Diary of a Madman; TitaniumTT's see you @ DGRRXI RE-REbuild

[TitaniumTT]

Yup, its based off the FE tranny, with a different extension housing.
It will "bolt" up to any 13b rotary, problems with fitmewnt are the slave cylinder and the overall length of the thing. As far as custom ratios, not a chance for 2 reasons... the cost would make a dogbox seem cheap, and the ratios of the stock FE box are damn near perfect. My only complaint is OD should be in the low .7's, not the .84 that it is.
As far as strength is concerned..... without giving away any secrets, think about what's going on when all these trannies "blow-up." It has nothing to do with the strength of the tranny, mine included. Although that did stop us from cryo treating it JIC... afterall, I'm putting more than 2x the tourque of the silly little renni through it. For for few auto-x's that it did survive, the tranny was AWESOME! It failed on me pussy footing home... go figure.

[TitaniumTT]

If he did the open the door thing and drag the pad.... I concur... however.... if he's thinking about taking the whole brake setup he would first need to upgrade from the 115/110/10 tires that are on there now

[EJayCe996]

Originally Posted by TitaniumTT

If he did the open the door thing and drag the pad.... I concur... however.... if he's thinking about taking the whole brake setup he would first need to upgrade from the 115/110/10 tires that are on there now

The only problem with that is the brake kit is so awesome and would work so well that his FB wouldn't even be able to move even though the brake pedal isn't even depressed.

[TitaniumTT]

Originally Posted by EJayCe996

The only problem with that is the brake kit is so awesome and would work so well that his FB wouldn't even be able to move even though the brake pedal isn't even depressed.

That's becuase the 12a lacks the torque to rotate those 13.25"x 1.25" front and 12.2" x.81" rear rotors

[WE3RX7]

Shit - I'm not even that big a haltech guy. My use has been 75% revolving around microtechs. LT8, LT8X and the LT-10s... then later the interceptor-x. I've only used one haltech before and that was the e6k about 10 years ago, lol.

I think you'd be wise to go SRE on the vert though, it seems like a good unit for the price and can get you where you want on that car.

[hades]

post the fucking pictures you have been hiding.

[TitaniumTT]

Originally Posted by hades

post the fucking pictures you have been hiding.

Tell ya what.... I've got like 100 or so pics, So I'll do like a system a night until thier all done with.... tongiht will be cooling system becuase well, that got the most attention over the winter.....

[TitaniumTT]

So, one of the things that I wanted to address over the winter was the cooling system in the little piece of poo. Not that it wasn't running as wonderfully as it should, becuase my coolant temps never got above 175* on the highway as long as we were moving, and never breached 180* on The Dragon or HellBender, more, it was a few little quirks that bothered me about them. One, was the lack of -16 lines on the rad Two wasthe perpetual air-bubble that was ALWAYS in the radiator becuase of how I mounted it, Three was the sheer hideousness of the factory T-stat housing and the maze of passageways in there, four was the air-bubble that always presented itself on first start-up after refilling the cooling system. THe SOP for purging said bubble WAS to start the car, let it get to 185* when the fan kicked on, watch the temp skyrocket to 195*, shut her down, come back in 20 minutes and carefully crack the AST open and let all the air out, add approx 2 pints of coolant, be on your way..... kind of a PITA if you ask me.... so lets address these problems shall we?

First thing I did was get rid of the stock T-stat housing in place of a piece that I built. Pretty simple actually, and very atractive if you ask me. At the end of the day I didn't even need any sealant either, the flange mounts tight enough to use the factory t-stat gasket ring. @ 20psi, there are no leaks. I was pleased



Next up, was tackling the same but this time on the lower rad hose. This is probably the least close to a stock waterpump housing as you can get All the barb fittings have been removed. THe return from the heater core, which also collects from the AST has already been converted to a -10, and right below the new upper rad hose connection you can see what was once a plug has been converted to a 1/4"npt to -4 fitting. This -4 fitting connects to the coolant outlet at the rear iron. This is where I believe the air was being trapped. A long time ago when I first built this engine I took the barb out and tapped it to 1/4" npt and put an allen plug in it. Over the winter all I did was pull that plug out and put in an AL adapter, built a line and plumbed it from the rear iron to the WP housing. I believe this was key to eliminating the air pockets, as well as the mods I did to the rad. You'll also note what was once the return from the turbo's has also been converted to a -6, as was the feed on the back on the WP housing... so yeah..... there is a distinct lack of hose clamps



Here we have the completed WP housing. Everything powdercoated as well.... all the little pieces that I can fit in my electric oven I powdercoat. Anything bigger I send out to a guy I have local who does incredible work.




The thing to note on this pic is the tapped fitting at the top of the WP housing. This is now the highest point of the cooling system on the engine. This get's plumbed into the custom AST that I built that mounts on the passenger side strut tower.



