Revamping the Rx7

Quote
mekilljoydammit
... call me a filthy heretic but I've never really gotten the hang of transparent beer. Maybe it's just me.

Filthy heretic.
Gawd did not come down to Earth and after entering into a Compact with the ancient Vlaamse (Flemings)(my ancestors) entrust to them the secret of making Lambic beer. (and while he was at it, and complemtary to the beer, teach them to make the Foord of the Gawds: Fritjes (which the world knew by the langue of those who conquered the fierce Vlaamse, "Pommes frites"* )

Lambic beer is not made like the mere swill that most people pour down their gullets, no it is a unique process.....shallow pans are placed in attics with the juice stuff cooked up with no added yeast...Only the yeast floating around in the atmosphere is used....of course with each man, woman and child in the country drinking an average of 144 liters per year and the attendant satisfied burping, there's plenty of yeast bugs in the air.

After a few weeks in these shallow pans the beer is poured into used red wine barrels--oak of course, and saturated with all the deliciousness found in red wine.. Its then laid down for about 6 months....then it may be drunk or may get some raspberries or maybe cherries squeezed in or even peach, and let to sit again...

It is unlike any other beer in the world and fascinating in its complex flavors, and you can quaff a couple of liters easily..
Of course at 8 or 10% alcohol that leads to a lot of unexpected behavior, romance, what you think is romance and just plain fun.
2 25cl beers before lunch and you're not hammered but man can you shove in a huge amount of fritjes.

If i was dictator of the world i would, after i erased all borders, knight all the lambic beer makers and make the into missionaries to spread the truth to the world.
And we would finally have World Peace.

What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Framboise. Lambic beer fermented with raspberries. Also what a lady from my past job ordered right after I'd watched the episode of the TV show Archer that featured a woman named Framboise who at one point is referred to as "the Pele of anal." Needless, I'm at this happy hour with a bunch of doctors and public health women and I keep laughing to myself because the girls beer reminds me of "the Pele of anal."

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Grant Hughes

too dark for pics of the engine bay but i got a 900 turbo radiator. It fit great honestly, and its crossflow!

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First Rally: 2010 First RallyX: 2004 (a bunch)
Driver (0), Co-Driver (7)
Organizer (3), Volunteer (3)
Cars Built (2.5), Engines Blown (2) Cages Built (0) # of rotations (3.5)
Last Updated, Apr 9, 2023

Needs paint! and a wire count Cant wait to hear it run.

Looks awesome. Even like it is.

That's cooooool. Looks mean.

Looking good Alex! It's fun to see how much progress you have made, especially since I've been so hindered on my 7 with finances and school/time.

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"The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know and have so much more to learn." - Claude Rouelle, Optimum G lecture June, 2011

maybe one day it will even run!

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First Rally: 2010 First RallyX: 2004 (a bunch)
Driver (0), Co-Driver (7)
Organizer (3), Volunteer (3)
Cars Built (2.5), Engines Blown (2) Cages Built (0) # of rotations (3.5)
Last Updated, Apr 9, 2023

One day it will run.

Just keep plugging away at it.

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"Rally racing makes a heroin addiction look like a vague craving for something salty"

I know the feeling Alex.
But I agree with Matt. With the amount of effort you've put into it and the knowledge and advice you're getting on RA, it will run. My money is on sooner than later.

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"The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know and have so much more to learn." - Claude Rouelle, Optimum G lecture June, 2011

Some more pics.

Managed to make the pin mounts for the rear hatch. Also, trimmed the fenders for tire clearance since the axle line moved forward. Also, also, mounted the Saab 900 radiator and the intercooler. Used square tube and some flat steel on the bottom, then aluminum on the top. Clutch line is done. Brakes are getting there. I need some odd ball fitting for the input to the Wilwood cylinder.

Going to clean and prep the inside of the car here soon so i can paint the inside after filling holes and just plain old age and wear. Then the fuel lines and brakes lines will be mounted permanently in the cabin and the electrical can begin.

