Royals Yellow Banana Rx7!

[royal]

Bringing all this over from the other thread that Jack put up and adding to it here

Not deffo what the plans are but I'm working on getting the banana back on the road and drift worthy. I'll then be looking at competing in either this or another FD next year in BDC.

[LiGhTnInG]

How does it handle compared to your Skyline?

[royal]

This was about 6mths or more ago. After finding it was fricked I bought the skyline. In hindsight it was a good move but I'm still missing the rotary!:
Finally started sorting the Banana today. I've put it off whilst learning to drift as I didn't want to smash it up, but after writing off a Beemer and being the proud owner of a rather tatty but capable modded S13 I'm missing the Rotary buzz. I'm going to stick some coil-overs on it, sort some extra lock, and possibly some other drifty bits so I can see how it goes now I've got a few skills. I'll then decide whether to drift it properly for the BDC season or to carry on with the S13. I'm in work so only have a few pictures my mate took. Highlight of the day was a gruesome discovery of a dead rat and two dead birds in my oil tray(?!).

Originally Posted by initial_j

really small turbo:



my missus eunos i borrowed for the day, fooking great fun to drive





sadly i didnt get any pictures of the highlight of the day, after draining the oil into a big tub, we poured it into a barrel through a funnel, which blocked up, after poking around the funnel to see what was blocking it i fished out a very sorry looking black dead rat!! random event of the year!
cant wait to see this car sideways, its a beast!!

[royal]

From before I stripped the engine:
I think I've popped a tip in the rear rotor. I pulled a plug out of each rotor whilst listening to it and the rear sounded like it was missing compared to the front. Not deffo as I've never listened before so have nothing to compare it to but the rhythm of the rear certainly sounded different and the front sounded ok. The engine is still in the car at the mo, the plan was to lift it last thing on Sunday. It was late and my crane needed the front bumper removing to get far enough in so we called it a day. I'm purposely avoiding any hardcore sessions as I lose my motivation if I do that! Relaxed and easy and then hopefully it'll go smoother

[royal]

Engine out :
Aww isn't it cute Still amazes me how much power can come out of such a small lump.


Looking through the exhaust ports I can't see any damage on the tips so far. Making me worry a bit that i've jumped the gun as I don't have a compression tester here. Everything points to it having popped a tip though so I'm cracking on. I will find out for sure as soon as I've found a 54mm socket!
Sorry the pictures are a bit weak, it was getting dark and I stopped working once I blew yet another bulb in my mechanics light.

[royal]

Bad news! on strippng is fduked!
Wasn't quite as straightforward and undamaged as I thought!

Amazing bits of kit; 543bhp and a tiny little thing.Its sitting on a 14inch tyre!


And this is all it is taken apart. Took about 30mins to strip it once all the ancils and bits were already off:

The offending article. This is a good apex seal and the broken one. It looks as if the corner of the seal has broken and gone on a rampage around the inside of the rotor. They are two piece seals that start off glued together and they then come apart inside the engine to achieve the seal.

Here is where I reckon the broken corner has hit the rotor. Its damaged the rotor and made what was left of the seal get jammed down, they are on springs so the push up and seal against the inside of the rotor housing.

And here is where its damaged the rotor housing itself.

The damaged rotor, broken seal is to the bottom. You can see the apex seals, corner seals (round things), and apex seal springs next to the rotor

[royal]

Right back to the present!
Picked up this breaker the other night, havn't even payed for it yet as I'm skint so paying next month. Not sure on the plans yet. I'm currently stripping it down to see what it looks like. Looks like it was a really nice car in its day. receipts for about £15k at Rotechnics for suspension and other upgrades (mostly raped off the car unfortunately and replaced with standards ).
There are a few nice bits though.
I was thinking about dropping it into my car with the standard twins and playing with it for a few months, but may just strip and use the engine with my setup as soon as I can afford some new tips and things.






Cracked carbon bonnet, are these repairable?


Rotechnics upgraded intercooler , nice. Need to pressure test it but it looks good despite a few dints.



Engine has an unconfirmed rebuild but it does look rebuilt and good. Rad is missing. A few induction pipes are broken and one oil cooler and pipework is missing. Also the chassis (lights, ignition) loom is knackered. I was hoping to start it up in situ but its not looking so likely now, hence why I'm considering just stripping it and rebuilding before fitting into my car?



Poor pictures but the interior is very clean. The blue suede seats look really nice so hopefully somebody will buy them.

