Well I have been holding off on getting a thread going on here until I got farther along in all the cluster eff that is going to be my car. But the cold winter is keeping me from the garage and just sitting in front of the computer, so I figured I would share things that I have done.

I seem to be taking the road not so most traveled with my car, you know reinventing the wheel per say. But it gives me something to do on the weekends while i finish school. I keep saying i keep my sanity in the garage, i just go visit it on the weekends.

So lets get started...

first things first, even though i just sold my rally rx7, i did that more for the sake of school and wanting someone to enjoy the car rather then it just sitting in the driveway doing nothing. this car will also be a rally car. i got a smoking deal from a friend of an already caged rx7. but it was a roller and nothing more. so it came home, spent a little time with the porta power getting the nose strait and then i got to work.



Next thing to get into order was boxing of the front part of the frame. With now 2 rx7 rally cars, and talking to the old timers that used to rally these back in the day. the noses of the rx7s are pretty weak. it's because just past the steering box mazda reduced the amount of metal that they used on the frame, making it pretty thin. so what you see with a lot of hard use off road is the front part of the frame will start to buckle right around where the cross member bolt on. on this car the frame was so bad it was torn. i wish i would have taken a picture of it, but it wasn't pretty to say the least. So I boxed the inner, outer and under and tied them all together to make it as strong as i could.




Next on the list, as with many of the other first gen guys out there, was to swap a 2nd gen sub frame in. clearly, i'm not covering any new ground here. but it ties into my next "why not" invention.



Struts, yeah what to do with struts. Stick with stock FC stuff, buy some fancy super bitchin suspenders, or make something from stuff i had laying around. with some FC struts i got with the front sub frame i started to measure up with some other struts i had laying around, and with some grinding, some cutting, and very carefully removing the ears from the FC struts, i put them onto a set of 05 Subaru STI struts.


STI STRUTS?!?!?!?!?! yeah STI struts. my thoughts behind them, 1. i just happened to have them laying around my garage, 2. they shared the same tube diameter as the FC stuff so it was just a matter of getting the ears off with out destroying them and 3. my personal favorite, they are tough, they are an inverted strut from the factory. I actually ran a set of STI full suspension on a legacy rally car i had for a full event. other then sitting a little to low, they held up just fine. And the fact the legacy was a 1000+lbs heaver, i'm not to worried about them living a very easy life in the front of the rx7. I also wanted to stick with the Subaru top hats because they have been known in the rally world to be pretty damn strong. Many other car manufactures actually swap to subaru top hats because they are super cheap and strong.

 

so for the time being that takes care of the front end.

now lets move the *** end. and talk about rear ends. Sure the mazda rear end can take somewhat of a beating, you can get different gear sets for them, and there are plenty out there.

But I wanted something different, something with more aftermarket support, gear sets for $150, lockers, spools, LSDs heavy after market support. But it couldn't be to big to fit under the car.

so what would any sane individual do, yup, swap in a toyota 4x4 rear axle, that's what.



you may ask yourself why, i'm just going to say why not. gear sets all the way into the 5.xxs. cheap to buy, really not that big of an axle once you got all the crazy 4 runner 4 link brackets off. the best way to think of it about this is, this was meant to sit under a truck all day long that weighed 4000+lbs and last 300k miles. it's going to have a nice easy life under my car.



i ended up building a jig on my welding table with the mazda axle. after truing up the mazda axle i welded some old control arms to the table so i could then cut the brackets off of the mazda axle and mount them onto the toyota axle.






so with the brackets tacked on it was time for it's first test fit.



Ahhhh, like a glove.

I was actually very shocked it fit so well. i didn't have any issues with the gas tank, which was about my only worry. and because the 86+ 4x4 rear axles were about an inch narrower then the 2nd gen front end, i am just planning on using them full width.

so back out, finished welding, added a truss to the bottom for some rigidity, and quick shot of paint, she was all done.

 

Then onto the axles. as some may know, but most probably don't, all 4x4 toyota axles came with 6 lug axles. well that's not going do me any good. i need them to match the front. i also at the same time needed to come up with a rotor that i wanted to use for the rear. as the toyota came with drums.

after finding the solution to my rotor, which i ended up using the same rotors as the fronts, i hit up my local axle shop and gave them the axles, rotors and a few days later i had a machined and drilled set of axles all ready to go.





so last but not least, with my rotors figured out, and my axles ready to go, i needed a set of calipers. As I just happened to have a set of front brake caliper and brackets from a second gen 4 lug. they had about the right size bore i was looking for so i went with them.

i tracked down a guy that had a plasma cutting table and talked to him about making me a set of brackets for the calipers. i spent a couple hours in his garage getting the fit right, he did the final cut and i just had to go home and assemble them.









so all said and done, my bracket are made, the calipers are on. the *** end is for the most part done. i do need to take it all back out, make my hard lines and do some minor finish stuff on it.

