[hEaT]

Originally Posted by TJs98GT

i cant believe that merkur has the lead of an LsX powered RX-7, theres not many things cooler than LsX swapped rwd cars.

half the stuff in the mods list is basic maintenance and cleaning, or decals, that **** doesnt count.

Have you seen this car personally? Have you seen the work that goes into this car on a monthly basis?

He turned a car that was neglected for years and not running into that...I'm pretty sure there has to be some routine maintenance there to just get it rolling!

Here, let me clean up the mod list for you.

Inside:
Days of work on the interior to remove anything and everything that is not required for a CP class AutoX car.
Custom fabbed seat rail using the oem slider so i can still have front / rear slide control.
Crow 3" 5pt camlock harness.
Autopower 4 pt rollbar, modified with extra steel to have a harness bar, diagonal brace (to rear shock tower), and welded (not bolted) in.
Very lightweight triangulated aluminum rear shock brace made from scratch.
Stitch welded floorpan (most of it)
I also had to resolder some of the circuit boards

Gauges:
Wideband o2 sensor
Big fat tach (it was cheap and used)
Oil pressure
Oil Temp
Water Temp (oem didn't work, even new they sucked)
Voltage (lets me know when something isn't right)
Boost

Redline tuning shifter boot (yes, the first one made for a merkur)
Fire extinguisher (it's still a merkur)
Ford Focus Shifter knob (different tranny than stock = different shift pattern.)

Under the hood:
fully clean and repainted most of the parts.
new hoses, wiring out the friggin' wazoo, etc.
3" turboback exhaust (custom welded from straight tubing and bends)
3" dump under pass side door with block off plate for non-track stuff. (once again full custom)
front mount intercooler (3" x 20" x 6" core, bar and plate) (fabricated mounting brackets)
intercooler tubing i welded up myself
lightly ported / polished e6 turbo manifold
stainless braided oil feed to turbo line
stainless braided fuel line
turbojoe's high flow fuel rail
proform adjustable fuel pressure regulator
fuel pressure gauge
thermostatically controlled oil cooler (from a 1988 rx7)
summit racing oil filter sandwich plate (for oil cooling)
stainless braided oil lines for oil cooler
mustang v8 oil filter (shorter than stock, so it fits)
esslinger underdrive pulley (crank, water pump)
upgraded the **** out of the ground wires (i didn't want any chances with sensor stuff)
LA3 ECU
Big VAM (from a turbocoupe)
air charge sensor (wired to ECU)
3" stainless turbo inlet pipe
K&N cone filter in a custom made 20ga galvanized steel heat shield with a decal of winnie the pooh holding a knife dripping blood in one hand, and piglets severed head in the other.
New head (kind of a big deal i guess)
felpro 1035 head gasket

Drivetrain:
tremec type 5 trans (t5 for short) (this car comes with a T9 transmission. Not just a "plug and play" swap to a T5)
mustang (1986 i think) v8 driveshaft
adapter for driveshaft to differential
european 7.0" limited slip diff (not just a "bolt in" affair)
spec stage 3 6 puck clutch
clutch cable from a non-hydro clutch mustang
oem speedo cable with different end gear in trans (wrong ratio, btw, it's like 14% off (too fast ))

Brakes:
full flush of brake fluid once per year
oem rear brakes (replaced all hardware, and painted drums black
fronts have handmade adapter brackets for the following:
ford focus SVT rotors
2003 mustang GT calipers
ford focus SVT brake lines (required a rethread of calipers to fit new lines, they're 1/8 npt if you're interested)
Only person running this setup because no one else has fabricated the brackets or modified all the parts to fit
Suspension

this is where the car got expensive. mc2racing helped tremendously with advice and parts supply for this portion of the car (as well as other portions)

Front:
Hypercoil 500lb/in springs, coilover
helper springs
coilover sleeves on koni adjustable dampers
nylon steering rack bushings
polyurethane sway bar bushings
polyurethane inner and outer TCA (control arm) bushings
i also chopped the top off my strut towers, fabricated new tops, and welded them on to fit:
mustang QA1 camber plates with spherical bearings.
a crazy amount of adjustment now.

http://roadtrippin.org/demonfire/pic...6/cutting1.jpg

Rear:
Hypercoil 325lb/in coilover springs
QA1 carerra 4/4 aluminum threaded body racing shocks
custom fabricated lower shock reciever
redone and reinforced upper reciever (a lot of welding) (Springs and shocks are in separate locations similar to the Focus. The shock upper and lower points must be reinforced and modified for the new loads. The inner fenders had to be "massaged" to clear the coilovers)
mc2racing polyurethane rear diff mount
nylon inner and outer STA (control arm like) bushings
polyurethane rear beam bushings

Wheels / Tires
mustang pony wheels painted white to match car with silver lip to hide wheel weights
225/50/16 falken azenis RT 615's
i also have some oem 16" focus wheels with hoosier rubber on them but i haven't used that in a while.

Exterior:
Cleaned, claybarred, waxed car
handmade fiberglass cossie replica grill (find another hand-made cossie replica grill that looks this good and let me know)
reshot the trim from grey to white to match car
cossie style hood vents
tinted tail lights
some decals to support my local businesses, and friends
magnetic numbers and class stuff for autocross.
some rust fixes here and there.
Read the back window and you'll understand the exterior.

If you want to vote for Hocky's RX7, no one is going to fault you for that and I'm in no way taking away anything from Hocky. That car is amazing. Great fabrication and great skill as well. I'm just saying that the XR is not just some put together piece of **** with basic maintenance and graphics (which go on for autox...) like you make it sound.