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How to Modify an FC RX-7 CorkSport Style, Part 1: The Engine

So you have an FC RX-7 and you want to upgrade the car both in engine performance and styling. We have a large range of CorkSport brand products to help you out, along with other products we carry. Today we’ll start with the engine performance modifications, and later on work our way to the exterior.

The example car I will use for the build is my 1987 RX-7 Turbo II, since I am very familiar with it. This build will be written as if the car is stock when we start the project.

The first thing you need to do is get rid of the stock exhaust since it is heavy and fairly restrictive. Since my car is a turbo model I chose the CorkSport 80mm Turbo Back Exhaust or TBE for short. There are several reasons to go with the turbo back system. First, the exhaust looks great and sounds even better. Second, the turbo back exhaust is straight-through and is as free-flowing as you can get (be careful, removing the catalytic converter can violate emissions laws, check your local laws before installing.) Third, the amount of power gained with the exhaust system can be close to 45 wheel horsepower.

With the installation of the exhaust you do need to defeat the over-boost safety device built into the stock computer. This can be done with an HKS Fuel Cut Defender (FCD). What it does is cap the voltage of the pressure sensor so the computer does not think it is boosting higher than stock. Without the FCD the factory computer will cut fuel to the rear engine rotor to try and control what it thinks is over boost. The fuel cut will cause the rear rotor to be lean and can result in detonation and engine damage.

CorkSport RX-7 Turbo Back Exhaust

With the increase in power and boost from the TBE we need to look at addressing the fuel system before we put anymore power out of the engine. Lets face it, the fuel pump has been in the tank for 24 years now and isn’t getting any younger. To keep supporting the power increases an upgraded fuel pump is going to be required. The two options CorkSport offers are the J-Spec Cosmo fuel pump and the Walbro 255lph pump and Screen kit. I personally would use the J-Spec Cosmo pump. It may be more expensive but it was designed to fuel the 20B 3 rotor engine which had six 550cc fuel injectors to feed, which is 1100cc more than the FC RX-7 Turbo has. The pump is a bolt in replacement for the stock fuel pump and it includes a new pickup screen. I also strongly recommend sending your fuel injectors out to be tested and cleaned when you upgrade the fuel pump. There is most likely 24 years of deposits built up in the injectors as well. There are several companies which offer the service, like Witchhunter Performance or Marren for example. Find a place to clean the injectors that is close to you to cut down on shipping time back and forth.

With the fuel injectors pulled out I am sure you noticed that the wiring harness is pretty crunchy and destroyed, especially on the turbocharger side of the engine. The options are to either fix the breaking connectors and splice in new plugs or replace the harness. I would opt for replacing the harness myself so there will be trouble free motoring in the future. The CorkSport Harness is a great setup with all of the short comings of the stock harness addressed and removed in this new part.

We improved the exhaust flow so now it’s time to go work on the intake side. The first part to remove is the stock rubber turbo inlet pipe, which undoubtedly needs attention. The heat from the turbo and time really play hell with the stock part, making it brittle and prone to cracking. The CorkSport Turbo Inlet Pipe or TIP for short gives you a good looking part which will last much longer and seal better than the stock rubber part. The CorkSport TIP also happens to be $60 less than the stock Mazda part, if you can even find one.

CorkSport Turbo Inlet Pipe

The second part to the intake side is adding the CorkSport Front Mount Intercooler Kit (FMIC). The stock intercooler is mounted on top of the engine and can get heat soaked easily. For more information on heat soak check out our technical article about upgraded intercoolers. The solution to this is to get the intercooler out of the engine bay and into the air flow of the cooler air coming into the engine bay. The intercooler really helps out with making power consistently, instead of worrying about performance variations because of intercooler temperatures. With a heat soaked stock intercooler you get almost none of the cooling effects and you are just pumping hot air into the engine.

Now that we’ve done a good job of upgrading the power potential of our car, we need to make sure it stays cool. The next item to upgrade then is the old stock radiator in the RX-7, and we have the perfect part or the job. The CorkSport Aluminum Radiator and Fan Shroud are bolt in replacements for the stock radiator and shroud. The reason the new shroud is required is that the thicker radiator places the shroud closer to the stock engine fan. The new fan shroud has extra clearance so the stock fan can still be utilized with the upgraded radiator. The original radiator uses an aluminum core with a plastic fiber end tank design. After heat cycling for 24 years the fiber end tanks get brittle and crack. When this happens it is game over for the stock radiator and your engine if you let the engine overheat. Remember if you hear that annoying buzzer go off, stop your car and check the coolant (let it cool off first). Mazda made it annoying on purpose; rotaries do not handle overheating well.

