FrestyleFC3S

September 18th. Today was Parent's Day, so after my parents left, I traveled with them home. From there I did a wash of some clothes, picked up some stuff from home and most importantly - I brought my car down from NJ to where I was going to college, at University of Delaware. It was great, at college with my car and having a blast.

On the way home from NJ to DE, the NJ Turnpike was clear, open, perfect, cruised around 100mph the whole way down. Then the start of my car's slow demise began as I crossed the NJ/DE border on the Delaware Memorial Bridge. Rain started pouring down, lightning, deep red sky, it was a beautiful storm.



Unfortunatly 2 days (September 20th) later I was on the highway coming home from crew practice with this girl I was with, and a Porsche 911 decided to pick on me, so we both went at it highway battle style. It culminated at 140mph, 5th gear, 6000 rpm, and a few loud THUNK THUNKs. I guess stock fuel and open turbo isnt too good right? So i leave the exit ramp at my exit and the car hardly held idle up. Vac pressure was going nuts. The car, had finally blown. At that time I had 3" exhaust, filter, koyo radiator, and thats about it.





So now, I'm all bummed out. What do I do? My engine is blown, my car is 250 miles from my garage, my tools, my friends to help. I'm fucked. Not exactly. Luckily there at the school, 2 blocks from my dorm are 3 awesome guys in a house all attending the same school. Charlie (stokedxiv), Dave (MakoDeHardie), and Kevin. All 3 have FDs. Plus their good friend Dan (Scrub) is about 20 minute away. They lived on Elkton Rd., so from here on I will refer to them by name, or by the Elkton Rd. house guys. Anyway, Charlie and I had been talking for a few months online, both interested in RX-7s and met on RX7Club, we figured we should hang out sometime. So the night my engine blew Charlie came over to check it out, at that time the verdict was "hey maybe its a vac line, lets check it out". Car wouldnt start, so Charlie and I hopped in Dan's Protoge and went back to the house on Elkton, here I met Dan, Dave, and Kevin.



Charlie, at the time didn't have an RX-7, but was looking, he showed me pictures of some cars online, because hes a big time internet picture junkie, he might spend 20 hours a day on the comp looking at pics. I talked to Dan for a bit, explained to him the story of the engine, he made some jokes, because Dan is the jokester, his car was not present since its motor blew a few months ago and was being made by Steve Kan in Gotham Racing HQ in Texas, 94 Base Silver with Red Interior. Then met Dave as he entered the house coming home from work. Dave proceeded to talk a lot, because, well, thats what Dave does, he talks a lot, he was also in a rush, because he usually is. He showed me his car and talked some more, 94 Base MBM. Kevin entered for a brief minute, on his way to work, Kevin is always working, they do something like own him or something. I met him and he left. Kevin at the time didn't live at the house but stored his **** and his 94 Black Touring there. He would move in shortly. But for now we watched The Transporter, which is the most confusing and splotched story ever. Then Charlie drove me home.







Over the next few days, I ordered many parts. I had to start with the main parts. This was planned as a project that I would build the engine, and the guys at Elkton would help a bit. Yet 5 college kids, with heavy workloads, jobs, and other lives besides the cars, this turned into a large project. Between the time of Sept 20th and October 16th I ordered almost everything I needed. Atkins Rebuild Kit B, and instructional video. Total 1035. Haltech E6K, harness, missing air temp, and coolant sensors = 800. Marren 160lb/hr fuel injectors = 150. Walbro 255 Pump = 80. Weber Oil Jets = 4.



The next few days were spent as Charlie and I concoted ideas of how to get my car, from the GATED parking lot to their house, 5 blocks. Charlie's mom's boyfriend has a van, van has tow hooks, that to us was a good idea....right. So the day we go to "tow" the car, the power is out around random spots on campus, today my parking lot was out. So the gates did not function. Now around campus at certain spots are these fence like pretty things, basically a 4 ft. high pole with a loop on it, and between two are chains. It was a matter of unbolting a chain, and pushing my car through the hole. So we stole my own car from its protected lot. Part I done. Part II is towing the car, the van tow was not the smartest idea ever.

