Rotorhead87's Cosmo 13B-RE FC3S build-up
 

Hello everyone! This project began back in July 2005, and is near completion. I bought this 1987 Turbo II from the original owner for $2000 as a highschool graduation gift to myself. She was completely stock, rust-free(except for the sunroof...of course) FC with 112,000 miles with the two big mufflers and the Mazda aero kit. Here are a couple pictures of when I first brought her home.
http://img2.putfile.com/thumb/10/29416372098.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921241259.jpg
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/692120089.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921200964.jpg
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921200847.jpg

Stock Interior minus the factory AM/FM cassette player
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921205796.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921205767.jpg
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921205629.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921205791.jpg

Stock Engine Bay:
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921151255.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921151221.jpg

More will come as I will try to place each project step in chronological order. I hope you all enjoy!:001_005:

w00t!!!

very nice! gotta love red turbo IIs

As soon as I got the car, it was too tempting to start working on her. As you can see on the interior pics I had the radio replaced with gauges. I wanted to go all out with this car so I did what I could do for free WEIGHT REDUCTION!!! The car already came with a manual rack:icon_tup:, the ABS was gone, cruise control was done, out with the spare tire and jack, and speakers and radio ripped out. I wanted to chip the sound material off but I chose not to just for the sake of noise comfort, plus way too much work under Florida's sun.

Here's what I had the radio replaced with. It's a black aluminum plate with Autometer Sport-Comp gauges: oil temp, oil pressure, water temp, and voltage
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921205762.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921205891.jpg

Okay well in Aug/Sept 2005 there was a private group buy going on at the fabrication shop for Wolf 3D V4 standalone ECUs, so I went on ahead to get one. At the same time two friends of mine, whom are brothers, decided to stop working on their FB and FC, due to their job schedule and women:banghead: Well that came to benefit me at the time because they had alot of good brand new stuff I could use on my car. They gave me all their stuff so that I could put it to use, of course they weren't free but making random payments is alot easier on my pockets then dropping the account. I'm just lucky to have really cool friends I guess

Here are some pictures of all the good stuff I got:

This ecu burnt my wallet. Oh well only the best, no time to get cheap!
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921303650.jpg

HKS undivided cast manifold
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921303675.jpg

Garrett T4/GT40 "Blowzilla" turbo. Specs: .70 compressor; 1.00 exhaust
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921304746.jpg

Be-Cool electric fans
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921303991.jpg

Aeromotive fuel regulator and inline fuel filter
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921303723.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921303733.jpg

Moroso battery box and Autometer Sport-Comp Boost Gauge(I got the other gauges from my friend also)
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921303639.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921303860.jpg

is that an FD manifold?

ooooh, this is gonna be good.

Its hard to tell - but I'd be curious if that turbo will clear the LIM config on an RE motor w/ that manifold.

More pics please :)

Nope...that manifold was originally for a Series 5 motor.

Okay everyone another update:

Hmm...if I can recall I been driving the car for a good 4 or 5 monthes; I swear those were the best driving days of my life so far. The car never flooded on me or never gave me any trouble, except for a bad battery. She always started for me on the first crank. Anyways I saved up over the holiday season working my ass off at the nursing home. Eventually I saved up just enough for another upgrade on my baby. One night just checkin out stuff on ebay trying to figure out what next to purchase. Well I happened to run into a beautiful set of wheels I just had to have. Anyways I went ahead and got them with my mind set on "Only the best." Here's some pictures.

Mazdaspeed MS-01 17''x8'' +35 and +30 offset
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921241359.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921303611.jpg

Lucky me again JR Fabrication and Performance had a set of used tires that I could have for free. Kumho Supra 712 225/40/17 and Kumho MX 255/40/17. I took the center caps off because of the fear of losing them due to heavy construction and thieves. Oh and also figured it would look nicer to clean up the 20 year old calipers and paint them up.
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921200577.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921200487.jpg

http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921200425.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921200610.jpg

http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921200576.jpg

Enjoy everyone theres much more updates to go!!

Beautiful!! I am very jealous. What are your plans for the motor (porting, etc?)

that is the same route im going on my t2....the 13b-re swap. I will post pics of what I have so far.If you have any questions lemme know what I can do to help:icon_tup:

I apologize for all the essay long posts, RN school is a bit*h with the 20 page reports I just got use to writing alot. I realize most people are here just to view the good stuff, in which I hope everyone enjoys.

Anyways to "need RX7" - Thanks for the compliment...It's crazy to port the Cosmo motor after you compare the 13B-RE intake runners to the 13B-REW and S4/S5 intake runners.There is a quite noticable difference in size between all the other motors. Anyways I could have just left it stock but me being me I just had to have JR Fabrication put a large streetport in search of extra power.

"rx7 vinnie"-I really appreciate for your offer of help, but like I said the motor is pretty much dropped into the bay and near completion. I'll have the pictures up eventually I just wanted to make the thread in order of occurrence.Your project is looking pretty good also its nice to see another RE motor out there. I look forward to seeing your FC progress, so I'll keep in tune.

