Most of my weekend was eaten up by holiday parties, but I got a few things done.

• Inconel belleville washers added to the exhaust nuts.
• Coolant Resevoir mounted (see pics below) You have about 2.5 inches from the fusebox before you hit the hood insulation. One side got mounted to the front fuse box, and the other was mounted to a rivnut I put in the frame.
• Turbo coolant outflow will now be routed to the cold side of the tank. Luckily I could reuse the line I already made for the reservoir. Now the reservoir connects to the hot side of the rad. I contemplated getting a flow meter and testing around the system, but figured other people will have wildly varying setups and restrictions that the data wouldn't be that useful other than proving the turbo had flow. Plumbing the heatercore>turbo>coldside>pump just guarantees the turbo will flow as much as possible. I think Ideally the heatercore would dump back coldside on its own, and the turbo would purely be plumbed in parallel with the pump.
• The vac lines are all connected per my diagrams except for the catch can. I am waiting on getting the intercooler and ducting done before mounting the catch can.

 

Well the water system is buttoned up and the car made its first journey out of the barn. Running rather rich right now..

To DO:

• Vband leak?
• Muffler weld up
• Midpipe Exhaust hanger + Vband
• Intercooler weld up +mount
• Charge piping
• Ac condenser mount
• Turbo intake filter
• Power steering wiring Extension
• boost control + gauge (CAN maybe?)
• Ecu wiring cleanup and box

 

Right on Minc, sounds fantastic!

 

Its definitely going to mellow out. right now I just have it going through the 8474 and RB dual resonated midpipe. Soon to add two hks mufflers.

The idle is also weird because its running like 10.2afr instead of the 12.1 I think I had in there for testing. A problem I am dealing with is that the injectors I got from adam had the last 3 digits scratched out. Bosch 1000cc 0280158XXX and 2200cc 0280158XXX. Which after significant searching I came up with the part numbers 0280158117 and 0280158821 which appear to match. Additionally on adaptronic the 2200cc injector is in there, however the bosch 1000cc injector is listed as 0280157117 which I assume is a typo since that is one for like a sentra or something and the image in adaptronics shows the 1000cc injector I have..........I am probably going to swap to ID injectors because of this naming issue and be done with it.

There are also several things I am not happy with fuel system wise. Mainly layout and simply how many fittings it has. For now it gets me rolling around.

 

Well I am working on the intercooler setup now. I think I have the plumbing planned out to actually fit everything. Luckily there should be enough room to get a 4in filter tube to the front aswell as the hot charge line to the intercooler. I plan on having a massive filter up above the intercooler.

Probably some bad news, but I noticed some very dark thick oil coming from the vband post turbo. I can't imagine I blew out the turbo seals since I'm running the turbosmart 40psi regulator for the turbo. Or this is just the remnants of build grease stuck in the exhaust manifold. I haven't really run the car long enough or hot enough I'd think to damage anything. I had been checking with a temp gun and have not seen above 170f anywhere. Full race also had done a black ceramic coating too, so idk more to look into.

 

Remind me what you have done for the turbo oil drain? That's the only thing I can think of.

 

It is a 10an that curves down to the nicon pan. I apparently cropped it out of the last pic. I did confirm that the turbo does get oil, because I have taken the line off recently. I could crack those lower turbo flange bolts to see if anything is pooled there.

 

It looks good, no reason to think it would not work form that picture. One thing I learned while reading is to be careful with the AN flange as the flange inlet to the AN line may be a smaller diameter than the actual drain on the turbo. I've read the EFR turbos do not like that at all.

 

I don't think that has anything to do with turbo oil supply or drainage, if your sump oil looks that black after essentially 0kms you'd have some significant concerns.... but given that, I'm not sure what you are seeing there.....

 

That's the thing, the sump oil is still the original color. We will find out soon, but the only other thing I could think of would be the black ceramic coating done on the turbine housing. Otherwise I was running like 9-10afr at first due to an intake leak so maybe it could be unburnt fuel sitting in the manifold/turbine housing. I haven't had any big kaboom noises or anything exciting yet so I would rule out a combustion event in the turbine manifold.


I would hope it to be unlikely that a BW EFR is having leaking oil seals from factory, but I did get it during the height of covid when things were on back order by a year+ with no expected timeframe. The oil pressure should be between 15 and 60psi. With the turbosmart regulator I should sit at 40psi on the turbo. I could hook up a gauge to confirm. Turbosource notes that they have yet to see any smoking or overpressure issues even on rotaries. Sucks if it is just leaking.

I can check sparkplugs to see if it is from the combustion chamber too.

 

It's more likely a mix of fuel and assembly lube that hasn't burned off yet, especially if it was running that rich, hard to tell from pictures how viscous it is, its definitely not oil bypassing the turbo seals though, I can't imagine it being that black if it was. At least it pointed out your first exhaust leak! I'd try and reset that vband and crank down the clamp as hard as possible.

