Finally Got A New Toy To Replace The RX7

[freeskier7791]

Cool, hopefully you can get everything sorted with a dealer.  My buddy would drive his to campus all the time and people would always be talking about it.  Even one time I was walking by it and overheard some kids saying whoever drove must be super rich to drive a ferrari to class.  Had to chuckle to myself cause I knew how much he really paid for it.

Looking forward to updates now that you have it in your garage

[sciff5]

lol it's in  the garage but i don't think the rebuild is going to go any smoother at this rate.
the broken glass from the foglight got me good. i looked down at my hand to see my knuckle cut wide open with the center all white. had that experience a few times where i can confirm my bones are indeed white.

figuring i should get stitches but the slight pukey feeling was overcome by basically blind rage at that point.  I wrapped it electrical taped it and got back to work. i little worried about unwrapping it later lol but i did disarm the immobilizer.
tried cranking it, it cranked and cranked but zero ignititon. so i'm thinking the inertia switch might have been tripped when he crashed it but the crash doesnt look bad enough. will also find the fuse block to make sure its not just a fuse.

theres an fuel pressure gauge right on the fpr next to the rail so i'll just have my wife look at it while i crank it over, but i dont hear the fuel pump so i'm assuming it's not being powered. The gas in the car is probably a year old too but if it was getting fuel it woulds still have some ignition.

[wickedrx7]

Not to be a sissy but if you saw white, it could be bone or tenden. If you nick the sheeth on the tendon, it can get infected and super bad things can happen. Get to a doctor and antibiotics. Oh, and use masking tape to bandage wounds, it is easier to remove.

[sciff5]

Havent unwrapped it yet but deff saw prob tendon... it basically opened up a flap on the top of my index knuckle.Never felt it at all. still barely feel it... wierd...

anyway this car may be already drawing blood and sweat (no tears yet) but I got it started. it was the inertia switch. car didn't like the year old gas, will prob siphon that off but it starts now. Of all things the only thing not working is the radio, the wideband, and the radar detector, they all are next to each other so I'm guessing same fuse, but checked all fuses in the car and everything was good

car runs though. Vibrates like a basterd though, bad gas, cold engine and stiff engine/trans mounts prob down't help. hope it smooths out as it warms up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js3dN0ZxP5k&feature=youtu.be


Btw had another car turn off the road right into my driveway as i was out there to ask about the car... I just told them i was just transporting it for a friend. then got thumbs up from a bimmer driver as i was backing the trailer into the driveway. cant even leave this thing outside without rubber neckers. Theres just no interesting cars around here, not sure i'm really a fan of the attention. That might eventually get really old.

[sciff5]

Alright so update on the car.
I obviously got it started and I wanted to slowly bring it up to temp to see if it would hold. I get the car idling and I see that the temp is rising uncontrollably. The car gets up to about 200 and I shut it off. The radiator is ice cold so I know the thermostat isn't opening. And we grab some of the radiator hoses and they seem empty but we can hear some coolant in the radiator.

So we top off the coolant with some water. We put in maybe a half a gallon in and brought it up to temp a couple more times, revved it up tried to get some air out. We ended up bringing it up to 200 about 3 or 4 times before the thermostat finally opened. We immedialy saw the water in the reservior turn pink as it mixed with the coolant already in the system, and then our radiator started finally getting warm.

From there it held about 195 for 20 mins. We didn't see any coolant leaking out anywhere, and the car's not smoking/no water in the oil. So I'm a bit at odds to where the coolant went... That seems like something that could come back to be a pain in the ass later.

But once we got the car to hold temp we decided to put it in gear and roll it around a bit. It's got a flat tire but it was really nice to back it out of the garage which I did and drove it up and down the driveway a few times. Usually I can tell somewhat how a car is going to feel almost immediately as I take off from a stop and the clutch, engagement and feeling of the car overall just from rolling it 20 feet was very promising.

I also pulled the parts from the front that were destroyed in the crash and I think for this summer I'm just going to run it the way it is, and do all of the work over the winter on the car.

We spent most of today cleaning up the garage again, and cleaning up the car.
Tues I have the new R888Rs coming that I'm going to get mounted, but for now, I still need to figure out how to get the lug nuts off (lol stupid special tool is required from the dealership. I also had to get new jackstands with flat tops. Also bought a new battery. I'm going to try the Lithium Iron battery (The biggest Shorai) which is overkill in terms of CCAs, but the reserve is realistically equivelent to about 10-12AHs. So that should be useable as a dual purpose battery with a tender and a remote shut off switch.

Pictures from today after we cleaned the car up a bit:

[freeskier7791]

Awesome progress. Wonder how the toyos will feel

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[digitalsolo]

Looks like the interior cleaned up really nice!

[kinger]

Pretty cool toy!  Hope it works out for you once on the road/track.  The coolant thing seems strange. 

[sciff5]

Awesome progress. Wonder how the toyos will feel

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

The toyos are the new version of the R888s. The tread pattern is more like the NT-01, which is the tire I really want but they don't come in the right sizes for these cars.
Its supposedly stickier than the old R888s in the dry, not as good in the rain, and less noisy, all of which work fine for me.

Pretty cool toy!  Hope it works out for you once on the road/track.  The coolant thing seems strange. 

Yeah I hear you, maybe it's got a slightly blown head gasket and I won't see smoke out of the exhaust until it's under load. But I hope not, no smoke yet and I've revved it up to about 5k, once the thermostat opened it didn't drink considerably more water, so the missing coolant was in the engine area.