Is that exhaust manifold ceramic coated?

Okay new update everyone!

After getting the wheels and tires on I got to drive on them for two or three months. After those few months my RX-7 would only stay on for a couple minutes before it stopped running. It came out to be the alternator taking a dump on me. Well I decided screw buying a new/reman alternator and save up for a Cosmo 13B-RE. Well this was a hard time for me because she had to sit not running for a couple of months I felt like the alcoholic on a withdraw trapped in mental asylum. Well I got the motor from Canada it was completely blown in both the front and rear housings. So being completely screwed with a worthless motor it left me no choice to rebuild the motor. Instead of paying full price for genuine Mazda parts, I used my friend's Mazda Motorsports account to buy all the gaskets, seals, housings, etc. for the rebuild. As parts arrived to my home I wanted to polish some of the parts like the turbo compressor housing, rotor housings, manifolds, etc.

Here's some pictures of the parts:

FD3S Rotor Housings because they have the bigger exhaust ports, and also I had the exhaust ports opened up a bit. Sorry no detailed pictures of the ports
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921304754.jpg

Brand new S5 waterpump and housing.
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921304845.jpg

Various parts from the Cosmo:
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921304436.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921304459.jpg

Polished parts that took me a couple of weeks to do:
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921303448.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921230286.jpg

http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921230244.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921230144.jpg

http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6920501728.jpghttp://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6920501276.jpg

Please leave a message and feel free to ask any questions. I hope everyone enjoys!

That polishing job is baller - upkeep will be fun ;)

^ thanks man...can't have pros without the cons.

I think my laziness would = chrome powdercoating. HAHA

Nonsense! I like reading in detail what people are doing. Rather than, 'this is my turbo, this is my ECU, these are my wheels...' I like long drawn out technical explanations. :lol:

Not entirely true laziness...looking from the big picture you technically did work your tail off to pay for the powdercoating lol.

Okay just another quick update everyone.

At the time before the college shut down the police training field, my college would allow SCCA to use the field to hold autocross event every month. They closed the place down because locals constantly complained of the noise. Stupid of them to do that, since they closed it down 3 or 4 kids have lost their lives illegally street racing. Anyways I really got into autocrossing and I figured it was time to retire the twenty year old suspension. Well I figured if I was gonna change things up, I'll upgrade the majority of the 7's suspension.
Anyway I bought a complete set of Energy Suspension bushings, Delrin bushings, Mazda Motorsports competition transmission, motor, and differential mount. As for the struts, JR Fabrication & Performance decided it would be best to build my baby a custom coil-over suspension. It consisted of KYB AGX shocks, Suspenion Specialist springs, and a Bilstein coilover kit. Thinking of the future JR Fab & Performance decided to go ahead and reinforce a rear cross member, clean up rear trailing arms, and control arms for when my car is ready to begin rehaul. I recently bought a set of front and rear cusco strut bars, so I'll have pictures of them eventually.

Here's a picture of my custom coilover set: fully adjustable KYB AGX struts, 250lbs and 350lbs Suspension Specialist springs , Bilstein coilover kit, and Ground Control camber/caster plates
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921303328.jpg

Cleaned up control arms with energy suspension bushings...yes those control arms are polished
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921304159.jpg

Rear cross member you can't see in the picture but all the seams are welded together solid. Also a cleaned up set of rear trailing arms.
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6921304280.jpg

Cusco OS-T front and rear strut bars
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/5345/cuscouz3.jpg

That's it for what my suspension setup consist of. Enjoy everyone!:seeya:

This car looks sick man

wow this looks very familiar ;)

What do you mean by that?

alot of what u are doing I am doing to mine (and will be doing) lol

Good work keep it up

Ohhh...I thought you meant by when I tried to make a build thread on rx7club a while back before the dictators managing that forum went retarded.

lol no not at all.. thx for doing this here though it is good to see others and how and what they have done :)

Thanks! I appreciate the compliment.

As you all know or own an RX-7 with +15 years of age, items on a have a tendency to breakdown eventually. In one of my previous post I stated that my alternator broke on me and I refused to buy a replacement. Well the car sat in my driveway for a couple of months. For those couple of months I had a feeling of no progression, like I started something I won't finish. Anyways I decided to work on any normal 20 year old RX-7 would have. In my case slight rust spots on the sunroof, dented front fender, and little other dents.
I decided to replace the front fender and sunroof because the amount of work to bring them back to normal would be harder and more time consuming then just simply replacing them. As for the dents I used that Pop-A-Dent seen on TV commercials. The Pop-A-Dent worked nicely to an extent, but I wouldn't recommend using it if you have a really nice paint job though. Also I decided to remove the rear and side skirts just to clean it up underneath.
Here's just some dumb snap shots:

Side skirts removed, there was alot of dirt build up = weight(not pictured: on the passenger side the rocker panel was dented like it was curb hoppered at on time.)
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/692050259.jpg

Rear Skirt removed. It crazy that the glue held on for 20 years, but in some places the glue didn't hold. The unglued areas would rub thru the paint in areas that are hidden. Thankfully it was just surface rust in those rubbed areas, so that skirt is definately not going back on my car plus it won't be fitting my mufflers correctly in the future. Oh and I know you love those mufflers!!!
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6920502631.jpg

Front fender removed, you might be able to see the bent rocker panel.
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6920502585.jpg

Rear and side skirts all together
http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/6920502717.jpg

I hope you all enjoy what I have so far!

