More Progress VII

With the tuning over, the next step was to wrap up and polish out all the loose ends. I started by redoing my fan’s wiring.

I wanted the wiring to be routed off to the side of the front duct area, so as to not impede air flow or look out of place hanging in the middle. This meant it needed to be extended, which I carefully did prior. Once the splicing was complete, I left the connector dangling on the floor because I didn’t want to connect it until the car was ready to start. I was greeted with a pleasant surprise when I eventually did go to plug it in… the connector was chewed up.

Do not be fooled by Blue’s innocent looks or charming demeanor, an anarchist hides underneath that furry coat.

Apparently, one morning he was left in the garage alone and unattended for a while. I guess he got bored and crawled under the car to have a snack on my hard work. The fact that I couldn’t even repair the damage is the worst part. One of the wires was gnawed through right next to the base of the connector, which made re-splicing it nearly impossible.

I spent a week searching around and calling Rotary specific shops across the country to see if anyone had any broken stock fans, so I could pilfer the connector off. I ended up finding the connector I needed by randomly asking an RX-7 buddy of mine, who happened to have a spare fan setup in his closet (thanks again!).

With a replacement connector in hand, I used the sealed solder and crimp connectors to extend the wiring back. I had temporarily crimped what I could together just so the fan would still operate during the tune session. I finished it off with heatshrink and Painless mesh wrap to give it a professional look. (Don’t worry, all is forgiven with my dog, I can’t stay mad at him…)

Next, I flushed the coolant system again and picked up a Lisle funnel to refill.

I noticed that one of the lower radiator hoses developed a leak around the clamp area. I was using worm gear clamps on all the hoses, but decided to step them up to stainless T-bolt clamps from HPS. The larger the hose, the more relaxed the tolerances… thus needing beefier clamps.

In addition to greater clamping potential, the T-bolt clamps have a wider 3/4″ band which should leverage more surface area. Hopefully this will solve the leak issue.

Another item that was left unfinished was the cold side intercooler piping to compression elbow connection. The silicone coupler there ended up being slightly too short, so I had to pull it forward to reach. This left a gap on the elbow which was aesthetically incomplete. I called Flex Technologies (SiliconeHose.com) and requested a custom, manufactured part. I needed the same coupler to be 0.5″ longer at one end, and 0.25″ longer at the other. Flex Technologies was nice enough to fulfill my order within a week. Major kudos to them for coming through because these guys have important contracts with large OEM’s, and my single coupler was not a simple off-the-shelf affair.

New, lengthened coupler on the left and Old on the right.

Back in business.

Lastly, I picked up some pricey DEI fire sleeve for the rear wastegate’s vacuum line. A section of this line runs close to the turbine housing, so I wanted to double up the heat protection there for added security.