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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.
Looking back I should’ve never painted these wheels blue 😔
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!
Also purchased a mazdaspeed kit, weds wheels and a bcl wing.
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.
Pulling the motor
Shortly after he sent me pics of why the motor failed.
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.
Rebuild
Pressure testing
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.
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.
Loaded up for the trip to turblown
Snapped a pic before a few buddy’s help load the car up
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.
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.
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 **** 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.
Once that issue was figured out I started doing break in miles and sending logs to turblown and adjusting the tune as needed.
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
How I previously mounted the intercooler
How I previously mounted the intercooler
I removed everything so I could cut out that center support that usually holds the battery and air box.
Propped up the radiator to figure out how I needed to fab up the brackets.
Fit the bumper to check for any clearance issues
Mocking up the radiator to see how I needed to modify the upper hose connection.
Setting the intercooler in place to figure out mounts and piping
I’ve also started fabbing up a bash bar/ bumper support out of 1.5 dom tubing.
Added the lower portion of the bar
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.
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.
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.
Sakebomb smart coil kit
Me and my pops decided to go to a lil car show after the new coils were installed.
Ended up taking home a trophy lol.
Old ic on left(21.5x10x3.375) vs new ic on right(24x12x4)
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.
Also decided to low mount my wing
Last edited by Joe814; 12-16-2017 at 04:08 AM.
Reason: Wanted to add pics
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.
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
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!!!
12-15-2017 | 10:09 PM