We searched around for tow dollies but they were all gone, so I called AAA to tow, they came over, and the crazy tow truck guy proceeded to crank my engine for 20 minutes with the battery booster on, deflooding it in the process, and getting my car to start. I would now slowly drive it to the Elkton house.

That night the disassembly process started. We basically stripped mostly everything out of the engine bay. The next day and night would be spent removing the engine from the car, a collective effort between Charlie, Dan, me, and our friend Adam.



By this time, Dan's engine was in. Charlie had gotten a Black 1995 R2 FD. Dave had blown his motor. Kevin had moved in. And my car was still MIA, after finding out that both my rotor housings were severly fucked, I quickly spoke to John (BanzaiToyota) and he shipped me some housings that I would get soon and drop off at Hector's.



Now the engine was out, we moved it to the back porch. This was my new laboratory, where i would strip the engine to the short block. In this current state my car was left on the front lawn with no engine and a bottle of coolant supporting the tranny up. The engine was in the back of the house, we struggled for a good few days with the flywheel. We were getting very frustrated, upset, and just wanted the engine done. Kevin has a friend with a WRX, Raul. Raul is Puerto Rican. Now somehow... every Puerto Rican into cars has some crazy guy they know who builds engines, and from this I was introduced to Hector. He works out of a used car dealership, he is the mechanic, but is boss lets him run his own shop out of there working on crazy rotary engines, some 9 second NA N2O starlets and such.

Dave and I took a trip there for two reasons, to talk about my engine port and rebuild. He said he would do it, so in 3 days after the conversation while I was at class, Raul and Dave took Raul's mom's pickup truck and delivered the engine, but forgot the oil weber jets at my dorm. The second reason was to assess Dave's engine, which we blew (but was still driveable) two nights previous racing a Lightning, which we ripped in half.



While my engine was away getting rebuilt and sideported. It was time to work on the rest of the mods I got. which never really got done, as we were waiting for the rest of the car to come together. So my car spent time by itself under a car cover for the remainder of october and the beginning of november. During this time, I would spend many many many hours harrassing tons of the nice people over at nopistons.com. Asking questions, having debates, and **** like that. I'm sure youre all happy now that its over eh? During this time, I would have had 3 parking tickets as well, each for 10 dollars - in Newark, DE it is unlawful to park your car on your grass yard. To this date they are not paid, not because I'm a rebel but because they were lost in oil and coolant somewhere near my engine. Oh well, i dont think they cared too much. We moved my car out back to the rear of their house, out of police eyes.



During this time as well, the Maryland Meet at the mexican restaurant would take place. Friday night, Kevin (teknics) and Martin (fikse) would come visit me in uDel. The Elkton house had a large party for the Rx-7 loyalty. That night we had 5 FD's and 2 Fc's parked at that house, very nice. Martin, Kevin, and I, drank a large bottle of Jose Cuervo, and a bottle of Hypnotiq was shared between Kevin and I. We walked a lot through my campus, from my dorm, hang out with some ladies (one of whom Kevin would become seriously obsessed with), and walked back to Elkton Rd. (it might be 5 blocks but its a good 30 min walk, and a nice hour long walk when you are very drunk). We made our way there, Kevin got more drunk, and became depressed, he sat in the bathroom for 4 hours moaning on the toilet. Martin passed out. I kept an eye on Kevin and made sure he didnt die or something, but he was okay the whole time, or so he says. The next morning, with a severe hangover, Martin and I drive back to my dorm so I can change, throw up, and shower. We came back to Elkton and got ready to leave. Martin in his IBM FD, Kevin in his Red Flamethrower FC, Dan in his BNR Stage III Race Port FD, and Charlie and I in his 95 R2. We made our way down, all very impressed by the lightshow called Kevin's exhaust. A two hour drive to Maryland, we made it. Kevin and I were sick all day and felt like utter ****, hung out on the grass outside lying down most of the time. Here we all met a LOT of familiar names, but not faces. We had some food and looked at cars, Kevin and I were accused of stealing by Dave (FD3Boost), and Ito did a monster burnout at a stoplight. All cars caravaned to the big stadium in MD, i dunno the name but it was nice, we had a fun time. Kevin's light show continued to please, Dan's BNR Stage III's raced a single turbo FD and won. We got to the stadium to watch some crappy autox training course. Bobby (RFreeman27) and I made fun of some guy with a Duesch Bank hat. After a while everyone parted and we left. The way home I would ride with Dan, we hit a lot of traffic and I fell asleep.



