I'm sitting here kicking myself!!

Get this....I had the entire intake off of my car today to clean up the 6-ports, replace some vacuum lines, paint some stuff, etc.. Spent the entire day working on it, and this evening I got everything back together to the point where I was getting ready to start the engine, and realized that I had only put the oil injectors back into the lower intake finger tight!!! I was going to wait until I had all of the lower intake nuts/bolts torqued down before I tightened up the injectors and forgot about them before I put the upper manifolds on and hooked all of the vacuum lines and electrical **** back up.

Now I have to tear the whole damn thing down again just to tighten them up!!!

Hopefully I am not the only one that has done something this stupid while working on their 7.

C'mon....share your stupid mechanical mistakes with the rest of us so I don't feel alone here!!

 

that must suck

 

well my buddy who owns a 69 beetle had his car quit on him one day. so he gets it towed home and starts replacing stuff well after doing stuff to the car for a month and having no luck hedecided he was gonna change his plug wires(they were new 2 days before the car quit on him) well when he pulled the wire off the coil it just fell off. he haddnt put it on all the way when he replaced them and it wiggled off. It took him over a month to figure out that was his problem

 

When I first took the intake off on mine I was so confused about all of the vacume lines that I really didn't want to do it but I did anyway and I ended up leaving one of them unplugged so instead of taking all of the intake back off we just lifted it up(a big pain in the but) after we loosed all the bolts and I finally got it back on after squizing my hand in there. But now I can take the intake off and have it back on within 30 minutes. I have done it way to many times it is all memorized. And I have also hooked the starter up wrong and didn't know why it wasn't working until about a week or two later when I realized that I have the ground hooked up to one of the hot wires. (wow did I feel dump) And I have done many other stupid thinks when I was learning how to work on rotarty's and I will probably do many more in the future. HEHEHE

 

I made a full custom ram air intake out of fiberglass that didn't use the AFM. Needless to say, the car refused to run without the AFM. I didn't know what it was, it looked very restrictive, it had to go.....

 

I did the same thing with my AFM. Got my cone filter, figured it had to be some sort of restriction and yanked it out of there, thought nothing of the electrical plug going to it at all. Put the filter, was all happy that I now had sort of CAI. Car actually started and ran, whent out driving and when I hit 2nd gear I could push pedal to the floor and it would not rev up at all, did not stall. Thought I had somehow killed my engine. Luckily I had my AFM and stock air box in the back of car, pulled over and replaced it cause that was all I had touched on the car and it ran fine all the way home. Now here is where I get dumb. I find out that you NEED the AFM, but still thinking it is a restriction I decide to try leaving the electrical plug still pluged into it but just have it sitting there and not in the intake pipe. Wow....that is amazing way of figuring something out. Needless to say I spent a bit longer installing a cone filter then needed....

 

OK.....I don't feel so bad now. Thanks for all of the other garage bloopers.

I've pretty much got the removal and installation of that intake down to a science too. Shouldn't take me but an hour or so, but it still pisses me off.

 

one time last september...i droped a TII tranny on my nutz.....i win

 

i know how to make it work with out the MAF...... get a haltech

 

I took my carb off and started working on it over the open intake manifold.

Of course a jet fell out of my hand and went straight down in the manifold. I thought I screwed my engine, but I got lucky. After I took off the intake manifold, I reached in with my little finger and got the jet.

I need a new engine anyway since the previous owner stripped the trailing spark plug holes, but I am not prepared financially for it right now.

Whew!!

 

well, the trailing plugs aren't very important anyway. I'm sure the car would run alright without them if they ever foul before you rebuild.

 

Well, I was disappointed with my dyno run. I was only making 180 to the wheels and this kit is supposed to make over 300 with a smaller turbo.

Even guys who have a Cartech kit or knows someone that has one says it puts out good numbers.

I was only boosting 8 lbs. on a t76, so I know I was out of the efficiency range of the turbo, but I didn't want to boost high since I didn't know an accurate air/ fuel.

I was right at 11 at high rpm's, so I bumped the boost to 12 lbs. and the car is much faster now. I have also added a Jacobs Rotary Pak, lightweight flywheel and a 4 puck clutch.

I hope I am putting out around 230 to the wheels, but I am waiting till I have more money to throw it at another dyno pull.

I also think I am losing compression from the stripped plug holes since they are very loose and wobbly, but won't come out. There are trails beneath the plugs showing that it is leaking something (fuel) while running.

I got a good price from www.rotaryworks.com since I have dealt with him before and only need a short block. I hope to have a rebuilt street ported J-spec in my car before winter.

I also need to adjust my trailing timing to run closer to my leading, I got the advice from another carbed turbo guy. Is that a good idea?

 

Slow87turbo, i love your yoda avitar! Im laughing out loud right now. "good this **** is!" HAHAhah, sorry, a bit off track :-)

Worst mechanical mistake? Well, i guess id have to say "this one time, at band camp.........."

 

Ive forgotten stuff under the UIM so many times its like a 5 or 10 minute job to pull it Ive forgotten so many stupid things nothing even comes to mind anymore.

 

I did my auto-> 5 speed swap. All the hard stuff was done and all I had to do was wire it up. Looked in the books and everything checked out all the wires. Turns out the connector for the starter, and the connector for the AT fullthrottle kickdown swith to the tranny look EXACTLY alike... anyway, everything is done and im trying to start the car. turn the key all the way..... nothing.... do that about 3 times and decide i need to pump the acc. pedal. That works (for some reason ??!?! haha), cool. let off the gas and starter stops .... sitting there thinking, pump the gas without turning the key, tries to start WTF!!!! apparently the AT kickdown swich sends 12v when the gas is at full throttle, that 12v was going to the starter because stupid me thought it was the starter wire. I felt like a moron.

 

And one time, on the RX7club.....