Mazda Rotary Club

Cars by Model Type => 3rd generation RX-7's => Topic started by: Mike The W on December 02, 2012, 07:43:27 PM

Title: The Mini Meet That Never Was
Post by: Mike The W on December 02, 2012, 07:43:27 PM
Set off bright and early last Monday to meet up with Carl and Sicknote, but thanks mostly to a 3 hour delay on the M6 I failed miserably and after a 500+ mile round trip met neither of them! :Hammer

Anyway, thanks to Sicknote for sorting the MoT and getting in touch next day, and to Carl for his marvelous engine that didn\'t miss a beat and was totally well behaved even sitting in stationary traffic for a good 40 minutes.

Calculated the fuel consumption on the trip down. 12 mpg!! :2eek

I also managed to arrive at Shell Bicester with an eighth of a tank, to find a deepish looking puddle across the entire forecourt. Didn\'t look so bad from the drivers seat, but I jumped out to find myself standing in a good six inches of water. Damp squelchy feet for the rest of the day! Must grumble :(

Here\'s a pic of the installed engine as promised for Carl:

(http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-XphdaZC8d-k/ULukpwyi_hI/AAAAAAAAAEk/Q3Gjm4C2bk8/s700/Engine.jpg)


I\'m a bit nervous of heat damage to the wastegate hoses, so I ran them through some braid that I had to hand. The boost controller solenoid is somewhere in here:

(http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-0V3XSV_-SMU/ULukp2VlWcI/AAAAAAAAAEo/AZtZRchKcdk/s700/Engine2.jpg)

You can see the sandwich between the UIM and LIM - this carries some extra injectors. One of the downsides of this arrangement is that it makes the whole engine 30mm or so taller - if you look carefully in the top pic you\'ll see I had to modify the strut brace a little to clear the Greddy elbow.

And here\'s the relocated  battery, the undersized one I had before was struggling, so I\'m trying this Optima red-top:

(http://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-WG1AY_rO5y0/ULukpKNmWmI/AAAAAAAAAEc/pnvtNEeAZXE/s700/Battery.jpg)

Yes, that bracket is another Teapostspeed item ;)
Title: The Mini Meet That Never Was
Post by: grinder on December 03, 2012, 07:41:39 AM
Looking good

Another member in Lancs , always nice to see :D
Title: The Mini Meet That Never Was
Post by: Indian on December 03, 2012, 12:10:59 PM
interesting.....why was your mpg so low? were you on the boost like crazy?
Title: The Mini Meet That Never Was
Post by: Mike The W on December 03, 2012, 01:40:14 PM
Quote from: Indian;843476interesting.....why was your mpg so low? were you on the boost like crazy?

I think three reasons. Partly because the new engine is on a running-in map which is deliberately on the rich side to keep things safe. Partly the porting.

Another big factor is I was stuck in more or less stationary traffic for a good 40 minutes. The tickover is high and I reckon I could have moved forward 40 miles or so in those 40 minutes for little more fuel consumption than running at tickover - so on a 250 mile journey that would make a 16% or thereabouts improvement to the figure, maybe nearer to 14mpg. (If my maths is right!)

I suspect if I\'d been in the mood to measure MPGs on the return (on clear motorways) the figure would have been a lot better.

Anyway I\'m not too upset about it - the plan for this engine was never to build it for economy ;)
Title: The Mini Meet That Never Was
Post by: Indian on December 03, 2012, 09:18:43 PM
ah makes sense. :)
Title: The Mini Meet That Never Was
Post by: Sicknote on December 04, 2012, 02:16:57 PM
Nice to talk to you Mike, real sorry I wasn\'t there, we\'ll defo meet up next year at a meet or track I\'m sure.   :)

Dave