24 Hours of LeMons RX7 College Build

[69camarokid]

So after 3 years of trying my friends and I have been accepted to compete in the 24 hours of Lemons! For those of you who dont know this is a super cheap racing event where you get your hands on a car for 500 bucks or less and turn it into a racecar.... adn i use that term loosely.

My friends and I are all a bunch of college guys with super tiny budgets. but with a little inginuity and our own particular brand of awesomeness I think our car should turn out all right.

Weve picked up running 1987 Maxda RX7. Its not to powerful with its 1.3L rotary engine and only 148HP and 138Tq, but at 2600 pounds it should scoot decently. Besides were more interested in the corners.

PLans include striping the cars interior of everything. Racing seat and 5 point harness install. Master electrical kill switch install. Fire supression system install. Installation of a ridiculous roll cage. Chaging plugs, wires, oils, brake pads, and differential fluid. The car will recieve a flat black paint job with a transformers decal on the hood.

Thats all for now and ill post some pics tonight once our work on the car begins.

[ill steez]

just make sure the radiator and all the hoses are good. keeping it cool is gonna be the most critical part.

my friends and i were planning on entering this year but backed out last minute. looks like a ton of fun! and have fun stripping that thing haha

[sik68]

Well this will be an awesome build thread... subscribing

[69camarokid]

well ive seen the car before, and its pretty ugly. a bit of surface rust and many colors of primer coat it. Ill be heading over to my buddies house tonight after work to put on out new tires, as it came with two flats, and install a new battery to bring this beast to life.

Ill be posting some pics tonight after i get back. Im mostly just scrambling around trying to get my team in order. The one issue of everyone, except for my dad, being a full time college student on the team is the monetary issue.... everyones broke! hahaha

Anyways, i cant wait til work is over! Im SOOOOOOOO excited... i dont think ive been this excited, even about my camaro, in a while.... blasphemy!

[Damn True]

Move the radiator away from the front of the car.

[69camarokid]

OK. so i finally picked up the car today. It sat with a dead battery on two deflated tires.... nice.







So my buddy and i swiped his old RB25 powered nissan 240 road racing grip tires and wheels on. Much better. Unfortunatly we could even get the lug nuts tightened down because the lugnut bolts were so rusted iver from the car just sitting over the last year.
We did though notice one really awesome thing with the wheels off. Someone along the way had swapped out the tiny single piston calipers on the front and rear discs and upgraded the car to the turbo versions 4 piston caliper 11 inch disc brakes! NICE! Ill post a pic up of those tomorrow.

Lets see, in other exciting little things i found out today, our car also sports a Limited slip differential. Which will help put our whopping 146HP down to the ground! yeah! Also our car has a 5 speed, which should make this race just wicked fun. Unless of course we blow out the clutch.... which is most likely gonna happen. Well see.

Well i began stripping the car tonight. The interiors mostly gone now. Sound deadening as well. We ripped off the rear hatch. we needed the rear glass off and this in itself just gives us some weight savings.









so heres a good start. Cant wait to see what tomorrow brings on thios "beast".

[formula98]

looks like a great time. Keep the posts coming.

[andrewb70]

Nice find. Those look like leather seats, so it was a GXL model. The GXLs had the same big brakes as the Turbo cars. Your car also looks like it had a rear seat. This was offered on the fairly rare 2+2 models. Keep the rear seats and sell them on the RX7 club.

Andrew

[69camarokid]

Nice find. Those look like leather seats, so it was a GXL model. The GXLs had the same big brakes as the Turbo cars. Your car also looks like it had a rear seat. This was offered on the fairly rare 2+2 models. Keep the rear seats and sell them on the RX7 club.

Andrew

Nice.
Yes, the seats are leather... very destroyed leather haha. So that explains the big brakes. It also came with a back seat, so ill throw that up on a rx7 FC forum nad see if anyone bites.I cant believe how smal the back is... i dont think i could fit even one but cheek in those seats. Designed for 8 year olds!

[srh3trinity]

After your done with the race, if it is still in one piece, put an LS1 in it. I have always liked the body style and I want one with an LS1.

[69camarokid]

So today the interior stripping continued. With the exception of the dash everything is out of the car. Im still debating on taking out the dash just because its cheap plastic and thus doesnt weigh too much and it is also intergrated into my gauges and removing would make it difficult to keep the gauges. But ill cross that road when i come to it. I also set in my extra seat to see how itll look when installed.







Well i got the wheels off and used a wire wheel to get teh rust off the lug bolts so now the wheels can tighten down snuggley. WE have my buddy phils old shop he used to work at, Japanese Engines Racing, who is going to turn the rotors for us. Then comes new brake pads.





Heres a few pics of the engine. Doesnt seem to look as hideous as you would expect for a 500 dollar car. Well be making a Cold Air Intake system for it, along with new plugs and wires, and an oil change.

Now one of the main concerns about this race is that the car is running for long periods of time, racing for up to nearly 8 hours almost non stop so the cooling system is a big deal. The radiator looks ok, but well check it out later. it is quite bigger than i originally expected, so thats a huge plus.





