Lighter = Faster (RX-7 Build #2)

im looking for some t2 axles if you have any or have a lead on some

I really don't have any TII stuff. Aside from the housings and side skirts, which I'm keeping, I think I just have a lower oil filler neck. Everything else is off a 89 GXL or 86 base model.

Picked at the sound deadening material last night a little bit. It comes off quite easily with a scraper in flat sections like the hatch area but not so much around the transmission tunnel. Apparently Meijer sells dry ice so I'll pick up some this weekend. May try to play around with a heat gun tonight.
 
I really don't have any TII stuff. Aside from the housings and side skirts, which I'm keeping, I think I just have a lower oil filler neck. Everything else is off a 89 GXL or 86 base model.

Picked at the sound deadening material last night a little bit. It comes off quite easily with a scraper in flat sections like the hatch area but not so much around the transmission tunnel. Apparently Meijer sells dry ice so I'll pick up some this weekend. May try to play around with a heat gun tonight.

Alright, Im on the lookout for some t2 axles at this point in my swap.

I dont know if you have Publix up there or not, but they sell dry ice as well.
 
Alright, Im on the lookout for some t2 axles at this point in my swap.

I dont know if you have Publix up there or not, but they sell dry ice as well.

Went with a TII rear? I considered doing the TII drivetrain swap but parts are hard to come by and too expensive. FD owners keep picking 'em up. Though weaker, the N/A drivetrains are easy to come by and you can readily swap transmission and differential parts with Miata parts, which are a dime-a-dozen.

No Publix up here - too far north.

Left the sound-deadening material alone last night and worked on something else. Since I no longer have any wiring provision for a radio I don't need the speaker towers in the hatch area. Could've taken an angle grinder to the spot welds but I tried to be a little more delicate and used a Dremel. Got the driver's side done in about 2 hours last night:

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I still put two holes in the fender to the left of the strut tower. Shouldn't be too hard to close up with the MIG. Also, now knowing how flimsy the body panels and tack welds back there are I'll probably do some seam-welding back here. Just around the strut towers and rear fenders. Looks like I need to start practicing MIG again...
 
Went with a TII rear? I considered doing the TII drivetrain swap but parts are hard to come by and too expensive. FD owners keep picking 'em up. Though weaker, the N/A drivetrains are easy to come by and you can readily swap transmission and differential parts with Miata parts, which are a dime-a-dozen.

No Publix up here - too far north.
Ya, I picked up a stalled project from a guy that was swapping in a jdm turboII motor/drivetrain into a gxl chassis. he had the whole turbo drivetrain, except for the axles. But based on what I have seen as far as availablity, I might go with an NA drivetrain. Im not really looking to put down major poer or anything, just something for spirited driving and the occasional autox. As far as I can tell, you just have to replace the flywheel back on the drivetrain with all NA stuff. Or I am off base and need to swap more stuff?
 
As far as I can tell, you just have to replace the flywheel back on the drivetrain with all NA stuff. Or I am off base and need to swap more stuff?
Yeah, the larger diameter clutch/flywheel combination of the TII won't fit into the N/A transmission bellhousing. It's important to note if you're using a flywheel with an integrated rear counterweight (stock) you have to use the matching rotors and front counterweight (http://www.mazdatrix.com/b5.htm). To change just the flywheel you'd have to get an aftermarket one and buy the correct rear counterweight from an automatic model (separate). Anything else and you have to get the assembly balanced, which may not be a bad idea regardless. My rotors, front counterweight, and rear counterweight (from '89-91 automatic) are matched but I still had everything balanced to be safe. Another option is to keep the TII flywheel and transmission and get a custom driveshaft to mate with the N/A rear end (http://www.mazdatrix.com/g9.htm)
 
Thanks for the info, I might look into this some more due to the rarity of these axles. Keep up the good work on your car and I will stop cluttering your thread now.
Yeah, the larger diameter clutch/flywheel combination of the TII won't fit into the N/A transmission bellhousing. It's important to note if you're using a flywheel with an integrated rear counterweight (stock) you have to use the matching rotors and front counterweight (http://www.mazdatrix.com/b5.htm). To change just the flywheel you'd have to get an aftermarket one and buy the correct rear counterweight from an automatic model (separate). Anything else and you have to get the assembly balanced, which may not be a bad idea regardless. My rotors, front counterweight, and rear counterweight (from '89-91 automatic) are matched but I still had everything balanced to be safe. Another option is to keep the TII flywheel and transmission and get a custom driveshaft to mate with the N/A rear end (http://www.mazdatrix.com/g9.htm)
 
Thanks for the info, I might look into this some more due to the rarity of these axles. Keep up the good work on your car and I will stop cluttering your thread now.
No big deal. I'm the only other person posting!

Took a break Wednesday to sell some parts. Made $100. Got back to work last night and removed the other speaker tower. It's starting to look a little cleaner now.

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Going to try to get the sound-deadening material out this weekend then I'll work on removing other studs/brackets that are no longer needed.
 
I spent about 8 hours this weekend working on the sound-deadening material. I ended up using about 20 lb of dry ice, which worked well on the flat, horizontal areas, but not so much on vertical surfaces or the transmission tunnel. Here's how everything looked Saturday night. Hatch area:

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Driver's side:

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Passenger's side:

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The rest is being slowly chipped off with a 1 in. scraper and a hammer. Some areas are harder because the sound-deadening material was laid over seam-sealer. Right now I have 3/4 of a 5 gal bucket filled and I still need to finish the transmission tunnel, firewall, and parts of the hatch area. Removing this stuff has exposed a lot of holes in the body so there's going to be a lot of welding in my future.
 
