Joes Rew swap
 

Hey guys, I’ve been a member for some years and never really seemed to make a build thread. I purchased the car back in 2012/2013 from a local used dealer. It’s a 2006 BB shinka and had 40k on it. I bought the car as a daily but that changed quickly. I ended up buying a set of Powertrix coils from a forum member (still have them on the car) and a set of enkei nto3. I ended up going to my first drift day shortly after and then the modifying itch got worse.

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Looking back I should’ve never painted these wheels blue 😔

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After that drift day I ended up buying a Tomei 2 way, 3” exhaust, act clutch, an adaptronic ecu and a top mount turbo setup from a forum member. Bc of my crazy work schedule it was taking longer than expected but with a lot of help from friends we got it finished!
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Also purchased a mazdaspeed kit, weds wheels and a bcl wing.

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Such a mess lol

After we got it running I made a tune date with Aspec which was a mistake but they were the closest shop. My car sat there for some time and then they called me said the renesis lost compression on the dyno. 😔 Me and a buddy drove out to pick it up then. After researching for some time between different places where I could get the renesis rebuilt, I came across Turblown. I contacted Elliot and he explained to me everything he was going to do with the rebuild and what I needed to change/upgrade on the car to better it. After that I pulled the motor and shipped it to him.
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Pulling the motor

Shortly after he sent me pics of why the motor failed.
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He kept me updated on the build and got the motor back to me. He had a busy schedule so it took a little bit.
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Rebuild

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Pressure testing

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Shipping it back to me

After getting the motor back in, Elliot set me up with a base map and I started to do some break in miles. At this time I also put in a return style fuel system with a surge tank also.

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Motor and turbo kit installed

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Return fuel system goodies

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Rails installed

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Fpr and pressure sensor

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Surge tank installed and battery relocation

After doing quite a bit of break in miles the motor started to act up and something wasn’t right. I drained the oil and there was metal shavings galore. After speaking with Elliot I decided to trailer the car up to him (7hr drive) and let him check it out. What happened to the motor was not his fault or mine, it was an accident that randomly happened. I left the car with Elliot at that point and he was going to check it out. After pulling the motor and talking about what I wanted out of the car we decided to go with the Rew and ditch the renesis. Elliot has helped with this build pretty much from the start and has continued to help to this day. I owe him and Shawn for their hard work.
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Loaded up for the trip to turblown

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Snapped a pic before a few buddy’s help load the car up

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Gas station stop on the way up there

After deciding that I was going with the rew setup I ordered nicon rotary mounts and a nicon rotary oil pan. I sent these to turblown and they began the process. They nitrated and coated everything necessary. We went with a large streetport also. This was right around when they were first coming out with their investment cast rx7 manifolds. They checked fitment of the manifold on the car with their tdx57 and it was a good fit! Only problem was there was no room for a wastegate. That led them to mount it directly on the exhaust housing.
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Assembly

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Xessive manifold, ID1300s and cj motorsports rail

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Initial cleaning

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Wastegate welded to the housing

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Large streetport

Here’s more pics of the coated parts and build process thanks to turblown.
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Dropping the motor in!
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Sitting pretty

Installed the uim and xessive lim. We kept the rx8 throttle body by using elite rotarys adapter also.
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During this time I was able to score a BN sports hood and body kit too. Pretty sure they’re the only ones in the states too!
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Some time has passed and the car was ready to get picked up! Me and my pregnant wife (she’s a trooper)took the 7hr drive up to Elliot to grab the car. We grabbed the car and stopped by a drift event on the way home at US Air in Wisconsin.
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Packed up for the trip home

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The line up at the dday

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One of my buddy’s and his 1j fc

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Back at home finally!!!

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Backyard photo shoot lol

After I got the car back I realized quickly the system would only charge at 11.8 volts. I tried a new battery and new alternator with no luck. Then I stumbled appon something online that said if you don’t have you maf plugged in it won’t let the system charge. Well sure as shit mine wasn’t plumped in. Easy fix tho. Just welded a flange on the ic pipe and we were back in business! We didn’t think we needed it bc we were using the map sensor inside the adaptronic.
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Once that issue was figured out I started doing break in miles and sending logs to turblown and adjusting the tune as needed.

More break in miles
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After quite a few break in miles I decided it was time to fit the BN kit and found out quickly that the front mount wasn’t going to work unless I chopped up the bumper. I didn’t want to do that so I decided to fab up a vmount set up. I wanted to go v mount eventually but this sped the idea up lol
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How I previously mounted the intercooler

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How I previously mounted the intercooler

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I removed everything so I could cut out that center support that usually holds the battery and air box.