While we are on the topic of cooling, the stock oil cooler lines are something to look at. The stock parts are a rubber line with a braided cloth outer. The lines will get soft and start to develop leaks or possibly fail over time. This can be the end of your engine if this happens while you are driving and lose oil pressure, which can destroy your motor. The CorkSport Stainless Braided Oil Cooler Lines replace the stock line with completely new and upgraded parts. The lines are a stainless steel braided line which is more durable than the stock oil cooler lines. They are a little more difficult to install because of how tough they are, but the end results and peace of mind you get knowing they won’t fail are well worth it.

That’s all for this time, I will run through the drivetrain, chassis, and styling modifications in future blog posts.

– Derrick

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Update on Product Development

We have some good things brewing here at CorkSport in the product development arena. We’re working on the release of some new products that are currently in our development pipeline. Below are a few products that we’ll be releasing soon as well as a snapshot of our current approved projects that are in the works. If you don’t have your favorite project listed on here, we may still be working on it, but if there is something you’d like to see, feel free to email us: griffith@corksport.com.

2010 Mazda3 / Mazdaspeed3 License Plate Relocation Bracket

Using the factory tow hook mounting boss and a CNC machined, black anodized billet aluminum backing plate complete with a ghosted CorkSport ‘CS’ logo, this license plate relocation bracket allows you to avoid being hassled by Johnny Law while not blocking the flow of your radiator or front mount intercooler. Offset to the driver side with a factory fascia contouring angle, these brackets are the nicest on the market with a simple yet effective design that even looks nice if you’ve got the plate off of the car.

Have comments and questions about this product? Feel free to email me at griffith@corksport.com for further input. One customer we have (who at this time of press hasn’t answered my email asking to use his name -which I would love to) had an excellent suggestion to provide a replacement cover for the tow hook access panel, and we’re already working with our composites shop to dial something in as an added option to the package.

Look forward to this product coming near the end of the month. Photos below show initial design using ‘AXELA’ license plate to demonstrate assembly. No more rotation of your plate frame. Integrated threaded bosses in the 1/4″ thick backing plate for an easy two handed installation. Two piece billet design allows potential to swap out for JDM or European backing plates in the future.

Want to throw in your 2 cents toward future upgrades and revisions to the product? Leave us your comments in this quick online product development survey.

2004-2009 Mazda3 2.3l Power Series Short Ram Intake System

We have had a lot of success lately with our configurable intake systems for the 2010 Mazda3 and 2007-2010 MZR 2.3 DISI powered MS3, MS6 and CX-7 and we have our customers to thank for that. With all of the added buzz around our intakes, a number of 1st Gen MZ3 as well as MZ6 owners have asked about a Power Series Intake for their vehicles. So we prototyped a new silicone coupler design that interfaces well with the MZ3 and MZ6 vehicles, clearing the battery box vent in the MZ3 and providing additional hood clearance in the MZ6.

So far we’re on the cusp of being able to release the 1st Gen MZ3 systems -probably around the end of the month. I’ll be testing out the system on a 1st Gen MZ6 this week thanks to one of our local friends who has been a customer of ours for years of Mazda ownership.

We are still looking for a 2010 MZ6 in the PDX/Vancouver, WA area as our last contact for a rental car has come up short in the last few weeks and we’re really eager to get the development finished on that product and get it to market. So if you’ve got a 2010 MZ6 and are in the market for a short ram intake, drop me an email at griffith@corksport.com and we’ll get it hooked up for you.

2010 Mazdaspeed3 Cat Back Exhaust.

We just finished some revisions to production testing for the CatBack Exhuast on the shop’s 2010 Mazdaspeed3 and will have those available in early May. Dual 90mm tailpipes finish off a twin resonated system with full 3″ straight through exhaust for maximum performance and our signature aggressive sound.

