Guys, I got the car today. I will post some new pics later.

 

boost gauge

 

I know it's important and it's on the list but right now there are a lot of things that needs to be tidied up, I don't know where to start. Engine being the heart of the car should be the first followed by suspension.

I'm planning on 6 gauges (1 on A-pillar, 2 on centre speaker place, 3 under/over the CD player) asap.

 

There is really no need for so many gauges unless u just really like them. If you get a pfc with commander then it takes care of most the gauges you would want for a modified rx7, if it's stock then you really dont need to monitor anything except boost and maybe water temps.

 

Yeah it'll be more for looks I guess cause I'll be buying a pfc, however I'm not sure if you have to switch between screens on pfc to display different parameters/values cause with gauges it's right infront of your eyes.

Boost, EGT, Water temp, Wideband too much? I read something like we need 2 EGTs for the RX7?

 

Thats 5 gauges whats number 6? If you have the PFC w/ commander I wouldn't worry about the water temp gauge. The PFC allows you to monitor 2,4, or 8 things(though the numbers are kinda small at 8, I monitor 4: water, knock, air temps and I switch between boost and inj duty depending on what i'm doing. How many egt gauges you need depends on your goals. I don't have any idea what my EGT's are for example. Mostly useful for tuning, so you could just log them and not have gauges at all times. AFR is nice to have.

 

If there was a number 6, it could be anything, like you said there'd be one or two important one and others would be mostly for looks.

My goal is to go single turbo and 400-450+whp (35R or perhaps 500R) in the long run and to get the car running in a very healthy state in the short run.

I don't have any rotary experience and in my previous turbocharged cars I only had boost gauge which was enough. I guess an EGT is not that critical since knowledgeable member like you don't run it on his highly modified car. But I remember reading that an EGT is a good way to see if something is wrong before the damage is done.

Well i'm kind of over the A-pillar gauges anyway so 2 in the centre speaker location or 3 over/under the CD player will be fine.

 

Is there a cheaper aftermarket alternative for this?

A friend of mine is coming to visit from US and he said he'll bring the parts over so it's RX7 shopping bonanza for me

I'm considering buying Rotary Extreme traction kit, Koni Yellows (from here) and the pillow ***** like you've mentioned, hopefully it'll tighten up the car like new. At the moment it feels loose and clunky.

Other parts I'll be ordering are:
Hood damper (tein)
Glove box lock/handle (couldn't find any atm)
SS clutch line
SS brake lines (goodridge)
Thermostat (probably OEM, reading about aftermarket ones atm)
Radiator cap (probably 13psi oem, reading about aftermarket 13 - 16psi atm)
Spark plugs (couldn't find any atm)
Brake pads (EBC green stuff)
Plug on windscreen base plastic (couldn't find any atm)
Wiper arm plug (couldn't find any atm).
Plastic shield where bonnet meets back of headlights (couldn't find any atm).

I emailed Malloy Mazda about some of these parts but are there other vendors that I can source these parts? Especially if they had slides where I can look and find technical drawing of the part as well as part number, like they use in car service parts departments.

 

Just one comment. EBC Green pads are pretty poor performance wise. They are very low on the dust and noise, but they don't bite so well either. If you want a higher performance street pad I would recommend the Porterfield R4-S or the Axxis Ultimates over the EBC. Both are in the same price range and offer better, IMHO, stopping power.

 

Well I was looking at Hawk HPS then I read that EBC greens are better. I've run Ferodo pads on my previous cars and was very happy with them I don't know if they have them for rx7 and how much. Anyway thanks for the help, I will look into the two brands that you've mentioned. I'm assuming they are also low on dust and noise?

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By the way I just read that there are no aftermarket alternatives for pillowballs and also just discovered mazdatrix.com so I guess it answers most of the questions I asked previously.

 

Before you arbitrarily replace the pillowballs check your power plant frame (ppf), differential mounts, and engine mounts. It's also possible your differential and/or transmission has more slack in the gearing now from age/abuse.

My car had terrible clunking between shifts and going from a stop, turned out my PPF was cracked, and differential bearings were shot. So I reinforced the PPF, put solid differential mounts in and added a tranny brace. This made everything feel much better and the clunking was reduced quite a bit.

Then when I tore into my differential after destroying it, I checked the backlash and it was extremely loose. So when I swapped in the other LSD I tightened everything up and set the backlash to the tightest tolerance acceptable. This made a huge difference in how the car felt. Feels like a new car now. Pillowballs could probably be replaced too, but my point is there is a lot of things that all add to the system as a whole, so inspect other things before assuming thats what it needs.

 

That's true but I had late notice on my friends visit from US, so I kind of don't have much time to inspect things. I will try to check the PPF this week. Meanwhile I'll still order the parts I listed above cause I think sooner or later I'll need these parts.

I said "no guts, no glory" and bought 1 of the 3 FD RX7s in the country which means no parts available or at crazy prices like $500 for pair of brake pads for special order from the dealers.

1 of the other 2 RX7s is a wreck and the other is soon to receive a 2JZ conversion. I became friends with the owner of the 2JZ and I will be buying his 13b and tranny.

Why am I telling all this? Because I decided to install some shelves in my garage and start collecting extra parts. For example I was going to buy a set of spark plugs but now I'll order 2 or 3 sets. My brakes are in ok condition but I'm still ordering pads to stock up.

 

In my experience, the Axxis and the Porterfields will dust more than the greenstuffs.

 

I ordered EBC Greens already. No noise and minimum dust is what's important right now since my car is stock. But as you know this is just the making the car healthy with sufficient parts stage, as well as experimenting with different parts. My next pads will be Axxis Ultimates.

 

lol that is the cheap alternative

Well if you replace the trailing arms they come with pillow *****. So you get an aftermarket piece and pillow ***** but $$ wise it is not cheaper.


Read the descriptions:
http://www.rx7store.net/product_p/trailingarms.htm

http://www.rx7store.net/product_p/me...ing%20arms.htm

 

Well I will be buying RP Traction kit (trailing arms, rear toe link set, solid diff mounts). Sorry for asking too many questions but does that mean additionally I just need to buy RX7Store rear lower trailing arms to complete the set and not need oem pillowballs?

 

I'd probably get these instead:
http://rx7.com/store/rx7/fdsuspension.html
RX7.com always has them in stock and ships immediately. You can get plugs and wires from them as well.

Same with Pettit
http://www.pettitracing.com/



These seem to be pretty good too since they supposedly use dust shields.
http://www.fighters-garage.com/rx7.html

 

correct.