Wow! That intake boot is a work of art! I like how the fabric shows through the clear resin. I am curious why the wrinkle partway down, does that go around something?

The car looks amazing. Nice work!

Thank you!

That wrinkle is there to form fit around the radiator and the reinforcement bar that slightly curves inward where the hood latch is. The pic above of it in the engine bay is slightly wrong -- its supposed to slide a little more (1") forward and fit flush against that bar.

Looking good guys. I have a special part coming for my car that I need to make you aware of. Will call you sometime today (Sat) so we can discuss some more. Jesse... looking incredible bro. I take it that this is the new higher temp epoxy on the duct, correct??

Yep -- I took some samples and did an experiment in the temp chamber I have at work for testing electronic circuit boards. This new resin (Silmar 249) should hold up far better to engine bay temperatures in Arizona. I should have taken a picture of the Kleer Koat epoxy sample at 80C -- it was about as flexible as a slice of cheese. Its too bad, that epoxy was by far the easiest to work with.

Some pictures of Jesses' next project

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...x7build135.jpg

With a lot of resin and fiberglass that becomes this

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...x7build140.jpg

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...x7build137.jpg

Again, with a lot of resin and more fiberglass that becomes this

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...x7build141.jpg

If it is not obvious, this new project is a water/meth reservoir in the spare tire well.

Very original, thinking out of the box.

My new project :hurray: It took a lot of convincing to get Jesse to agree to this. He was not that happy about having to remove the ABS, brake drum and everything else. But he did, and I think it is well worth it. Now we can also clean up all the stuff that was removed. I am a very happy camper now!

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...x7build157.jpg

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...x7build158.jpg

The white is not an identical match. But it is much better than the dirty, yellowed, burnt color currently in the engine bay.

YAAA!!

So, are you guys planning to paint the entire engine bay (around the shock towers and up to the front as well)? When are you going to be done with this project? Next Sevenstock? ;) Tell Jesse to start burning up some of his vacation time!!

Where did you guys source these fastners? I'm definitely interested.

Painting is done. We did the whole engine bay.

Taking some vacation next week but not working on the car-- going to SEMA again.

I had to stop my fiberglass water/meth tank because I ran out of the special methanol resistant resin and its not something you can find anywhere local. I got the internal baffling done though.

Fasteners I got through ebay. I changed my mind about using the red ones since I think they're just a little too showy for me and am planning on using only the black ones.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...K%3AMEWNX%3AIT

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...x7build161.jpg

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...x7build165.jpg

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1146.jpg

This post is not about the FD, sorry. But, since we are in Las Vegas, it is about SEMA. Just having to brag a little bit. While walking around we ran into Tanner Foust and I got a sig and pic with him. I LOVE Tanner!!!

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/SEMA2010.jpg

I don't know who the little bald guy is, he kind of slipped into the picture. He is some drifter guy that competes with Tanner.

And for all you Petrol Heads, we were invited to an exclusive screening of the History Channels U.S. version of Top Gear.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...EMA2010120.jpg

While Jesse and I were sitting there waiting for the show to begin we mentioned how we would never accept the new hosts since they would not be Jeremy, Richard or Captain Slow. Much to our surprise and excitement, one of the new hosts is TANNER FOUST!!!! Did I mention how much I LOVE Tanner?!!!?? They did not change a thing about the show. The great cinematography is the same, the same type of challenges and commentary while driving in the cars. I think they did a great job. And Tanner Foust is in it :biggthumpup: They went with the History Channel so they can give honest opinions of the cars, without bothering whether it hurts the car manufacturer. The show starts Nov 21st at 10pm. Set your Tivo's now!!

We also got video of Ken Block drifting in the parking lot. He was giving ride alongs in his bad ass little 650hp Ford Fiesta. That would be a blast, as long as they had a barf bucket in there. We will post all the pics and videos in the regional section once we get back home.

The "little bald guy" is Stephen Papadakis LOL!! AFAIK he stared out drag racing Civics back in the day and now he's moved on to drifting, an S2000 I believe.

