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Those are connectors... there are diagrams for each of them in the wiring diagram pages
It seems strange that the black(ground) doesn't have continuity. Try black to ground and see if that gives you a connection.
You haven't disconnected the harness at the other connectors someplace?
Yes that what I thought. Arrow directions are for male/female connections. As for what I have disconnected, only the front fuse box has been technically disconnected. All fuses are pulled, and I am cutting and labeling each output wire from each relay I am looking to keep for the swap. But even so, only the illumination wire and tails wires run off of the tails relay which is why I am so confused. I have the headlight relay and all wiring figured out and can power those off of my bench supply with no issues.
I can try black to ground tonight. I will admit I was using a smaller 22awg wire extended about 10ft to connect to the pins from the front of the car to the taillights at the rear and measuring resistance. But that should still show something, not nothing.
My only real guess is that there was a ground connection somewhere that I removed during my engine bay teardown. Just not sure where... Actually I might have a hint. I was connecting to a chassis ground terminal further down the harness, but I wonder if these are connected to the one close to the brake booster... I was assuming these are all interconnected (as the schematics say but they assume the car is fully assembled), but with them all disconnected from the chassis that may have changed. Probably a good start for myself is to connect back up all of the chassis ground terminals.
Originally Posted by TeamRX8
does your RX8 have halogen headlights from the Mazda?
.
Halogen from factory yes. Retrofitted with oem HID headlights now though. So follow the Halogen wiring schemes.
Found my wiring discrepancy, ended up just being a user error (aka dumb brain) and assumed that all the grounds in the harness were tied together at some point under the dash. They were not. Ground continuity was confirmed as well as getting the lights to work.
Fast forward, the whole harness is stripped and labelled with the wires I'll need from the stock fuse box. I haven't cut off the fuse box just yet, I want to triple check everything when the rest of my wiring components come in.
Finishing up our bathroom this weekend, I didn't have time to wrench on the car much, but some stuff did happen with the build:
- Atkins rebuild kit and misc components came in
- Deep cleaned all the irons for machining this week
- Haltech WB1 arrived (bought barely used for $200, great deal there)
- 3D printed my plans for the glove box for fuses and relays to test fit. So far there will be 2 Relay/Fuse boxes (10 relays and 20 fuses) up front, with SSR's controlling higher load items and EWP. One Relay/Fuse box (5 relays 10 fuses) will be located in the trunk for the fuel pumps, air ride pumps, air management and amps. All relays will be 35A rated, then fused to correct ratings. MSD High Current SSR will be for high current items (except EPS).
- Designed a junction box I will mount to the battery tray with a 150/200A breaker and 3 mini ANL fuses branching off for the front of the car, EPS, and rear relay/fuse box. I may split the EPS at the glove box to save on wiring, but decided to design around 3 fuses regardless since the footprint of the box wouldn't have changed.
Plans this week is to get with one of our machinists to get a game plan on how to bore my housings and irons. I have a few good ideas for alignment that are simple and repeatable, but I am curious on what he thinks. The goal here is for a 1-3 thou clearance of my oversized studs. If its more then it will not be a total loss but not as significant.
Another great opportunity arose with a local builder offering to do/teach me to port my irons and housings. Never done any porting before is keeping me timid but with someone that has some knowledge will be much more useful than none. All I have to give him is my rx8 6 speed trans which is a deal for me. I guess he is looking to rotary swap his Ranger.
Fickert,
I like your junction box idea, more specifically the post connections. I bought this, pictured below and I'm not so confident about this screw terminal type connection.
Fickert,
I like your junction box idea, more specifically the post connections. I bought this, pictured below and I'm not so confident about this screw terminal type connection.
I was originally looking at one exactly like this ha!
And you hit the nail on the head, I am personally not a fan of the screw terminal type either. Even if you use a ferrule on the end of the wires, they're known to come loose over time. Just not something I want to do. Also you saw this is only offer 4 awg outputs? That was the other big reason I needed to make my own. There are no good options with 0/1 or just 0 awg input and 0 awg output. My design can accommodate that or smaller, obviously. And it was going to get bulky quick with one of these and a circuit breaker. My little box is only 3.6x4"
I can see about making a few spares (printing is the easy part, cutting the bus bar out and heat staking the plastic is the "less" easy part. If you'd like one just let me know. I'll likely be buying hardware in bulk anyways. Always is the cheaper option.
So another observation I saw while mocking up some stuff to machine tomorrow, my 1/2 studs (with OE threads) seem to bottom out in the front iron before the shoulder is contacting the iron surface. My thought is to cut off +/- 1/4" to get the shoulder to bottom out.
