Even with a streetable, not overly light RB Aluminum flywheel, compression even and in the 8s, the stock idle speed was not to my liking. Plus, being in AZ, I like good AC.
I use 1250, and I am happy. Definitely raise it, you will like it, and then forget about it. Yes, you need a tuner, unless you want to engineer some other solution.

 

Thanks. Figured as much but couldn’t hurt to ask rather than assume.

Bunch of parts arrived yesterday and today. The transmission seal, ignition relay, fuel retaining ring and a couple of spare 40 amp fuse things for the fan. Also a new Braille battery.

I installed the transmission seal. Wasn’t too difficult thankfully. At this point, I’m rather sick of smelling transmission and diff oil though. Hate the smell of that stuff.

The ignition relay is being a stubborn **** to remove. Cracked the top of it off trying to pull it out. I’ll revisit tomorrow.

Tomorrow, moconnor from the rx7club is coming by to help me with the battery relocation. He’s very good at electronics while I get nervous around them. Once that’s done, I suspect I’ll need to go through all the idle troubleshooting again.

Making progress though. Trying to make a track day on Dec 6 to break in the engine and get a feel for the car.

 

Made good progress on the battery relocation and wiring.

Rickys videos were a good reference to understand what needed to happen on the harness modifications.

I wasn’t sure what to expect since the PO had already modified the battery and alternator wiring.
Also , I didn’t quite understand the part about the 60 amp relay / fuse thing for the EPS until we had the wires in hand and were sorting out how to approach the rewire. We figured it out though.

I reverted to using the stock alternator wire and eps wiring. De-pinned the ac wires from the connector. Ran the wires. Still need to go back and bundle things up better and secure them but the wires are run, working and safe to operate.

For the battery, I decided to run the 21 lb Braille battery. I test fit a few locations and settled on installing it on the center tunnel as pictured. Cut the positive and grounds and the 200 amp breaker.

Since I didn’t have a replacement 60 amp fuse for the EPS, we ran the positive all the way to the stock location. This is also where the PO had installed the manual power switch. I don’t have time to revise either of these right now if I plan on making the track day Dec 6. No real need to either. It’s all working.

Im still finishing the battery mounting brackets. Waiting on a rivnut tool for that. Going to make a new engine to chassis ground tomorrow. Almost there! Hopefully don’t have too many idle issues

Heres a pic of the battery location

 

If you want any help finding fuse stuff LMK... I can probably find you a 60A like I used for the EPS.

 

@Ricky SE3P Thanks. I'm good for now. Maybe will refine this setup next year when/if I have time - or it starts annoying me. Post a link if you have one though.


Brief update - My neighbor came by at lunch with his rivnut tool and we popped in 4. Now I can fasten the relay and battery hold downs. One more thing off the list. 8 days left to get it sufficiently "track worthy" where I can break-in the engine!

 

I purchased them here locally to me from a vendor/supplier that uses them for stereo builds and installs running separate subs and amps and all that, so I dont have a link. I went on Amazon and found this similar one thats a bit cheaper

 

Update time

Battery relocation is done. I’m reasonably happy with my bracketry.

At the front, I trimmed down a section of big aluminum angle iron to provide support to the front and sides. Sunk a couple of rivnuts to fasten it to the center tunnel. Nice and sturdy.

not pictured is that I trimmed the top layer of sheet metal to sink the battery down onto the bottom layer of the tunnel. Doing this adds support to the back and a little to the sides.

I wasn’t satisfied with The cheap plastic hold down supplied by Braille so I bought a section of 3/4” square aluminum tube at Lowes Depot racing supplies and cut out a section with my angle grinder so that it fits snuggly over the top of the battery. It is a lot sturdier. I had planned on using some 7-8” carriage bolts to fasten my hold down bracket to the tunnel but I need a rivnut tool that has a 3/8” option so I reused the J hooks for now.

This is done for now.

 

seat and harness is installed

The seat brackets were a pita since the floor is not flat. Going to redo this in the future and add a seat slider but done for now.

Unfortunately the seat is not centered because of the little kick out at the transmission tunnel but this will get addressed soon enough by my fabricator.

 

Pic of the floor board and transmission tunnel for reference. Done by the PO

 

Need to do another round of idle troubleshooting. I noticed 2 odd things yesterday when I started the car to retest my battery wiring.

it still stalls as pictured in the previous video. What I noticed is that the voltage is very low at idle and I the 10-11 volt range at idle. I think this is due to the overdrive alternator pulley. It produces normal voltage above idle.

I also noticed the FUEL relay clicking with each idle fluctuation. It clicks when the idle is at 600 which then causes the engine to die. Trying to research this further. If anyone has ideas, please share.

Will post a fresh video later or tomorrow.

Thanks

 

Ran 2 idle cycles today during lunch.
Installed the Aeromotive Access Port thing with a pressure gauge. Fuel Pressure gauge only goes to 60 psi but it was enough to make some small observations.

First idle cycle, started from cold. Tried twice to do the DSC reset pressing the brake pedal 20x but couldn't get the oil pressure gauge to do it's dance. So I started it up and let the car idled for 10 minutes. It behaved pretty well until it just randomly died while idling smoothly. The FUEL relay clicked many times. Each time triggering a slight 1-2 psi drop in fuel pressure and a slight decrease in idle. Didn't get hot enough to trigger the fans.