Now, back to my car, my engine was finally done. Thanks to my friend DJ's Jeep Cherokee, we threw my new engine in the back of the trunk and brought it back to the Elkton house.



End of October, I met Sean (thecamel). We talked for a while, about his life in Japan, his life in the military, my interest in the military, and how we were 1 hour away from each other. I would soon persuade Sean to come hang out for a day, drop the motor in, hook up the haltech, etc. So he came over one Saturday morning, picked me up from my dorm room, and we headed out to Elkton Rd. Sean was a cool guy, he kept calling my car gay, and my haltech was very gay. But overall cool. My car was in the backyard, and we used a big flat plank, that was used as the table in their house, for the ground for the engine crane so it wouldnt sink to the ground.

We got the engine in the car, and Sean left. A few weeks later, after not being able to do **** with the haltech, Sean came back over, wired up some of the wires, and got the fuel pump in. We made plans to have him come back to finish.



Now, the first big snow storm of 2003 arrived, completely burying my car in 5 ft. of snow in the backyard of the Elkton house. Great timing, since I wanted to have it towed to Sean's house in the Dover AFB. After some snow melted, Kevin from DE and I did as much as we could to get my car out from the snow, and managed to get it to the side of the house. AAA came once again, and had a field day getting 3 chains together to use the wench to get it onto the flatbed. This was the first week of November, and my car arrived at Sean's house. We hung out in his house for a bit, he showed me a lot of pics from Japan and I met his family. After a few hours he drove me home. Over the next few weeks he would work on the car to try to get it done before Thanksgiving. During the next few days after dropping my car off, Sean developed an upper respitory virus that turned into pneumonia. The car was once again delayed.



Thanksgiving I was carless, oh well. I came home a few days later and bugged the **** out of Sean, but knowning he was sick it was all in jest. He rested up a lot, and tried to finish the car by xMas, but that didnt happen as he was still ill. So for Xmas I was carless as well.



December 26th I packed a huge bag and went to Long Island to Mike's (Mazdamike) house. I stayed there for 15 days, haha, we've been really good friends before the RX-7's so its not weird like that. We celebrated New Year's together with all of his, and now my, friends in LI. A lot of drama in LI but thats another story. Mike and I started on Thursday, the 1st, by taking off his springs and struts. He had new Tein springs to put in, and a 99spec bumper to put on. We got the car up and lots of stuff off the car, but never finished it in time. On the 3rd he, and 3 other friends from LI, left for a 2 week trip to Florida. Opportunity rang at my ears, they were taking the same road I would take 2 days later to Delaware, to Sean's, to finish my car! I invited myself into the crammped Mistubishi Montero as the 5th passenger en route to florida, only my trip with them would end 400 miles into it in Dover, DE. We left at 5am on the 3rd of January, arriving in DE at 945. I called Sean and we all met up. I knew the way from NY -> DE , but Mike lost the directions to FL, so we went to Sean's and mapquested new directions. We saw them off, and Sean and I started our work.