Just curious, but wouldn't you want to keep some on the tunnel on the exhaust side to keep the heat down? Or do you have a different idea for that?
 
Just curious, but wouldn't you want to keep some on the tunnel on the exhaust side to keep the heat down? Or do you have a different idea for that?
Different idea. Currently planning on using some Koolmat on the firewall, transmission tunnel, and part of the passenger's side (over the exhaust). The Koolmat won't be permanently attached so I'll be able to add/remove material at will. I don't know how much heat reduction the stock stuff added. I always thought it was more for sound reduction. It seemed easier to just remove everything and add back where needed.
 
Sounds like a good plan to me.
You know, because racecar.

Removed more (seemingly) non-critical, sheet metal. I'm not sure what the purpose of this piece is (it does have two threaded M10 holes) but whatever it is I don't need it.

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It's kind of hard to see but it's the mangled-looking piece of metal to the bottom-right of the screwdrivers and hammer. The spot with the grind marks (and holes) in the center of the hatch area is where the metal was. This is completely covered with carpet so I'm not sure what the threaded holes are for.
 
You're still not done with this car yet? Ugh...

In all seriousness though, when do you think you'll be driving it? 2015? Just curious.

I totally understand that it's fun building the car though. I liked having a project too. Building the Lego set is nearly as much fun as playing with it.
 
You're still not done with this car yet? Ugh...

In all seriousness though, when do you think you'll be driving it? 2015? Just curious.

I totally understand that it's fun building the car though. I liked having a project too. Building the Lego set is nearly as much fun as playing with it.

It's probably going to be a while though things should speed up once I finish stripping the car. It's hard to say when I'll finish. Right now I spend ~2 hours working on it maybe 5 days a week. I only work on it when Ian's asleep and there aren't other things to be done (e.g. preparing to build a shed in the backyard this weekend). Fortunately I have just about everything I need to finish.
 
Forgot to update this yesterday with the weekend's progress. Only one picture and a wall of text this time.

I got the rest of the sound-deadening material removed on Saturday:

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Overall weight removed? A whopping 20 lbs. Considering half of that will be negated by the added heat shielding and the amount of welding I now need to do to fill in leftover holes I'm going to put this task into the "not-worth-the-time" category. I'm still working on cleaning up the adhesive residue and will probably finish tonight.

While the adhesive removing was doing its thing I started working on the fuel tank. Hit with penetrating fluid then impact wrench and repeat. Did this Saturday night (was sick Sunday) and broke the last two bolts loose last night. Fortunately no sheared bolts. Meant to take a picture of the tank but my phone was dead...

The tank is in worse shape than I expected. The metal is really thin in some places where the rubberized coating has chipped off. I was just going to remove the broken studs and clean out the inside but now I'm considering a professional cleaning so I can better evaluate its condition. Been having evil thoughts of fuel cells...
 
Fuel cell for sure. For everything else you're doing, who knows... maybe one day you'll want to class the car for something. I can't imagine the stock tank is small, being a rotary car. Could likely save weight that way too.
 
Fuel cell for sure. For everything else you're doing, who knows... maybe one day you'll want to class the car for something. I can't imagine the stock tank is small, being a rotary car. Could likely save weight that way too.
I'm kinda building it in a way I could easily strip everything out and run it as a TT car with little modification (probably end up being TTB). Either way fuel cells open up a whole new can of worms. FIA-certified units have "shelf lives" and would require a significant overhaul of my current setup. There are some decent-looking non-certified tanks (Aeromotive makes a nice one) that I could make work with a little modification but if I can't use them for HPDE/TT it's a waste.
 
I have a fuel cell in my Rx-7 and yes it does have a "shelf life " and it is also heavier that the stock fuel tank. What's wrong with the fuel tank in the red car, or did you get rid of it already?
And you mentioned patching holes in the car now that the sound deadening is gone, I wouldn't weld them I just bought some foil tape from home depot and cut squares of tape to seal the holes up
 
I have a fuel cell in my Rx-7 and yes it does have a "shelf life " and it is also heavier that the stock fuel tank. What's wrong with the fuel tank in the red car, or did you get rid of it already?
And you mentioned patching holes in the car now that the sound deadening is gone, I wouldn't weld them I just bought some foil tape from home depot and cut squares of tape to seal the holes up
In the blue car or the race car? Yeah the red car and its tank are gone. That tank was bigger and heavier so I didn't really want it anyway. See picture below of the condition of the tank. If the stock tank is usable I'll keep it for simplicity.

Taping the holes is an idea. As long as it's water-tight and I can spray the backside of it with some kind of coating it'd work for me. Trying to avoid new rust-initiating spots. I need to weld several larger holes in the firewall closed so I figured why not do the floor while I'm at it?

Spent a couple hours last night cleaning the garage but I also snapped some pictures to make up for the last posts.

Reference 5 gal bucket 80% full with sound-deadening material:

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Clean(er) interior:

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There's left over adhesive and seam sealer but I'm not bothered to remove all of it. Once I close the holes I'll be spraying the bare metal surfaces with primer and covering the thing with carpet anyway.

Rusty, grimy gas tank:

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