Any reason not to do this? I know you normally don't want head studs or rocker stucds to bottom out obviously so I'd need to still back this off a half turn. I can measure an OE stud and make sure it will be long enough to get a nut started on it at the rear iron once its assembled.
did you do any research at all before going that route? I had missed this in the thread and would never attempt that rather than buying proper studs with rolled/relieved threads and having the holes CNC’d with known fixture plates (REC). There are drag engines making 800+ whp on Turblown 10mm studs and the Chip Motorsport 10mm studs have an equal or better reputation. If you clamp them past 55 ft-lbs the aluminum rotor housings are known to start giving way. Which is well below what a 1/2” stud can achieve. They would add some rigidity to the stack, but not really needed for your power level. If the threaded ends aren’t done right they’re known to damage/break the front iron. You’re really playing with nitroglycerin doing it that way, but hopefully you won’t have any problem.
did you do any research at all before going that route? I had missed this in the thread and would never attempt that rather than buying proper studs with rolled/relieved threads and having the holes CNC’d with known fixture plates (REC). There are drag engines making 800+ whp on Turblown 10mm studs and the Chip Motorsport 10mm studs have an equal or better reputation. If you clamp them past 55 ft-lbs the aluminum rotor housings are known to start giving way. Which is well below what a 1/2” stud can achieve. They would add some rigidity to the stack, but not really needed for your power level. If the threaded ends aren’t done right they’re known to damage/break the front iron. You’re really playing with nitroglycerin doing it that way, but hopefully you won’t have any problem.
Research on this topic hasn't been too in depth to be honest. I'll definitely look into this more today. I do know REC does not like these style studs though according to his video. Anyway, any extra insight please enlighten me! Hear to learn as well as spend enormous amounts of money lol.
Main reason is I am able to get these studs for $200, and has rolled threads. I'm assuming (probably a bad idea) that these just as strong if not stronger than say turblown's stud kit or Chips stud kit. The Tensile strength is rated for 190000psi. I'll probably clamp these to turblowns spec of 40ft-lbs and call it a day. Maybe 45ft-lbs. The bigger benefit is if I can machine these to a slip fit tolerance and get the true studding benefit. Something I am willing to try.
As for the front iron, I cannot imagine these will have a significant difference on it. I am keeping the threads the same and will be torqueing the bolt to turblowns spec of 3ft-lbs. I just think that the shoulder should rest on the iron's flat surface to gain rigidity.
I was originally looking at one exactly like this ha!
And you hit the nail on the head, I am personally not a fan of the screw terminal type either. Even if you use a ferrule on the end of the wires, they're known to come loose over time. Just not something I want to do. Also you saw this is only offer 4 awg outputs? That was the other big reason I needed to make my own. There are no good options with 0/1 or just 0 awg input and 0 awg output. My design can accommodate that or smaller, obviously. And it was going to get bulky quick with one of these and a circuit breaker. My little box is only 3.6x4"
I can see about making a few spares (printing is the easy part, cutting the bus bar out and heat staking the plastic is the "less" easy part. If you'd like one just let me know. I'll likely be buying hardware in bulk anyways. Always is the cheaper option.
Yes I'm very interested in your design and will pay you for it.
If you were to cut the 1/4" off the threads, would the studs still be long enough for washers and nuts on the rear iron after the engine is stacked while still leaving 3-4 threads protruding through the nuts?
Yes I'm very interested in your design and will pay you for it.
Perfect, I'll get the hardware ordered. My breaker just came in and need to modify the top case a tiny bit. Did you want to source your own breaker or just this to arrive as a complete package? doesn't matter to me, just make sure the studs are 3/8" not 1/4". Suggest an MP or Gloso.
Originally Posted by RotaryMachineRx
If you were to cut the 1/4" off the threads, would the studs still be long enough for washers and nuts on the rear iron after the engine is stacked while still leaving 3-4 threads protruding through the nuts?
I was thinking about this shortly after I posted about it. Will likely wait until I can do a dry stack up of the motor and see for sure. I'd assume there will be but can't say for certain.
So I unfortunately have had the car on the backburner this month, due to good reasons though I'll share another time, BUT an update is an update none-the-less. And to me this update is a very important step for me to becoming a better engine builder and understanding the rotary has a whole.
Studding the block has officially begun. I have figured out a good process to indicate the endmill over the front plate threads and mill each plate individually to prevent runout of the endmill and reamer. Only have one complete channel done but it was very satisfying to see the result and feel the stud slip into position and thread in with minimal persuasion. Now only 15 more to do! I definitely will need to allocate time for this though as each stud position is taking me roughly 1.5-2hrs depending on distractions scrambling around for tools or cutting fluid. I know can see why people do charge a premium for this as it is very time consuming. But its very doable if you're patent and thorough.
Nice job Dustin, you know what they say, "measure twice cut once"! No surprise at how time consuming it is but with the price of the stuff you are working on maybe measure thrice
So a bit of an update. Huge things have been happening over here in my life (extremely fortunate for all of them)
- Announcement of our first child is on the way! Will be here at the end of August. So we will see how far I get until that point.
