94 Rx7 Street/Track build A.K.A. greatwhitebuffalo

[Cordell]

This is a tough one, so I'm gonna get lengthy on the response. Mid Ohio is home to me, so it'll always be my favorite. My brother and I estimate we have at least 4,000-5,000+ laps there now since we first started there on motorcycles in our teenage years. I joke with my wife that my soul lives at Mid Ohio and I just go visit it a few times a year. Mid Ohio is 1/2 hp and 1/2 technical so it requires both commitment and driver skills. Once you learn Mid Ohio you can apply it to any track out there as there's a bit of everything at Mid Ohio.

 

We live so close to Mid Ohio and it's a great track that for a long time we didn't really branch out much so over the past few years we've been making an effort to go to at least one further away track per year and I'm happy for that.

 

Watkins glen is easily the most exhilarating track I've driven. The elevation change is NUTS, the walls are so close they freak out out at first, and it's a high speed course that requires stone cold ballsack to go fast (the professional term I use is: commitment). It's a HP track but you can make up for that if you're willing to drive hard there. The facilities here make Mid Ohio look country bumpkin. The location of the track makes Mid Ohio seem downright metropolitan.

 

VIR is a similarly FAST course with high speeds, big brake zones and some challenging elevation. It's more of a HP track though and harder to make up that difference except in a few spots.

 

PITT is a very technically challenging course and I wish I had gotten more time there. I definitely plan to go back. It has some major elevation with the downhill section to a tight 180 that then leads back up a big hill. The esses seem like they should be easy, but each one is a bit different. It's more of a HP track than I thought it'd be and it's also HARD on brakes and pretty hard on tires with the new surface.

 

Putnam Park is just a good old time. It's flat but still uses small camber to create different turn variables. There's TONS of run off room - except on the most important corner coming onto the front straight..haha. But if you want to practice car control and driving at the limit in a safe environment this is your best bet outside of a skidpad. It's a shorter track with faster laps so sessions stay busy without a lot of rest time.

 

Nelson Ledges may be the trailer park of current tracks, but it has its merits. It's cheap (or was at least) and is fast and fun. It's a flowing track with big sweeping turns and fast laps. It's unfortunate the condition deteriorated over the years. I haven't been back after the repave, but hold out hope it can be worth revisiting again at some point. It's a hard sell though because PITT is only a bit further for us and I'd much rather be there. Anyone closer to Nelson that can go there for a one-day event would have money well spent to go there though.

 

TL;DR list

1. Mid Ohio - Driver's track

2. Watkins Glen - Fun, Fast, Scary, and takes commitment

3. VIR - Fast track with multiple corner elements not seen elsewhere

4. PITT - very technical, high HP, hard on the car

5. Putnam - hard to have a bad time here

6. Nelson Ledges - the kid in the PG-13 movie you're really hoping makes it happen

 

This is a great post and merits quoting it, I read it twice. I’m really looking forward to 2019 and committing to getting on track again. Thanks.

[Not Brian]

re-opened per request

[Smokey]

In my normal fashion it's been a while since I've updated this thread. After VIR last year I got the car home and cleaned it up before putting it away for the winter. As you can see it was pretty funky with rubber all over it and the back gets coated with fuel/premix/funk from the exhaust

 

I also picked up a chip in the windshield either at the track day or on the tow home which is annoying.

 

Got it polished up and a few coats of AMMO skin on it

 

The only bummer is that I confirmed that I came back from VIR with a turbo gasket exhaust leak. So they'll get torn off again....that's a common theme.

[Smokey]

I made the decision with my brother that for 2019 we'll be doing limited car track events and diving in with both feet into a full season of karting with the family. That doesn't mean I'm completely ignoring the Rx7, but it'll change use and priorities. I'm planning on doing 2 events this year in the car and both at Mid Ohio to keep it simple and low-cost.

 

I have a planned intercooler upgrade and battery relocation, but I wasn't going to have time to get to them before the first event in May, so it was just focusing on fixing the turbo gaskets and preparing for the event.