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Propped up the radiator to figure out how I needed to fab up the brackets.

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Fit the bumper to check for any clearance issues

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Mocking up the radiator to see how I needed to modify the upper hose connection.

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Setting the intercooler in place to figure out mounts and piping

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I’ve also started fabbing up a bash bar/ bumper support out of 1.5 dom tubing.

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Added the lower portion of the bar

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The bumper fits like a glove and you can actually stand on it right now. I made this to be able to fit my mazdaspeed and Bn bumper.

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Fitting the kit before paint

After getting the kit mounted I had my buddy Mikey paint it
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Well after I had everything how I pretty much wanted I wanted to hit the dyno. Like I said before Turblown has been helping me along the way with this whole process and I did want them to dyno it but I just didn’t have time to travel from Chicago to Minnesota with my work schedule. So a friend told me that Elite Rotary was flying in Nelson for a few dyno days. It made the most sense for me bc the shop is only 30 mins away. Well... the day was starting good until my car started acting up. During break in I never got into boost and I never went over 4K. With my previous luck I wanted to take it easy and so I did. Well the motor kept having bad break up at 5500rpm and for some reason Nelson’s laptop kept freezing. I messed with it and Nelson made some calls but we couldn’t figure it out. We were on the dyno all day trying to solve the issue but had no luck. Sal and Nelson both said the adaptronic was crap and tried to tell me I should go with a haltech. I wasn’t buying it, there was no way the adaptronic crapped out on me. Soo we ended up loading the car up and leaving the dyno disappointed again. The next day I was talking to Shawn from turblown and I sent him a map. He said here try this, so I loaded the new map and voila! The car ran all the way to limiter!!! The problem was the dwell time on the coils was wrong! Idk how that was overlooked on the dyno day but I was out quite a bit of cash now bc of it.

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Right before I rolled onto the dyno

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On the dyno with Elite Rotary

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Switching out plugs on dyno day

After that experience I decided to say screw it and tell work I was taking a few days off to go dyno the car in Minnesota. Before I went to the dyno me and Shawn talked about upgrading my coils from the D585s to the sakebomb garage smart coil kit. It was a no brainer to go with those, so I ordered them up. I installed them ASAP and sent them a new log. I also decided to put a bigger intercooler on. The one that I first put on just seemed to small and out of place. It probably would’ve been fine but I replaced it anyway.
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Sakebomb smart coil kit

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Me and my pops decided to go to a lil car show after the new coils were installed.

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Ended up taking home a trophy lol.

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Old ic on left(21.5x10x3.375) vs new ic on right(24x12x4)

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New intercooler on top vs old one on bottom

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After installing the bigger intercooler I decided to cruise to a drift day at autobahn country club in joliet IL which is 15 mins from me. Perfect time to test everything out on the short trip there. It was a good time. The car performed as expected, got to watch friends drive and just hung out.
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Also decided to low mount my wing

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A week and a half later we loaded up and made the 7hr drive to go visit our pals at turblown for the dyno! I made the date for October 13th, not realizing it was Friday the 13th! Just my luck! Lol. We cruised up and got situated in the hotel. We all met at MAPerformance at 10am for the fun filled day haha. Unloaded the car and within literally a few pulls was making 426whp and 304tq!!! I was beyond excited! The car is a rocket ship right now.
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All loaded up

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Right after I put fresh plugs in

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All strapped up!

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426whp and 304tq!

Great post, good work.... I like that hood and v-mount setup for keeping everything cool.

Thank you! Seems like your build is coming along nicely too!

Specs on the whole build are:
Engine:
13b rew
large streetport
xessive lim
wpc coating
adaptronic pnp ecu
sakebomb garage coil kit
ngk 7420r 9 leading 10 trailing
FFE trigger kit
rx8 dbw throttle body with Elite adapter
nicon rotary mounts and oil pan
Greddy pulley kit
Act clutch

Turbo Kit:
Turblown investment cast rx7 manifold
Tdx57 turbo with wastegate welded on housing
2.5 intercooler piping
Cx racing 24x12x4 BMW intercooler used in v mount configuration
tial 44mm wastegate (switching to a Turbosmart 60mm soon tho)
3” downpipe
greddy bov

Fueling:
Return style fuel system
cj motorsports rails
Id1300 x 6
turbosmart fpr
aftermarket industries surge tank with a walbro 460
aeromotive 340 in tank
flex fuel sensor

Gauges:
All STACK gauges
boost
oil temp
water temp
oil pressure
wideband
volts
factory cluster

Cooling:
modified mishimoto radiator
mishimoto fans and shroud
racingbeat hoses
stock oil coolers
AN oil lines

Suspension:
powertrix coilovers
compete Megan racing rear adjustable arms
minty fresh lock spacers and rods

Exterior:
BN sports body kit
BN sports hood
mazdaspeed body kit
custom low mounted bcl wing
Weds Lxz 18x9.5+7 18x10.5+7
6k hids

Interior:
Bride racing seats
autopower roll bar
team tech harnesses
r magic shift knob

I’ve never uploaded videos before sooo hopefully this works. Here two dyno pulls from when I took it to get tuned by Elliot.

