If you're in the prosport price range, I would look on egauges.com and get a VDO. I have a prosport in the miata that used to be in the SC cavy and a VDO in the wrx. I like the VDO more, the needle responds faster (and it was cheaper).

 

Hmm, just looked on there and it looks like all the VDO are either mechanical or only display boost rather than vac and boost?

 

You want mechanical boost. Yeah its slightly more of a pain to run the vac line into the cabin but they're faster than electric, or I should say, they're faster than electric analog boost gauges.

 

you should already have vacuum line in cabin for EMS.

 

Ehhhh, my EMS4 harness from trackspeed was setup that way. I depinned the map sensor connector and put the pins into a normal weather pack connector, made an extension harness for it and put it under the hood. Electriciy move faster than air pressure. But the stepper motor in an electric boost gauge moves slower than air.

And of course 1 foot of vac line between the manifold and the sensor has a lower chance of getting pinched vs 6'. Pinched line to a boost gauge is no big deal, the one to the map sensor...

 

I'd expect a 60' vacuum line to read the same as a 6'.

 

What about response times on a 60' setup for a solenoid based EBC? Acceptable?

 

Well, about 3 hours in right now, just got everything 50% bolted together for an initial test fit and the findings are... well, they're something...

started the pile of parts:



The nice clean cylinder head. Has about 6k miles on the rebuild, it had literally 0 when I bought it (the shop hadn't even set timing on it yet when I went to test drive it)



Now with turbo



clearance for wastegate is going to be tight...



The downpipe hits the frame pretty good right at the last bend by the tranny, so good that I can't get all the bolts started in it because of it.



Hits the heater hose pretty good too, I don't think there's any getting around it either.



And then my favorite part yet, I wanted the premade downpipe so I wouldn't need to go to a muffler shop right off the bat...



Well, I haven't decided what I'm going to do about this yet... One things for sure though, I'm dipping into my savings account a little bit, I've started the transfer but funds won't clear til monday.

 

Well you did buy it all on ebay, just return it.

 

 

You know, with all the good luck I've had from ebay parts, I guess I was long overdue for something like this oh well, so I have to bust out the credit card a little, at least now I can get something cool, lol. I've now got parts on the way from fedex, ups, and usps

 

Well, I was hoping to surprise you all sometime within the next week or so with a pic of a sexy ARtech downpipe... but apparently he's backlogged for about 6 weeks right now. Even if I put my intake and manifold back on and run stock for that time I don't think I could handle the anticipation for 6+ weeks just knowing that my build was one piece away from being done... I'm going back to plan A now to have a local muffler shop build me everything. I just got off the phone with them and he said if I bring in the cat, muffler, flex section, and flanges that he'd do everything for $200! That's why I love that particular muffler shop, well, that and cause he's awesome at what he does! It won't be as pretty as an ARtech, but it'll work and be within the (revised) budget. Now just waiting on some parts, the plan is to get the rest of the parts installed this weekend and then get out to the muffler shop by monday. We'll see though...

 

Intercooler should be here tomorrow, the one I was supposed to be borrowing wouldn't fit without hacking up all my buddies piping so I said screw it and got the cxracing kit. It looks like it should fit the turbo clocking well. Speaking of turbo clocking, that P/S return hose is kinda in the way, has anyone ever flipped the hard line flange thing around then just run a shorter hose? It looks like it might hit the pulley that way but maybe it could be bent?

 

Wonderful sight



Found an RX7 MAF at the junkyard the other day













I've got the intercooler and all the piping in and I put the oil feed line in today. I've still got to put in the FPR, the injectors, and the oil drain line. I'm going to pick up some new injector o-rings, exhaust wrap, some of that foil-looking heat wrap stuff, and some turbo mounting studs (they only included 3 with the manifold) at work tomorrow. I also want to re-route those heater hoses further away from the DP.

 

And some from the event on the 3rd. I got my friend to bring out her super fancy camera to get some nice pics for a change



















And then my favorite one. I don't have sleepy eyes, my friend who was taking the pics said I should turn on my headlights and I forgot to until I was already coming into the corner. The picture caught them on their way up. Seeing how good that looks I definitely want sleepy eyes now :P

 

Ok, here's what I've been up to :P

Oil pan drilled and tapped:



AFPR and 1.8L injectors installed:




intercooler piping/bov. Actually ended up flipping the bov the other way because one of the nipples was touching the belt.




My re-routed heater hose set-up. I went in to a local shop called "tubes and hoses" that specializes in, you guessed it, tubes and hoses. I went in to buy some braided AN line but when I told him what I was doing he told me that the braided steel would do nothing for handling the high heat environment, and suggested some push-lock hose with this fiberglass heat sheild stuff. This hose is VERY beefy, durable feeling stuff and the sleeve is also very thick and I'm sure will help a lot. Both the sleeve and hose are Aeroquip brand, and were not cheap! But he assured me that as long as it's not touching any of the exhaust, that it definitely won't melt. And now, with the way I have it routed, it's not even close to touching the exhaust






Coming together



Put some heat sheild stuff around the master cylinder



For a temporary set-up to build something I could drive to the muffler shop with, I took a pie cut out of the downpipe so we could bend it to make it stop hitting the frame. For as bad the welds were, the steel is actually pretty thick and durable, we had a hard time getting it to bend and ended up making a much larger pie cut than this.




and one of me testing fuel pressure.




Now, I've tested the MAX output of the fuel pump to be only 70 PSI unfortunately, and when I'm boosting it hits 70 psi for a brief second and then tapers down to around 65, this is causing the AFR's to be in the mid 13's under boost... So I ordered a Walbro 190lph high pressure fuel pump and VDO mechanical boost gauge today I was waiting on a 2.5" to 3" exhaust adapter from summit because the first one they sent me was oval shaped like somebody ran it over or something, but the new one just arrived about 5 mins ago so I'll hopefully get to the muffler shop tomorrow.

Video of the first ride

 

Fuel pump should be here friday car is at the muffler shop right now, though he said he probably won't get to it today, hopefully by thursday.

 

hey, how are you running your BOV? it looks atmospheric from the pics, but i noticed you still have your MAF box on your intake.

 

Yeah, I am running it vented to atmosphere. It does backfire a little if you boost and then let off, I'm not too worried about it, I'll have a megasquirt eventually and then it really won't matter. I would like to get a genuine HKS BOV eventually instead of this knock-off greddy but that's low priority at the moment..

So, if it isn't one thing it's another unfortunately. I got my boost gauge in, so i made a panel under my radio out of a piece of sheet aluminum which I think came out pretty good but to make it I had to unplug the wideband and when I went to plug it back in it won't come on, at all... I checked the fuse, it's good, I tapped into the switched power for the stereo and that still works so I know I have power, I tried 2 different ground locations, still nothing, and I took a voltmeter to the end of the harness that plugs into the gauge and had 12.18V between the power and ground so I'm pretty sure the gauge just decided to quit I did get the fuel pump installed yesterday though and took it for a drive. According to this boost gauge I'm only hitting about 4 PSI and then creeping to 5 in the high rpms. However, at rest, as you can see in the pics, it reads about 3 inches of vacuum, should I be assuming that it's reading boost about 1.5 PSI lower than actual? The fuel pressure is hitting ~80 PSI and then tapering up to 100+ in the high rpms (gauge only reads to 100) I'm not sure how that's affecting AFR's (some insight on this would be appreciated). I'll end this post with some pics of my new sexy (IMO) exhaust

 

any chance your able to post or pm me a link or seller name for the turbo you bought? I would like to order one also, but can't seem to find the same one. Thanks in advance, and nice job on your project.