The New Garage Queen

[Troux]

Not as much as I would hope. Last semester was spent finishing off my BS degree, so now the car is fighting with job hunting for my time, but I've gotten a few things done and am pretty much able to work on it every day again.

Oil cooler lines mounted and tucked against the frame rails. You can see them next to my stronger Widefoot sway bar mounts (prevent flexing).:

Everything tucked into the battery bin:

Since I don't have the steering wheel airbag anymore, I decided to remove the entire airbag system. This was a good weight-saver, but a major pain in the ass, mainly the sensor inside the cabin, against the firewall, in the center.

Nice and shiny heater hoses:

Finished all of the under-dash wiring on the driver's side. It's starting to look like a car again on the inside!

VERY snug seat, mounted on stock sliders, with the 5-point GForce harnesses bundled up in the seat:

Wanted a high quality exhaust system. Who to turn to?

Look at those welds! This thing cost just under $500. :\

Here you can see a weekend of progress. The Hinson tranny mount is an easy install, as it bolts right up to the stock tranny mount holes. I went with a newer design, as it has the advantage of additional room for exhaust clearance on the driver's side. I would need this with a dual 3" system. The tranny mount you see here involves drilling 6 holes into the floorboard, and installing holding plates on the inside by removing the seats and lifting up the carpet. Also pictured here are mandrel bend S-bends from Flowmaster. They are an off-the-shelf solution I found that would only work with my particular headers and tranny mount combo. Took a lot of measuring and trimming and pounding away at the floorboards, but I'm VERY happy with my choice.

Here you can see that the DS header is going to be the lowest point on the car (unavoidable, as this has always been the problem with V8 FDs), but everything else is neatly tucked away.

Here you can see how everything fits in the tunnel, with plenty of clearance:

^I'm not going to run those pipes all the way out the back, though. I'm going to cut them off just before the tranny mount and attach the X-pipe, mufflers, and turndowns right after. This is basically my entire system right after the headers:

Other things I've gotten taken care of over the past few months are locating miscellaneous interior screws and clips so everything is a nice fit, getting custom-machined screws for the new bump steer system, picking a brake booster check valve, and mounting the clutch master cylinder.

 

[land sea air]

looks beautiful! any whole car pics?

 

[Troux]

Nope, nothing new in that department. Besides, it's quite dusty. Here's what I've got left (assuming no more ******** pops up) of the stuff to get it driveable:
1. Mount shifter cover plate and handle.
2. Route wiring.
3. Loom and tape wiring.
4. Install passenger side dash, seat, and harness.
5. Install new inner tie rods.
6. Remount fenders and front bumper.
7. Finish oil cooler line mounting.
8. Custom mount radiator (this will be very time consuming).
9. Mount hood.
10. Build intake (SHOULD be fairly simple).
11. Mount headlights.

After that, I completely empty out the engine bay (that'll take a while, too), and send it to the body shop. While it's at the shop, there are a couple easy things to do (check engine torques, tape up wiring that was inaccessible before, get powder and ceramic coating done), but once it gets back, it's just remount everything, fill fluids, and then I can drive it!...to a shop to get suspension work done. In theory there's not much left to do, but I'm always busy with life, and I love to extend little things with perfection (the custom headlight, radiator, and intake mounting come to mind), so we'll see.

 

[Troux]

Though it may not look like it to the untrained eye, I've been making a lot of progress these past few days. As the wiring is coming together, I'm feeling very confident in the choices I've made, and VERY happy I took all the extra steps to make a neat, reliable, serviceable wiring setup.

DISCLAIMER: This post is going to be VERY boring to all but the extreme car and customizing nerds!

First off, I finally got the wiring under the driver side dash tidied up for the last time, secured using factory locations and factory wiring retainers. After pulling some more wires, I've thinned the dash harness considerably. Here's what used to be a 20-pin connector that connected engine and front harness components to the dash harness. I've reduced it to two wires (and of course replaced the connector with a smaller one).

The rearmost wire is the tach signal, wrapped in EMI (electromagnetic interference) shield tape, as many swappers have found it has a decent amount of voltage to it, and is prone to interfering with the speedometer signal wire, resulting in the speedo jumping a bit when the tach signal intensifies. For my friend, his speedo is slightly jittery under normal driving, and will jump to 10-20MPH if he's revving in neutral. I've read another account where a guy's speedometer will jump to 90-100MPH as he gives it a bit of gas. I won't be having either of these issues.

With some wiring connected, I finally put the blower motor back in place. Takes up a lot of head room, but a necessary evil to route the wires accurately.

Then the passenger side is where the magic happens. This picture is the manifestation of countless hours of researching and improving (again and again) an ideal setup, so you guys can finally see what I've been touting about regarding OEM fit and reliability.

Now here it is with things explained so it makes a bit more sense.

