£999 challenge

[TeamTotalWankel]

Hi all,
I\'m new here and would appreciate anyones opinion / advice on the challenge I\'m undertaking. I\'m planning to fly the Rotary flag in this years Practical Performance Cars (PPC) £999 challenge. What\'s this you ask? Well, basically you have to buy and modify a car for less than £1k. Then \'race\' them against fellow readers at Elvington airfield (York) over a 1/4 mile and a handling / slalom course, the lowest time wins. Simple really. So, I\'ve recently bought a \'90 RX7 TurboII. Unfortunately the car is as rotten as a students fridge, but we have the technology (and mig wire) to rebuild her. Mechanically the car seems pretty good and it has the big bonus of a nice (3") full decat exhaust system, which I understand is critical to make decent power in these cars? So far I\'ve got an induction kit (with loads of cold air feed) and fitted a chip to the ecu that should remove the boost / fuel cut limits and give me mapping up to 1 bar boost. The next step is to fit a proper boost gauge and fit an MBC to \'wind\' up the boost and see what she\'ll do. So, how far can I wind the boost up for this short blast to get maximum performance? We\'re not talking reliability / longevity here, but I don\'t want to \'waste\' boost if there\'s no performance gain. On the handling front (btw- brakes seem ok) I have about £200 left in the kitty. All shocks seem OK (no leaks) so I might fit some poly bushes as the rubber ones are shot, a set of lowered springs and possibly a bit of negative camber on the front wheels if the strut to tyre / wheel clearance will allow.
It\'s all a bit of a laugh, but we\'re in it to win it so any advice (within budget) is welcomed.
Cheers guys,
Nick
TTW rotary rookies!!
PS Anyone want to put first bagsies on the full SS system for when she blows up or falls apart?

[Grizzly]

Cue Grinder

If it can be done on a budget he\'s your man.

Is it a coupe?

[TiddlesRX7]

Cue Grinder

If it can be done on a budget he\'s your man.

HEHE True that.

Hi and welcome to the club. This sounds like a really interesting project. It looks to me like you\'ve done all the normal stage 1 type mods. (just for the record I ran a 14.1 on my first ever 1/4 mile last year at Elvington) I have a TII with the same sort of mods as you too. Intake, 3" exhaust (turbo back no cat), BOV, manual boost controller (although mine is crap and was playing up on the day). I don\'t think you\'ll get a set of poly bushes and suspension for £200 but you never know you might get lucky. Good luck with it. When is the event? I would be interested in coming to watch.

[Grizzly]

On all the T2\'s i\'ve aways had some sort of brake issue, check there is no sort of Binding, even push the pistons in and out a few times to be sure. The Four pots on the front are renown for it.

It may be worth your while ringing round a few places like WGT and asking for there advise (may even have a few second hand goodies on the shelf

[arrouk]

sound like a good project.
let us know when its on and ill take a ride over

matt

[TeamTotalWankel]

Blimey, you guys are quick on the draw!!
Yes, it\'s a coupe and a very \'ripe\' one at that! Although hopefully I\'ve done the lions share of the welding so far.
I\'ve got a set of new Spax springs sorted and have ordered a full poly bush set off US ebay for £60 delivered, so hopefully they\'ll be OK. Just need to see if I can engineer some negative camber into the front wheels then.
Basically I\'m only left with peanuts in the kitty, enough to get her through the MOT. As well as the tuning mods stated she\'ll be going on a diet - if it\'s not needed it\'ll be coming out.
What sort of power can I expect on 1 bar boost if all\'s well?
Cheers,
Nick

[TeamTotalWankel]

BTW - It\'s Saturday 14th June.

[TiddlesRX7]

The day before my birthday. you got a link to those poly bushes? I will deffo try and get over for the event. Oh and try and save what you can when yo are stripping it out. There are always people after something for these cars as they are getting older and rarer. Enjoy it.

