Author Topic: Murz' 1986 Arctic Silver GXL aka Silver  (Read 15318 times)

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Offline murz

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Murz' 1986 Arctic Silver GXL aka Silver
« on: April 21, 2014, 09:36:41 AM »
Hey guys, so it's rx7 rebuild season for me!

Can't wait to get it on road, gathering tools and equipment right now. Anyways, i started a thread on rx7club, feel free to check it out! Plan is to have it operational before the dream cruise, of course the sooner the better. I think this is reasonable, even for a novice haha. Hope everyone has been doing alright! You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
« Last Edit: May 07, 2015, 06:30:14 PM by murz »
1986 AS GXL Turbo swapped
1993 VR R1

Offline fidelity101

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Re: 1986 GXL engine rebuild
« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2014, 12:52:04 PM »
what part of Michigan are you at/near?

Offline murz

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Re: 1986 GXL engine rebuild
« Reply #2 on: April 22, 2014, 02:07:47 PM »
Troy, 15 & Livernois . How about you?
1986 AS GXL Turbo swapped
1993 VR R1

Offline fidelity101

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Re: 1986 GXL engine rebuild
« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2014, 08:54:06 AM »
12 and rochester in Royal Oak lol.

Offline murz

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Re: 1986 GXL engine rebuild
« Reply #4 on: April 23, 2014, 09:02:45 AM »
Oh wow, practically neighbors. You don't drive a white fc do you?
1986 AS GXL Turbo swapped
1993 VR R1

Offline fidelity101

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Re: 1986 GXL engine rebuild
« Reply #5 on: April 23, 2014, 11:50:05 AM »
All beat up with the stickers and S5 tails. Yup thats me

Offline murz

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Re: 1986 GXL engine rebuild
« Reply #6 on: April 23, 2014, 01:24:15 PM »
Oh nice, yeah I've seen ya then. Didn't look beat up to me though. How often do you ride in it?
1986 AS GXL Turbo swapped
1993 VR R1

Offline murz

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Re: 1986 GXL engine rebuild
« Reply #7 on: May 06, 2014, 12:36:14 PM »
Engine is nearly ready to be pulled, pulling out the engine harness wire sucked the most so far. Rear oil line and the transmission is next. Thinking about raising the HP to 200, while keeping it NA. Any recommendations throw em' at me. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
1986 AS GXL Turbo swapped
1993 VR R1

Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: 1986 GXL engine rebuild
« Reply #8 on: May 07, 2014, 06:52:41 AM »
If I were to build an NA without any additional porting, I would:

- Get some long divided headers that combine pretty far down the length of the car - I'd aim for at least 3 ft of primary runner length, if not more, to keep the exhaust pulses from interfering with each other.  This depends on what you want to do for emissions & muffling, but I'd recommend keeping at least 1 high-flow cat at a minimum to take care of most of the gas fumes, and if you're NA, you'll absolutely need some mufflers
- Keep the 6-port actuators working, maybe get those little inserts for the bottoms of them (although I don't remember if anyone has shown a dyno benefit to them, so maybe not)
- An actual cold-air intake, not just that K&N filter.  This would mean either building a sealed airbox around it in the engine bay with cool air fed to it from in front of the radiator, or placing the air filter in the pocket in front of the car before the radiator & routing the intake tubing to it.
- Port-matching the intake manifold at each of the splits for gaskets - anything to help the air get into the engine
- Piggyback engine management system to take out some of the excess fuel that is in the stock tune.  Mazda tuned them pretty rich, and you can safely make them a bit leaner (still 13 - 13.5:1 AFR at WOT) & gain a bit of power & efficiency.  As long as you still have the stock AFM & injectors (which you shouldn't need to change), the stock ECU should be able to handle all the above mods with just some fine-tuning needed from the piggyback.

Offline fidelity101

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Re: 1986 GXL engine rebuild
« Reply #9 on: May 07, 2014, 09:08:28 AM »
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Oh nice, yeah I've seen ya then. Didn't look beat up to me though. How often do you ride in it?

Not as often as I should. Got to do some repairs to make it roadworthy again, runs fine just down on power.

Offline murz

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Re: 1986 GXL engine rebuild
« Reply #10 on: May 07, 2014, 09:58:09 AM »
Thanks for the response!
-Long divided headers, can they be bought, or will they have to be custom fabricated? When I bought the car years ago it came with a RB header that i'll be installing as well, but now i'm intrigued about this other option.
-I have two Borla mufflers currently, they sound amazing and look great. Not sure if I even have a cat currently.
-Yeah, the 6 port thing is something I don't quite understand, I didn't have an airpump installed to begin with.
-I think the cold air-intake mod won't be too difficult, I've seen plenty of examples on the forums anyways.
-I do plan on getting a street port, size I'm not too sure yet. So just port-match the lower intake manifold to the engine ports?
-Okay, this 'piggyback' thing sounds very interesting, is it an easy install?  Is "The GReddy e-Manage" what you're describing? Link for it below.
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What are you doing repair-wise fidelity101? If you ever need an extra hand let me know, I'd love to learn something new haha.
1986 AS GXL Turbo swapped
1993 VR R1

