- 2 years ago
Earlier this year
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MotorTranscript
00:00 Hey, I'm Tony Angelo and this is Hot Rod Garage.
00:23 If you like this show, there's lots more great automotive content on Motor Trend On Demand,
00:26 so check that out.
00:30 Welcome back to Hot Rod Garage, presented by Lincoln Tech.
00:33 In this episode, we've got something really special.
00:35 Earlier this year, my good friend and Hot Rod staffer, Mark Leonard, passed away from
00:39 a tragic motorcycle accident.
00:41 He left behind this LS1 RX-7 project.
00:43 Now, Mark's worked all over at Hot Rod.
00:45 He was an editor, a shooter, he built that 240SX on ignition.
00:51 He actually even tried out to be the host of this show.
00:53 The whole time I've known him, he was building and planning out this RX-7, and he never quite
00:57 got it finished.
00:58 So today, we're going to get this thing up and running for Mark.
01:01 But first, put on your thinking caps, stay tuned for this quick tech tip from Lincoln
01:05 Tech.
01:10 Muffler bearings and turn signal fluid are classic mechanical goofs and obviously aren't
01:14 real parts.
01:15 However, diesel exhaust fluid is a real thing.
01:18 DEF is a mixture of 67.5% deionized water and 32.5% urea.
01:25 It's injected into the exhaust stream of a diesel engine.
01:28 Under the heat, the urea releases ammonia, which reduces harmful nitrous oxide emissions,
01:33 so the exhaust leaving the tailpipe is mostly nitrogen and water.
01:37 So what is urea?
01:38 Contrary to popular belief, it's not deer urine, although synthetic urea is found in
01:43 fertilizers, animal feed, and cleaning agents.
01:46 A DEF tank holds about eight gallons of solution, and that will reduce the nitrous oxide emission
01:50 of a diesel engine by about 80% for about 10,000 miles.
01:55 Refilling the tank can add about 250 bucks to the maintenance program of your vehicle.
01:59 Now, if you're thinking of skipping on buying actual DEF and maybe adding a little animal
02:04 urine to your tank, don't bother.
02:06 Human and animal urine is mostly made up of water and bile, providing just 3% of urea.
02:12 Although it might save some dough, the computer will recognize the wrong solution in the system,
02:16 and prevent you from operating your diesel the moment you fill the DEF tank with straight
02:20 diesel fuel or your secret Bambi mix.
02:24 Lincoln Tech can teach you how to have a career working with cars.
02:27 See LincolnTech.edu.
02:28 Okay, so this is Mark's car.
02:33 It's a 1980 whatever Mazda RX-7 with an LS1 T56 mounted into it.
02:38 As you can see, there's not much else done.
02:40 It obviously needs a ton of work.
02:41 So I brought in some of Mark's best buddies.
02:43 This is Jeff Stoneback.
02:44 He's a pro drift racer from Philadelphia.
02:46 Mike Skidlerik.
02:47 He's got a drift-centric fab shop, and he's also a drift ripper out of Detroit.
02:52 My name's Mike Skidlerik, ex-Formula D driver, now shop owner at Detroit Drifting Co.
02:57 I knew Mark really well.
02:59 I helped him out when he started working on this car, and it's a really great opportunity
03:03 to be here to follow up with that and get this car done for him and his family.
03:08 Hey, everyone.
03:09 My name's Jeff Stoneback from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a professional driver in a series
03:13 called Formula Drift.
03:15 Mark and I shared a huge passion with drifting, whether it was me behind the wheel, him behind
03:20 the camera.
03:21 We both had the same love and the same aspiration and drive to show people what the sport is
03:26 all about.
03:28 So getting this built with Mike, Tony, and Brendan is a great experience, and we just
03:33 hope to give a car back to his family and complete his dream for him, because I think
03:39 that's definitely what he would love us to do.
03:41 I think the first thing we should do, guys, is sort of go through this car, kind of investigate
03:46 and see what we need to do, and kind of make a plan.
03:48 Does that sound good?
03:49 Yeah.
03:50 All right.
03:51 So we have some basic gauges.
03:52 Anything Mark made, we will try to use.
03:56 Do you want to reuse these water and volts?
03:59 Yeah, let's use all that stuff.
04:01 Okay.
04:02 Or at least keep those.
04:03 Yeah.
04:04 What are the gauges you have, Scuds?
04:05 I think it was a tach and a speedo.
04:06 Okay.
04:07 I don't even know what this is.
04:08 I have a switch panel that Mark made.
04:14 That'll come in handy.
04:15 I think this car needs complete wiring, but he was going to use this, so we'll use this.
04:21 Maybe a coolant temp sensor?
04:23 Some braided steel line, some more gauges.
04:27 What are those?
04:30 Just gauge fittings?
04:32 Yeah, I think so.
04:33 All right.
04:34 So keep those out.
04:35 We may need them.
04:36 Just keep the hardware.
04:37 That's a bunch of hardware.
04:38 A bag of bolts.
04:39 These are sway bar spacers, possibly.
04:45 Since we didn't have Mark around to tell us exactly how he wanted this car built, we've
04:48 got to do some investigating to figure out how he wanted it, because it's really important
04:51 to us to build this car true to his vision.
04:54 So we're focusing on getting it running and driving the way he wanted it, and then maybe
04:58 later down the road, we can get this thing finished up to look the way he wanted it to.
05:02 Definitely.
05:03 Cool.
