TiVo FD Rotary Build

[tv4184]

6/21/12 - Banzai differential brace

I was still getting some wheel hop, even though I'm only on stock hp and have already installed my new rear end pillowball and poly bushings. I went hunting for a differential brace on the classifieds.

The PPF nuts were seized, so the studs just came out with the nuts when I tried to loosen them.

Nothing huge to note, except I was still getting some slight wheel hop so the search for an answer continues. I can tell the rear end has firmed up some or maybe its just a placebo effect. My differential bushings are delrin bushings so I'm sure its not that. I'll have to bring down the differential just to make sure though. I would rather have the new HPP 2 in 1 cradle, but there's still a wait list for that one as well.

 

[tv4184]

7/4/12 - AC refurbishment part 1

All the parts for the AC refurbishment came in and I went over to another forums member garage to get started on dismantling the AC plumbing.

These are a mix of the lines I bought online from Fritz and the lines from my car. One of the lines was weirdly bent. Might have been for an non-stock intercooler setup

I had returned the SMIC back to stock so I could get at the AC without messing with the nicer couplings from the upgraded SMIC.

This is why cabin air filters are part of newer cars.

This was the old expansion valve. This is pretty much it for the disassembly portion. Chunked the deuce on most of the stock lines and some of the new lines. The next day is going to be spent on cleaning the lines for installation.

 

[tv4184]

7/5/12 - AC refurbishment part 2

Started off the day cleaning the lines with this AC cleaning spray I bought from the autoparts store.

Prior to the AC refurbishment, I bought a new medium SMIC setup to replace the XSPower setup. Check out that new SMIC duct. Seems like it'll be efficient.

Here's the new compressor. It's actually the compressor off of a 93-95 Toyota Corolla. $130 off eBay vs spending $300-400 on an actual RX7 compressor.

The drier was a retrofit of the stock RX7 lines and lines off of a 1st gen Tacoma. It turn's out the 1st gen Tacoma / 3rd gen 4Runner uses the Denso drier instead of the MANA type. I had a local shop weld the aluminum lines. Turned out great.

Found some real R12 off craigslist. Held decent pressure. It wasn't perfect and we found out that the schrader valve was bad. Too bad it was after we filled up the system so that'll have to be dealt with later on after I finish my plans with the engine.

Spent roughly 20 hours refurbishing the system overall. AC works but it only gets super cool while at freeway speeds. Coolant temperature creeps while sitting in traffic or in the city. At least I can leave town with the car if I need to take it anywhere. However, now a days, if needed I can use my 4Runner to tow it with me for track days or if I need to go up to Rotary Performance in Garland.

 

[tv4184]

7/28/12 - M2 medium SMIC installed

I moved from the XSPower SMIC to an M2 medium SMIC setup. The fiberglass intercooler duct I installed with the AC refurbishment came from this setup. The new SMIC setup came from allrotor, the same guy that sold me my FD. It just took a while because I was waiting on the Greddy elbow and finding the fabled cast hot side pipe that allows for strut bar clearance.

Side by side comparison shows a slight difference from the XSPower and M2 SMICs.

This was pretty much the high point of the engine bay. Only other upgrades would be fuel upgrades, direct fire coils, v-mount intercooler, and single turbo. Not all but at least fuel upgrades would be the next step, behind the scenes upgrade.

Next up are these Stance XR coilovers on the next update. These are custom valved for the FD with 10k/8k front/rear Swift springs. Received these babies a few days (7/23/12) before the M2 SMIC install.

 

[tv4184]

8/14/12 - Stance XR install part 1

The rear coilover installation went fine..

Went ahead and replaced some of the old suspension bolts while I was at it.

It'll be nice to have proper suspension dampening again. Front bushings on the tokico shocks are known to wear out so hammering a seized bushing does nothing except just make it jiggle in place. This is where a BFG would have been useful but I didn't have one back when I was staying at the apartment. I didn't have access to a power saw so I'll be using a hack saw to get it but that won't happen for a few months.

 

[tv4184]

4/10/13 - Stance XR install part 2

So 8 months later, finally dusted off the FD and took her to my friends place so we can cut off both front strut to control arm bolts to put in the front Stance coilovers.

Pretty straight forward, just cut off the strut bolt and chucked the old setup in the trash.

Although factory settings from Stance has the car pretty low. I can't really tell between the settings on the coilovers. Soft and stiff feel pretty much the same to me.

 

[tv4184]

12/5/13 - minor update

Not many updates left before we catch up with the present. Ticked over 90k back in 8/23/13.

Then I moved out of my apartment back in November 2013, so I had to arrange to leave my car at my friend's house for long term storage.

Bought a few supplies (12/5/13) to get the brakes ready for track weekend in December of 2013.

 

[tv4184]

12/8/13 - front brake job

For a combo of track / street use, I just went with Hawk HP Plus pads with slotted Stoptech rotors. I didn't really think there was a need for larger rotors / BBK calipers like I did with my 3rd gen and 4th gen 4Runners mainly because the stock system felt pretty robust already.

Ran into some issues trying to break the rotor off of the rusty hub.