That's cool you got to meet those guys though. I wish we could have made SEMA again this year :(

I love the water/meth tank btw, my roommate was going to have one made but the company quoted him about $8k, YIKES!!

The fiberglass water/meth reservoir is done. It holds 3.9 gallons and locks in perfectly to the contours of the spare tire well. I'm going to use the stock rear washer fluid reservoir with a hidden hose to the spare-tire reservoir too for convenient fillup and slightly increased capacity. The rear pickup and internal baffling should keep things safe when accelerating or cornering.

http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...f/DSC02376.jpg

http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...f/DSC02374.jpg

That is cool, did you use a black resin or paint that tank?

The baffles are a really good idea, not only do they constrain the fuel, they add strength and support for the rear hatch area.

Keep up the good work

No, I used vinylester resin which dries a semi-translucent amber. The black is a truck bed liner spraycan.

awesome man. do u have abetter picture of how the baffles work? i love this idea because the spare tire well is such a waste of space... great idea!

There are four "chambers" as shown below.

Under straight line acceleration, the fluid will collect toward the rear and the pickup is in the rear, so no problem there.

Under lateral/cornering g-forces, the fluid on the sides must flow through the rear pickup chamber to get from one side to the other. The holes between the chambers are not big, so flow rate from one side of the reservoir to the other takes a long time.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...0ff/baffle.jpg

Have you considered creating something so it makes the passageways one way? little rubber flap or something to discourage the fluid from exiting the pickup point....?


either way, looks great...


I'm currently considering removed my spare tire and getting a size appropriate battery, and mount it in the wheel well, As I have rear seats, and despise having the battery sitting out in open, maybe get a Braille battery that can be mounted sideways....

Looks great, waiting for more updates...


J.

one way check valves sound neat, but I think I've overengineered this thing enough. :-) I need to move on and finish the rest of this.

One of the reasons I went with such a large reservoir was partially to compensate a small intercooler by spraying more water/meth. This is now moot as I've had to abandon that PFS intercooler because I didn't like how I was going to have run the ductwork. So I decided to just do a vmount. Rotary-works sells a good starting point for a semi roll-your-own vmount.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1497.jpg

Nice thing about this setup is I have a lot of room to run a cold/ram air intake into the turbo-- I had to change and make some of my own brackets because the stock brackets center the intercooler (I shifted it all the way to the drivers side), but no welding which is good. The radiator and intercooler already have some M8x1.25 screw bosses welded on to make mount tweaking pretty easy.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1498.jpg

The radiator did not have to be modified and is designed for this mounting configuration and has a nice clean looking bottom endtank:

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1496.jpg

One more pic: I header-wrapped my exhaust manifold with some lava-rock type header wrap that looks like carbon fiber and then painted it with some silicone-based header wrap paint. I also drilled & re-tapped the turbo flange to fit the expensive OEM inconel studs used on the stock twins.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1492.jpg

awesomeness. im assuming the water/meth tank is 100% fiberglassed so there is no way of reopening it?

thanks for the explanation, always wondered how the baffle system worked and it makes so much sense lol

Hah.... I also detect a 99 spec nose? Nice. Let me know if you need me to stop over and assist with ducting. I really enjoy doing that part and definitely owe you some "labor" ;)

im gonna bet burnout on that front bumper...looking good guys, this will be one clean car when its finished.

Thanks! And, yep, its a burnout front bumper.

I tried to use this formable inferno heat shield thing on the xcessive intake manifold and got it perfectly formed and even fabbed some riveted brackets to hold it perfectly on the LIM but when I put it back on the car, I didn't have enough clearance between the wastegate & LIM. So-- I had to scrap that unfortunately. I was quite proud of how simply and securely I had it mounted too.

