The Journey continues

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" C.Dickens

Long time no blog post, I guess most of the time I post on Instagram and neglect to come on here. In some ways it has been a good time for the shed and in other ways not so much.

After moving house and getting a bigger shed I have more space, I've managed to purchase a Mill and a band saw as well as some other tooling. I've spend a fair bit of time mucking around with the front suspension and I think I have it how I want it now.

Unfortunately with four children, the property, kids sport etc there is not a lot of time to spend in the shed, mostly later in the evening once everyone is in bed.

I made a bit purchase and brought an RX7 FC, S5 13B motor in unknown condition with a MicroTech LT-9c for $3,000. I've started stripping it down and will clean it up and rebuild it, with the view of running it on E85.

I've reworked the design of the steering rack location to have it correctly in front of the front axle line. To do this I needed to remake the front frame rails to provide room for the steering rack. I've shortened up the tie rods and using the extra thread I had cut onto them they are now in place with new tie rod ends.

I still need to make a shaft between the steering rack and the uni-joint at the end of the steering column. I originally boxed the joint into the firewall as with the previous design I didn't have a lot of space however this is no longer an issue.

Before I can finish the front suspension and steering I still need to make up some small spacers 5-8mm to help clear the brake calipers as they are currently fouling the wheels. I'd also like to make up some center caps for the wheels as I have access to a small lathe.

Tie Rods in place, Camber and Caster within a good range, I altered the knuckle to allow the use of the standard strut towers and not have too much caster angle.

Comments

Transmission Options

I ended up going with a 2008 RX8 S2 gearbox as it was stronger than the S1 gearbox and newer and cheaper than an RX7S5 turbo box. I considered the gearbox form an RX7 FD but they have a pull style clutch which would mean I couldn't use my existing clutch. The choice of the RX8 gearbox came down to availability, cost and the fact I could use my existing clutch. I think I'll need to change the Diff Ratio from 3.27 to 4.11 to make the gearbox more usable, below is a simulation with a 4.11 Diff and the RX8 Gear ratios shifting at 8000rpm with 15inch tyres. Some of the options Jatco 3 speed automatic box including torque converter $7,000 JK40C/CD transmission from 350/370Z Adapter kits: http://collinsadapters.com/index.php/adapter-plates/mazda-rotary-13b-20b-26b-to-nissan-6-speed-350z-370z-350zhr-370zhr-transmission-adaptation-kit.html https://www.rx7club.com/rotary-car-performance-77/jk40c-cd009-transmission-370z-13b-1090772/page9/ they all seem to need: Does Not include (but requi...

Finished design of front suspension Rx7 FC to 323 sub-frame

So I threw out the original design as I didn't like a few aspects of it, mainly being that it was overly complicated, not as flexible with the position of the steering rack to the Lower Control Arms(LCA) and not as strong. To address some of these design flaws i re-designed it around some 25X50X2.5 rectangular stock I had in the shed. I also changed the design of the brackets for the power steering rack to make them easier to position providing more flexibility during construction. I've made the height of both the the LCA's and the steering rack adjustable by 60mm in three 20mm increments. The I've sent the parts of to the laser cutters to be cut in 3mm mild steel with all the files available here . Once they are back I'll mig weld them together as I don't posses a TIG welder at this time. New Sub-Frame Design Old Sub-Frame Design I built the old design in cardboard after printing it on paper sticking it to the cardboard and cutting it out. This...

Sams Shed

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