I need to come up with a custom alternator mount to place it on the upper driver side to allow the e-water pump lines as you have it. I talked to Logan at Defined Autoworks and he offered to build the mount if I sent him stack/front pulley setup. I was caught up on a custom pulley mount for the e-shaft and just haven’t gotten back to him yet.

Mine has some special race setup considerations that I’ll spare the details on, but nobody readily offers an REW side type alternator mount and mine won’t have an AC compressor either. So a single belt loop with a pivoting alternator for tension is the jist of it. I talked to JDL about a custom mount several times, but gave up after it never moving forward. Several other projects there as well. Not going to knock them over it though.

The typical alternator setup is pinned for adjustment. I don’t see that as any issue.
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I assume the alt will go where the ac normally is or lower, I am still surprised nobody makes a really compact one? Design wise I'd probably still use a tensioner pulley, so that you can get the alt as close to the engine as possible. Having to pivot for tension may not give enough adjustment depending on how the belt size works out and steering column location.

I am going to route my coolant lines up to the passenger side fender. Going past the windshield washer bottle through the fender and down to the rear of the car. (thinking still in progress)

 

Dropped the engine out this weekend, not much else. I did test tightening down the alt more using just the lower "pin" bolt. It is probably tight enough to not need an upper mount.

 

Team, you mean like this?

https://jdlmfg.com/products/side-mou...rnator-bracket

 

I really feel that there are ways to get the alternator or AC closer to the block than the way JDL did it..... not to mention in my case still needing an alternator top mount.

My brother just got a new house and is working on moving his small business. In the future, he may be able to manufacture and sell my parts. I am going to start making a list of potential fab parts that others may want to do the swap in my spreadsheet. Link to spreadsheet: HERE

 

yeah, mine is a unique combination of parts though so it’s a custom situation

I may be in a position to make my own as well if everything goes accordingly in a week or so …
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In regards to the AC bracket from JDL I went to a machine shop and had the end to the block down about a quarter inch. The steering knuckle would tap. I could not fit on the AC lines otherwise, its extremely tight. I would suggest the same and mill the AC as close to the engine as possible.

 

I had that at first, but with the CX racing engine mount I could really center the engine and locate it front and back enough to have the same driveshaft engagement(centered shifter too). I plan on doing the pulleys and AC mount while I have the engine out and easier to stand next to.

Part of his issue was his choice of hardware. The hex heads are really tall. Not to mention mine are already showing rust D:

 

Threw the turbo on. Im questioning what to do with the heater core coolant tube under the oil feed. The REW one is straight and points directly at the firewall. Blocking the rx8 clutch hardline position. Contemplating either cutting and welding an rx8 bent tube on, or completely removing and doing some barb fitting.

 

Minc you'll have to forgive me, I've scrolled back a handful of pages and between keeping my head above water on my own project and following a handful of others I can't always keep the details straight; but this is an EFR8374 and this is the same manifold that you had test fitted with the orange 3D printed version?

I think you've perfectly nailed the fitment of this turbo/manifold combo; I'm looking forward to seeing it back in the car with a filter, oil drain, and downpipe routed and connected. If in the future someone wanted to test this manifold out on with their Banzai subframe/engine mounts and an excessive LIM, how difficult would it be to obtain your 3D printed part, and further to that, an actual casted manifold? Feel free to DM me, I'd love to just chat about that and look at what my options are as I would like to replace my 'not so pretty' manifold in the future.

 

Curious on what issues you have with the plumbing for the most part I did not have any issues with coolant and oil fees for the turbo and the heater core lines.

 

This is the same manifold as the last orange one (we went through 13 iterations) Paired with an EFR8474 IWG 0.92A/R. A test print would work out to around ~25$+ shipping. I could also just provide a basic flange file if you wanted to print your own. I tried to get casting quotes near me who claimed to work with small batch orders. Prices were too insane unless we got 10-15 people to pay into it. However there are DMLS printing companies that can produce the stainless for around 600+ shipping+ post machining or the Inconel for around 2250+ shipping+ post machining. I also found that the EFR IWG clocking needed a new actuator bracket, which we can get through send cut send for ~$50. So a guess total cost places a stainless around $750-850 for the manifold+test+bracket.