Alright here we go again....As the car sat for a while, at the same time the 13B-RE was being ported rebuilt, etc..etc...Well to let time pass and have the sense of productivity I decided to pull the tired S4 turbo motor out. When the alternator died I pulled it out and never put it back in. Well thankfully my friend who allowed me to use their garage and tools to pull the motor lived a couple of blocks away, so I ended up driving the car there on just a full charged battery. It took me a couple of days to pull the motor out because I was trying to balance out a full-time college schedule along with work. Here are some pictures of the motor when it was being pulled out. BTW I happened to only broke 2 or 3 bolts throughout the process. WooHooo!!

Here's the stock S4 turbo motor all stock
http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/521/pict3021rm7.jpg

Radiator, intercooler, oil cooler, air box removed
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/927/dcp0329jk2.jpg

Getting ready to pull the motor
http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/9648/dcp0330af5.jpg

And out she goes...
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/7127/dcp0337hg6.jpg

The aftermath of 20 years. Not bad at all just a little bit of surface rust under where the battery was loacted at.
http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/1589/dcp0340hq4.jpg

Finally the hideous exhaust is scrapped and tail light were with me getting reconditioned.
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/8771/dcp0343wg1.jpg

the wheels look great on the car! Good job and keep us updated. I love the sig too.

Lookin' good!

Thanks for the compliments everyone!

I'm gonna go ahead give you all another update.

Let's see....Since I had polished a bunch of parts I figured it just wouldn't be right to drop a clean motor into a 20 year old dirty engine bay. I decided to go ahead a clean and prep the engine bay for paint. I was going to go ahead and keep the stock royal maroon metallic since I really like the color. I also wanted to go ahead and try to go for a sleeper look and bought a vert hood.

The dirty engine bay I decided to take on...:banghead:
http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/4041/dcp0338cw4.jpg http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7610/dcp0347pq4.jpg


After a few good washes with a pressure washer, drenching with degreaser, scotch-brite pad, and alot of elbow grease.
http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/641/dcp0352yw8.jpg http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/773/dcp0351fc5.jpg
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/121/dcp0348fn6.jpg http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7933/dcp0353qb6.jpg

Getting prepped for paint covering and taping up pieces.
http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/7247/dcp0367ig3.jpg http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/8373/dcp0366yn5.jpg
http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/3313/dcp0411xt3.jpg http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/5700/dcp0424vu9.jpg

Just finished getting sprayed...Gotta love wet paint
http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/6408/dcp0383wl6.jpg http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/5287/dcp0409ic0.jpg
http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/295/dcp0410cr4.jpg http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/4539/dcp0430ld2.jpg http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/989/dcp0420ro9.jpg

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I don't have any pictures but I reconditioned the rusty brake booster and replaced the leaking master cylinder. Also I removed all the exhaust heat shields and painted them with high temp aluminum silver. It's amazing how little things in the engine bay can either ruin or enhance the visual appeal of the engine bay;this just goes to show everyone.

Well I hope everyone enjoys the work I've done so far as much as I do!:001_005:

looking great. Nothing beats a nice engine bay. What else are you going to do to "Simplify"?

There really wasn't much to "simplify" afterwards just complication. Other than what I have in the pictures I believe I removed the stock ECU and the ABS ecu and wires, all of the A/C components underneath the dash except for the blower motor for those rainy days. Can't really think of anything else since it's been a while.

are gonna relocate the battery, clean up the coil mounting area?... stuff like that.

Oh yeah..definately I got a Moroso battery box and a Optima ready to go in the hatch area (not yet installed) and I had the coils relocated elsewhere. You'll see soon I'll eventually have pictures posted up.

Okay just some more picture updates

I'll just be posting stuff of what I got for the car because at the time nothing much was going on because I was busy with RN school and work etc...but I did manage to get some depth in my pockets and buy a few essential and BS over a couple of months.

Full ACT clutch kit: Streetlite flywheel, Xtreme pressure plate, and sprung 6 puck clutch disc.
http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/6748/dcp0235yc2.jpg

I love junkyards but I got a set of S5 tails and side mirrors, S5 spoiler, and FTP lenses for $130. I decided just to hang on to the spoiler.
http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/6251/dcp0266zo5.jpg

Ebay mazdaspeed steering wheel, NRG steering hub & quick disconnect, HKS turbo timer, and the autometer dual pod with fuel pressure and boost sport-comp gauges
http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/5020/p9290014tv7.jpg

Koyo radiator and 24''x11''x3'' bar & plate intercooler
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/5180/dcp0239mh6.jpg
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/1828/dcp0240tx5.jpg

TurboXS type-H RFL --> super loud
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/4329/dcp0283rr4.jpg