So instead, I bought some of this thin stick-on heatshield from Jegs comprised of a high temp adhesive, a layer of fiberglass, then aluminum foil. First I formed it tightly around the curves of the LIM -- making sure to shield all the way to the bottom edge. Then I added a second layer towards the top where I had more clearance and where the downpipe will run. The second layer I wrapped straigt & tight and left a bit of an air-gap instead of following the curves.

Its ugly now, but hopefully pretty functional. I also have one of these phenolic spacer gaskets that act as a barrier for conducted heat transfer from the block to the manifold. Not sure how well it will be as a gasket since its pretty hard and inflexible, but thats what RTV is for anyway. There definitely seems to be a lot of surface area on the LIM for heat conduction from the block that should now be blocked.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1538.jpg

Also, I designed in CAD and mocked up my airbox for the vmount. I think it will end up working pretty well. I tried to make it match the end tanks of the intercooler both for aesthetics and because I want it to be a tight fit & seal. I'll be sending this design to an online machineshop to be cut and formed out of .062" aluminum

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1542.jpg
http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1541.jpg
http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1543.jpg

Looking great Jeff... the build seems to be coming along nicely...


I was reading a thread on 7club http://www.rx7club.com/showthread.php?t=803695 and it was talking about some guys having troubles with the LIM to Keg gaskets dis forming and melting, while the UIM to LIM worked fine... while others had not trouble at all...

not sure if you have the same brand or such, but figured I would bring it to your attention..

Man you do good work, waiting to see how that intake looks once done... :D


J.

EDIT: ^Yep, I wasn't one of the guys with a deformed one but mine didn't work for me anyway. I think mine was made of something different than the ones that were deforming, I think mine is sturdier than that. If only it had been cut right.

Your LIM wrapping job looks MUCH better than mine HAHA. I got the same kind of stuff to cover mine, I don't think I have pics on my computer though. It would just make you laugh anyway haha.

Also, I'd check that gasket first if I were you. Is it from Gizzmo or somewhere else? I got one from Gizzmo and it didn't match up exactly with the OEM gasket and ended up not completely covering the EGR port, which gave me an air leak. Before I figured that out I also tried red RTV, so that doesn't work either LOL. Just put the phenolic gasket on top of the OEM one and see if it's EXACTLY like the OEM one (you can see the difference of mine in the pics). I ended up getting some spacers made with waterjet that I'm going to use to space my fuel rails apart instead.

Here is the thread about the gasket...
http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...ad.php?t=12949

Looking awesome Jesse. Nice work. Where did you get that turbo blanket? Really fits nicely!! Keep it coming and let me know if you need help. I'm off now until the new year!

Thanks for the heads up guys -- a while ago I did a little research on this and did see a thread somewhere where some of the white plastic phenolic gaskets had warped.

The gasket I have is from gizzmo and is definitely from a different material. I'd guess its something like the FR44 material we use for manufacturing circuit boards.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1544.jpg

Is this the EGR port you were talking about?
http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1545.jpg

It seems to cover it -- maybe by not much margin. I'll probably see about plugging that EGR hole with some aluminum or JBweld.
http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1548.jpg


The turbo blanket I think I got from ebay. Its pretty thin actually, but that works for me because I'm a little worried about too much heat in the turbo. I painted it with the same 1500degF silicone sealant paint I painted the header wrap with.

Thanks Tim, I'd take you up on some help this week if it weren't for the fact we'll be in Tucson visiting family.

Yep, that is the exact same gasket I have with the exact same specs, not completely covering the exact same EGR port LOL. I guess if you cover it with JB Weld or something that would work too. Good luck with all that. Just wanted to give you a heads up so you didn't get it together and then try to figure out where the leak was coming from LOL.

Mine looked the same btw. It looked like it was covering, but air still came out of there.

That last photo you can see a tiny little bit of the EGR port sticking out... I can see why that would warp and let create a leak....

interesting though that they make them out the same, or similar material as circuit boards...


J.

^I don't think these are the ones that warp, I honestly think these might have a good chance of standing up to the heat. That little bit of the EGR port is enough to leak enough air to make it sound like a motorcycle. So it's already bad just the way it is, it doesn't take warping to make it sound like crap haha. And the ones the other guys on 7club had were made by a different company I believe. So far no one that has had a Gizzmo one (that I know of) has had it warp. It's just not cut right.