Pads were almost done.

I like the bite the slotted rotors give. Prefer them over crossed drilled, which was what my RS4 had and my CTR has now. The calipers have seen better days though and looks kind of off with the shiny new rotors. I'll be doing a complete rebuild in the future of the calipers and probably new finish as well. Not sure what color I'll go with though, I already have red on the CTR and 4Runner so maybe black or blue. I was also debating on rebuilding these calipers or just buying rebuilt ones from NAPA or RockAuto.

 

[tv4184]

12/9/13 - rear brakes day 1

The rear brakes were a bit of an ordeal. The passenger side gave me some hell taking 2 days to finish the job.

Check out that crusty goodness.

Ended up snapping the passenger side bolt that holds the caliper in place as well.

To end the day, I couldn't get the piston all the way in with long needle nose pliers. Must be some kind of seizure of the piston going on. All I know is, I spent 4 hours going no where and the sun was already going down. Good thing I wasn't in my old apartment parking garage.

The work on the driver side on the other hand went fine. I should always know that things won't ever go smoothly on this car.

In retrospect, I could have probably left the rears alone since I needed the car up and running for the track day. These setbacks almost cost me my track weekend.

 

[tv4184]

12/10/13 - rear brakes day 2

Third day working on the brakes now. Reminds me of my recent venture with the 4th gen, taking 4 days to change out almost all braking components. I pray that the hard lines aren't rusted through like what happened later on with the FD.

The piston refused to go in, even with the rental tool from Autozone.

Next up was to drill out the seized bolt. Just cutting through the threads was enough to loosen up the bolt from the spindle. I can't remember if I tried hammering it with a BFH though. I learned alot more with my recent brake work on my rusty 4th gen.

Fluid looked pretty bad. The rears looked just as bad even though it came out a bit more golden brown.

The aftermath with all the rust and metal shards that came out from all the work. The new pads have that nice sporty noise that sporty pads have on BBKs. Unfortunately, I can hear the rear passenger brake binding a bit on the freeway, which eventually went away. I'll have to try to rebuild the caliper and if that doesn't work, buy a new one. My friend was telling me to do some soaking in vinegar to get the crustiness off the caliper before rebuilding.

The car had been sitting for a good while, so I borrowed my friend's battery tender to top it off for my road trip to MSR Cresson.

 

[tv4184]

12/13/13 - alignment / inspection / semi-detail

Took her over to brake check for one of those nifty lifetime alignments.

Turns out I wasted my money because the steering adjustments were all powdercoated like the toe links. They were frozen in place so I'll have to replace them before I can get them properly adjusted. I'll also go to a shop that specializes in alignments for lowered cars. Brake Check just doesn't cut it for this type of work. The guy also messed up and bumped my lip on the end of their alignment rack. Good thing for plasti-dip.

The next stop was to get the car track inspected.

Then I had my friend do a semi-detail, even though the track day will just dirty her up again. Needed a nice wash either way.

 

[tv4184]

12/14/13 - MSR Cresson weekend

This would end up being my first and only track weekend in the car. Not because the car wasn't up to the job. More on that later.

Saw some interesting cars out there.

Including some other FDs, with one being an LS swapped.

My instructor they paired me up with had a first gen RX7. I didn't get a chance to do a ride along because he didn't have a passenger seat.

Also turns out the wash before the trip was virtually pointless. Dallas had an ice storm the week before, so I ended up kicking up a lot of salt/dirt on the way to MSR Cresson. I also had an off and luckily did not roll the car in the dirt :lol:

This was the last time the car was driven any discernable distance before being put into permanent storage for the next 5 years. My friend was nice enough to drive her around every 2 weeks for me while he had her. I drove her on my own once I moved her closer to my parents house.

By the end of the weekend, I could tell it was pretty good on the track with no brake fade and rotated around corners quite well. FD was very easy to drive. As you can tell, temps stayed within range after 7-8 hard laps. Attribute it to the cold weather but I'm sure all the cooling mods did what they were supposed to. The only thing that bothered me was the time commitment to keep up with the car between track days and spending a whole weekend away to go to the track weekend. I just figured it wasn't for me because between the car hobby, I started to travel more and picked up snowboarding. All the expensive hobbies started to add up. This is when I started to think that my journey with the FD was coming to an end.

 

[tv4184]

2014/2015/2016/2017 - mash up of updates

I'm just gonna mash the next few updates into one post. The only thing I did in 2014 was an oil change. First time I did a semi-long drive in the car since the track weekend, besides my friend driving it around his hood.

I also got around to finally taking off the track day stuff roughly 4 months after going to the track. It all came off pretty easily though with no damage to the paint.

In 2015, I moved the car down to Sugarland. My friend has a red FD that I had passed on when buying one. It was the only base model I ever found. He got lucky because this was when I started to part out the car, so he got my slotted rotors and semi-new HP Plus brake pads.

A month later in February of 2015, I removed the M2 SMIC with the intent to post it for sale but never got to it. It's still boxed up at the moment on my list of things I might sell. My other friend also got my base cloth seats.