 

Thats what i'm guessing and hoping for. It is fairly thick like the red lube that Adam uses for building. At least it is significantly thicker than the sump oil.

I had to reweld that vband on the downpipe, so it is probably loose lol. I bought piping for the muffler so it will all be coming out again anyways.

 

Spent last weekend getting one bolt in for the rear of the UIM to LIM. Curious how the CX racing guys dealt with this considering I am using their Subframe and Lower intake together. My only difference is the nicon pan and baffle which adds like an 1/8in height on the pan....not very significant. I located my engine flat and with the proper driveshaft engagement (proper transmission tail positioning). I want to bet that the CX was moved forward on the mount and had less driveshaft engagement. If I remember correctly I have 2x the diameter of the shaft for length into the transmission. However 1.5x the diameter is possible to move the engine forward.

Anyways here are some pictures. I had to lower the engine/frames slightly to get away from the firewall. Then for fear that I was crossthreading I took the UIM off and ran a tap through to clean it out. Also found some random loose connections along the way, turns out my MAP was never tightened which didn't help my idle of course. Also have been getting the intercooler welded up and relocated, I think a larger one is possible, but for now I am at the point of just wanting to get the car running.

 

OK so the air charge piping is basically done, I just need to clean up the tubes. All that should be left is the exhaust/muffler weld up.

After that it will be growing pain issues.

1. I believe the JDL alternator mount is still not aligning right. The belt seems to be getting chewed up and heating up the alternator.
2. My fueling is all over the place. First off this seems to stem from my unknown injectors that Adam sold me with the engine build. Problem being that they are generic bosch injectors maybe? Which have their last 3 digits scratched off by Bosch. It sucks but I'm just going to have to buy a whole new set unless I can find someone who can generate the data for me. I checked Eugene and I should be able to write in the data for the custom injectors.

 

Sorry meant to comment on this months ago. This looks like pretty similar clearance as my Xcessive. Also if you haven't noticed already, when you set the car down you will gain a bit more clearance. With the rear wheels dangling in mid air like that I find the entire drive train rotates backwards slightly, pulling that rear UIM nut closer to the firewall. I'm sure some of that is due to likely worn out diff bushings in my car too.

 

Interesting to know. This car is only at 80k miles so maybe thats why I didn't notice it. I will be swapping my diff bushings to poly anyways.

Its actually kind of funny since the car has been on the lift so long the suspension needs to settle. Its practically half a foot taller right now.

 

Well update on the 0280158xxx fuel injectors. After trying to talk with Adam for the 5th or 6th time about the issue, he finally said that I was correct. The black injectors are in fact the 1000cc and the blue hats are the 2200cc as I had assumed. Now as far as putting them into the adaptronic without any data the only options that somewhat match are the following two. However the 1000cc one says @58psi which doesn't match mine tested at 43.5psi. There was a 0280157xxx part number 1000cc that was @44psi, but I am not entirely sure yet what that changes.



Adam did just send me some data from his supplier




For reference here are the adaptronic inputs for custom injectors

 

Well I found something promising. I had the thought that maybe its not the issue of too much fuel, but too little air. So I went back and compared the Basemap for the stock rx8 and the REW swap rx8 basemap. I found some massive differences between the two Ethrottle settings.

I will try these later tonight and Ill try some different injector settings.

 

Ok, so we are back in action. Purring at 1k rpm.

I had been noticing alot of mismatches between the Eugene basemaps for the Rx8 and the REWswap Rx8 files. So what I did was take the stock rx8 basemap which was more recent and ran my other car well. Then just rewrote all of it for my sensors and maps. Probably most importantly I found out that some dumbass had bought a PSIG sensor and not a PSIA sensor. Which makes sense why I wasn't reading vacuum and VE was saying I had far less air. The sensor only goes down to atmospheric, duh. For today I ran using the Internal MAP sensor, but a new AEM 3.5bar sensor should be here tuesday.

Now that it is idling stable at target 14afr, it smokes considerably less. I am getting confident enough that it may be time for a flush and then put in fresh coolant.

Otherwise I am just cleaning up the intake tubes and waiting to weld up the muffler.

 

So new topic since we are at this point. What are you guys doing for insurance? For the every day insurance providers the best I found was Progressive DIRECT. (apparently progressive and progressive direct are two different things) Which is 300 a yr with comprehensive and collision for not much more. However I am pretty sure the actual cash value they will pay out is only like 5k for an Rx8. Some insurers like allstate does up to 25k in mod coverage, but they will still just total the car if that costs less.

Then there are the classic car insurances like hagerty, grundy, etc which will do a guaranteed value of say 40k but they only will cover you if you are driving to and from car shows. So if an old lady hits you and reports it to insurance while you stop for lunch, it sounds like you could be **** out of luck. Hagerty also does not insure the Rx8 yet. I think I may need to find an agent to hunt for insurance for me. Otherwise I am stuck between an insurance that doesn't cover the car or one that wont let me drive the car while being 2-3x the price.