I stuffed a wad of steel wool down the EGR passages and JBwelded them shut. I also did the other side too.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1560.jpg

I ported my extension manifold with a hacksaw and dremel. I removed the center support where the butterflies used to be then knife-edged and smoothed the exposed primary/secondary walls.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1562.jpg

Now theres a better chance of taking advantage of the bigger throttle body:

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1566.jpg

I used the OEM intake gasket to port match the LIM to UIM, and the gizzmo phenolic gasket to port match the LIM. It wasn't a lot of material but it sure did take awhile with the dremel.

Now that its done, I'm not sure if this was a good idea or not, as a local rotary expert told me that while it will help top end power by a few hp, it may create excessive intake reversion and low speed cruise backfiring/sputtering. Anybody else have any experience with this?

I'm hoping the effect is minimal on my mostly stock ports as I anticipate a bit of a driveability loss already by replacing the stock throttle body and loosing the way it opened up the primary butterfly first.

Xcessive LIM top (to stock UIM):
http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1578.jpg
Xcessive LIM bottom:
http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1574.jpg
stock UIM (to LIM):
http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/u...f/IMG_1584.jpg

Looks like you've been busy. Can't wait to see it on the road Jesse.

Can you give more info on the on-line fab company you used? I model parts in Pro/E all day long. The hard part is finding a fab shop that won't rape you to make the part.

Thanks,

CrispyRX7 port matched all of his manifolds with good results. I believe he made 422 @ 15 psi on a 35R T3.

http://www.reganrotaryracing.com/fdenginebuild.htm

http://www.reganrotaryracing.com/fde...doverview4.htm

I think he's referring to Paul Yaw and his 12A port matched mani's that lost CFM.... It's odd I agree but makes me wonder none the less..... I've got a set of bone stock RE mani's that I should probably flow test.

I use emachineshop.com. You have to use their free CAD tool which isn't nearly as sophisticated as Pro/E or Solidworks, but you order straight from the software and it quotes your design in realtime which is convenient.

Its not bad $$ if you can stick to simple sheet aluminum cuts and bends. Trying to do anything that needs to be 3d machined it seems overly expensive for one-offs with emachineshop though they can do it.

Another site that can do simple metal cutting is ponoko.com. They can't bend but you can hand bend if you use the laser cut to remove slits from the bend lines. Ponoko can also do 3d printing in stainless steel or ABS.

FWIW, I actually PM'ed him to ask him if he had any obnoxious cruise/low load driveability issues and he said he had none whatsoever. I guess I'll see.

Cleaning all the metal shavings and sandblasting material out of that UIM was a real pain. The small amount of carbon buildup from the PCV/purge solenoid acted somewhat as an adhesive for all the sand/metal shavings and made them resistant to being blown out. I was pulling shop towels through the passages with wires for quite awhile before wising up and blasting the entire insides with brake cleaner to get rid of the gunk.

Another way to do it would be to soak a towel in acetone and pull it through with a line. Has always worked well for me.

I've thought about extrude honing the manifolds, but can't really justify the near $700

Yep, I was doing exactly that with the shop towels. The acetone just was not cutting it as a solvent. I must have pulled about 5 towels through that way and each time the rags were coming out dirty from the PCV gunk. Whatever is in that brake cleaner is some strong stuff.

I wondered how expensive that would be. I would think there would be a lot to gain by simply polishing the inside passageways to get rid of the casting texture, but I didn't see an easy way get a sander in there.

One thing about that UIM is that even after porting it, pulling stuffed towels through it it definitely seems the biggest constriction is right at the UIM exit as thats when I had to use the most pulling force. I'll bet that since using the Xcessive LIM, this spot is the 2nd most constrictive point after the engine ports themselves.

Looking good Jesse! Your attention to detail is awesome!