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Akagis_White_Comet

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Greetings everyone, I am Akagis_White_Comet. Been in Central Ohio since I was a year old, but moved to Columbus last November and finally got on here after being referred by ObliqueFD. My normal haunt is the RX7club as a forum moderator and general beacon of hope for N00bs of the Rotary Engine. My overall specialty is anything regarding wiring, circuits and whatnot, the vast majority having been designed for or implemented on my heavily modified 1987 RX-7.

 

Okay, here are some pics:

 

When I brought her home:

http://www.rx7club.com/members/akagis_white_comet-109727-albums-general-pics-7251-picture-when-i-brought-her-home-54457.jpg

 

Over at ObliqueFD's place shortly after:

http://www.rx7club.com/members/akagis_white_comet-109727-albums-general-pics-7251-picture-hanging-out-obliquefds-ssm-fd-54458.jpg

 

Under the hood back then...

http://www.rx7club.com/members/akagis_white_comet-109727-albums-general-pics-7251-picture-such-humble-beginnings-54459.jpg

 

How she looks today on the outside:

http://www.rx7club.com/members/akagis_white_comet-109727-albums-general-pics-7251-picture-fd-wheels-54460.jpg

 

And what I've done to her:

http://www.rx7club.com/members/akagis_white_comet-109727-albums-twin-turbo-vacuum-overhaul-7051-picture-complete-vacuum-system-after-overhaul-53627.jpg

 

The only thing I've not touched is the Power Steering :gabe:

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Neato wiring. Ever think of designing your own ECU?

 

Building an ECU...sounds like a huge undertaking and is a bit beyond me at the moment, especially since I'm not too good with a soldering iron yet. If I had more practice with an iron, building a Megasquirt would be fun to do. But for now, I'm plenty happy with my Haltech PS2K. Just yesterday, I added a Knock-based ignition retard circuit based on a GM ESA box from a Chevy Astro and a 7:1 voltage divider I designed to reduce the output voltage down from 5v to 2.5v so the Haltech would read the stock Mazda knock sensors correctly. It pulls both leading AND trailing ignition timing when the voltage input the circuit resides on drops below 2.5v (during knock).

Total cost to build the circuit: $4

 

However, I do have an impressive project on the sketchbook right now. It is well known that the FC's coolant temperature gauge sender is poor at best and most owners Series 5 (89-91)'s are especially bad, having essentially three positions: Cold, Warmed up and New Engine. This behavior has most owners add a new gauge based on a separate sender. This duplication of functions just seems in poor taste to me, so I did the wiring groundwork throughout the car to accommodate something better....

 

So I built a device that generates signals for every gauge that could reasonably be used in a RX-7, both stock and aftermarket, as the first part of a BIG upgrade. Using this device, I discovered that all of the gauges respond quite slowly...

 

So I designed a new gauge cluster from scratch. All the stock gauges from both the N/A & Turbo FC are present (Speedo, Tach, Oil Pressure, Coolant Temperature, Fuel Level, Voltmeter & Boost), along with the ever-important Air/Fuel Ratio. Thanks to the way I've designed the cluster, it can use any sensor I want for any function. A prime example of this is already on the car now as its coolant temperature sensor is from a LS2 Corvette. I did this because it was cheaper than the original Mazda part, is threaded identically (M12x1.5) and the appropriate connector can be found at the same parts store as the sensor on a daily basis anywhere in North America. While I do have the electrical specifications for the stock sensor, its connector is a bit more difficult to find as I've not yet identified its manufacturer (another side project).

 

Anyway, back to the story. Entirely digital cluster, fits the car's character & period, accepts any sensor input with the proper code/electrical scaling and can be reflashed for different sensors in 15 minutes with just a USB cable.

 

The only part that would be carried over is the stock odometer for legal reasons as well as simplicity due to the HUGE amount of effort required to build code for a digital odometer properly. FDs use a 93C56 memory chip for storing/recalling the mileage. Although I could crack its encryption and reverse-engineeer its code structure with a few data dumps of chips in clusters of varying mileage (SNES & PS2 save hacking is a fun pasttime), it would take just as long to build code to read/write to the chip in the same manner. Much simpler to retain the stock odometer using a couple in-family parts and some electrical wizardry via a stepper motor or stepper encoder depending on how I do it, it's still on the drawing boards for the time being.

 

I think in ohms...

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Travis - the pic of the engine bay was not complete (intake not plumbed in) and it looks like it is / was laying under a pine tree. Is this one on the road (Never saw / heard it before). I am also over on the rx7club (Very limited anymore) and don't recall seeing anything from you.

 

Either way my FD is similar to Obliques (SSM) and I mine is back on the road again.

Welcome to a great place to hear BS and some good (Some not so) threads.

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