---

First Rally: 2010 First RallyX: 2004 (a bunch)
Driver (0), Co-Driver (7)
Organizer (3), Volunteer (3)
Cars Built (2.5), Engines Blown (2) Cages Built (0) # of rotations (3.5)
Last Updated, Apr 9, 2023

I know Volvos stack radiator-sized intercoolers in front of their radiators, but look closely at the fin density and tube spacing on those intercoolers and you can tell they were designed with a high priority on passing air through to the radiator. Bar and plate intercoolers like the one you have are very dense, and that poor radiator is going to be starving for air.

Engine cooling is pretty much your #1 concern with rally. Rally cars work their engines harder and longer and with less airspeed than any other form of racing. I'm sure you don't want to hear this, but you need to send that big shiny thing back to eBay and get something smaller so your poor radiator has a chance.

Just for reference, we make up to 200 wheel hp on our 1.6 Miata engine with incredibly crude tuning with this $15 MX6 Turbo intercooler:



Having much more intercooler than that really doesn't gain you anything.

Dave,
I think some slower thinking is needed.

What you say is right up to the conclusion.

IF we believe that Setrab and Mocal know what they are doing supplying OEMs and all kinds of top world level teams for decades, they say it is the sheer VOLUME of air passing thru the cooling elements (and of course when they wrote what they wrote, it was pre intra-webz discussion forums so you didn't have to make disclaimers for the yapping airhead Chihuahua puppies of the world---and they didn't say "Presuming the ambient air temp is lower" )

They made both of them noise about THE GAP, stressing that stacked cooling elements should be right against each other so air would continue thru the second element be in oil cooler in front of rad or vice versa..
and any gap they said will allow turbulence and disturb smooth flow thru the second element..

Neither made any noise about stacked elements, but lots about maintaining flow on thru..

Later talking to somebody I forget but maybe some Ford guys who use a rather deep intercooler somebody said "Oi just look 'ow deep them big diesel radiators are, if there wuz a problem with flow thru the first part, then there'd be no point in making 'em deep, eh? And why do they make 'em deep?"

I say looks fine, give it a try, run those nice 2 fans if need be ...there are 12-13 choices for the on/off temps in that fan switch, plus an override is just a ground wire from that fan switch to an on/off switch to ground.

Brillian idea wif da saab rad and fans. Simply marvelous

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Alex, I'm liking what you did with the hood pins and strap on the rear glass. I may just have to copy that.

John, I love how unbiased *cough cough* you are about Saab components. Though I'm also very interested to see how they work out. I think I have my cooling all figgered out, but I'm worried that I could be very very wrong, since I have yet to push my car hard and heat soak the thing.

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"The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know and have so much more to learn." - Claude Rouelle, Optimum G lecture June, 2011

Quote
MeCalledEvan


John, I love how unbiased *cough cough* you are about Saab components. Though I'm also very interested to see how they work out. I think I have my cooling all figgered out, but I'm worried that I could be very very wrong, since I have yet to push my car hard and heat soak the thing.

It's not bias. Its a cost/availability/ease deal multiplied by the great fact that we've used 'em in cars round 300 bhp and they work.

And soooooooooper critically, ya notice that they can be found in ALL METAL which means anybody can move inlets and outlets, and add stuffs

AND


They can bend pretty good in a thump and not shatter the cheesoid-u-lar POS plastic tanks like oh say Xratty originals, or aftermarket Volvo.

The OEM 900 rad is a "high efficiency" core with lotas rows and lotsa fins per inch, it is within a fraction of an inch of the OEM Cosworth radiator, also a high efficiency core know good past 350 bhp.

It has that extremely common M22 bung for the nearly ubiquitous Euro fan switch used all over since 1975 so huge choice of on/off temps.

You notice also that Alex, being a smrat boy, got the 900 turbo rad which comes with 2 very very good fans (or he really paid attention and got a n.a. rad which comes with one flat and one not so flat, and he glommed onto another flat and mounted it up.)


As always a whole pile of solid reasons for using a particular part again and again (like Volvo 240 rear calipers) cause it is cheap and it is right---and we have a lot of other things to "think" about.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.