Well it's been some time but i've got my new car running. to replace my white Rx7 (RIP) still more work to do but it's been quite fun.

This was built to be My track car for the Calgary Sport Car Club Solo1 events and the occasional friday open track night at Race City. With form always fallowing function, performance was always the number one consideration. but with the future of race city not looking for good I wanted the car to street legal, or as close to that i wouldn't get harassed that often.

We'll start with the motor that I build for my White 7 (RIP)

This little beauty is a street ported REW from a 93. explained by the previous owner it was built in vancouver and only had a simple street port but had been over heated. it was quite a surprise to me when i opened it up and find that it had been fairly molested. 3mm atkins apex seals. S4 rotor and an unbalanced rotating assembly. 2 dowel pins (one top, one bottom) with 1 stripped bolt. sharp edges on the ports and no porting or polishing on the intake runners. the coolant o-rings near the exhaust had turned to powder and a couple sensors had melted out. the TO4E turbo had lots of play and the rear oil ring was broken.
I jumped in head first and got started. replaced the S4 rotors with the S4 rotors that were in my old engine (way better shape) New apex seals from RX7 Specialties. I had to destroy a dowel pin to remove it. re reamed the holes and custom made 2 dowel pin that the tension bolt will fit though. polished the rotor housings. plates were in decent shape, clean up the ports and rebuilt the turbo with spare bearing from my stock turbo, and a new fatter oil ring.


I replaced the face on my 9lbs racing beat flywheel and bought a 6puck sprung ACT clutch with an Exeddy 40% over stock pressure plate.


Enter the New 7. An 88 LHD GX with only 1 spot of body damage, straight frame and no rust. $400 with everything except motor and tranny. except i had to transport from edmonton to calgary, rented a trailer and my GF's dad's truck and off we went. turned out to be a great road trip with THEE single greatest souvenir ever.

The hardest part of the whole swap would be building the motor mount from scratch.

it's a 1x3x1/8 rectangle tube with 1x1/2 hollow bar. The hollow bar was drilled into the rectangle tube so that the bolts wouldn't flatten it. cut some angles, weld, cut again, and more welding. I thought of going solid motor mounts but apparently the hockey puck mounts have become almost infamous with me. they do the job but i think they're due to be replaced after only 1 summers worth of use. I the appearance leaves a little to be desired but i think it turned out well for only using a drill press, 4 1/2 angle grinder and a 110volt welder.


I pulled out more then half of the unnecessary wire in the main body harness with a now regret doing so. I currently have a semi continuous beeping that is coming from the CPU. I've bypassed any of the sensors that aren't on the car still but nothing stops the beeping but everything else works perfectly. I bolted up the Haltech and pulled the wires into the engine bay. The S6 CAS wiring turned out to be quite a search to find the wiring diagram and taking no chances i found some grounding sheathing and wrapped the CAS wires.


some 8k/6k 32adjustable coils from BC racing, I'm really quite happy with these and they perform like i could ever imagine. and some AWR adjustable rear camber links. I also have some Racing beat sway bars in the car, I really need to upgrade the end links though, some ball in socket links would be nice.


Now add a 6pt roll cage, again built with a drill press, 4 1/2 angle grinder and a 110volt welder, this was probably easiest fabrication i've ever done. I took a big paper cut out of the interior of the car, and a 1 3/4x 1/8 dom tube to a hot rod shop and they were quite happy to bend the main loop into shape for me. I'd recommend them again for the job. now trying to hold the pipe in a vice on the drill press took some creativity but with a soft hand on the feed, a cheap bi-metal hole saw was able to notch all the tube for good fitment.


Now back to the Engine. As i slowly started adding the expensive parts like the SS -10 oil lines and the SS-6 fuel lines and marren FPD. I started drooling over my own work. throw on the LS1 coils the some taylor magnacoil custom spark plug wires and areomotive FPR. although these SS hoses piss me off. it's impossible to pound on the end fittings and keep a grip without turning your hands all red from your own blood. but they're all on there and holding pressure. :thumbup:


UPGRADE! My solo1 rival from last year who i still can't thank enough gave me all the turbos from past years that have failed him for one reason or another. I had to weld the V-band flanges back onto 2 hot side snails (one .84 another 1.0) a center housing from 1 turbo and the compressor from one of the rewelded turbos. And thus i ended up with my frankenstein TO4S 70mm compressor, oil cooled floating bearing with choice of .84 or 1.0 p-trim hot sides.
on the right is my TO4E that i used for the first half of the season. the new turbo is magnificent, the boost starts MUCH sooner and smoother, and still reaches full boost at a lower RPM then the TO4E. the power difference it noticeable but i will have to readjust my 40mm wastegate spring as the TO4S builds 2-3 pounds more boost.
Hopefully come next summer i can source a TO4R compressor wheel and build my old TO4E into a water cooled TO4R 1.0 just because i already have the compressor housing waiting to be used.


I then traveled back to edmonton for a look at some rota slipstream rims, unfortunately they weren't the size i was looking for, so instead i bought a MASSIVE afco mustang radiator (24x20x2 core). I didn't had a chance to use my new turbo on the track so i'm not sure if the more efficient turbo will require a larger intercooler. (the old TO4E definitely did) the core size is 18x9x2.5, for now it works but i'll keep my eyes open. I fab'd the intake pipes from mild steel for now and they work great but perhaps aluminum might be in the future if i can find an aluminum flange for the HKS adjustable competition BOV. if anyone has any insight to stop the BOV from whistling at 1-2psi boost? if i make the spring any tighter then i way too violent for my preference. While installing the larger rad, I took the opportunity to move the oil cooler from the stock location and front mount it into the bumper rebar. to prevent any hot air from pre-heating the air into the rad/IC, i created a larger duct for the rad/IC, entirely aluminum it is very light and only allows air into the duct from in front of the bumper. true clean cold air. while the air from oil cooler can go around the duct into the engine bay or up over the IC out the hood.
I slowly worked on some flush mount headlight to replace the heavy flip up lights. just a little bit of fiberglass and a huge fight to get them out of the molds. they turned out ok but i was so impatient to get them on the car i didn't take all the time to body filler the holes and sand. so i sanded once and spray bombed them and installed, i'm very happy with them but i need to find ones that aren't yellow.



some pics from the solo one season.





Last pic was taken today, just needed one with the headlights.