sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Seeing as I've already made progress threads that are years old on other boards I'll just copy and paste my progress thus far from the other boards. Here goes....

Hey everyone, as you all know this swap with more time seems to go from a project to a chapter in your life. For me this has been the case. Before this swap the most complicated things I had done in terms of automotive projects include doing suspension work on my daily driven infiniti I35 (same car as a maxima). So as you probably already know I will have lots of questions, having this not only be my first engine swap but also my first real engine work on my own car. I have lent a hand on a few projects now but this will be the first time I am completly on my own with no more than the help of this board. So I thank you all in advance for your help and support. I figure its better to start a build thread instead of creating a new thread every time I have a question, which happens all the time.

The future of this car will be a pretty intense track machine with very little compromise in terms of comfort, NHV, or practicality. My goals are vague in the fact that it will go as fast as I have the ***** to push it. The only stipulation is that I will not own a car that I cannot drive on the streets. Thus chances are I will be going a route very similar to Hockyz only with a larger cam, heads, and a slightly smaller shot. I will also be doing extensive weight reduction. The only real tangible goals for the car include being able to run as deep into the 10s as I can, at 140mph or better, while keeping the rx7 handling charachteristics after only a few hours of adjustment (aka no solid rear end swaps here at least for the near future.)

Now that you know where I am and where I want to go, let me share with you my journey so far.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

It started summer of last year. I found out about the swap around June or July and after staying up night after night reading about it. I decided I needed to do it. I took my first step in the process in August of 2006 when I went on autotrader.com and found the closest FC in my area for sale. I had heard a lot of talk about the handling charachteristics of the car and knew if I enjoyed it with an anemic NA rotary engine that I would absolutly love it with 3 or 4 times the power. I went to a small used car dealership in the area just to test dive the car. I remember taking it off the lot and being wary of my driving ability but this car made me instantly comfortable and I found myself banging it off the rev limiter time and time again ower shifting and flying around the corners. I think that was the longest test drive I've ever been on.

I came back from the test drive and decided I was gonna go through with it. Now just to find a car.

Around 2 weeks later I found a car on ebay up in maine. WE drove up there and picked the car up after 5 hours of driving each way.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

The car sat dormant for a while, while I was finishing up my last year in school. I was also out of money and didnt have a job untill my final semester in college. My final semester I found a way to work 50+ hours a week at a dealership and still pass my semester with Bs and Cs and came out of the last month with some money in my pocket. I graduated college and came home with new found coin and intention on really digging into this project after leaving it dormant for nearly a year.

After looking online for Ls1s I found an ls1/t56 in New Hampshire for 3500$ with 21k miles on it. He hadent had the ad on craigslist for more than 24 hours before I was at his salvage yard in New Hampshire. I got there and saw this beautiful WS6. I asked him how much he wanted for the entire car.. 5k he responded. I immediatly called my dad. "dad I know I am pushing my finances just picking up this engine/tranny but I've got several thousand dollars in parts here if I pick up the entire car. Please let me keep it at the hosue, it honestly doesnt look that bad if we keep it facing the street." I must have been convincing because he agreed even after calling our house a junk yard and threatening he'd take any more cars that showed up at the house to the crusher. Lol

I put a down payment on the car and a few days later I came home with this car

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

And within the week I've already torn into it

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

That engine is startin to sit a little lower





And a little lower

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Furniture Dollys ready to catch God's engine







Almost there




And finally my Trans Am gave birth to an ls1

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

I was also lucky enough to start my swap the same time another local guy was parting out his ls1/T56 Fc. So I ended up picking up lots of parts from him. Pics up soon of the parts I took off his hands.

So now comes the interesting part. Getting the Ls1/t56 in the rx7 and getting her running. Hopefully within the next 2 weeks or so given I dont need to order anything from hinson/granny.

I know this will bring MANY questions as I am doing this completly on my own without instructions or experience, I didnt even get help while dropping the engine, so after creating 2 or 3 threads for each small question I had I decided it would be better if I created an entire build thread to contain all my small questions.

I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for the support this community has given me so far and in advance for support I know I will get in the future.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Alright now on to cleaning up the engine and getting it back into working condition.

To do that I need to remove all emissions equipment, power steering, and AC componets from the car and then block off all the gaping holes, and lines that will be left open. So its easy enough to unolt the stuff.. even I can do that but then what do I do with the various holes left. Like the evap system. I can remove it, but then there will be a hose runnign to the intake manifold, what do I do with it?