I fired up the car, but it doesnt want to idle, so well have a little work cut out for ourselves there.

Also for the race your exhaust cannot be louder than 90 decibles from 50 feet away so exhaust, mufflers, and catalytic converters are a must. But as you can see one of our mufflers is destroyed. Not sure how, it came that way. So im going to the junkyard to look for a mice replacement exhaust and maybe find some nice flowmaster mufflers or such.

[andrewb70]

Most RX7s were strictly two seaters. They had storage bins behind the front seats. The rear seat was a fairly rare option.

Looking at the engine bay, you are missing a critical part. RX7s are known to have cooling issues and used an engine driven fan for that reason. You are missing the fan shroud. It is a MUST, otherwise you will overheat and blow the engine.

Andrew

[Damn True]

Tellin ya. That radiator needs to move aft.

[twosaturns]

you REALLY don't want to overheat a rotary. detonation is the biggest enemy, do that and you'll blow the apex seals in short order. rotary's love to rev also. don't run sythetic oil either; they are designed to burn oil to keep the apex seals alive, and syn is designed to resist burning. conventional oil is best.

[69camarokid]

So today was paint day for the 7. My last paint job, IE my 69, took me the better part of 3 years. this took aboput 3 hours, maybe less.

So we scuffed up the red paint... and primer... and rust. I got us 8 cans of flat black spray paint and went to town. It actually looks suprisingly good in flat black. Im happy.





I finished up the black.



Now our team name is Team Autobots. So ofcourse some transformers shenanigans will be required. Starting with a flat white autobots decal on the hood. I made the decal out of cardboard last night.



I taped it down adn went to town with the flat white spray paint. I was going for a very weather beaten look. Like it had been sitting out for a few years and the lines had started to erode. I also ended up making some number 12 decals for the sides and roof as are required by the rules. I think it came out pretty well.









Wwdnesday my team mate phile and i head to pick a part for a fan shroud, passenger side mirror, exhaust, and hopefully some electric fans.

[79-TA]

That's great to see, good luck! Remember, keeping it on track and out of the pits is the most important thing you can do to finish well. So don't crash or get penalized for bad driving. The LeMons punishments are quite cruel and unusual.

[69LT1Nova]

Tellin ya. That radiator needs to move aft.

Aight True, I'll bite. How would you mount the radiator aft in that POS? And why? Just to protect it from track debris?

FYI - get rid of the cats on that junker, and put some cheap muffs on it to meet your 90 dB requirement. The cats will just build up heat - exactly what you don't want in this kind of race. After racing for several hours, you might find that the cats are welding themselves closed - and cut off your exhaust flow!

[Damn True]

Why is easy:
Contact in the lemons races is highly discouraged (as it should be) but we are talking about mostly rookie racers at best. It's going to happen. If there is no radiator in the front of the car and you experience contact you can simply sawzall off any parts that impede progress and continue. If the radiator is there, and compromised you are done.

How is admittedly more difficult:
But I would come off the engine with hose, turn them aft and connect to steel pipe. Run the pipe aft, through the firewall on the passenger side where the old AC/heat lines pass through and into the cabin to a point aft and to the right of the driver. Then connect rubber hose to transition from the steel pipe to the radiator. Mount the radiator with the hose input and output facing fwd and connect it up and put an electric fan on the aft side of the fan so it's exhausting out the now omitted rear hatch.

[BritishGreen68]

you can make good power from the 13B in a second gen, first thing i would do is ditch the mechanical fan and put in an electric fan, i used to get them at wrecking yards for about $10, i have had several 2nd gen RX7's including a Turbo II and an electric fan will make a noticeable difference and cool it just fine, plus you can wire it so its on with the ignition all the time which will help cool it more for your racing. Stock fan with no shroud is no no.. If you can swing an exhaust header, even a used beat up one on ebay or something, then that right there is worth about 30hp, removing the cats and running at least a decent turbo muffler. Rotaries like free flow exhaust. It will still be quiet. Replace sunroof with a piece of sheetmetal and whatever else you can do to get weight down, these things are tanks. Take off any smog related crap or anything that the engine has to spin (PS, AC, anything). There are certain models that have a steeper rear gear ratio as well in the 4:30 range but that will probably be hard to find... i know i know " "budget" just throwing out some ideas. You can get an aluminum hood as well, they made aluminum flat hoods as well as the turbo hood with the scoop. I use to mount the air flow sensor box right on that elbow that comes off the throttle body, and eliminate the stock plastic tube. Its easy and free and takes about 3 minutes, and you can buy a cone filter with the little square flange adapter on ebay for cheap.. You can remove the heater box and all that crap under the dash as well to make it lighter..

[BritishGreen68]

Also to lower on the CHEAP you can cut a half coil or so off the top of the coil springs and it will work out fine, handles a little better too they are kind high up stock.
Here is one i used to have. These wheels are BBS of an early lexus if i recall..