Here’s another video on the dyno that Shawn and Elliot did. I can’t wait to test out the new ecu when it comes in!

Bad Ass rx8 :icon_droo

U da’ man ... :wiggle:

So no real update on the car. It’s been too damn cold here. Mostly in the negatives the last couple weeks. I did manage to cheaply insulate my garages ceiling with extra tarps so all my heat would stop escaping. I also decided to fab up a 3’x 8’ steel welding table/work bench. With the ceiling tarped and the heater going I was in a t shirt yesterday lol. So hopefully more car progress!!!

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Yeah, that makes a big difference on motivation level. I had three free days last holiday weekend to go work on mine (keep it a 15’ x 50 oversized storage area unit), but the high was only 28*F every day. Needless to say, I stayed home where it was toasty instead.

Lol I don’t blame you! Hopefully this week I get the new adaptronic in. That’s my goal at least. Then I have to go back to work. Been off for a little over a week.

not sure how i missed this thread. looking good

Well I got the new adaptronic in the car the other day. I have to wire up fuel pressure still but I’ll do that this week. I was anxious to test it out and it started up first try with a supplied file from Elliot. I was ecstatic bc normally my car haaates the cold. I was about to let it warm up when I realized my volt gauge was pegged at 18v so I shut it off and contacted Shawn and Adaptronic. I first suspected the ecu bc it was the only thing switched and the car didn’t have this issue with the select ecu. After a few emails and tests we came to the conclusion that the alternator took a shit at the same time I put the new ecu in. I usually try to have back up parts for cases like this and I had a new alt on the shelf, slapped it on and it was the fix! Hopefully I have time this week to start it and let it get to operating temp. Ive been too damn busy lately, I’ve been working 6-7 days a week rebuilding a turbine at a coal burner.

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OP, what were the specs on your front mount if you remember them? I am REW swapping mine and want to fins a fmic setup like your setup, but cant find anywhere that sells that specific layout as of yet. Thanks!

Careful on the alternator overcharging, it cost me a battery, ABS modulator, and all of my interior lighting and tail lights. Thankfully I had an extended warranty because only the dealer can do the ABS modulator bleed and programming all the work was like 3k.

Just noticed this thread for first time . Great read !

Just looking at your torque curve and it seems that the turbo takes a while to get going .Did Turblown give any indication that that is how it would perform ?
I recently fitted a similar sized turbo where the turbine was bigger than the compressor and was disappointed with the spoolup .I'm trying a larger compressor soon to see if that helps .
Maybe the TDX61 would work better for you ???

Ah , that would explain it . Will be interested to see the difference once you get that fixed, plus the results for EMAP !

I wouldn’t expect much gain for EMAP, though it will assist MAP tuning to be more on target over a range of varying conditions where it might not be otherwise. For my NA engine Elliot/Turblown was pushing me to use it, but my exhaust is so free flowing on it that I didn’t think the extra cost of the carbon filtering canister for the exhaust piping connection to the 4 Bar internal EMAP sensor was worth it. I bought an external 1.2 IMAP sensor to provide better range/accuracy over the 4 Bar internal IMAP sensor too.


The turbine pictures are cool. I love that kind of stuff. Back when I was going through engineering college I had a part-time co-op job with Bechtel for the construction of a new coal-fired power plant in Orlando, FL. Good memories and experiences there that you reminded me of.






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No, I am referring to the fmic seen earlier in the thread, that setup looks like it would work perfect for the space I have available with my turblown manifold top mount setup. If you don't recall the specs that's okay too, I will keep digging.

The turbine pictures are cool. I love that kind of stuff. Back when I was going through engineering college I had a part-time co-op job with Bechtel for the construction of a new coal-fired power plant in Orlando, FL. Good memories and experiences there that you reminded me of.






.[/QUOTE]

This is awesome. I'm incredibly envious. Love that hood, where did you get it?

One day other things won't be taking up my time and money and I can get back to working on the 8, til that day comes I live through guys like you, keeps me motivated.

Looks nice, does your buddy need any more friends?

Very nice