Also once I remove the accessories does anyone know the part number for the shortened serpentine belt?

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

SO work has continued on the build after a short bout of sickness.. I worked about 6 hours in the rain parting out a s4 T2 to pull the hood, brake calipers, MC rotors, and hard lines, transmission mount, temp sender and autometer guage, oil pressure sender, wilwood clutch MC, modified clutch line, wiring for remote mount battery, optima red top, ect ect.

Since then I have pulled the power steering pump and the ac condensor from the engine, and I need to find the right sized shorter belt to run. I also need to find out how to loop the power steering instead of hearing squish every time I turn the wheel like I do now.

Here are some updated pics.

I got the mustang 5.0 bbk LT headers in the mail. I paid too much for a set of used headers (285$ shipped from ebay) and was kinda bummed untill I got them in the mail and they looked like this!



Well of course with the 5.0 flanges. They also came with header bolts, instructions on how to install as well as even BBK performance stickers.

Talk about service!

My new sawzall! I almost look forward now to making that spare trans am a heap of scrap metal. It absolutly destroyed the header flanges.



A nice and light Ls1. I must be pulling 100 lbs off the front of the car with the removal of these accessories and the steel hood with the steel hood scoop and replacing it with a shaved T2 hood.



I heard that this was the only fuse box I need to power to get everything power in the car running, I hope I have everything I need




After laying down on my back stuffed under the steering wheel for an hour or so I removed the stock clutch MC and installed the Wilwood clutch MC. I decided to mount it slightly sideways, which I dont think will effect it. THat way I could use the stock bolt holes. I also had to take my dremel (another new tool and I love that thing but I've already eatin about 10 different bits/attachments) to the main hole where the clutch MC goes through the firewall partially. Because the MC is at an angle I had to take my friend mr sledgehammer to the side of the engine bay, you can see where the black paint flaked off and shows the white under neath it. Anyway now you can remove the cap to fill up the clutch MC if need be and do so pretty easily.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

What the headers will look like after tomorrow.




I have an appointment with lous custom performance exhaust in plymouth, mass tomorrow at 2pm to do the headers. I chose this place after meeting a guy at a local car show. I saw he had a shirt on that said "lous custom exhaust" and I had been looking for a good exhaust place to work with me on my exhaust. I got to talkin with the guy a while and he was really interested in the swap. So I asked him what he would charge me and he said he would probably weld everything together if I got the materials for 100$. So things look good. Hopefully it turns out to be that cheap and I may get a mandrel bent true dual 3 in exhaust for around 400$- 450$ complete

Today I ordered, 2 dynomax bullets, hood pins, ss brake lines, some street/strip semi metalic pads, solid derlin rear subframe bushings, a walbro 255 inline pump, and I think thats it. Tomorrow I am going to order the rest of the exhaust system and some structural foam to fill the rear subframe with. I hope it will keep vibration and ultimatly wheel hop down to a minimum. Also the rear end is solidly mounted to the subframe so I may run into the issue later on of tearing stuff because everything in the rear end is solidly mounted, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Nimitz87

iTrader: (17)

how much for the hood? its in good shape?

can't wait to see the final product...

Chad

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Update: Today I spent the whole day properly depowering the steering rack. I cut all the lines going to the rack and crimped them as shown on flyin miata

shown here : Flyin' Miata : Tech: 1.8 conversion

I then took the rack appart cut the seal out and then hevily greased the entire assembly. Honestly, my first impressionsare that the greased rack doesnt seem to make the steering rack move any freer or easier.

The real test will be when I get the car on the road though

Injuries included my dad stabbing himself pretty hard twice in a row with an ice pick when trying to use it to pull the snap ring off

Pics up soon

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Steering rack before the carnage





Dissasembly




And finally back together after being filled with grease around 6 hours later...what can I say I'm a little slow.. its my first time pulling appart a steering rack

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Engine finally pulled off the front suspension and crossmember and up in the air. Ready to go in the car





The tranny tunnel was already bashed in before I got to the car.. I did some more work with the sledgehammer. Maybe a little too much work, now the gas pedal wont fully depress but I'll fix that sooner rather than later




One of the MANY times we tried putting the engine in the car to no avail.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Another failed attempt at putting the engine into the car. Many times 2x4s were used as prybars to no avail...We are prob close to 15 hours into the process of dropping the engine/tranny into place at this point





We pulled the engine/tranny out again and I got back in there again.. and ground more of granys cradle out of the way and ground the steering rack down but to do so I had to climb into the tranny tunnel. It was pretty cramped down there.