Thinking we could finish that day, we worked hard. Got it all wired up, and ready to fire up. But it wouldn't. Something was wrong, we checked the CAS and everything 20 thousand times. We eventually got too frustrated and called it a night. We stayed up late, I spent the night on the couch in his house, and he spent the night passed out on the other couch. The next morning we woke up, to work on the car again. The day was beautiful and warm, very motivating, more motivation came from Sean hating Haltech and wanting my car out of his house ASAP. So we worked, got it idling and running. And Sean quickly had me leave. I left on my journey to break in the engine and get to NJ, but it would start to rain. It was dark and rainy and I wanted to get to bed since I was running on like 3 hours of sleep for the past 2 days. I made my way an hour north from Sean to Newark DE, to stay at the house on Elkton Rd once again. Dave and I hung out and got some food shopping done. Kevin and I talked for a few and i showed him the car. The next morning I would leave for NJ. The trip home sucked, I got lost and it was raining, I wound up in Philly, but found my way home, the 2.5 hour trip turned to 4 - but hell, i got more miles on my break in period.



I got home, and went to bed. The next few days would be spent breaking in the engine. I drove lots, my friend Yuri (G35 coupe) and I drove to random places for a while ranking in miles. Kevin (Teknics) and I went bowling one night with some girl from UDel. I continued to put on the miles.



THEN IT HAPPENED. The Cold Wave Came!!!! Combined with a leaking LIM (from lack of Coolant O-Rings) and the sub-zero temps, my car wouldn't start. I almost gave up. I hated going outside, seeing my car, everything! A week passed by. I spoke to Ito about tuning possibilities, knowing the stories about him being very busy usually I wouldnt expect a nice answer of "bring it in tomorrow." I planned on towing it to his shop in Paterson, but the next day, on Thursday January 15th, it was warm out, maybe warm to start the car, after 20 minutes of playing with the car and the primer maps, it started up. I drove with my car to Ito's shop, my friend Josh (Stealth twin turbo) drove in a Jeep following me, as my ride home. We dropped the car off, and Ito would soon work on it, fixing the leak, and tuning my car.



Again, without a car, Mike picked me up, we went to Mistuwa marketplace and Mike bought about 10 Option, Option2, and RevSpeed magazines as he was dazzled by the "crazy japanese magazines." We drove to Long Island. It was snowy here, we hung out for a few days, almost finished his suspension, had an IHOP never ending stack of pancakes for 5 dollars each, mike had 9 i had 7, and we took a roll of photos, except the roll was overexposed and only 3 came out, one was a pankake made into a rotor and housing, but it didnt come out!!!!



After 3 days there Mike drove me back home. I spoke to Ito, he told me that it would be done soon. I spoke to him Wednesday January 21st and he told me it was finished, the leak had been fixed, the car had been tuned, but he was on his way home from a long day of work!!!! He told me he would call me in the morning and I can come pick it up.



Great news! So i continued my wednesday out. At 8, Yuri and I left in his G35 coupe to Fairfield NJ. Here at Charlie Browns restaurant, we met up with Kevin (teknics), Martin (fikse), and Vosko in his 240sx, and some of my friends from my MR2 days. At around 1045 we all left, after watching Vosko drive Yuri's G35 fast and doing a brake stand / burnout in Martin's FD.



I went home, and to bed, after eating 15 wings, I had the *****, so i took a ****, and then went back to bed.





Today, January 22nd, I woke up at 9:30 to the annoying sound of my cellphone ringing. But it was okay today, Ito was calling me to tell me "come over and get your car Mike." I jumped up, called Yuri and we drove to his shop. We arrived at 1045, talked for a bit. He told me to warm it up, so i started it and came back to talk for a bit, i paid, and he told me to go take it for a drive. since my turbo is dying there was a huge cloud of black smoke outside covering my car . But i took it for a drive and lost traction in 1st and 2nd, i was satisfied with the power that all this waiting has brought me. I came back, we talked for a few more minutes. After being told that this is one of the fastest stock turbine FC's that he has driven i had a smile across my whole face! After a few more minutes Yuri and I went home.



I drove a lot today, keeping at a steady 12psi, breaking traction, having a **** load of fun.