 

Ok last thing i'm writing about tonight as my fingers are getting damn tired.

The fuel tank. I know i'm going to run fuel injection, i want an in tank pump to move the fuel pump from under the car where it's in the way of danger. I did some reading of people doing FC in tank pumps. I never could seem to find any pictures, write ups, or really any good info about it.

so hell, i'll just figure this out on my own.

as a still subaru guy, i always seem to have one being parted out, parts laying around crap to play with. i had a subaru legacy fuel tank. and after some really rough measuring i decided to go for it.

come to find out, the subaru tank and the rx7 tank had the exact same depth to them. so in my mind i would just make the whole subaru pick up/sending unit assembly fit in the rx7 tank.

i really wish i would have taken some better pics of these. but you have to imagine the subaru gas tank has a ring with small bolts sticking out of them. this bolts the pickup assembly onto the tank.

this is it cut out of the tank.


i cut a hole in the top of the rx7 tank about the size of the opening.



i then drilled and mounted the ring from the inside. i'm going to have to do some sealing around the bolt holes doing it this way. but i couldn't figure a good way to seal it with the ring on the outside.



then with just a little moving of some baffling in the tank it slid right in and bolted down.



now this doesn't include any kind of slosh tank. this is just a pick up in the middle of the tank. it's on my list of things to do is build a slosh tank so i wont starve the motor of fuel during hard corning.


And that's it. i hope you liked my cluster eff so far. so far right now the drive train is up in the air. i'm about 99% sure i'm going to do a piston motor (sorry, no hatred please). but what, who knows. no v8s for me, i'm thinking 4 banger or v6.

i'll post more as i get farther along on it. but it's crappy and cold out, so it's going to be spring time before i get back out there.

 

Wow that is some creativity. I'm gonna subscribe to this thread so I can see where you're taking it.

 

Nice work. I also think toyota rearends are an excellent choice.

 

Would be sweet to pop the hood and see a turbo cosworth or an EJ20T. And just wow on all the fab work, mad skillz yo.

 

nice

 

what a cool build .... good luck.

 

never been a turbo fan. just WAY to much to go wrong and in a very harsh kind of racing. to do turbos you need money to do it right. none of this china turbos and knock off what evers. entry into rally events can be up to $900 for the bigger ones. i'm not risking my entry fee on something cheaply made.

until i could do it right i'm sticking with NA

and funny you say EJ motor.

it's not turbo, but will make decent power with out one. it's been something i have been working on figuring out, i think i have figured out how to do it too.

can anyone say Mazdaru

 

i like where this seems to be going. your fabrication skills are quite impressive.

 

its about time i knew someone would do this i love the rx7 and i love the boxer engine sound and its performance i hope this turns out nice keep us updated

 

i'm glad i'm not getting the massive flame job for not thinking rotary.

maybe thinking outside of the v8 box counts for something.

 

True. Also I think we all respect your fabrication skills. Hard to flame a guy with skills that you don't possess.

It's usually the 15 yr old kids that say "my friend says rotaries suck, someone give me a parts list to put a v8 in my fb" that get flamed to no end.

 

Very nice work, love to see other guys making their own parts too. The only thing I don't like is you did all the work of cutting the brackets off the rear end and making new, but you kept the stock watts link....almost anything is better than the stock watts link. I'm not sure if that's required by the class your running, but with the motor swap and 2nd gen front subframe I doubt it is. Other than that great work and I'm just jealous that it looks closer to running than mine

 

oh, i'm sure the flames are coming! you just lucked out and got the more open minds in here first.

 

actually the watts link isn't total crap, it actually works better then a normal pan hard bar in the sense it doesn't shift the axle side to side during the range of axle moving up and down. and with the kind of triangulated 4 link that is on the rear it want's keep it centered i'm thinking a pan hard bar might almost bind the rear a little during it's range of motion.

i have had some other criticism for keeping the stock rear suspension and that if i took the time to do this i should have at least done a better 4 link.

but that being said, I have a goal with this car that i'm trying to do. i know it may seem weird to say, but my goal is to keep it as simple as possible. even with a million different parts, they are all junk yard part, well short of the STI struts, but those are cheaper then you think. not one part on the car cost me more then $200. so if done in steps it's something someone with some welding skill could do and not totally break the bank.

think of it as the test mule. i'm sure at a later date i'm going to go back and redo the rear suspension with a better 4 link, and at that time i'm going to probably going to ditch the watts link. but for the time being, i have no complaints about how the stock suspension handles rally. and this lets have the ability to drive and motor down the road when i get that far.