Pictures of the final attempt at putting the engine/tranny in the car.




FInally after 3 days, 20+ hours of work and help from the crow bar, 2x4s, scissor jack, dremel, sledgehammer and sawzall I finally made grants shitty cradle fit.. We didnt know this untill the final attempt but his cradle wasnt wide enough and thats why the engine wasnt getting low enough in the engine bay to line up with the cradle. It looks REALLY nice in there. I deff climbed into the car and did some practice shifting.. Sounds supplied by me of course.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

It didnt matter it ended up being a problem with the cradle. The cradle was too narrow. We expanded it with a scissor jack and the next time we tried it the engine dropped in place in about 10 minutes.

After about 20 hours of trying to make it fit with the cradle the way it was expanding the cradle literally fixed the problem in a few minutes... we got very good at pulling the engine and putting it back in place after doing it that many times.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

I am putting Long tube headers on the engine.. and to do it the firewall needs a little massaging

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Update: I got the headers on the car. They actually went on easier than I thought. They fit in my car better than they fit in my buddies fox body mustang. It took us 14 hours to get his car running where he could drive it because of numerous issues. I got mine in, in about 3 hours including all th time spent pounding the firewall in.. The only problem now is that the firewall is so dented in I cant fully depress the gas. So I figure I'll insall the headers bolt them up and then from the inside of the car dent the firewall back out and dent and bend the headers ever so slightly so I can still use the full travel of my gas pedal.










Now that I've pretty much got the engine in place I am working on some of the other areas of the build. The car originally came with stock S5 NA brakes and rear end so I am converting to T2 brakes and rear end.

Last night I pulled the rear end and today I have been burning the old rubber bushings out of the subframe and the differential.

After a few hours on fire the bushings came out no problemo. I then brought both the subframe and the differential to my buddies shop and we used to press to put the derlin bushings in both. It was a 50 ton press and let me tell you those bushings are not easy to put in. On the force guage we were reading 8 tons of force needed to install the bushings in the rear subframe. After I got the derlin bushings in place I enlarged some holes in the rear subframe and taped off some other holes. I then used a 2 part expanding urethane structural foam in the subframe to stiffen it and to reduce vibration. I also hope it will reduce wheel hop. It is used extensivly in other areas to stiffen hallow structural members. Usually structural foam within a hallow carbon fiber structure makes one hell of a stiff/light product. It also works with metal. I am planning on putting it in the frame rails and the rocker panels. I will also put it in any other remaining structural members if I have enough of the foam left over. It has been used in japan for many years to stiffen the chassis of cars and as I said before its been used in airplanes for a while. The miata guys have also used it before with good results. There has been a lot of talk about the effectivness of this foam and a lot of debate. I want to find out once and for all the effectivness of this method of stiffening.


2 Part Expanding structural urethane foam




Foamed Subframe with derlin bushings installed

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Yeah foam hasent really caught on here. Hell... it may not work and that may be why, but I want to test it once and for all. Worse case scenario it should greatly reduce the vibration from the solidly mounted rear end and make the car a lot more livable (less of a rattle trap)

This car btw has sat like this in the garage now for 7 months with zero progress its sitting in my parents garage collecting dust. Major things still left to do, drivers side header just doesnt fit. Like I said before I hammered in the tranny tunel to the point where I cant depress the gas pedal all the way and the headers still dont fit so I either need to cut the flange off that header and reweld the flange on at an angle that brings the headers close to the block or I need to just pony up the money for some JTRs and sell the converted 5.0 poorboy headers to someone who is more talented at making them work. I still need to finish the wiring, the car pulled a fast one on me and it turns out it didnt come with a main relay because the last guy was running a carbed SBC and didnt need it. Danzan I believe gave me some help a long time ago on how to bypass this but I just never got to it. I need to get the fuel system installed, between the fuel cell and the engine and I already have all the parts for it. I need to get an intake for the car. I need to re-assemble the rear brake rotors/calipers/line. Still need the correct coolant hoses to and from the engine/radiator. The ones I have now wont bend far enough to make the sharp angles needed to connect them without kinking the hose.

That should be about all I need in terms of major stuff to get it done.. ever since I started this new job though I have just been overwhealmed. I feel like the only time I will restart this project is when I either quit or get fired.