and oil cooler for better flow/sealing. Moving the oil cooling would require a set of custom brackets, a custom undertray, and it may require custom length oil cooler lines as well. My initial conclusion was this is something I can go back and redo later but last night I realized I probably need a custom undertray anyway. Because of all the things I've removed there are a ton of air gaps around the radiator and oil cooler that need to be sealed. So do I make a new undertray and leave everything where it is and be done quicker or go ahead and change everything now?

Speaking of, does anyone know where to get large sheets of aluminum or some other corrosion-resistant material (i.e. not steel) and what thickness I'd need for an undertray? I found 2' x 4' aluminum sheet at Lowe's but it was only .025" thick and seemed too flimsy to use as an undertray. McMaster sells 4' x 4' sheets of aluminum in a number of thicknesses but I don't know how shipping would work with that.

 

[eprx799]

Try looking up your local metal suppliers, or call a couple of HVAC companies and ask them who there sheet metal supplier is. HVAC contractors usually use galvinized steel but the suppliers probably also have aluminium sheet metal as well. it usually sold in 24"x96" all the way up to 48"x96" sheets

 

[magnumP5]

Try looking up your local metal suppliers, or call a couple of HVAC companies and ask them who there sheet metal supplier is. HVAC contractors usually use galvinized steel but the suppliers probably also have aluminium sheet metal as well. it usually sold in 24"x96" all the way up to 48"x96" sheets

I'll see what I can find. I could always look into ABS or fiberglass. Any thickness recommendations? I can't recall if you had any ducting on your RX-7 but I'm really scratching my head trying to figure out how to put something together.

 

[roy obanion]

One miata guy recommends coroplast, plus pretty soon there will be a large supply of it sitting around on street corners for free..

http://revlimiter.net/blog/2012/06/spotlight-flipper/

 

[magnumP5]

^^^ LOL, I actually thought about that. I don't think it would hold up at high speeds though (flutter). I'd be nervous it would rip out around the bolt holes but maybe you could avoid that by using larger washers. I found a couple metal suppliers locally I'm going to check out. Looking at .050"-.063" 6061 aluminum sheet for the under tray and I could probably get away with thinner stuff for the ducting.

Because I got bored last night staring at the front of the car I took a couple new pictures. Painted oil pan:

Then I got really bored and decided to mock up the engine with all the painted pieces. Here's my not-flashy engine:

The other side:

I need to find a way to paint the dipstick tube. The black oil filler neck and service covers contrast a lot more than I thought they would. Hopefully they won't look so out of place once the engine is in the car with the black wiring harness, vacuum lines, and air filters in place.

To further highlight my ADD I found two after market hoods I actually like:

^^^ I'm not sure about the aero kit but I'm really liking how that FC looks with the wide RPF-1's.

Option 2 is a little sleeker:

Both leave rather large holes in the hood and I know at least the second one has a little bit of a "duct" to it extending into the engine bay. The site also has some +30 mm front and rear fenders I'm seriously considering for the future...

 

[mymmeryloss]

Have u checked out shine auto for aero and hoods?

 

[THE Phen]

So Jon, I know that with hoods similar to that on 911's, it promotes quite a bit of front downforce. Does the same happen on the FCs with an engine in the front?

 

[magnumP5]

Have u checked out shine auto for aero and hoods?

Yeah, those are Shine's hoods. I hadn't checked them out in a while (website in the past sucked) so I wasn't aware of those hoods. Unfortunately they don't leave any provision for some kind of scoop I could make for the intake.

So Jon, I know that with hoods similar to that on 911's, it promotes quite a bit of front downforce. Does the same happen on the FCs with an engine in the front?

I assume this is for newer 911's? I can't imagine an air-cooled 911 would need a ducted hood. I'm not aware of anyone claiming downforce benefits from a hood in the RX-7 world. I mean if it does, great, but I think the better perceived benefit would be relieving high pressure in the engine bay to improve/promote flow through the radiator and oil cooler for better cooling.

On that note this build is currently stuck. I've spent over 10 hours this week staring at the front of the car trying to come up with some way of creating a sealed inlet duct to the radiator and oil cooler. The requirements are simple: (1) no air can bypass both heat exchangers and (2) the final product will still allow easy access/removal of the radiator and oil cooler. So far, nothing...