www.RX7fb.com

Okay. So a lot of progress has been made since the last update.

I decided to upgrade my stereo a bit. I wanted quality over quantity. I have gone with some Audison speakers and amp with no subwoofer (I can always add one at a later date if i feel the need). Not the cheapest bit of kit


Size difference of old vs new front speakers.



Made some new kick panels. I have made them so I can remove the speaker without removing the panel. Or panel without removing the speaker. I also made my speaker rings and gave them a quick spraypaint in black. Not the most pretty paintjob. But realistically, you won't see them unless your head is in the footwell



Similar speaker rings in the rear. I put some duct tape over as many holes as I could. If it falls off then oh well . Passengers side trim is a bit tight to put back on. Debating on a few things for this. Possibly cutting the OEM speaker grill out? See how I feel at a later date. I used grommets where the speaker cable came back in to the main cabin.


Ran my speaker cable and RCA's through the car as cleanly as I could. Cut a little slit in the carpet to help out. Used some little ferrules on the ends of my speaker cable with some adhesive heatshrink on the ones which were a touch looser than I liked. It looks a lot cleaner, more easier to deal with, and doesn't destroy the strands




Made a little acrylic sheet for the amp to bolt on with some m5 rivnuts. I also made some aluminium spacers on the lathe at work for the amp to sit on, so it cleared the bolt heads. I made some other spacers on the lathe for the acrylic to chassis and lathed the bolt heads down a bit. I can't think how to describe it any more clearly right now. So look at some pictures!


It all fits quite nicely when the rear seat is up but don't seem to have any pictures haha. Overall I am pretty pleased with it so far. Although I haven't even touched any of the amp gain settings yet.



For a while now I have been wanting to go with an EWP (electric water pump) setup. It cleans up the engine bay quite nicely. But more importantly is that it will run after you shut the engine off and helps cool down much better! Especially with the turbo. I definitely didn't go with the most straightforward or cheapest way of installing an EWP

Got an EWP150 and controller from Walton Motorspot


Start off with a new Champion 3 row radiator


Cut off the inlet and outlet of the radiator and welded on some AN16 adapters. Now the cost starts getting crazy . I had an AN6 adapter welded on for the turbo coolant. Finally I made a new heater takeoff on the lathe at work and had that welded on also. The black nylon braid is FAR nicer to work with than stainless! I did tidy up the wiring before the car started up. No sensor cable on the turbo





If anything the car is running a touch cool when cruising at a decent speed on light throttle. But overall very pleased with it aye. I think my alternator needs a good polish now I have a bench grinder also

I'll leave it at this for now as there are already a lot of pictures . I'll try and get more up next week at some point

Some fantastic work there, looks great!
Making me feel guilty for the lack of progress on my own as well.

That EWP should be perfect once its fully dialed in.

Great stuff Jesse... love this build What head unit are you using?

Those Champion rads are almost artwork!

Jesse the modded cooling system is looking good. The reduce of the waterhose diameter and increase of the flowspeed is a big change.
Will be interesting how it works after optimize the ECU programm. You got the option to change the speed of the waterpump?

Great work there Jesse, looks a really good, neat setup

I look forward to seeing it sometime!

spirit r wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 6:58 am Jesse the modded cooling system is looking good. The reduce of the waterhose diameter and increase of the flowspeed is a big change.
Will be interesting how it works after optimize the ECU programm. You got the option to change the speed of the waterpump?

Found these 38mm tube Jesse

Thanks guys!

ian65 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 09, 2020 9:32 pm Great stuff Jesse... love this build What head unit are you using?

It is an old Clarion unit my old housemate got from Morgan when he was working there (with permission, of course!). It is something I would like to upgrade at some point also. But should do the job for now

spirit r wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 6:58 am Jesse the modded cooling system is looking good. The reduce of the waterhose diameter and increase of the flowspeed is a big change.
Will be interesting how it works after optimize the ECU programm. You got the option to change the speed of the waterpump?

Thanks bro! The controller does everything automatically. It pulses during warm up, so the whole system heats up evenly. Then ramps up and turns the fans on when starting to get hot. That is the website I bought the EWP adapter from! The AN16, along with the new radiator is actually keeping it quite cool


So here we are again. I have been lazy at updating this

My ECU wiring was pretty messy. I could have just tucked it under the carpet where the original emissions control box was. But I thought it would be cool to make a little panel and add some fuse boxes/relays which doubles as a footrest. Just a random idea I had one day. Unfortunately I don't seem to have many pics of the progress

Here is what it was like with all my cables all over the place


Here it is (nearly) finished, I made some aluminium spacers on the lathe at work, then had an acrylic sheet over top. So the electrics wouldn't get damaged You get the gist



I removed my rear axle and took it down the back of my house to prepare for a freshen up and LSD upgrade! It was definitely in need of a good clean up.






All of my diff bearings were looking in quite good condition which was nice to know. Although all were being replaced anyway .




Wire wheeled the whole thing for a good while. Then prepped and painted with POR15 products. I think it looks much nicer that before!







I had some LSD porn arrive at work .I don't plan on doing constant hard launches, or skids all day. So figured an MX5 diff would be fine for me. Used LSD from MX5's are getting pretty expensive these days and are sought after by the 5 crew also. A brand new Kaaz, Quaife, Cusco and Tomei diff isn't a whole lot more. So I started looking at those options as I like the idea of being brand new. Those brands also have pretty good reputations and should be better than OEM I think. Then I saw there was OS Giken for a little bit more. OS Giken are pretty much best of the best (for those who don't know the brand). The whole order even came in an RE Amemiya box when I ordered from RHDJapan








I picked up a series 1/2 crownwheel and pinion as they have bigger teeth and should handle the power a bit better. I replaced all the bearings and oil seal with new SKF ones from Rockauto. It would have been silly not to whilst I was in there . I tried to contact a guy about solid pinion spacers that he sells, rather than using a crush tube like OEM. I had heard it mentioned how with a lot of power they can crush more - which messes up pinion preload. He never replied to my emails, so I made my own . I have access to a lathe at work and just happens that we had some ideal sized drill bits also. Made it easy work!







Setting the pinion drag with a solid spacer is a slight bit more work than with a crush tube. But still isn't too bad. Speed Academy who are an awesome Youtube channel have a good video on exactly what I had to do. https://youtu.be/y9puFDDkUIg?t=736
Although with the magic of the Tube, it looks a bit easier than what it is. I also didn't have and inch lb torque wrench at hand. Turns out one that reads such a small measurement is difficult to find! . So with the help of some friends we came up with a plan. A Salter spring scale 3" from centre, pulling about 950 grams. Worked out to be spot on for the preload I need! This took a few attempts with different quantities of shims to get it correct.



Once the correct pinion preload was found, it was time to install my new bearings on to the pinion and check out the depth! This means installing the LSD and see what markings are on the teeth with engineers blue. It takes a lot of back and forth as the chance of getting it correct on your first attempt is very low . Thankfully I had a spare pinion spacer or two which came in handy for getting a good contact pattern. I don't think I took a picture of the final contact patch, so here is one from along the way. You get the point.



Once pinion depth and drag was set. It was time to set the backlash on the diff. This was also a very fiddly part of the job which takes multiple attempts to get correct. Got it sorted after plenty of time spent on it! Here is a picture of the diff head as a whole



Got it all installed and back in the car. More on this later (if I remember ) I'll leave it at this for now and try to write another update next week!

Please tell us exactly how the new diff feels and works, looks very clean. Good job
Next will be a brakesystem update i think.

I can see a lot of hard work there Jesse, not sure I understand all the terms though It all looks clean & shiny that i s the main thing