[TeamTotalWankel]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/86-91-Mazda-RX7-Prothane-Total-Suspension-Bushing-Kit_W0QQitemZ300203427037QQihZ020QQcategoryZ42609QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
 
There you go. They do 2 kits, this been the cheaper of them. The other kit is more comprehensive (and slightly dearer) with all nuts / washers / fasteners etc.
I\'ll be keeping all the stripped bits safe until I decide what to do with the car after the event. I may end up keeping it to use as a track car (preferred option!) or may sell it on.

[pdtaylor18]

Looks a good poly bush kit, think i got the more comphrensive one as mine came with everything and for the whole car.
This should be an interesting project, sort of thing i would have done a few years back.  Strip the car totally and especially the aircon but keep the power steering if you are doing some handling stuff.  Put a new set of plugs in it even if they look alright and certainly go for 9\'s all round.  is this a S4 or S5 ?  basically 1989 onwards will be S5, just asking as the S5\'s have a better turbo and more BHP (200 standard).  Dont put any large wheels on, the standard TII alloys are quite light and the tyres will be dirt cheap.
If you have trouble with the front brakes let me know as i have a few sets of calipers sitting around, i\'m just taking off some really good. almost new disks if you need some.  I will hunt around and see if i have any pads, got some ceramic ones that eat disks but perfect for you and what you are doing, probably clean the disks up a treat !!  Where are you based ?  if i can help you out then i will.  I have lots of spares for the TII.

[grinder]

did someone call

i love it when people work to budgets - just like me

the rot in the car will cause you the most probs - its a pain to fix ( click the link in my sig for the website - and have a look under the rust section )

if you run at .9 bar of boost everything should be fine - and why fit a boost controller if you are on a budget - it seems pointless to me

strip everything out of the car - why make it faster when you can make it lighter - get all the back seats out

if you can - take off the AC and air pump ( should free up a few HP - say 4-5bhp )

the spec of the car - you should be seeing about 230-250 at the fly - so thats pretty good

we need pics and all updates you make to the car though

Stu

[TeamTotalWankel]

pdtaylor,
Thanks for the offer of the brakes, top man. The backs seem OK but haven\'t had a real good look at the fronts as yet. The ceramic pads sound just the job though, especially if they\'re cheap!! The car\'s an S5 (\'90) but unfortunately it\'s already been fitted with some 7.5x16 MOMO alloys (225/50 rear 205/45 front) with no spigot rings!! I\'m trying to source some at the moment. I\'d be quite happy to swap these for a std set with good tyres if anyone has any though.
grinder,
Why just make a car lighter, when you can make it faster and lighter?!? ;o) Back seat are out for welding, and staying out.
The boost controller I\'m fitting is the manual (MBC) \'cheap as chips\' variety, not the mega money electronic variety. Is 0.9 bar the max I should aim for then? Can\'t I go for the full 1 bar for this short blast? The chip I\'ve fitted is supposed to give \'safe\' mapping up to 1 bar.
Did they all have AC? I\'ve not even looked, been too busy welding.
 
Thanks again guys,
Nick

[dthebuk]

well some did and some didn\'t

i doubt you\' need power steering either

[Brett]

Got any pics etc

I\'d keep the PS - theres a sprint course IIRC?

With a 3" system and a fuel cut defencer you will see something along the lines of 230-250 bhp (Depending on how well the turbo has survived and the exact nature of the exhaust)

I\'d spend the £200 on a decent set of tyres

[TeamTotalWankel]

Yes, think I will stick with the PS. Could be a long day on the slalom course!!
The exhaust looks / sounds the business, don\'t know what make it is but reciept for £1K came with it. Large bore pipe straight from turbo to rear of car, then splits into a Y into two rear silencers.
Would love to spend £200 on tyres, but there\'s only about £70 left in the budget!! The tyres on there have plenty of tread but are a questionable brand (NEXEN?). As Pirelli used to say - \'Power is nothing without control\', but should be a laugh at least!!