Sprocket's Competition

[clocker]

Well, get on it son.
Those parking lot pics should be sweet.

[clocker]

Both the mounting kit and the new gauge panel will be here Friday.
Sigfrid's company has a deal with Fedex and 2 day shipping from Honolulu to Denver was only $50, which is a remarkable deal.

There are some parts we're going to need that I'm hoping to source from the junkyard- primarily an alternator mount- but the weather ain't being real cooperative.
Today looks like the only nice day of the week so I'm going to mush my way over there and lay in the snow to work.
Oh joy.

[clocker]

Well, I saw the kit yesterday and it's pretty much exactly what we were hoping for.
It's the "base" kit, which lacks some lightening holes in the main crossmember and was rather haphazardly sprayed with satin black paint instead of powdercoating.

I'll be respraying it this week with some Hammertone black just to pretty it up some.

We hope to bolt it in next Saturday and are optimistically hoping for a one day install.
This is almost certain to be impossible but the engine/tranny should at least be in place.
No telling yet whether the exhaust will be salvageable with some modification or if we'll just need to start from scratch.
There is also the possibility that the new engine mount pedestals will foul our exhaust manifolds, so we may even need new headers...yikes!

Both Sigfrid and I are baffled by the transmission mount.
The brace we received makes sense (and is far better than what we have now) but which rubber mount we should use is a mystery.
The problem is that this engine/tranny was used by the factory in a wide variety of cars (Camaros, Vettes and even trucks) and they all use different mounting blocks...we need to find out which one to get.
Lots of little details to iron out here...

The "new" gauge panel is a disaster, not at all as advertised.
That is not of immediate importance but needs to be straightened out eventually.

Sigfrid leaves for a week long business trip next Sunday, so I'll be left to deal with whatever is uncompleted after Saturday's session.
If I can somehow get the car drivable enough to bring home we'll be fine but I doubt that'll happen.
Just have to see how this plays out.

[j2k4]

I can barely wait to hear how this shakes out.

(See what I did, there?)

I think I forgot to ask what kind of mounts it'll take - standard sandwich types, or.

Anything at all - even solid mounts - should help the vibration problem immensely.

Hope the exhaust clears...

[j2k4]

As promised, then - please forgive the cell-phone pictures; I was traveling light - the three cars at Clocker's - The Stealth on the left, Clocker's RX7 in the middle, and Sigfrid's RX7 V8 car on the right.

Oh, yeah - all human impersonations performed by the host -



Same thing only backwards:



Backwards, backwards. I guess.



An RX3, with a narrowed differential and slicks; runs a bad little rotary:



For comparison, size-wise:



More of Sigfrid's little pocket-rocket - Clocker and I have begun to refer to it as The Beast:

[clocker]

Glad you used a cell phone...makes my car look as nice as the other two.

[j2k4]

The right cell-camera is like a good paint-job...










I think they all just look - really friggin' red, mostly.

[clocker]

So...we did it.
Mostly.

The conversion went well, if not as quickly as the more optimistic members of the team (Sigfrid & Dan) expected.

The motor and transmission are completely remounted, the new driveshaft and power plant frame are installed.
The new engine cradle moves the engine/tranny back almost 4" and puts us right up to the firewall.
Plenty of room now for a better efan and intake setup.
The boneshaking vibrations are totally gone.

We were also able to go back to the stock shifter and the transmission now feels like a normal car, the agricultural clunks are gone and even reverse is easy to get to.
Amazing difference.

Of course, not all was rosy.
The exhaust is going to need replacing, no way it works with the new setup.
The Optimists thought we'd be able to "cut-n-paste" our system to fit but the mods would be so extensive that a new system makes more sense.

The alternator relocate was a pain.
Sigfrid had purchased a mounting kit but it didn't align the pulleys properly, so it required about an hour of fiddlefucking to make right.
It's good now but the alternator decided to take a dump right as we were going to final test drive her (yup, open headers and all...loud as hell but awesome sound), so a new one is being obtained today.

For some reason, the flange on the new driveshaft didn't mate with our differential, so we had to swap out the flanges.
Not difficult, but another hour spent modifying a "bolt-in" part.

The front lower control arms had to be removed to swap cradles, so our alignment was lost. This was expected but is still one more thing that needs immediate attention.

Only one of the many pics I took turned out so I'll have to redo them when I can but I'll leave with the one that did work...


Dan and Sigfrid are marvelling at something, you can see the exhaust and transmission have already been removed and are laying on the floor.

Dan had done quite a bit of planning and his sequence of attack worked perfectly.
We didn't even have to remove the engine and in fact, none of the wiring or coolant system was disturbed, which saved lots of time.
Had the alternator not failed, we'd have driven the car out of the shop Saturday night.
As it is, we now face a few days delay but I finally sense that we might be getting close.

[j2k4]

Hurrah!

The final resolution is in sight, at long last.

[clocker]

Yes, it is but things have slowed to a crawl this week.
Sigfrid is out of town on a business trip and Dan is working on customer cars, so the Beast just sits.

Later today I'll be installing the new (junkyard) alternator and after that I don't know what's next.
We had briefly considered changing the headers but the one's we wanted were sold before I could see them.
The car desperately needs an alignment but it's obnoxious to drive with no exhaust.

I might just lay back till Friday and let Sigfrid sort out the schedule.