My car is finally back on the road and done. I am overly happy, as anyone i talked to has heard. I am just sooooo ******* happy, and i cant express it by saying any more than **** IM SO HAPPY!!!!!



so after almost 3000 dollars in parts, labor, tuning, and installations. so after almost 5 months of the car off the road. so after all these amazing friends and faces i have met in the past 5 months. THIS IS THE MOST ******* AWESOME TRIP I HAVE GONE THROUGH IN SO LONG. I learned so much, met so many good people, and spent lots of money. IT WAS SO ******* WORTH IT, THE RX7 COMMUNITY IS PURELY THE MOST AMAZING GROUP OF CAR NUTS EVER, SO CONNECTED AND EVERYTHING.









I would like to take this time to thank EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU who has contributed to helping me these past few months, specifically Charlie, Dave, Dan, Kevin, Kevin (teknics), Martin, Vosko, Ito, Raul, Hector, Vito (pengaru), John Glave (banzai), Mike (jdfd3s), 1revvin7.

and mostly with a cherry on top sean (camel)





Currently, I am tired and not driving it. But if i wanted to i can, its such a great feeling again. Tomorrow night (the 23rd) will be the offical NJ RX7 invading the DSM meet, so hopefully i can test out my new engine on them .







PS. for your enjoyment, attached is the datalog, 30 pages, of me idling :-p. Pics will be on saturday!





- Mike Bogdan (frestylefc3s)

Eric Happy Meal

crap that IS long....

teknics

hey now we can start my adventure, my engine is dying wooo to the 50k limit of rebuilt rotaries!



kevin.

j9fd3s

wow remind me not to write mine, its longer!

teknics

thats what the girl i was obsessed with said



kevin

FrestyleFC3S

j9fd3s

i'm up to 1/15/01! already!

FrestyleFC3S

oh god...well i could have added my whole story with the car since march...but this was speciifically the engine blow up > engine done

Judge Ito

Glad to read you fell in-love all over again with your car..

TheCamel

Nothing sits in your heart harder than telling a person they cannot drive their car, Its even harder telling a friend. Mike is not the most paitient person when it comes to cars, but he was patient with me and I appreciate it. When I took on this project I never thought I would be laid out for almost 4 weeks with pneumonia. I tried many times to go out when I felt better, but the cold air and my lungs just would not cooperate. My hatred of the Haltech did motivate me, I was very disturbed with the wiring harness they had sent Mike. Trying to make sure I did the job right the first time left me with many hours on the internet looking through many different articles on the demon wiring harness. Mike had bought the unit used, and the harness he recieved with the unit was a nightmare, so he had purchased a new flying lead harness from Haltech. Now with all good products there are improvements made throguh the products life, the nightmare came in the form of the new harness, Haltech in their wisdom had changed the colors of some of the wires from the original instruction manual I had to a new diagram on their page. So looking for wires that did not exist in order to make the harness a quick and easy install. Well after 3 hours of searching I finally find the NEW diagram and look, gee they match. When mike arrived I figured anouth 6 hrs of install, load the map, and get him on the way... Yeah sure. Oil leaks, coolant leaks, and Win XP killed the thought of Mike returning to Jersey on the first night. I made him call his mommy so she would not be worried and I continued on till 4:00am cleaning up tools and double checking connections. I go into the house and Mike is out, his one hour of sleep the night before, and they complete day of frustration for him had taken its toll on him.



Sunday the dawn of a new day, the weather is beautiful we were blessed with 2 days of semi-short sleeve weather. A quick charge of the battery, and a fresh set of plugs out of my car got the engine started. We traced vacuum leaks, oil leaks and more coolant problems. A quick run down the road to the parts store that was closed and back to the house proved the car roadworthy, we hooked up a temp wire for the fan and sent mike on his way.



Would I install a Haltech again...probably not. Would I help mike again? Hell yeah as with any of you in the local area. I am a glutton for punishment. I have 4-6 weeks more before the doc finally clears me of the pneumonia ( I had a case bad enough to require drugs they had to look up this time) So yes I had a really bad case. But knowing mike is back on the road is a help.



To Mike, your welcome, i am glad I was able to help in your time of need.



To the rest that dealt with us through that weekend, thanks as well, we could not have done it without the suggestions you all gave.





To the designers of the Haltech harness and software **** OFF!!!!