1985 Series 3 restomod with s5 13BT on LPG, R&P steering

[KYPREO]

And another from my wedding day 10 years ago...

weddingjo2.png (389.7 KiB) Viewed 8002 times

[ian65]

both looking cool, you and the car

[codge]

Interesting the car got into the Wedding Photos.......

[KYPREO]

Interesting the car got into the Wedding Photos.......

I had 2 rotors and a limo for the wedding cars!

[codge]

And a Bride?......

[Hobbawobba]

Mint!

[KYPREO]

Ok time to take this to the next level! Finally after a long wait it has arrived. \:D/ Borg Warner EFR7670 with internal wastegate 0.92 AR turbine housing. Also have the Turblown investment cast 347SS short runner manifold and inconel gasket and studs/nuts. Rest of the turbo kit is on its way.

20181005_203647.jpg (64.03 KiB) Viewed 7916 times

20181005_204151.jpg (125.02 KiB) Viewed 7916 times

20181005_204203.jpg (82.69 KiB) Viewed 7916 times

[Chud]

Sweet, any reasoning behind the internal gate or just because?

[KYPREO]

Sweet, any reasoning behind the internal gate or just because?

Great question. I've been wanting to do this turbo conversion for 12 years, so let's just say I've had a lot of time to think about it and changed my mind a number of times. There's lots of pros vs cons for both style of wastegate. For this particular setup, there is a great summary here: https://turbosource.com/blogs/news/choo ... bo-systems

This is what it boiled down to for me (in no particular order of priority):

1. Simplification and reduced packaging: no routing of external gate dumps etc. Where I am, you can't legally have these vent to atmosphere in a street car, so the external gate dump would need to plumb back into the main exhaust. Everything mounts nice and compactly, so I'll have a lot more room.

2. Cost: no fabrication for above. Save on cost of 2x external gates (I would definitely need two). The IWG setup allowed me to use the Turblown kit with the cast manifold. This ordinarily wouldn't fit a RHD car, but since I converted to FC front steering/suspension, I can use the FC bolt on kit. The kit cost a bit, but the cost savings elsewhere meant a saving overall.

3. Weight: the cast manifold is made of 347SS stainless and very light. Being a short runner design, there's not much of it. It feels lighter than a factory FC manifold but I intend to weigh it to see. The whole setup will be a few kg lighter than an external gate setup.

4. Response: short runner design with IWG will spool around 500rpm earlier. This particular setup should see 25psi under 3000rpm and start boosting from around 2000rpm. This is probably the number one reason.

5. Reliability: unlike external setups, IWGs are not directly attached to the exhaust and so are much less likely to fail due to rotary exhaust temps. EWG failure is very common.

6. I don't need to worry about running high boost pressures. 1 advantage EWG systems have is that they can reliably run lower boost pressures. This is great if running on pump fuel as you don't want boost creeping above 15psi. I'm running on LPG, which has a higher octane than E85, plus water/meth injection, so no problems there.

[KYPREO]

A quick little update which I thought you guys might like.

I rebuilt and restored my combination switch. I have been hunting for years and it seems like all LHD combo switches are obsolete and haven't been available from Mazda for years. I even tried buying one from dealerships in Japan, to no avail.

I found identical stalks from other models (including a HBSHE 929 sedan and the headlight stalk from a Ford due to the parts sharing that was in place in the early 80s!), modified them to fit the RX-7 switch housing, removed and took apart all the switches and cleaned all the carbon off the contacts (headlight contacts were toast as expected) and re-greased all the springs and bearings.

Before

20200313_195901.jpg (70.23 KiB) Viewed 7196 times

After

20200425_150646.jpg (86.54 KiB) Viewed 7196 times

I took a bunch of detailed photos and I'm going to do a comprehensive how to guide which I'll publish on AusRotary and link here.