The Project Pad

"Creep" in the sense that the project has continued to evolve.. And evolve... And evolve...

I blame Jonathan. he keeps giving me ideas. Then selling me stuff.

Pictures forthcoming. The original plan of dropping a WK into the Quantum changed into dropping a stock MC2 into the Quantum. Then things got... a little weird.

Cylinder head #4 is assembled. Picking up block number... three? four? next week. Other pieces of the puzzle coming in steadily.

As with any Pete project, this is either gonna really suck or be really cool.

It's about time. haha

How about some pictures?

Part of the ugh was realizing that the WK is simply a dead end, being the goofy (in 2010) 2.1 with solid lifters that parts are scarce to nonexistent for. I still have the valvetrain, reciprocating assembly, and exhaust manifold/downpipe from that engine.

Enter the MC2. "Drop it in" turned into "eh, do the head gasket while it's out". If I'm pulling the head, it's getting 034 exhaust valves, so I order those. I already had an ARP head stud set for a Corrado G60, so I acquired two more studs/washers/nuts to make a five cylinder set. Engine came with no flywheel, so I drive out to western Michigan to pick up an MC1 flywheel/clutch. I also picked up an ur-S4 intercooler and an ur-Q igloo.

In the three years between then and now, I found that the head that was on the engine was warped so badly that it needed to be cut .017 to get flat again. Nope! So I get a JT head and start porting. And porting. And porting. Most of the seriously long project time is because I had way more other fires to put out. My RX-7 is my true calling and it gets the attention.



I was most of the way done when Jonathan offered me a deal on something different, so I went that route. It recieved... less extensive porting. The ports looked beautiful compared to the JT casting so I spent a lot less time on it.



THAT head was completed as of a couple weeks ago. Getting ready to put it on. Scrape the block's deck down to cleanliness after leaving the head gasket on there as damage/rust prevention, and UGH. Cracked deck. It looks like someone did a head gasket and didn't blow the coolant out of the head bolt holes, and hydrauliced a bolt. I have pictures somewhere but not uploaded yet.

Pick up another engine for its block. It came from a long list of people in the local Audi community but hadn't been run for a long time. Pull the head, and it's an MC1 not MC2! Cool, 7.8 pistons for another time. Then I look in cylinder #1 and it's rust. And rust. And more rust. It might clean up at 82mm overbore, but I'm not about to buy pistons and machine time when I can source another block. O'ell. The inside of the engine was clean as could be at least, and the head had NO cracks between the seats! Too bad I have no use for it at the moment.

Around this time, I start running into difficulty sourcing the (shockingly expensive!) intake air temp sensor that the MAC-14 needs. It's a PTC sensor, not NTC, so I can't just adapt a GM sensor or something. I discovered it while paring down the wiring harness for the MAC-14 install into B2 chassis. My plan WAS to use the chassis-side fuel pump control and leave the MAC-14 out of the loop as far as tach and fuel pump control is concerned. No worry about fuel cut if it can't cut fuel in the first place But the temp sensor thing had me bummed. I speak about it with my employer and he points out that it is probably not wise to rely on a car for which parts can be so frustratingly difficult to find.

That's when I realize that the fuel distributor MIGHT be gunked up like the one in my GTI is, and the one in the Quantum currently is (which is why it has run on four cylinders for pretty much the entire 100,000mi or so that I've owned it) and there's so many other variables and I just want to finish the damn car so I can drive it...

Project creep!

Speaking of the GTI, I decided that I'm going to adapt GM electronics to the car. Engine, instrument cluster, everything will be like the car is pretending to be a '01ish Cavalier. Should be pretty trick.

AAN head gasket DOES WORK with 82.5mm bores.

Also, the Volvo whatever-the-hell injectors that I have WILL WORK JUST FINE in Audi NG injector holders if you use lower O-rings from... hell I don't know what, they were the bigger O-rings that come with an upper manifold for a Buick 3800 Series II, I think... I have a Ziploc with about 100-150 injector O-rings and some of them fit. Anyway I won't need to modify the injector cups to put EFI injectors where CIS fuel dribblers are supposed to go. And the 034 20v fuel rail will fit an NG manifold peachy-keen as well. One of the bolt holes even lines up with a threaded hole on the NG manifold.