- On the bottom left, you'll see the alternator-starter-battery main power cable is run through the firewall (battery relocated in the rear, remember?), and connects with a high-current terminal on a factory wire retainer (attached to female side).
- Just to the right of these, the powered engine wires are all of the wires in the engine harness that require 12V, which is just the ignition wires and power for a couple solenoids on the tranny.
- Under these, the starter wires run to a starter relay, which provides more voltage to the starter, as the LS sometimes has issues with hot starts (some vehicles have this problem) since the exhaust heat can overheat the motor. Wasn't taking any chances there.
- On the right side, the X-14 is a connector that houses a lot of engine-chassis connections for the rotary. This connector is crucial for the swap, but 99% of the swappers just use the factory connector pigtail to connect to various functions, which results in the engine, ECU, and other chassis components connected to the same side of a connector. It works just fine, but doesn't make much logical sense, so here is the connector that I built to replace X-14, which is now the sole connector for all engine-chassis connections, just as it was from the factory. The rest of the connections people normally make here go to the ECU, power sources, ground, and an aftermarket speedometer correction box. I have hardwired these connections into the dash harness, just as it would be from the factory.
- The top of the picture shows the main engine harness. These are the wires that go directly from the engine to the ECU. Except for rerouting them to fit my needs and cutting them to the proper lengths, these didn't require any special work, but there's more to the story here...
- The wires from the engine aren't coming through the factory hole for the engine harness, they're coming through the factory hole for the AC lines. Since I've eliminated AC, I am using this hole because of the unique, dual-partition grommet (seen on the right side of this picture) that the evaporator used. It has a larger hole that I'll be running the main engine wires through, and a smaller hole that I will run all of the higher voltage wires through (power cable, 12V engine wires, starter relay wires). You'll see the EMI shield tape used here again. I have achieved maximum protection from voltage interference by shielding these wires, keeping them separate from the harness, running them separately through the firewall, and routing them separately in the cabin (high voltage runs under the carpet, chassis wires run behind the blower motor, and engine harness wires run through an L-shaped protective tube [not pictured] that was actually used for the same purpose on the Mazda harness). This is an improvement over OEM standards, and will result in more precise and accurate sensor readings.
- Just above the firewall hole, mostly out of the picture are the wires run from the driver's side. Again, separated by voltage and located on a factory harness retainer.

Here's where the ECU will sit (factory location, actually), snugly held in place by the CF holding plate in front of it, the interior panel clips beside it, and the interior panel that covers it.

You'd have to see things in person to grasp the unbelievable serendipity in how the ECU and harness fits (the shortest wires on the harness are the PERFECT length to reach the ECU, and the connectors, when attached, are a snug - not tight - fit behind the interior panel), but here's an example:

Made for this car or what?

Dicking around all week in such a tight spot with sharp corners and sharp tools has run me clear out of band aids, so I improvise:

One of the connections to make that usually ends up very cluttered on other swaps is hooking several draws to a 12V ignition-on source, even though they can all be run through a single fuse. In my case, I have 8 different wires I need to feed. There are several options out there for fuse blocks that connect lots of fuses to a single wire, but not lots of wires to a single fuse, so here's where I get creative...

I buy this standard fuse block from my neighborhood Vatozone:

Dismantle it, and you end up with this:

Now: Take the center plate, cut it down to size and grind away some of the plating to expose the copper core. Take the female blade receptacles on the sides, cut them off, and again, expose the copper. Solder the cut-off female terminals in between the female terminals that are on the plate already, and here's what you get:

I know, it's blurry, but you can see what I end up with: 8 female terminals all connected to a plate. You can see in the background the male spade terminals that will go on each wire and slide neatly into the panel's terminals. Bingo, now I just need to attach a fuse to this plate.

Once again, I call on creativity. There's a small, mostly useless control box that mounts just behind the ECU in the stock configuration. I cut off the box and use its hanger to mount a few fuse holders on (I need 3 fuses altogether for the swap), then solder one end of the fuse holder to the plate. Eight connections, one fuse, all located within proximity on a factory-fit retainer.

There's still a bit of tedious wiring to do, but it's been exciting for me (weird, eh?), and I'm almost at the point where things are just ready to be plugged into in the chassis. Also this week I've been working on getting the tie rods installed (safety wire is a pain in the ass to install), and am waiting for a machine shop to get some pieces back so I can finish that. Once that and the wiring is done, I can start putting exterior pieces back on!

 

[Troux]

All of the wiring that I can do right now is done. Last step is wrapping and taping up the stuff that's hiding under the headers, which will be easy when I get the engine out again.

Had a total of about 75 wires that I had to cut, run through a grommet, measure to length, then resolder. That was about 10 hours worth of work.

All in place inside:

Easy-access OBD2 port behind the ECU:

Everything hidden away for now:

The last of the wiring to get to:

No A/C duct, only sold on a select few Canadian cars:

Spent a few hours making this. It's an aluminum bracket that holds up the dash panel that sits on top of the airbag. Getting rid of the airbag (pictured here) saved me 8 pounds!

With the exception of fine-tuning, the steering is done, with the new bump steer tie rods safety-wired in:

Also finished up the last of the lines to complete the fuel system, trimmed and reassembled my shifter cover plate, got a new brake booster check valve on, and am about to go finish putting the dash back together. Got a new job, so will have more free time and money now.