Looks like the interior cleaned up really nice!

Yeah its really a nice interior, the guy spent some money, but this nice interior confuses me a bit on this lightweight little car. Here I am surrounded in leather and suede and the car's vibrating like a honda hatch with solid motor mounts.
The vibrations I have found do get better as the car warms up and settles into idle, but still, but I think I'll go back to stock mounts the first chance I get, then it really will feel luxurious (for a 2,000lb car)

[digitalsolo]

My Focus ST had really loose stock motor mounts and I spent a LOT of time researching a "tighter" solution that wouldn't shake my fillings out.   When I was younger I was all for "racecar" but now it's nice to get 90% of the benefit with 50% of the NVH increases.    On my MINI Cooper I filled the mounts with urethane.   I won't do that again, haha.

I went with the upgraded Ford Racing OE manufactured pieces since it seemed a good balance.   If Lotus has anything in that range, it's probably worth it.

[sciff5]

Fixed the radio, which was bothering me a lot more than you might imagine. I track 12v power from the radio fuse all the way to a set of relays under the dash, which are FUCK-ALL hard as hell to get to.
I hated getting udner the dash of the FC, this car is a nightmare under there. if you get claustrophobic at all, this would not be the job for you.

So I'm trying to figure out why the radio/Radar dectector/Wideband are all dead. They're all right next to each other and obviously on the same circuit because everything else is working in the car.
So I trace 12v the whole way, to the radio, and I pull the harness for the wideband and check continuity of the ground wire there (figuring they also probably use the same common grounding point, or at least if they don't and it's a grounding issue than one should be working and not the other)
Grounds are good, it's getting power, now I'm thinking the relay is bad, and it is tucked up under the dash, so I'm in the passenger seat, in my driveway (to use the sunlight so I can see) with my feet sticking out of the roof and my head under the dash with the car running to burn off the last bit of the old gas.... ohh what my neighbors must think 

Finally I remember that the last jackass tried to jump start the car, and I see some of the hex bolts holding the trim around the column is still loose. So I pull it... thinking there's no way that the radio's key on power is driven directly from the ignition column (that would be too simple)
Take it all off and low and behold one of the connectors is off the terminal on the ignition.Plug it back in turn the key and the radio/wideband come right on.
Lol

This car may have some specialty parts but it's AWESOMELY simple for a 2006. It's really no more complex than my Rx7. All the relays are you standard looking square type that you'd find on a race car, everything is driven off the ignition. The RX7 really prepared me well for this car. I thought I'd be jumping into uncharted waters with such a new car, but it's old school under the hood.

Still tryin to figure out the radar detector but that's not a project for this summer.

Things left to do before I get this on the road
-Install new turn signal light - light gets here by end of week
- get insurance - should hear back from grundy in the next couple days ($333 / year to insure this car, no limit on miles)
- Got the specialty tool (lug key) from the dealer to pull the lugnuts finally, so now I can pull the wheels and get the tires mounted and balanced. Might have a bent rim (it's deff heavily scuffed and the lip is slightly bent, but if it's straight and it holds air, it'll do for the summer)
- Need to move the oil cooler on the side that got hit in the front. it got pushed back and is making contact with the front tire at full lock, will need to bend the mounting tabs back out, or take it out all together. I've had 2 race teams tell me the stock dual oilcoolers actually never allow the oil to come up to temp, so pulling one is actually a good idea.
- Fix the drivers side window, it was supposedly repaired but it's off track and jammed. The motor works but the window gets crooked halfway up the track and jams. Will also need to adjust the windows to fit flush with the soft-top which is coming today.

As long as no other surprises come up, I should be on the road, potentially next week

[sciff5]

Good news
Race car parts:





Bad news, my lower control arm on the passenger rear looks a little wavy. Which kinda makes sense based on the hit that rim took from what looks like a curb:



And for comparison, the other side:

[digitalsolo]

Well crap.

[sciff5]

Well crap.

I know, insurance forms should be coming tomorrow too, so I could have been driving it tomorrow.
Rolled it to the end of the driveway and spun the tires a bit coming back up the driveway. Made sure I spun them clean. I wish I had gone wider, these new R888Rs run super narrow for R-Comps. I would have gone 215/245 if I had known. They don't look aggressive enough but supposedly overall grip is better than the old R888s. So I guess I can't complain too much.
The car just from backing it up and down the driveway feels really tight, and light. I think I'll really like the way it drives when it's done.

There's a junkyard in Ohio that has an elise, and I got the soft-top crash structure and a couple other smaller parts from them. I'm going to see if they have the control arm and see if they can overnight it to me. That way I still might be able to drive it for real next week. Control arms go for like $125 used and they usually price anything at market rates so it shouldn't be bad,
And the stock rear toe links on these cars are known to fail suddenly, so I should replace those too while I'm in there. Already have the upgraded ones sitting there, so might as well take care of it, and while the rear undertray is out, might as well change the oil finally and install the diffuser. So it's an opportunity to do things that need to be done anyway.

My only concern is the remote possibility of frame (control arm mount) damage which is really nearly unfixable on these cars. But from the damage on the rim... don't see that being possible, and I looked at the mount, and it looked untouched. Some of the other componets could be damaged as well, but I really looked at each side, comparing them over and over and ran a straight edge down a few of the tubes, and everything else looks good.

[gnx7]

Great progress!  I would love to own one of these someday.  Keep the pace going!  Summer is 1/2 way thru......