- Just accepted a new job. Interviewing and prepping pretty much since mid January (Engineering interviews take so long). Consumed so much of my time and focus at home. Finally can say personal time will go back to the engine swap
- Old job was working at Summit Racing, so have been scrambling to get purchases done at discount. Decided it was time to buy a welding table and finish off some bigger ticket items for the build. Will update with all the bigger items coming in.
- Coilovers and wheel/tire overhaul on the daily. Needed it badly after hitting a massive pothole in Cleveland. May try doing some AutoX this year if I find time.
- Installed a pellet Stove, and some small stuff with the bathroom remodel.
- Vacation to Utah (Angels Landing was crazy fun, chained trail with snow and hail. Was epic)
- Other adulting excuses for not getting anything done ha!
The unfortunate part of job change is that I was unable to finish machining my motor for studs in time, so I will be either actively looking for someone local with a mill to let me use some time on it, or wait month or so to hopefully utilize some equipment at my new job. Only time will tell.
In the mean time, I am going to switch gears and get back to finishing up getting all the unnecessary wiring out of the engine bay and get to mocking up the radiator for the v-mount.
Also if anyone is looking to add a fuse/relay box (PDC), or replace one like I am, the GEP line of PDC's are extremely versatile and relatively inexpensive. There is a super useful configurator I found that make selecting a size and components a breeze. GEP and LittelFuse PDC Configurator
And finally some pictures showing I haven't been totally useless. View from Angels Landing
Been a while since I last updated the thread, let alone with any useful info, so here we go!
My JDL order came in and I finally got to see one of the surge tanks in person. It is a pretty decent piece of equipment and should do the job well for a street car. I think the actual tank itself is a bit small but what do I know. My unit was modified from JDL to accept Fuelab brushless pumps. So the mounts were made to accept 42mm OD pumps, and a bulkhead hole replaces the power terminals for the two internal pumps. The lift pump terminals are still there. Unfortuantely the bulkhead hole is a bit close to the lift pump terminals and cannot seat fully. Not a huge issue though, I will just redrill a lift pump terminal and plug the old hole and it will be fine. I did report this to JDL though.
With this also, my lift pump is taller than I thought and I cannot create a 180 bend in a hose with the surge tank bolted tight. Any suggestions to fix this? I want to remove the check valve anyways so cutting it down isn't a big deal to me but I've never done that before nor found any good results on google. This will be operating at almost no pressure so I think cutting it down and using a tube with a clamp should be OK.
Now with my new job, I lost my current opportunity to machine the block (hoping to find someone local with a bridgeport, or end up using some equipment at my new job, but I don't want to push the envelope just yet) so I decided to pursue engine bay stuff in terms of layout and actually seeing what fits and what doesn't.
List of what I had planned:
- Mock up the motor
- Check to see if motor fits with Nicon Rotary brace
- Install transmission
- String off Rad and IC core to form V-mount
- Add all other auxiliary components
- Remove everything, and prep engine bay for paint.
Started out with mocking up the motor to see some of the goodies I bought put on the block. More of just playing around. During this I decided to go ahead and port my UIM for the 82mm Bosch throttle body. First time ever really porting anything but was very fun and kinda calming actually Ha.
Next up was getting the Nicon Rotary Brace to install. Now at the back of my mind I knew this was going to be interesting to see if it fit or not. If you don't know the background of my car, I crashed it back in 2013 when I was a senior in high school. (Drug it back home on a trailer, didn't claim anything on insurance and repaired the car myself through that year.) and thus this had a lot of learning experiences on it. While the car is together and fairly straight, it isn't perfect. Thus came to sight when mounting up the brace. The passenger side holes were 0.2" - 0.25" pushed backwards. I sat on it for a week deciding if I wanted to dismantle the front clip from the car, then re-weld everything to get it more correct, or just deal with it. I decided with the latter and just ended up knotching out the brace a little bit and bam bolted right up. I will be cleaning up poor welds and some minor other work, but I will not be attempting to correct the frame at this point. My bodykit, wheel clearances in the front are all based on how the car is now. I will just deal with any other headaches if they come my way. Also I did trim off a few useless tabs and studs in the engine bay to help clean it up a bit.
Getting the engine into the engine bay was fairly straight forward. Some mixing of engine crane and rolling jack got the engine in place. Then I quickly ripped the pan off of the JDM 5 spd to inspect the inside (as if I actually knew what I was looking for) and then resealed the pan and installed into the car. FYI I added some internal photos if anyone sees anything of concern inside of the trans please let me know. I assumed the syncros (gold/brass colored rings, right?) to be in good shape as there really was no obvious wear on the cones. Only took a pic of the 2nd gear sycros since I assumed those would have been the worst ones.