Offline fidelity101

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Re: 1986 GXL engine rebuild
« Reply #11 on: May 07, 2014, 11:25:07 AM »
front wheel bearings and rear brake calipers, nothing fancy. :)

Offline toplessFC3Sman

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Re: 1986 GXL engine rebuild
« Reply #12 on: May 08, 2014, 07:18:54 AM »
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Thanks for the response!
-Long divided headers, can they be bought, or will they have to be custom fabricated? When I bought the car years ago it came with a RB header that i'll be installing as well, but now i'm intrigued about this other option.

Yea, I was thinking of the RB headers, or something similar.  They have one header that's collected before the flange to their resonator, and one that stays separate for a lot longer.  I'm not too familiar with other vendors making NA stuff (or aftermarket parts for the FC in general), the 7club is probably a better place to research that.
Quote
-I have two Borla mufflers currently, they sound amazing and look great. Not sure if I even have a cat currently.

If you like the sound, then keep them.  A high-flow cat won't help or significantly hurt power, especially on an NA, but it will make the car smell a lot better when cold-starting, idling etc.
Quote
-Yeah, the 6 port thing is something I don't quite understand, I didn't have an airpump installed to begin with.

It looks like the engine & everything is S4, so the 6 port actuators are driven off of exhaust backpressure, not the airpump.  If you don't have a cat & already have very little backpressure, than you may not be opening them at all.  A good way to check is to do the "grease test", which I have just shamelessly stolen from the 7club:
"Grease test: Apply generous amount of grease to the base of the actuator rod, where the rod meets the actuator body (s4's rod gets pushed INTO the actuator to open the port). Drive the car around spiritedly, making sure to go past 5k rpm. Go back home, check the actuator.

On properly working actuators, the grease will get smeared all over the actuator rod when it gets pushed into the actuator body as it opens up your ports. If not working, grease will only remain where you applied it."

To get them working if you don't have backpressure or air pressure, there are other ways:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login - describes using an electric air pump that you switch on to do it, although I think probably just replacing the actuators with solenoids would be cleaner.  You may need to worry about melting the solenoids with the exhaust depending on where you place them tho.


Quote
-I do plan on getting a street port, size I'm not too sure yet. So just port-match the lower intake manifold to the engine ports?

I was talking about LIM to UIM etc, just to make sure that when you bolt everything together there isn't a mis-match at the flanges.  You don't really want to increase the diameter of any of the runners, just make sure that the flow has a smooth path and won't get tripped up by anything.

Quote
-Okay, this 'piggyback' thing sounds very interesting, is it an easy install?  Is "The GReddy e-Manage" what you're describing? Link for it below.
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Yea, the GReddy e-manage & apexi SAFC are piggyback ECUs, designed to basically just tweak the incoming airflow signal that the stock ECU receives, making the stock ECU think that you have more or less airflow than it would otherwise sense.  Therefore, the stock ECU tells the injectors to spray more or less fuel than they otherwise would, giving you some tune-able control over fuel while retaining all the maps, closed-loop control etc of the stock ECU.  You may want to look at whether you can get a system that has its own programmable outputs too, which you could use for switching the 6-port actuators.

Offline murz

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Re: 1986 GXL engine rebuild
« Reply #13 on: May 13, 2014, 12:01:07 PM »
Thanks ToplessFc3sman, this is alot of great information! I'll have to test out the actuators once I get it running, testing them sounds simple. I will eventually grab one of those piggy back units as well, after I get it running of course.

 I finally pulled the engine today, didn't really put up a fight. I eventually bought a 1 ton hoist from harbor freight for $99, brand new. Had to approach the engine from the side of the car though, which worked fine. Noticed I had a broken engine mount and a strange wire that was pinched in between the engine and transmission. Decided to purchase new upgraded mounts while I'm at it, and a new stage 1 clutch from racing beat. Deciding on lightwheel steel or aluminum flywheel now, I want to maintain driveability, and I've read that the aluminum flywheel somehow impacts driveability. Anyways, soon I'll be busting her open!

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1986 AS GXL Turbo swapped
1993 VR R1

Offline murz

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Re: 1986 GXL engine rebuild
« Reply #14 on: May 27, 2014, 01:00:06 PM »
Finally got it pulled apart, have to admit, feels pretty cool having done this. No power tools and no help haha. Really not so bad. Everything for the most part looks good though. I'm sure a lot of the seals won't need to be replaced, apex seals for sure though. So, I see that rebuild kits go for around $1,500. I think all I need will be the gasket set and apex seals.

  Think I've made my mind up on the flywheel, the lightweight steel one sounds like a good choice without being too ridiculous for street driving. Now, time to get a street port!

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1986 AS GXL Turbo swapped
1993 VR R1