 

[Troux]

BTW, the airbag panel fits just fine without the brick behind it. Brand new glovebox also in., fits like a glove......box.

 

[Troux]

A few updates:

Finished trimming the shifter plate to work with my aftermarket shifter. Covered it in a thermal barrier coating to keep heat out of the cabin.

After a ton of trimming on the center console/shifter handle, I got the shifter in place and the super clean center console on. You can kind of see that the shift knob is tilted slightly towards the back. I fixed this today, just don't have a picture. The last step is going to be a new leather shift booth that I ordered.

I also mounted the passenger seat and attached the harness already. With the exception of the shift boot and some carbon fiber door sills/scuff guards (discontinued, took forever to find!) that are in the mail, the interior is pretty much done.

Next step is mounting the radiator and oil cooler, which requires mounting the fenders/bumper/undertray to check clearances. The oil cooler mounting brackets took much longer than expected, but finished today, just have to get the core coated for ideal heat transfer. Radiator is in mockup, and will likely require lots of measuring and a little AutoCAD to get some brackets made. I was able to get the radiator approximately in its final position, enough that I've started ordering my intake system. Also mounted my carbon fiber '99 lip. Fits surprisingly well considering it wasn't even made for this bumper!

 

[Troux]

Making good progress on the radiator (looks pretty hacked up!), and got a few more things (more to come) blackened on the engine.

Hood fitment was surprisingly good. Headlights, on the other hand, are going to take a LOT of work to get just right.

 

[land sea air]

coming along nicely, keep up the good work.

 

[Troux]

Thanks. Unfortunately, a lot of the progress being made recently isn't all that palpable, just design work and a bit of trimming and welding here and there. For example, tonight I spent about three hours turning the radiator a few degrees upwards. Now it's getting fed a little better, and I also noticed how easy it's going to be to make some proper radiator shrouding, so while I'm at it...

 

[ranhammerR34]

Just want to say..... Awesome. I love that you are posting the pics of the work even its the littlest thing to some people. However, if you miss any of the little things, like in any project like this, work, school, etc.... you are totally 🤬, or stick a fork into the reality. Great job Troux! 👍
Randy

 

[Troux]

Glad someone appreciates it. I've found a lot of the little steps that others have documented to be the most educational to me. For one, you get a better idea of the scope of a project, and all of the micromanagement that goes into the big picture. Secondly, you can pick up a lot of neat tricks and ideas that aren't out in the open like they might be on the more obvious work.

Just dropped off my radiator and water neck for what should be the last of the welding it needs to get mounted. Expecting a few small goodies in the mail this week...

 

[Carlos]

I dont get it...

RX7, hell yeah!
V8?? What the..?

I don't like that idea.. Oh well..
Good luck with your project, hope it'll run like you wish!

 

[Glubags]

Just read through the thread and man I have to hand it to you on your dedication. What an excellent build. 👍

Very glad to see a couple Hinson parts in there--those guys do great work and have made this swap feasible for a lot of people who are less skilled and dedicated than you, that's for sure... hoping the same happens with the S2000 community after they've developed a mounting kit with my car.

Keep us up to date on everything... I might have to make a trip to Florida when this one's done.

 

[Troux]

Very glad to see a couple Hinson parts in there--those guys do great work

The majority of the V8 RX7 community would disagree with you on that one, but that's a topic for another thread...

Obviously, you see the downsides of tackling the project by yourself, but no regrets so far.

 

[CTznOfTime]

👍 Respect man!! that is some project! Keep up the good work!

 

[Troux]

Too many cars! Who wants to buy my Corolla to pay for my wheels and tires?
Only $3700!
http://myweb.usf.edu/~cbmurphe/Corolla/

 

[astrosdude91]

Put that Corolla on Craigslist.

$3700 seems a bit pricey for a Corolla that old.

 

[Troux]

It's there. Lots of lowballers and flakes.

 

[land sea air]

that's an AE86 right? more info?


sounds like a fair price for a car as clean as that one looks.

 

[Troux]

Yes, it is. http://tampa.craigslist.org/hil/cto/1713759854.html

 

[land sea air]

so what is your other daily?


that is a very clean rolla I hope you find a good home for it. (would buy it myself but I already have 3 cars)

 

[Troux]

Other daily is an AE86 SR5 hatchback. 36.7MPG on the last tank, never getting tired of that!

 

[Troux]

Not that anybody would care anymore, but I thought it would be prudent to update/finish this thread as I sell the car:

http://tampa.craigslist.org/hil/cto/4372158533.html

 

[JMoney]

Not that anybody would care anymore, but I thought it would be prudent to update/finish this thread as I sell the car:

http://tampa.craigslist.org/hil/cto/4372158533.html

Now that's just sad, why are you selling it?

 

[ranhammerR34]

Just saw it @Troux. Sad to see it go, especially after you poured your blood, sweat, and tears of joy and anguish into the swap and the car. Here's hoping that you get the price you are asking for or something close to it! 👍

 

[Cano]

:0 the car came out brilliant after being done! Sad to see you're selling it, it looks like an amazing build.