My manifold wasn't DMLS printed, it was inkjet printed and then sintered separately. I am no expert in the metal/materials side of metal printing, however it was explained to me that DMLS printing ends up creating more brittle parts with imperfections. How brittle, I am not entirely sure if it would affect our performance of the part, but others have already been making manifolds and printing parts for use on rotaries through this method. Might be able to check in with them on the Rx7 forum.

Considerations:

• Engine mounting (angle Up/down, angle Left/Right, height, Forward or rearward?) I had centered my engine left and right, then rearward to the stock REN position for driveshaft engagement, Then angled it to have a flat oil pan with respect to the ground.
• Lower intake manifold (I used CX which comes out pretty far compared to the other aftermarket FD options) Ideally the Rx8 wants a forward leaning LIM, but that doesn't exist.
• Turbo clocking (oil drain needs of the EFR made me have to make a new WG actuator bracket)
• Added gasket thicknesses

Otherwise plumbing the turbo feeds and drain will be easy. Should also be plenty of room for a turbine blanket. Downpipe will be fairly easy since it should just be two 45deg bend tubes with a flex joint.

My heatercore plumbing is only an issue since my the outlet on the engine is close to the firewall and also blocks the clutch line disconnect on the trans (maybe not even needed? Can the softline go straight to the slave?)

 

I was able to modify the rx7 bracket or flip it 180 degrees or maybe both and fit the clutch line which barely gives me enough space for the heater line. I have not installed the heater hose yet but it’s very tight down there on my build as well. That manifold will likely be better than mine. It has been very difficult to get my oil drain line with enough angle to drain properly since my turbo sits so low. My turbo is forward leaning by about 13 degrees and 5 degrees side to side. Hopefully It will work out but I'm not too hopeful. I have a meeting in a few minutes with Shawn to discuss the connections of his custom engine harness that I purchased. I'm getting close to first start, really it should be coming in a couple of weeks.

 

I re-used one of the factory Rx8 heater hoses and moved it on to that nipple, here a pic of the one I used (it's the one that has the orifice inside the hose on the factory system) it bends and moves away from that area. These are the best photos I could find of that area:

 

I had that heater core hose on the rear iron blow up on the Stroker car due to the straight nipple straining the RX8 hose too much. My intention was to take the nipple out on the new engines and tap the iron for an AN-ORB fitting. On the Renesis I never had any issue getting the elbow-nipple out of the iron. Not so with the straight nipple on a new REW iron. I tore the nipple up pretty good trying to twist it out; it won’t budge at all. The next step will be putting a torch to the nipple and see if heating it up helps. Otherwise it may require cutting the nipple off flush then drilling and tapping it. There’s not a lot of material to work with there. It’s a touchy situation to try and do it this way.
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I think cutting it out and tapping the iron may be the best solution. Pulling the tube proved difficult, so we opted to try and weld the rx8 tube to the straight tube. We spent all weekend on this and think the galvanized metal really messed with us.

 

What is the purpose of that reducer orifice? Do I need to include this because I bought blue high temp silicone hoses to use in this area instead.

 

That orifice in the Rx8 factory location is actually just off the outlet of the heater core. My understanding is that it restricts flow through the heater core, otherwise the heater core gets too much. I'm not sure on how this actually effects the HVAC performance, but my understanding is that you can hear it in the cab without the orifice at high RPMs. Not sure if this is a factor on the REW or not since most don't rev past 8000rpm anyways.

 

I think there are similar things in the lines to the coolant over flow tank as well which I deleted out of ignorance a long time ago. Hopefully they do not really matter much.