Wait. NG manifold?

Oh hey, remember when I said that it's all Jonathan's fault?

That combustion chamber pic makes me wonder if rounding off the sharp edges of the combustion chamber would help with det. also is there any potential for unshrouding the intake valve or is it too close to the cylinder wall?

The intake valve is already very unshrouded. I remain unconcerned.

As far as detonation is concerned, every thing I've read regarding the subject suggests that rounded edges are exactly what you don't want on the quench pads. This, of course, assumes that you actually have quench, and the pistons I have pretty much don't have any quench. But neither did any Audi 20vt piston, just making a bowl roughly biased toward the spark plug instead of bothering to try to mirror the chamber in the cylinder head.

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The 034 fuel rail does not line up properly with the NG intake manifold. The rail looks like it was made too long, and the injectors splay out progressively worse from the center to the ends. It should still be fuel- and air-tight on the injectors, but it just looks funny. It's maybe 1.5mm off over the whole length.

Acquired: 60-2 wheel and VR sensor mount.

Slowly but surely. Rather like a Quantum.

And if you think that looks bad, the A2 cars had 6.3:1 compression, which is .7 less than this engine should have...

"Fuel rail bracket is finished", says Pete, just to see Jonathan's fabricator-perfectionism blow a forehead vein in anger

I like that manifold!

Two questions, you have a second bracket right? Second is are you sure it's a good idea to run the injector shrouds or is that just a mockup?

2nd on the injector shroud question.

You can buy the thread-in replacements. The NG manifold is late enough (not WX and maybe KH) that it must have the small diameter CIS inserts, which means you can buy Digifant2 EFI injector inserts for a few bucks each, and Bob's your mother's brother.

Of course you may already know this....

The NG manifold is not threaded. It needs special drop-in inserts.

No, that is not the final bracketry Was checking for fitment.

The NG injector bores are the correct diameter to be tapped if you can find an m22 tap for the digicams inserts


Sernt frrrerm Terrrperrterrrk

A digifant cup fell right in. Threading not possible.

Since the fuel rail is a slightly different manufacturing centerline than the manifold (manufacturing error?) and the injector cup O-rings are perpetually Not Available and they seem to be a weirdball size that I can't match up, I'm thinking about filing the injector cups off-center so I can position them directly under the rails, so the injectors sit flat. Then, Right Stuff to seal them to the holes.

I have been busy with prepping the RX-7 for the Great Lakes National Challenge, and soon the National Championship, which means little time and zero funds for this project. Again.









I did make some progress this weekend though, in that I figured out how to remove the cut-off head gasket dowels. At the front, the hole was blind, so I ground a bit out of the block until I found the bottom of the hole, then opened it up with a teardrop (flame?) burr until I could fit a punch in there to drive it out. The rear dowel was more tricky, since the hole is not blind and so things rusted in there pretty good. I ended up taking a thin blade and slitting the outside of the block to relieve pressure on the dowel remains. THEN it allowed me to drive it out.

Now I just need to source a water outlet style freeze plug for the watercooled turbo, see if I can machine the block for knock sensors (it is NOT machined for dual sensors), buy a new timing belt, figure out what is going on with the oil pump pickup, fabricate the water manifold, install the 60-2 wheel, and maybe it will be almost ready to put in the car...

http://www.bacciromano.com/?p=prodotti& ... dref=#4920

$11500 for a gearkit and three plate diffs.

Well, why the heck not? It's still cheaper than buying an Evo...

Well, things have come to a screeching halt, and I am looking for a new place to work out of.

Until then, I'm looking into buying a new car so that I can drive something a little less worn-out, and stocking up on the equipment I will need to fabricate with before I start spending $500+/mo on renting my own shop, starting probably in the spring so that I won't have to pay heating bills yet. (Gas heat for the shop where I work is roughly $1000-1500/mo, which is why we installed a waste oil furnace a while back)

Until then, here's more pictures of the Mazda.



