Tales of an Aspergian Bus Driver

Rebuild time.

Well, as Tony pointed out, time to rebuild the engine in my car. As of right now, it's ready to be pulled out - I found someone here who is willing to help me do the engine pull & rebuild (fellow RX-7 owner, works at an auto shop, enjoys working on them). Right now most of the engine parts are inside the car, and we're going to pull the engine tomorrow. I've already ordered the rebuild kit, as well as some other stuff.

Specifically, while everything is apart, I'm replacing the sections of the exhaust pipe that contain catalytic converters with some nice aftermarket parts (with no catalytic converters) that are also good for a 10-15HP gain. I'm cleaning up the 5th & 6th ports that weren't working before and putting in some inserts that help smooth the airflow & increase power (fixed and with the inserts, 25-30HP from where i was before). And, because it will be trivial to do, I'm replacing the clutch & pressure plate. They're theoretically OK, but while the engine is out, there's no good reason not to replace them. I debated a lightweight flywheel, but I'm spending enough as is right now, and really can't justify the $400 for one.

Anyway, I'll have updates here as I work on things and get parts in. It's a good project to keep me busy in the evenings (cleaning parts & such - I'll have a clean engine for once!), and I'm glad it failed now instead of last week while I was romping around the midwest. It's a pain finding places to park the car though!

-=Russ=-