 

i find a lot of the 1st gen rx7 guys are like old school subaru guys. we love them for our own reasons. we want to make them our own. and even if we stray away from what is considered normal we try to keep a little bit of cool factor there.

where in the newer style subarus if you ever make the suggestion of wanting to convert your subaru to rwd, you get flamed hardcore and get a bunch of mommy buying STIs owners that tell you to go buy a mustang if you want rwd. they just don't get it. these are also the same people that think subarus have only been in this country since 2002 when the wrx showed up. they get a little shocked when you tell them subaru has been selling stuff in the states since 1968.

i love the 1st gens, i just don't know my rotarys. and it's not that i'm against learning them, i just don't have the money to do it the right way. and if i'm not going to try to do it right, then what's the point. but to me they are a great car to start with and dig the late 70s early 80s styling. yeah it wont have the brap brap brap of a rotary, but it's going to be cool regardless. and people can either like it or hate it. it's just how open minded you are.

 

love this tread!

 

Don't let anyone flame you for being so squarely out of the box. I love it. Good pick on the Subie motor. I can't wait to see how this turns out!!! It's still a good motor! Nice looking build so far.

Keep up the good work!

 

perhaps it's because i don't have experience running a Gen I in real competitions, but i agree with your decision not to get rid of the Watts link. in my limited experiences with Gen I handling, i simply never found it to be as bad as many say it is. however, as i alluded to, i've never had to compete for anything more than bragging rights, so my take might not be as meaningful. anyway, as i said, i think your project is great and i really want to see it come to life as soon as you can make it happen.

oh, they exist in the rotary world as well. i can't say i've ever come across any on this board, but over at the Rx8Club, i've seen a few people that thought the rotary debuted with the Rx-8.

secret confession: if i got my hands on an old Brat, i'd do some pretty interesting things to it. every so often, i find myself looking for one. maybe one day ....

 

That looks like it will fit in there pretty nicely. Is the driver side exhaust mani going to have room with the steering box? And any ideas on what tranny you might be thinking about? Yeah turbos are alot of work, you really do get what you pay for with those things lol. But those cosworth motors were some good stuffz, rally and F1 proven and second only to Ferrari with F1 wins. and they make or used to make an EJ25 for race imprezas. Cant wait to see more

 

this was before i had the subframe mounted and i had just parted out an old legacy. i had the motor hanging from the cherry picker and figured why the hell not. the steering box is gone with old steering so it's going to have the rack and peanut steering now. now that the subframe is mounted and all my steering is in, it's tight, but it fits. the real problem comes if i wanted to use different heads. those heads in the pic are from a ej22. later they made DOHC and larger SOHC heads. but they are to large to fit. its just the shape these smaller heads have that allow the steering shaft to fit just perfect. i mean it's mildly freeky how it fits together. i know no one ever planned it to be like this, but you could have almost fooled me.

you are right, the drivers side exhaust will be interesting, not impossible. it's going to have to be made. but i'm weird, i like building exhausts.

as for trannys, i'm treading new ground here. all subaru trannys were either fwd or awd. never a rwd set up. guys do make them rwd by welding up the center diff and yanking the front axles. it works, but it's genrelly not a perfect answer. the "transfer gears" as i like to call them in the center diff are small. and now they are responsible for all the power being moved to the rear. its not normally a question of if it's going to break, its a question of when is it going to break.

so the question of what to do about a tranny came about. i just out of 100% dumb and stupid luck ran across a guy that builds bell housings. he's been big with mating 4g63 mitsu turbo motors to rwd trannys for years. i got to talking to him, and asked if he wanted to trying something weird. with some convincing and prodding and shipping him dead tranny chunks, random clutch parts, and a fly wheel he said he would see what he could do.

warning, sexual arousal may happen if you look at this for to long



so that's a w58 from a 2wd truck/celica/supra.

it's a work of art really. i wish i knew how to do crap like that. i would just sit in my garage all day and make bell housing.

so yeah, that's my thoughts so far.

AND the coolest part, i picked up a drive line from a early 90s 2wd toyo pickem up truck. it slides into the tranny, it bolts up to the rear end, so all i'm going to have to do is have it shortened. no crazy custom drive line for me.

i love it when a totally effed up monstrosity of a cluster eff of a plan comes together.

 

just awesome...I swear I'm gonna learn to weld without setting my shoe laces on fire!!!

 

lol, man i go out and weld in my underwear and flip flops, but it's the days i wear real clothes and shoes i burn the ever living crap out of myself.