15 minutes later, did the second idle cycle. It idled much better for a good 12-15 minutes. Got hot enough to trigger the fans twice. Didn't observe any low idle conditions. Fuel relay only clicked once at after about 10 minutes of idling. Fuel pressure held steady the entire time.

I did observe a little correlation between voltage under 11 volts and a drop in fuel pressure and click from the FUEL relay. Usually saw it at 10.9 - 10.7 volts which is quite low thanks to the oversized alternator pulley. I don't have a spare pulley and belt otherwise I'd remove that thing. Not sure if there is any benefit in the pulley on the alternator...

Hopefully, the engine and ECU just needs more running time to do it's thing. Feeling better today than previously.

 

Would appreciate some input on this odd hiccup at 6,500 rpm and the accompanying smoke show.

Been searching and reading threads on the various intake valves and staging. ACV seems to coincide with 6500 rpm. It tested ok when I installed all the accessories on the engine iirc.Not getting any codes so I don’t think the ACV is bad. Is this just how it’s supposed to behave?

The ecu is running a Racing Beat race tune fwiw.

Thanks

 

Successful day at Thunderhill!

 

Amazing! Glad to see that car back on the track!

 

Thankfully everything went well with the cars first outing on track.

Whatever that hiccup was when free revving does not happen when the engine is loaded.

Prior to leaving, I noticed that The inside of the exhaust was rather oily. I suspect that was because of the original engine spewing oil and water into the exhaust. It burned away throughout the day as the exhaust got up to temps.

Haven’t found any leaks yet.

I do smell some gear or trans oil. Need to investigate that. The driver side axle was oily as I posted previously.

Driving it was fun! The renesis is a fun engine. The tiny, super light clutch and flywheel package have it revving up super fast which is also fun and very racy.

The Mazda dna makes the car feel similar to Miata’s and RX7s so I was immediately comfortable with the handling. The alignment is off on the driver side. Feels like the driver rear has toe out. Will fix.

The brakes are very powerful. I had a difficult time modulating the brakes though. The pads are ST43 Raybestos. Had to use very light pressure so as not to over slow. Going to do some research on different pads. I use e G-loc / Carbotech 12s on the Miata. Not sure how they will do on the 8. I also like the feel of the Hawk dtc60 on the Miata.

The gearing was a surprise too. Had never driven a car with such short gearing. It was odd actually using 5th gear! The stock 4.77 torsen is in the car rn.

Fun to drive car overall. Needs a bit more sorting but minimal stuff at this point.

The clutch does make it a pita to load on the trailer. Accidentally spun the tires on the ramps and inside. Thankfully didn’t damage anything. Might need a winch.

 

Oh, I ran the wheels and tires from my FD on the 8. 8 year old Hankook RS4. Haven’t driven treaded tires on track in ages. Much lower grip than I’m accustomed to.

Desperately need to clean the wheels now. They are utterly filthy.

 

F

Finally washed it for the first time since I bought it. Still had dirt from buttonwillow and Mexico on it.

 

Jacked the car up to inspect for leaks. Found this. Similar wetness on the other side. Oil and coolant levels don’t show any evidence of leaks. Not sure what this could be… The only other thing in this location besides the radiator is the steering rack. Do steering racks leak?

No leaks on the transmission. No leaks from the engine. No leaks from the diff but the driver side axle looks oily so that’s probably where the gear oil smell is coming from.

Passenger front hub seems to have a little play.

 

Passenger rear wheel seems to have some grease stains. Wondering if it might have originated from the bearing…. No play in the hub. Hmmmm… thoughts anyone?

 

You might want to keep the ST43's and just get used to them. Same pads I use on mine as well.. they last a very long time and remain predictable even after long durations (hour plus at sprint pace).

 

Not making any changes yet. That was more of an observation of something I may want to refine and need to research. Will definitely be trying the ST43 again on another track day.

Working with a driving coach a couple of years ago has made me super aware and careful about brake pedal actuation so that I'm not over slowing the car. Lots of brake areas on the NorCal tracks are very much a slight brush to settle the nose or scrub off a small amount of speed - which I was finding difficult with these. Not sure if I want to have to relearn brake application and modulation or just have a similar feeling brake setup as the SM.

 

If you ever make it to Buttonwillow, send me a PM.

 

I'm very close to Buttonwillow myself. We should plan a day for 8's to hit up the track at the same time. Might use it to test how the turbo performs, and would love chances to ride with you both to learn to drive better (I have a lot to learn and I'm ready to learn).

My guess is coolant by the undertray, nothing to guess with the wheel/hub.

 

That would be cool! I haven't been to Buttonwillow in ages.
What track day orgs do you guys run with?

I guess I should try and figure out how to do a coolant system pressure test on this car... Pressurize it, remove the undertray and look for leaks. I hope it's not the radiator... Coolant reservoir is new, hoses are new, clamps are new. All OEM.

 

I havent attended a track day, just autox events and a few have been at tracks but nothing multi-lap.... so both of you have far more experience by far. that said... im in bakersfield, so I have buttonwillow right next to me and several tracks not far away both north and south from me.