Here we see it plumbed in place. I took the Tweakit Racing Idler pulley kit and drilled and tapped it to mount an adel clamp the keep the line secure and free from the rather quickly spinning belts. I know it's not an ideal routing as this is what is supposed to collect and purge all the trapped air, but it seems to work quite well actually. I believe because when you first start the car up, the waterpump is of course going to try to move some coolant. With the T-stat closed, and no jiggle pin (which I found odd considering it's a Mazda genuine part) the coolant is circulating through the path of least resistance. This would be through the AST and the heater core and that particular line and of course the line from the rear iron to the lower side of the WP housing. I believe that all the air is purged from the system upon first start-up. Any air that makes it's way back into the system upon cooling is instantly purged as well. This is probably why I was able to run 1500 miles without any coolant in the overflow tank and a bunch of air getting sucked back in.... yeah yeah my dumbass didn't fully tighen a cap after checking the coolant and it got lost somewhere in Virgina doing a burn-out infront of some car with the license plate FRSH-SXY I NEED to find a pic of this car... it was epic.... anyway... I knew of the coolant and decided to test how well it all worked... I was pleased. Why everyone ditches the AST is beyond me. I went to great lengths to add one for a good reason.

[TitaniumTT]

Lastly is the AST. I really didn't have to do much to this except add a 2nd 1/4" npt bung for the outlet from the rad. That and scrape off all the old powdercoating so i could recoat it..... OH... and I FINALLY after looking for like a year, found a rad cap that matches all of the other caps that I have under the hood. I was so happy I literally jumped up and down and did the bus-driver after I bought it.

The AST is pretty simple and very effective at purging air from a cooling system. Basically you plumb in the two highest points in the cooling system, the highes on the engine, and the highes on the rad, this if course being a rad without a cap, into the AST. The AST has the pressure cap on it.

All of the air in the cooling system collects in the AST. The bottom of the AST is plumbed on the vacuum side of the flow, lower rad hose going into the engine. in my case I have a T-fitting on the frame rail that is also the return from the heater core. From the T it goes into the -10 bung on the lower portion of the "stock" WP housing. So, air and coolant go in, coolant comes out the bottom. Air stays in the AST. The AST is also the filling location

When the cooling system heats up, coolant expands. The air is purged from the AST through the pressure cap, and into the overflow tank. Plumbing from the pressure cap MUST be into the bottom of the overflow tank otherwise the system will just continue to suck air in when it cools. This is what was happening to me the entire trip, but I knew about it and it actually was never a problem

So, on my AST, the top fitting on the side comes from the top of the WP housing. THe highest point in the cooling system on the engine. The bottom fitting comes from the rad, the highest point on the rad. The one in-line with the cap is plumbed into the overflow. Isn;t that a damn good looking cap??



That's right bitches.... them 2 fittings be PERFECTLY aligned... yes, I spent the time to fit the fittings and double check before I welded them up for certain..... hey... suck it... I am that guy and you all know it accepted em for it Isn't that a damn good looking cap though?



When I get some batteries tomorrow I'll add a pic of the fitting from the radiator to this post.... until then... I hope Hades is happy

[hades]

Originally Posted by TitaniumTT

.

what is the gray "tank"? that would be under the UIM?

I hear you about the AST. Cummins is a whore about radiator fill and de-aeration testing.

More pictures.

[TitaniumTT]

Teasers till I get back from work tonight..... and one to post in the Peoples Choice Awards

[TitaniumTT]

Originally Posted by WE3RX7

Shit - I'm not even that big a haltech guy. My use has been 75% revolving around microtechs. LT8, LT8X and the LT-10s... then later the interceptor-x. I've only used one haltech before and that was the e6k about 10 years ago, lol.

Oh, you mean that ecu that's so powerful it can't save different maps for fear of the universe imploding?

Originally Posted by WE3RX7

I think you'd be wise to go SRE on the vert though, it seems like a good unit for the price and can get you where you want on that car.

That's what I'm thinking... plus I can build my own harness.... It'll either be the SRE or the RTek 2.0 someone found me a bitchin' deal on Now I just need a turbo longblock hint hint anyone hint hint.....

[TitaniumTT]

I'd say I'll stab you in the eye but
1) You're alot bigger than I am
2) You saved us from the "GRASS!!!!!!!!!"
3) I needed that laugh today

I'll get to them..... eventually hopefully tonight after I go through some laundry and get some stuff organized.... I just yesterday cleaned my car out from DGRRXI.... I found 2 empty 20oz RedBull cans

[WE3RX7]

You can save different maps now, but on the dongle. As far as I know, the ecu still doesn't store them. Not a big deal though really... I can save all the config files to the laptop.

Make sure that RTek is for a turbo engine, not NA

[vex]

I think if I showed TTT my engine bay he would rage and make me his little midget bitch... Though I think I'm bigger than him.