2010 Mazdaspeed3 Front Mount Intercooler

We’re finishing up the test fit of our 2010 Mazdaspeed3 FMIC this week and then doing some dyno pulls to catalog the results. We are also revising the configurations of our FMIC, offering a bare bones FMIC kit at an aggressive price point, FMIC with Top-Mount Ram Airbox, as well as options for full anodizing of the entire system and optional inclusion of the ATP Boost Cut Killer that was included with all of our previous intercoolers (as anyone with a FMIC and TurboBack Exhaust can tell you, this addition is usually the item that pushes you right up to the point of boost cut, and being able to run that additional couple of PSI adds up to a lot of power, especially when you throw a tune on the vehicle for a good margin of safety.

2010 MS3 Cold Air Box

We’ve got this charted for June 2010, had to do a few updates to the design in an attempt to clear HKS SSQV BOV’s. Just finishing up the redesign and should be able to make a mold shortly thereafter.

FC RX-7 S4 & S5 CorkSport Silicone Radiator Hoses

Multi-layer silicone coolant hoses withstand immense pressures and seal superbly. Add a set of four T-Bolt Band clamps and you’re ensured the best performance. With a black outside and a blue flourosilicone liner, these lines won’t burst under pressure and they won’t burst your bank account either.

There’s my update for now. We’ve got a couple more things coming down the pipe, but these are the furthest along.

I’ll keep you all updated!

– Jason

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JDM Van FTW!

I love having a vehicle that can do everything as my daily driver. Right now, I’m driving a Volkswagen Vanagon Syncro Westfalia Camper w/ Subaru EJ22 engine as my everyday kick around vehicle. It’s the penultimate vehicle for doing pretty much anything -offroad adventures, camping, transporting stuff -from groceries to auto parts to shop tools and materials, etc. It’s no time attack vehicle, but it keeps me out of trouble on a day to day basis like none of my turbocharged vehicles with aftermarket engine management could ever hope to, and it still turns head like crazy. Here’s a picture that is worth a thousand words to convey the insanity that is a Vanagon Syncro Westy:

But I really want to add a Mazda to my collection in this role, and after spending much time in our Mazdaspeed3, I am very attracted to that car. Unfortunately, my criteria for a daily driver is -I don’t want to mess with it, and I like my license. I have had a number of daily drivers that ranged from healthily fast to stupid fast and I’m better off not becoming used to putting 400+ horsepower to the ground at every on ramp, stop light and S curve in the road. It’s like my brain is hardwired to just use the vehicle I have to its extents. Which is why there are a vehicle that looks like a mechanical turtle and a Honda Civic Hybrid in my household -intervention was necessary.

Then while in Tokyo last week, I saw in person a vehicle that I always thought was “french accent” super-cool “french accent”: The Mazda Scrum. Also known as the Suzuki Every (because every other one is really a Suzuki perhaps?), Subaru Sambar, Daewoo Damas, Honda Acty, Daihatsu Hijet, Mitsubishi Minicab, Maruti Omni and the dreaded…Bedford Rascal. Perhaps you remember the episode of Fifth Gear where Tom Ford and Johnny Smith duked it out dori dori style in a pair of Bedford’s, with Tom’s ending up like a British acid trip version of a Bosozoku A-Team van. Anyway, back to the Scrum -our awesome little Mazda microvan/truck.

With a twin cam 650cc Turbo 3 cylinder, this little Demio/Mazda2 sized van is freaking awesome. For 2010 it comes in about 10 different trim levels across two lines -the wagon, which is your typical family car and THE VAN, which is your work vehicle, manual transmission, optional all wheel drive….optional TRUCK BED! Ever since I made a trip up to BC a few years back and got an eyeful of the Mitsubishi Delica Spacewagons and other JDM people movers that are around every corner in BC, I have been wanting one of these unique vehicles.

Ya see, here in the US of A, if you work in the trades, you have this compulsory magnetism to purchasing a Ford 3500 with Cummins DuraStroke diesel engine (this is humor, don’t post comments about how I don’t know Chevy from Ford, I do, and I’m not proud of it). This trend to needing a big truck if you work a trade, albeit ubiquitous in the United States is all but nonexistent in the rest of the world. You go to Australia, South Africa or Europe, you’ll see vans (think Sprinter) and the omnipresent Ute (think an El Camino made out of anything from a new GTO to a Nissan Sentra). In Asia, it’s a little different with the van simply coming in multiple scales (from semi truck sized all the way down compact and subcompact).

I so want one of these little bastards. They’re awesome, can park on a sidewalk (that happens to me often, I wake up in the drivers seat mysteriously parked on a sidewalk :-/), can be used to transport people and easily convert to hold mass quantities of cargo and get amazing mileage. Check out this diagram of the seating configurations.