I moved the car to my friend's storage facility, where he stores peoples sports cars and keeps them running as part of his storage fee. In June of 2015, I removed my turboII projector setup and the CF M2 box. I ended up at least selling the M2 intake.

No huge updates in 2016. I took a trip to Japan for the first time and at the Sega "theme" park, they had a full on car Initial D game where you sit in the car and the car moves around as part of the game play. It was pretty neato. I waited for the FD for my turn.

I also went on a tour of the Mazda factory. I got to see the assembly line for the ND Miata and the portion where they install the windscreen. The automation process was pretty awesome. They didn't allow for any cameras in the assembly area but I did get to see some pretty cool rotary lineage, including the 4 rotor racing car and a hydrogen rotary powered RX8.

Here's another oil change in April of 2017. Don't worry I did one in 2016 too, I just don't always take pictures of oil changes.

A few months later, I bought my house and moved in July of 2017. First house and I at least wanted a 3 car if not 4 car tandem garage. Settled for a 3 but I could definitely use a 4 car tandem for the project work. Having the work space is definitely a nice update. I had the car towed because registration had long expired back in 2016. I'm basically waiting now until 2019 for when I can register the car as a classic.

 

[tv4184]

2/2/18 - suspension downgrade

This will be the last update in reference to past events. My friend came over to swap out my Stance / Swift spring coilover combo for his stock / H&R spring setup. I had agreed to this initially because I had planned to sell the car shortly after removing the suspension. I was going to sell the coilover setup afterwards because my friend had already bought some DFV Ohlins for his so he wouldn't have been needing the Stances anyway.

The H&Rs sit way lower than my Stances did. I do plan on just putting the Stance coilovers back on, now that I decided to keep the FD. Couldn't justify going out for some HKS hipermax or DFV Ohlins.

The mileage is still semi low for a 24 going on 25 year old car. In 2 months, I'll be able to register the car as an antique vehicle and be emissions exempt in Texas. That's pretty much it for the build up and semi-break down of my build thus far.

 

[tv4184]

I decided that I'll make a small update today, the eve of me trading in my CTR for my new daily. *Two months ago I picked up a box of brake service parts from a guy on the Facebook RX7 marketplace.* It is nice that there is so many avenues of finding parts, but then again you have to be pretty diligent to find good deals.* The guy included some speedbleeders, hawk HP plus pads, and front / rear Stoptech SS lines.* Going back down the path of focusing on suspension and brake mods. *I need to source some new rear calipers, my current ones are pretty frozen.

He also threw a couple of other parts in the box including a Mazda coolant level sensor. Then I also got in some replacement bolt hardware to replace the rusty bolts on both the FD and my 4Runner. At the same time a Mazda keyring came in overseas courtesy of eBay.

Looks great, very racer-ish looking. If only I can find a TRD equivalent.

Next up, I just got in my HPP 2-in-1 diff brace / cradle last week. Looks very crab like. I'll be installing this maybe next week along with a couple of exhaust mods that have been waiting for a while.

 

[470SNC]

Beautiful build, love me a clean FD!

 

[tv4184]

8/16/19 - TE37SLs or GT-Ps?

I went up to DFW to pick up some stuff off Facebook marketplace. Usually for these types of trips I would take the Tesla, but I ended up finding some wheels last minute for the RX7. I had the 4Runner packed pretty good with aquarium stuff and the wheels. Felt like I was back in college moving back from Austin.

I had some fun mocking up the wheels on the IS300 and Model 3. If it weren't for the stud size, I could run these on the Model 3 no problem.

I wasn't sold on the "limited edition" Hyper Blues initially but seeing them in person changed my mind. I really wanted the TE37SLs because the price was good enough to consider them plus they had Bridgestone RE71r's already. They'll do for now since I'm still working on the RX7 anyway, so any tires is better than bare rims. Now I just have to figure whether I want to keep my Volk GT-Ps or sell them.

 

[tv4184]

9/11/19 - R1 Seat Swap

I've had these R1 seats sitting in my 3rd gen 4Runner for the past year at least. Someone on FB marketplace was looking for a set of seats and was okay with not having the brackets. I gave them the choice of the leather or the R1 style and they went with the lower cost option. I decided to tackle the swap first thing after work so I wouldn't cop out of doing it later in the week due to laziness.

It took 2 hours but was pretty straight forward. I only f'd up one of the bracket bolts but the rest of them bolted up to the seat just fine. I'll have to rethread it down the road but otherwise looks fine. I'm just glad to get rid of that 90s leather smell that was plaguing my interior ever since I put the leather seats back in. I still prefer the base cloth seats, this material feels thin and seems like it won't hold up to my heavy weight. My guard dog got tired and took a nap towards the end.

While cleaning up the garage, I messed around with the TE37SLs and tried them on. The color is definitely a bit loud for a stock body FD. Not sure if I want to leave them or paint them a more subdued color. They would be tucked more if it weren't for the 275 wide tires. I'll eventually get them on the car once I find the right front set of tires. For now back into storage they go. At least the garage is cleaner after the organization.