 

Got the turbos taken off and found the exhaust leak. It's always on the same place, the thin section of the gasket for the secondary turbos. This time though it was on the manifold side that it failed which was interesting. Remember last time I had the turbine housings machined, but only block sanded the manifold? Maybe the issue, maybe not. There was more cracking on the turbine housings than I expected with the "higher nickel content" of the '99 spec turbos, but not enough to worry at this time.

 

Here you can see the leak on the manifold side. You can also see the damn bolt that broke off in the manifold meaning it was now trash.

 

Here's the gasket showing the failure

 

I also managed to bake another turbo control actuator to where it'll work under vacuum but leaks under pressure. You can see the plastic deformed around the arm and this is the indicator to test it and see if it's done...mine was.

 

I was able to source a new manifold and turbo control actuator. Side-note these things are getting expensive. I also got a backup manifold and I have a backup set of turbine housings and I'll have them machined and ready for go for the next time I'm guaranteed to do this project.

 

Here are the low mile manifold and turbine housings back from machining...so pretty

 

Also since I keep cooking the actuator I took some spare gold reflective foil and wrapped it all up. Will this really save me headaches of this part failing again? Not likely lol, but it makes me feel like I at least tried to remedy it.

 

Turbos back together with new crush washers for oil and coolant lines. Got the turbos back on and feeling good about moving the project along....except something looked off about the turbos...

oh, that's right, the heat shield is missing!

 

Had to take everything off and put the heat shield on. Spent an hour thinking i could wedge it in there without doing that, but to no avail. Here's how it should look if you don't mess it up.

[Smokey]

Remember that chip in the windshield? Despite being in the garage all winter, the chip turned into a crack...which wouldn't be suitable to pass tech for any HPDE...DOH

 

Called around and SafeLite was the only company that said they could get a windshield for it. Ordered the grey tint at the top because I like the look better than the blue. Took off the wipers and cowl trim to make it easier for the tech

 

Day of the appointment came and Safelite calls 1/2 way thru my appointment time to tell me the windshield they got is damaged....and it's the only grey tint one they had in their entire inventory....sweet. Luckily they were still able to order a blue one, but I had to wait for it to come in. It finally came in and my mobile tech was really cool. They didn't have an exact match for the windshield trim like they said they would, so he helped us try out a couple ones until we found the best solution. In hindsight I should have ordered the factory trim to have it ready for them to install. Live and Learn. This one is a little bigger, but still the best of the options we had and at least I have a nice new windshield even if it's blue tint.

 

Next up for prep was to put in fresh diff and trans fluid. Ordered Neo fluids like I've been running, then got home to find my shipment like this...

Thankfully the company was great about issuing replacements, but damn was that mess a pain to clean up. I can still see some of the staining on the porch as I haven't had time to borrow a pressure washer to take to it.

 

Other than that I was using brake pads I already had so I swapped those out, gave a quick brake bleed, mounted the brake cooling duct hoses, wheels/tires and was ready for the first event of the year.

[Smokey]

First event of 2019 was at Mid Ohio with Chin Track Days. Weather was on and off for rain just like this whole damn year has been. Thankfully we didn't miss too much time, just had some damp conditions in the mornings with overnight rain, and lost the last afternoon and left early. Still was able to put 200+ track miles on the car though so plenty of time. Car did great no complaints other than you can hear the rear rotors in my videos again. I've just had a bad batch with this set of rear rotors is my best guess as they've given me fits from the beginning. I'll likely replace them this year and keep them as emergency backups.

 

Had a good run with a newer really well built Mustang race car.

 

Here's playing around with my friend in the black C7Z from previous videos. Always fun to see how our cars compare. His car has only upgraded brake pads/fluid and runs Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires. I'm noticeably less power, but tons of upgrades and running slicks. It just goes to show how far car performance has come. Mid Ohio is 1/2 hp track and 1/2 tight and technical track. His power gives him an advantage from the front straight through the back straight. Then my tire/grip gives me an advantage on the back side of the course from the end of the back straight until the front straight. Makes for some fun with me trying to wring the ever-loving life out of my car on the back side of the course to reel in his gap, then he can gap me again on the front side. We ended up running fast lap times within 0.1 sec thru our full run together, we just get it done in completely different ways with our cars.

 

Here's the short version of just us playing together

 

Here's the long version of us working some other traffic and he also lets me by and we continue on. Same results, I can gap him a bit on the back side, and he reels me in on the front half. Check on the later laps where you can see him in my mirrors on the back straight and how much he can close that gap!