[royal]

Nice thing is that by stripping this I have some practice before letting loose on my car. I've completely stripped, rebuilt or reshelled two skylines and an s13 over the last 6mths so my spanner skills are a bit better and I've got plenty of tools.
The Chassis bracing on the Rex is rather impressive compared to the nissans! I was trying to remove the power plant frame last night and it was a right mission. I think its probably the engine/gearbox leaning backwards and jamming against the PPS but didn't have time to play around more.
I removed the ABS as I want that out of my car so it enabled me to see what was involved plus make some space to get this engine out.

My car has an electric power steering pump but I'd rather have a standard PS pump for drifting so will be using the one from this engine.

Got some Uras tie rods to extend the steering lock a while back but it looks like I've gave Mark my ones and I have his. Turns out the post 94 Rexs have a 1.5mm thread pitch on the part that goes into the steering rack and the pre 94 have a 1mm thread pitch. The one with the boot on is from my car and the other is the new Uras one. The spacer you can see travels into the steering rack so you end up with more travel through the rack and thus more steering lock.

[royal]

Originally Posted by LiGhTnInG

How does it handle compared to your Skyline?

Completely different but its hard to say drift wise because I couldn't actually drift on my DWYB I did; chunk driving here:

Lets just say that myself and anyone who drove it tended to spend a lot of time spinning!
The handbrake is non-existent. I'd never done a handbrake initiation until I got my s13.
Lock is a big problem, hopefully the uras arms will be enough to sort that. Thats the main reason the spin. Technically they have a very low polar movement because all the weight is in the middle so should be easy to control with subtle throttle movements but I think everyone was spinning it lots because the big power turbo would come in like a rocket so not very sensitive throttle!
I'm itching to start playing with the suspension setup because I think this will make a huge difference. There was hardly any caster on the car when I was driving before and with only a weak electric PS pump this made things difficult.

[royal]

For grip driving it was without a doubt ten times superior to anything I've ever been in. I'm hoping now my skid skills are a bit better that I can use the grip.

[lil ben]

Really look forward to see it skidding and to see what you think of it compared to your other car(s)

[Lex]

Good luck dude - Twas good fun to skid even if Chunk made me look like a newb as usual

[royal]

Cheers mate Goes without saying I was pretty damn impressed being in the car with any of you guys skidding it! Still got all the bits of tyre on the dashboard haha it'll be a monster smoke machine when its running again. Need to get a payrise to manage the tyres though!! They were 255 at 35psi on the rear and it was spinning them much easier than my skyline spins 205s at 45psi!!

[DoriDave]

Is it really that easy to strip the motor down??? Hardly anything to it!!!

Royal, you're a bastard, I want an FD now!!!!

[royal]

Originally Posted by DoriDave

Is it really that easy to strip the motor down??? Hardly anything to it!!!

Royal, you're a bastard, I want an FD now!!!!

Lol! yep. The block is surprisingly simple for the power that it can run. The rest of the engine bay depends on what turbo system you are running. On the standard car there's a mass of tubing ('rats nest') to control th e twin sequential turbos; I'll take some phots as I strip it down, and this can cause a lot of trouble as it gets old. But if you run a single turbo its incredibly straightforward. I'm still getting clued up myself, trying to do a load of research to decide what setup to run. I was looking at running the standard TT setup in my car for a bit but as I can't check this engine to make certain its good (seems good) I may end up just rebuilding it for big power like the banana was before, and just see how the skidding in it goes. If it isn't practical I can change it again I suppose.

[DoriDave]

bridge port or street port royal?

[mazdachris]

Any idea if those tie rods are interchangable with Eunos Roadster ones? I know there are a fair few bits parts-binned across the two..

Our Eunoses have almost the same numberplate. Weird (L91 NNK)

[royal]

Its got a pretty aggressive street port. I've been thinking about bridge porting it but from what I can find you loose low end torque in return for crazy power top end. Seeing as I've already got 545bhp and have gone considerably off the 180mph clock I reckon its got enough flow for top end power, and one of my main worries is losing low end as the rotary isn't known for low end torque. You have to drive it differently to the nissans, I would always be up at 5k or usually a lot more rpm to keep it well into the power band.

[royal]

Originally Posted by mazdachris

Any idea if those tie rods are interchangable with Eunos Roadster ones? I know there are a fair few bits parts-binned across the two..

Our Eunoses have almost the same numberplate. Weird (L91 NNK)

Thats Jacks (initial-j) ex missus car dude. Not sure about the tie rods. On JDM Parts, JDM Racing Accessories, Twin Plate Clutch, Turbo Kit, Fuel Injectors & other Motor Parts! they don't list the eunos under the tierods available?

[mazdachris]

They look very similar but I think the Eunos ones are a narrower thread pitch. Ah well, I'll just have to use washers

Looks like this is going to be a pretty sweet car when it's all done