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Otherwise we have been finishing up the exhaust which I did 3in RB dual resonated to a custom muffler using two 2.5in HKS hi power mufflers. Sounds really good so far, i really need a better camera and microphone to record it. I honestly had my doubts that the mufflers would do anything since they were passthrough.

I had to make a bellhousing inspection plate which was a quick fab.

I have modified the JDL AC bracket again to move the alternator to be planar with the RX8 AC unit. I assume he designed the Rx8 AC unit to use the Rx8 alternator because the teeth were misaligned by about a tooth and a half. I am using a DC power rx7 FD alternator and the Rx8 AC. Then I made a spacer for the Eshaft pulley to bump out by about a tooth to be inline with the alternator and AC. Hopefully this fixes my belt chewing issue.
> The best method I found for this was to take the bracket with AC and alternator off. Use a straight edge on the alternator pulley. Turn it to the AC and Measure to the first AC tooth. Then measure from the straightedge to the Alternator and modify the alternator bracket to make up the difference. Repeat for the engine pulley.

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EDIT: Just adding here because I just was testing the car after getting it all back together. The new pulley alignment is working wonders, no belt chewing anymore...........And then another sakebomb ignition coil melted and exploded. At this point I think I am going to gut their wiring harness and rewire it all from scratch. I have a feeling they did not wiring the grounding right and the coil is just staying charged or something. So far these sakebomb coils I have seen 3/10 fail.

EDIT AGAIN: From spending the night researching from what I can tell Sakebomb is wiring them "correctly" OEM appears to call for one of the 3 grounds to wire to the ECU sensor ground. However this is for oem applications where this sensor ground was used to command the coil to stop dwell. Aftermarket ECUs are not designed with this as far as I can see haltech recommending. So the ECU manufacturers like Haltech tell people to not run the coil ground to the ECU and run them to the engine which is what Sakebomb does. Then these "smart" coils are essentially dumb as a rock and if any misfire, flooding, or some idiot testing without a sparkplug wire basically they just dwell indefinately and melt internally, eventually popping down the line......seems like a hair trigger terrible choice for these engines unless your setup is perfect and race ready either running or not running. Where the next option on the market with internal protections appears to be the R35 hitachi coil kits that supposedly can last hours misfiring. The major downside I see with these kits is that they use the Knock sensor mounting location for a coil on plug mount, which eliminates potential engine protection. Wiring wise it looks like you may be able to just make a jump harness to the rx8 connectors considering the original rx8 coils were also hitachi. The next thing is checking the wire sizes of the rx8 harness for the power and ground, I don't remember them being very thick. Lastly I am just concerned about the fitment between the engine and the rx8 framerail or install troubles.

It is actually really disappointing how many half assed and half thought through products are out there. Like any amount of effort could have better designs for all the JDL items or SB coils or Adaptronic or CXRACING mounts. Its not too hard to design an R35 safe coil system that can handle a fly landing on it. All these things makes me just want to do another car from the ground up designing everything myself.

 

you and me both.

 

I did just pick up one of those haltech Rx8 PnP ECUs, going through the NSP software already think it was a better choice. Everything seems more intuitive than eugene. One of my other buddies just threw it in his stock Rx8 and its working wonders. Not sure if I want to sell off the Adaptronic or throw it on my other car. Now I also have an aem AFR gauge and sensor that are not being used.

I also picked up ID1050xds injectors from FFE. I was only able to determine actual data for the secondary 2200cc bosch injectors that Adam sold me. Luckily the 1050xds are relatively cheap compared to new secondaries. I will probably upgrade secondaries in the future though.

 

John Blanch has posted a hitachi r35 kit with short leads, to "bypass" the space limitations of a coil on plug solution.
www facebook.com/jonblanchracing/posts/calling-all-my-fellow-rotaheads-would-love-to-get-some-feedback-from-you-all-on-/1189231886567576/

 

There were other people that had an issue on the SB RX8 IGN-1A coil kit too. I got my hands on an SB kit from the original purchaser here on RX8Club and sent it to another member, and he fault traced it back to a wiring problem or two. I said something to SB on RX7Club, and they blew it off like we had no idea what we were talking about. Which the original purchaser also claimed was their response to him when he contacted him about it. I can supply the supplier source contact info for buying the coils direct if you need it. Everyone else is just having their brand label put on them, but you can be guarantied that they’re legit. And usually cost less too. Just PM me.

 

Yeah its a bit weird with certain companies when you spend a grand or two with them and yet you have an issue and suddenly they go into the defensive "there are no problems with our products EVER" Not only sakebomb, but Atkins and Rx8performance did this to me as well. At least JDL is a great guy and worked with me to resolve the design issues.

Ill shoot you an email on those coils for the inevitable point when another one goes.