The stock LIM clearly will not fit without some serious hammering of the firewall. And that is not my intention. Good news is I should have a new LIM on the way here with a help from another fellow rotary head in AUS. Will update later when it gets in. That being said the EFR with the turblown cast manifold is very close to fitting. Very minor trimming was required on the subframe tower and on the rail of the front clip. Obviously I had to tweak how the turbo is configured between the core and the compressor housing, as well the IWG mounting bracket and linkage. But all in all I am very pleased to its fitment.
NOTE: Another member that had a very similar setup (EFR B4 frame turbo, efr iwg cast manifold, nicon rotary brace) said it was necessary that the polyurethane mounts on the brace be flipped such that it lowers the engine down roughly 1"-1.5". I did not do this. I think this may be required for UIM clearance. I will update this when I get to this point.
I still need to trim a bit more around the turbine housing and the subframe rail for clearance when the motor is running and moving around, but I will do that when everything gets removed for paint.
And with all the success and excitement for the day, I wanted to get my radiator and IC at least sitting in place enough to get an idea of what the engine bay will look like as well as how much room they will actually take up. See the pics below, I did end up cutting out the center support bar as I will have no specific use for it other than mounting the radiator and intercooler. I am going to instead weld a piece of 2-1/4 round tubing with metal flanges on the ends and bolt it to the engine bay. Will be just as easy as welding, and then it is removeable if needed later on.
Using a piece of angle iron as a support for now, I got to quickly play around with getting the radiator and IC core situated. As well as finding I think a pretty optimal position for the EWP. Obviously it isn't mounted either but it shouldn't be hard to mount in the area. For any water pump, if it can be lower than any other point in the cooling system the less chance it will have air get trapped in it. Plus it should have some pretty straight forward hose routing, but there will be one in front of the radiator obstructing a bit of air flow. I may rethink this when I get to making some braided hoses.
Also I did weigh my IC core since I know Team loves to compare weights, my IC is only 20.8 lbs. Not sure where that puts mine, but it is rated for 800hp supposedly.
I couldn’t help but notice that PAC Performance in Australia claims to have Xcessive REW LIMs in stock, kind of pricey though; $840 USD + shipping at the current exchange rate
Congrats on starting your family and the new job! Crazy times and world we live in.
Jeez you crashed at 18 and have been hanging onto it this whole time? That's a serious slumber and super lucky to have a place to store for so long imo.
And 100% that's a heavy IC core imo. Looks like it's starting to come together well!
Congrats on starting your family and the new job! Crazy times and world we live in.
Jeez you crashed at 18 and have been hanging onto it this whole time? That's a serious slumber and super lucky to have a place to store for so long imo.
And 100% that's a heavy IC core imo. Looks like it's starting to come together well!
Oh no, the car was drivable within I think 6 months; the car was put back together at the end of 2013 or early 2014. I can't remember anymore. I have small album on my profile page to show it all.
But thank you! Held onto this pipe dream long enough ha! Just in time for a bunch of other wonderful gifts to be coming into my life. FYI I am genuinely excited, no sarcasm here.
The IC does look utterly large, but I am okay with that ha.
Quick update, not ported yet but this is the link that came in.
Only about $350 USD all said and done, a huge shout-out to my fellow rotary friend in AUS for helping me coordinate this, as the original seller would not ship out of AUS.
Initial thoughts are the casting itself is pretty good. Virtually no core shift, mostly just aluminum breaking through the parting lines of the (I assume) sand cores.
Nothing a die grinder can't fix.
This is pretty much a QC rejected billet rotary lim without the fuel rail.
An uncertainty was that the radium fuel rails would fit or not, but it does! Big bonus.
I have more updates for this week, will post it soon.
Edit: added more photos of install. Had to trim up the compressor housing clamp a bit (will definitely trim it a bit more, but for now it fits). Also had to hit in just a small amount of the firewall for the flanges of the UIM and LIM. I was contemplating relocating the ABS module but its looking pretty likely I will with the position of the TB. I know a few people have done this so I will reach out to them and see what their solution was.
Or just get a greddy elbow and move the TB. I was going to position mine like yours is now but decided I didnt want to F around with tight radius bends, especially because I used 3" charge piping.
Or just get a greddy elbow and move the TB. I was going to position mine like yours is now but decided I didnt want to F around with tight radius bends, especially because I used 3" charge piping.
Ironically I just sold one I had laying around for the swap. Moving the ABS module won't be that big of a deal tbh. I personally hate the position of it anyways. Just an eyesore in the engine bay. My car is the non-DSC version so its already smaller than most. I think Team relocated on for an LS swap car a few years ago. May just try to mimic that.
On another note, should have more fun surprises for the intake, but for now been practicing my aluminum welding. Hoping to get the endtanks for my intercooler done this week and get the intercooler and rad mounted in a week or so.
01-06-2023, 05:39 AM