(roughly :45 in at video)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQD_oW3wo9E[/youtube]

Last weekend:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_1Ntkxo3GM[/youtube]

Cut off front of oil pump flush with oil pan surface, bevel to clear weld bead:



Not all blocks are tapped/faced for dual knock sensors. This was wasn't, now it is:



Studs! AAN head gasket! Forged 82.5mm pistons with boost friendly compression!



Head bolted down, 80ft-lb on the studs:



Brazed, ported, refaced MC2 exhaust manifold, new studs/nuts/water pump/timing belt:



After much deliberation, put the K26 turbo on vs. K24. Because REASONS. Yeah, I know the K24 has a bigger compressor. I want to make it easier to get the exhaust OUT abd the K26 has a much bigger hotside. Also the K26 is supposed to have a much beefier shaft and bearings, which is a big plus for me.

I cut a little too much off of the lower timing cover for 60-2 clearance. If I can dig up another one quickly, I'll trim it less and install that one. I know I have another upper cover that I'd blasted and painted, but couldn't find it.



And final shot for this round of work. Shiny, idn't it?

I just realized something... my signature says "MC2 goes here."

The only things in that engine from the MC2 are the crank, oil pump and pickup, dipstick and tube, exhaust manifold, and camshaft. And, I think, the valve cover.

I think I have about forty head bolts in my boxes of Stuff.

So I spent all of 2015 driving my Volvo since my Quantum is dead-ish and competing in RallyCross in other peoples' cars since my RX-7 makes too much power/traction and is eating up axles and rearend housings like nobody's business.

There are... plans... in store for both of these issues. But I'm thinking that I will keep the Volvo. It's a nice little Q-ship that gets shockingly good fuel economy. And the heated seats and A/C work great.

I decided to check the air filter. I bought the car in ealy 2009 and I never looked at it.

Because the air filter is really hard to find, I made an access hole:



And here it is, finally!



It's still good so I put it back in the airbox.

Update?

Photobucket ate all my photos, and I bought another RX-7 to play with, so this has kind of gone stagnant. I'm half tempted to just get rid of it all and buy an Evo or something, if I could find a stock one.

Plan B is to get the 20v engine out and go with a 07K/01E swap because I like the idea of 600hp more than I like the idea of 400hp. But that would cost way more money, I could probably finish this car over the winter for only $3000-4000 if I would stop pouring money into trying to restore an '81 RX-7 instead.

Part of my sticking point is that dang 60-1 wheel I put on the damper. I'm paranoid that harmonic vibrations will crack the weld off and leave me stranded 50 miles from anywhere. So I want to go with one of those neat-o rear seal crank sensors. But I don't want to spend $450 or whatever for the "drop in" solution, so I had been researching piecing together parts from a 2.0 TDI, and the seal itself is cheap (like $80-ish) but then you need to buy the sensor too, and the wiring pigtail if you want to connect it to anything, and we're up close to $300 anyway.

I mean, I *could* still just use the MC2 computer to run ignition-only, but its ignition tables would be less than optimal with my lower compression, and it would be going through the distributor which is also bogus. I'd much prefer to have a rack of IGN-1A coils controlled by an MS3-Pro.

Basically I continue to waste time because I keep buying things for other cars instead of parts for this one.

I'm running a 60-2 wheel on my damper with my MS3X setup with no issues. My engine was not rebalanced after rebuild, and have no issues. My damper is also very tried and true though, I bought it from Jim Green when he switched to 07K. I'm also running a hall sensor in place of a VR sensor in my setup.

That's the other thing, I don't exactly have a sensor yet and I could never figure out what sensor is supposed to work with the 034 bracket.

Balance isn't an issue on an inline engine, but the thing that worries is is HARMONICS ripping it apart. The same harmonics that destroy oil pumps and crank cogs.