Adam's 1989 Turbo II => ls1/t56 swap

[Rosey]

Time to start putting info on this site, and since I've never really made a build thread or organized what's been going on with my car, I guess this could serve as an opportunity, and give other people some ideas for their swaps.

Bought the car with a turbo rotary engine and ~85K miles in april of 2004, stock down to the cats and paper air filter.  I pretty much maxed out the rotary with the stock turbo, with microtech, FMIC, exhaust/intake, bringing it up to the 250-275whp range.  I brought it home back in the days when a regular digital camera would be embarrassed by one of today's cell phones, but here is how it looked.


 When the seals started sticking causing temporary low compression when the car sat for awhile, I figure it was time to rebuild and bigger turbo to start cranking out some power.  I pulled the rotary, tore it down, organized all the parts, made sure I knew how to put everything together and went to order a rebuild kit, but I didn't order a rebuild kit, instead I ordered a hinson supercars lsx engine mount kit.

The car first moved under it's own (v8) power summer of 2006, so coming up on 4 years on the road, I've worked out quite a few kinks.  A lot of the systems I will describe have been revised several times and this is how they sit at the time of writing this.  I've been in college the whole time this car has been being built, so a lot has been done on a bit of a budget, but it slowly but surely all came together and works(sorta...). 

The car is a 1989 rx7 with a heads/cam/bolt on ls1, t56 transmission, nitrous, 03/04 cobra rear and whatever else.  I'll try to add some pics as I go along so expect this to look incomplete for quite some time while I put this together as I get time.  If I glaze over any details(and believe me, I will) feel free to ask.

1. Engine

2. Cooling System

3. Fuel System

4. Exhaust

5. Intake

6. Suspension and Steering

7. Wheels/Tires

8. Rear End

9. Tuning

10. Gauges

11. Misc

[Rosey]

1. Engine

Engine is/was a 2000 camaro z28 pullout with ~70K miles, came very complete from cleveland pick-a-part for about $3100+shipping, remember this was 2005ish so no idea what the engines go for nowadays.

It is mounted using hinsons basic kit and energy suspension poly mounts.  The transmission cross memer is a one-off piece made to allow duel 3" pipes to fit easier, but all the hinson stuff would work fine.  As of right now Eat-Pez makes a mount kit that uses corvette pedestal mounts that are less bulky and I would recommend those if I was building a car today for the extra room they offer.

The engine now has an ls6 intake manifold, ported TB, headers/exhaust(will get into later), 4" "strait shot" intake(will go into later), underdrive pulley, no ac or p/s, ls6 pcv/valley cover for bolt ons, and comp cams 7.375" pushrods, ls7 lifters, comp cams rocker bearing/triunion kit, custom speced 227/239 0.614 .624 113+2 cam, 5.3 truck heads CNC ported 62.5cc chamber 2.02" intake valves 1.57" exhaust valves, thin cometic head gaskets, patriot gold dual valve springs/seats/retainers.

Best guess puts the engine alone at between 425-475whp, big range I know, but your guess is as good as mine.

[Rosey]

2. Cooling system

Radiator is a summit universal, 19" tall and 2.25" thick, not sure on the width, but I think this is it.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-380325/?rtype=10

I will get pics of the mounts, but I used thick aluminum L-brackets welded to each side of the radiator.  I threaded a bolt into each side and used a couple of PCV valve grommets for bushings which I drilled large holes in the frame rail to press the bolts through and support the weight.  The top brackets are some fairly fimsy pieces of bent steel, but they do not support weight, they just hold it in place.
*radiator mount pics*
It's bolted to a tarus fan/shroud using only the low speed(which as been plenty) and a universal relay and the PCM control making it work.

Hoses were easy because I work at an o'reilly's I just figured out what would fit.  If you get some measurements and be nice to the guy at the parts store, I'm sure he'll let you back to figure out what hoses you need.

I always had problems with air in the cooling system, probably because the steam vent between the heads was not hooked up correctly, and the radiator was mounted lower than the engine making it hard to bleed.

Solution was a surge tank which was attached to the passenger side head with a piece of thick sheet aluminum and a t-bolt bracket.  This is the one and here is how it is hooked up...
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/HRE-3424/?rtype=10

RED to steam vent
BLUE to overflow tank
YELLOW pluged
GREEN to the heater hose/water pump inlet

I've not had a bit of trouble with the cooling system in its current form, even in hot weather in traffic.  Some better ducting is probably happening at some point, but even with mediocre ducting it does its job.