Unfortunately, here in the states my best option to get one imported and in is probably not to buy a brand new one, so I went looking around. Terra2Imports.com is up in British Columbia and has these available regularly.

In fact, they’ve got a private seller who’s trying to part with a Suzuki Every Turbo with the “Super Multi-Roof” glass topped twin moon-roof option right now that I’ve been trying to figure out how to smuggle past the authorities and/or Minutemen at the Canadian border.

I mean, check this thing out -effectively a full glass top, room to carry the world, a 650cc Turbo engine just begging to be thrown in the garbage in trade for a GSX-R 1300cc Hayabusa engine with miter cut 2′ tall Bosozoku exhaust and mashed to the ground on a set of JIC Magic coilovers and zero offset wheels.

I wouldn’t be the first person with a Boso Micro Van…check out this Autozam (Mazda’s Kei Car division) Scrum:

In case you’re wondering where the heck Mazda got the name for the Scrum, it’s the point in a rugby game when there is a restart after a stop in the game …get it? It’s the stop and go vehicle, great for deliveries and going from one place to the next. Ah, chalk it up to lost in translation. They could just call it Car+Box and I’d love it.

– Jason

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Who is this Derek Jenkins Guy Anyway?

In May 2009 Derek Jenkins joined Mazda after a 15 year career with VW. Derek worked his way through Volkswagen and his last post was Chief of Design for Volkswagen Group North America. He is credited for the Audi A2, A8, and the VW IROC which is going to be the upcoming Scirocco. So why should we care who he is and what he has done? He is now the Design Director for Mazda Design America which means Derek is now in charge of implementing the Nagare design to upcoming Mazda models with Mazda’s new global design chief, Ikuo Maeda.

VW IROC Concept aka Scirocco

With this role he will be directly communicating to the top of Mazda’s research & development, engineering, and product planning. You can expect to see his work in the next few years with new models of Mazdas being released.

The first vehicle to come out with the Nagare design is the 2011 Mazda 5 which is being shown at the Geneva Auto Show. We have more details on the Mazda 5 in the blog post I wrote up in January.

2011 Mazda 5

Models coming up for re-design or replacement includes the RX-8, Tribute, and CX-9. I am holding out hope the RX-8 gets replaced with an RX-7 successor. The new tribute or replacement for it should be a huge departure from the existing model. The CX-9 I am not sure how it will turn out. It should be getting a facelift soon but it could a surprise how much the Nagare styling influences it.

If you are worried that Derek is not an enthusiast I found an interesting mention of him on Zercustoms showing his modded Golf GTI. Let us hope this gives more leverage to a future RX-7.

– Derrick

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Taking it to the Track

It’s easy to lose sight of ‘Performance’ during the daily grind of developing and selling performance parts. This means different things to different people, I understand. To Travis (Shipping) and Chris (Sales) this means getting involved in Autocross/Solo. Both of them are new to this form of motorsports, but both are veterans of sanctioned drag racing. How will that translate to quick turns on asphalt parking lots? Stay tuned during the upcoming season to find out. Or even better, get involved and join us!

Below is their planned schedule. They decided to take turns running a 2007 Mazdaspeed3 loaded with CS parts.

Oregon SCCA where you can get on the race track, autocross or rallycross

Practice Day Saturday, March 27th – PIR North Paddock
Event #1 Sunday, March 28th – PIR North Paddock, $25
Novice School Saturday, April 24th- PIR South Paddock (Pre-registration is required.), $50.
Event #2 Sunday, April 25th- PIR South Paddock, $25
Intermediate School Saturday, June 12th, Packwood, WA (Pre-registration is required)
Event #3 Sunday, June 13th – Packwood, WA, $25
Event #4 Saturday, July 10th – Packwood, WA, $25
Event #5 Sunday, July 11th, – Packwood, WA, $25
Event #6 Saturday, August 21st – Packwood, WA, $25
Event #7 Sunday, August 22nd – Packwood, WA, $25
Event #8 Saturday, September 18th – PIR South Paddock, $25
Event #9 Sunday, September 19th – PIR South Paddock, $25

The plan is to make each PIR event, the novice school and at least 1 Packwood weekend event. The car will likely be classed in DSP, details still to be worked out.

We’ll post a blog introducing the car, Travis & Chris, and progress so far after their first event later this month.

Do any of you guys autocross your cars? Let us know what you think.