[Smokey]

After the event I washed the car and put it back into street trim (street wheels/tires, street brake pads, remove brake cooling hoses). In doing the pads I could hear something bouncing around in the brake rotors. The good news is that the brake ducting works. The bad news is that it'll catch rubber coming off of cars (like when I'm close to that mustang) and they get in behind the rotors and turn rock hard with the heat and just bounce around there. Not hurting anything, but not helping cooing and sounds annoying.

 

I also had some pretty big chunks out of one of one of the front pads. They were near the end of their life, but i'll keep an eye out for more of this in the future. Just got them pretty hot it seems which happens with 30 minute sessions. Here's the bogey one and the other from that caliper for comparison

 

I've still got like 2-3 sets of half-used pads that I'll use up in the fall at Mid Ohio. Next event isn't planned until Sept. Hopefully that gives me time to tackle some other projects, but life moves fast in the summer so who knows. I'm also actively trying to drive the car on the street more and put some street miles on it for once.

[Smokey]

Next event isn't planned until Sept. Hopefully that gives me time to tackle some other projects, but life moves fast in the summer so who knows. I'm also actively trying to drive the car on the street more and put some street miles on it for once.

 

Well....life moves fast so no major projects completed for the car before the final event this year.

 

I did make a change to try out some Yokohama slicks instead of the Pirellis. They're also larger at 285/650/18 compared to the typical 265/645/18 I was running in the Pirelli. Thankfully they weren't really any taller of diameter which is important because that's where most of my fit issues come from.

 

Fit on the front was tight for sure. Rubbed all over the fender liners, and had a couple small rubs on the metal, but thankfully nothing that did damage. I'll probably go back to the Pirellis and maybe try the 285 Pirelli or stick with the tried and true 265.

 

Here's a view comparing them to the 275/35-18 NT-01s on a 10" wheel. The slicks are on 10.5"

 

I finally broke down and replaced the rear rotors. They weren't cracked and had good life left in them, but from the beginning seemed to be out of true and made a lot of noise. Win some lose some. I kept them as backups if needed.

[Smokey]

Final event of the year was Sept at Mid Ohio which is always good. Weather cooperated for the most part except some overnight rains and rain on Sunday. Was able to get in a lot of track time though so no complaints.

 

Friday was going great until I parked the car for lunch and then went out in the afternoon and the boost response was suuuupppper slow and not making full boost until very high RPMs. The car was noticeably down on power....bummer. After letting the car cool and poking around for a while I was finally able to figure out the wastegate actuator arm on the turbos had popped off. I had lost the little circlip that holds it on. I had one back in my spare parts bin but that wasn't helping me. I was able to PAINFULLY remove the head shields (real pain in the ass with the downpipe still on) and get a loop of safety wire around it.

 

Went out to test and was pleasantly surprised to have it working as intended again! My reaction when driving the car afterward:

 

Here's a good run with my brother on Friday as well. He was only running Nittos this weekend and they were old as dirt but still working. I was on my slicks so I SHOULD have had a major advantage, but at least this weekend it seemed to make us much more even than I'd like to admit. Either way made for lots of fun. He had more motor and brakes and I had more grip.

 

We had lots of these back and forths all weekend which was great fun. I also had a great run with another friend in a 991 GT3, but unfortunately was testing out my son's action camera and the video is all washed out, so no video.

 

Hoping to again try to tackle some improvements/updates for next year, so we'll see how motivated I can get over the winter or not. Also have lots of kart prep to do over the winter for next season.

[Smokey]

For any curious about why I haven't spent as much time/money on the Rx7 this year: we did 15 kart races this year with my brother and son and that eats up an enormous amount of time. It's been tons of fun though. Ended up 3rd in the Master's class points championship and Andy won. Not too bad for our first full season of competition.

 

I finally started mounting my go-pro for the last event. Here's the final race on-board. Got pole and won the pre-final so starting pole for the final. Got beat to turn 3 and had some iffy driving the first part of the race until the kart came in and was able to gain back some time. Found out afterward I had broken a seat mounting tab which I think was contributing to some of the unpredictability.