05:04 So we've dug through the car and figured out exactly what's here that we can use, got some
05:07 other stuff ordered, and now we have to figure out what all needs to be done.
05:11 I see definitely, obviously, we need a radiator.
05:14 I saw one in the back.
05:15 Yep.
05:16 Have to make up some mounts, figure out some hoses.
05:18 There's no throttle cable, headers, or any kind of exhaust.
05:24 I saw a starter.
05:25 That's got to get bolted in.
05:26 Power steering is not connected.
05:27 I think we have to adapt some lines to that.
05:30 I see a clutch line that's disconnected.
05:31 Do you want to write that down?
05:32 Yeah.
05:33 Brake booster, radiator hoses.
05:34 We need to make an intake, and then I think I have to wire the whole car.
05:40 So there's quite a bit of work to do here.
05:42 I did not.
05:43 I was underneath the car before.
05:44 We need to make a transmission mount.
05:46 Okay.
05:47 That and oil lines, and that should be it.
05:48 Okay.
05:49 That's a lot of stuff.
05:50 Yeah, let's get cranking on it.
05:51 Let's get moving.
05:52 You got that all written down?
05:53 I think so.
05:54 Wow, it's beautifully written down.
05:55 Look at you.
05:56 That's great.
05:57 Good work.
05:57 With any kind of engine swap, especially a V8 into a small Japanese car, headers and
06:17 exhaust fitment can be really tricky.
06:20 I picked up the smallest block-hugging shorty headers I could find, and the driver's side
06:25 seems to work okay.
06:26 The passenger's side runs sort of right into the subframe, so I'm going to trim the collector
06:29 off, weld a 45 or so on there, and I should be able to clear the subframe and make the
06:34 rest of the exhaust.
06:35 So I'll try the driver's side first.
06:37 The driver's side header bolted up, and the outlet is in a great position to make the
06:42 exhaust.
06:43 That fits really well in what's a pretty tight environment.
06:46 The passenger's side's not quite the same story.
06:48 It looks like this was running right into the subframe, the outlet, so I cut the collector
06:53 off, going to have to weld in a section of pipe angled at about a 45, and then I'll be
07:00 able to make the exhaust from here.
07:01 [Music]
07:30 So now I've got the modifications done to the passenger's side header.
07:33 They're both bolted up, and we can start making the mid-pipes.
07:35 We have the collector outlets bolted on, and we can start working our way back.
07:38 I got a sort of universal exhaust kit with a bunch of bends and lengths on them, so we'll
07:43 start seeing what fits, cutting and welding up what we need.
07:46 That would be like, this whole leg would be missing.
07:49 Yeah.
07:50 At this angle.
07:51 Less angle, and then another straight.
07:52 Yeah, straight up.
07:53 Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
07:54 [Music]
07:55 [Music]
08:19 All right, so after a few hours underneath the car, we turned that box of bends into
08:23 this exhaust.
08:24 Scott is going to go now weld that up.
08:26 Jeff is here.
08:27 He's going to start buttoning things up underneath the hood.
08:29 He's going to do the clutch line, the power steering lines, lots of other stuff, and I'm
08:32 going to turn this big mess into a car harness, hopefully get this thing fired up today.
08:37 So since we're putting a Chevy base motor in a Mazda chassis, there is a specific fuel
08:41 system that you have to run.
08:43 We decided to go with a 2001, 2004 Chevy Corvette fuel filter.
08:48 Since it's a returnless system, the filter regulates the fuel pressure while also cleaning
08:53 the hood, so it makes it real simple.
08:55 So from the fuel filter, we ran a Earl's line with the Earl's fittings to the hard line
09:01 that we ran underneath the chassis that runs up the firewall.
09:05 Then we'll make another line that runs from the hard line to the fuel rail, and then from
09:09 there we should be ready to start it up.
09:10 All right, so I know I said I was going to wire the car up, but I'm going to avoid doing
09:14 that as long as possible because it is not my favorite thing to do.
09:17 So I'm working on the power steering lines.
09:19 Hopefully get it done.
09:21 Getting ready to mount the radiator in Mark's car.
09:24 We're using a rad from a Nissan 240SX because both inlet and outlet are on the correct side
09:30 for the LS motor.
09:32 We found this cool lower rad support that Mark made a few years back when he had the
09:37 original motor set up in here.
09:38 So we're going to modify it to work with the radiator that we're using now.
09:42 All right, so the more I dug into it, it looked like Mark wanted to wire this thing all up
09:48 by hand.
09:49 So I'm going to take that universal kit and I'm going to do it the way he wanted to do
09:51 it with circuit breakers and a switch panel.
09:53 So that's how I'm going to do it.
09:54 I'm drawing out the circuitry now, and with all these wires and connectors I'll make this
09:58 all happen.
09:59 OK, so this is like race car style wiring.
10:27 So all these switches are the power distribution for all the different circuits of the car.
10:31 And there's only five circuits here, so it's pretty simple.
10:34 I've got the main power feed coming in.
10:35 This is on an 80 amp breaker to the battery.
10:38 And there are 20 amp breakers for each circuit.
10:41 Each switch feeds this distribution block.
10:44 So as I add things to each circuit, I can just add them on a ring terminal to each side
10:48 of the block.
10:49 All right, so I'm going to hustle on this wiring.
10:51 We've been on this car hard for the last couple of days and we want to get it fired up before
10:55 Scuds has to leave in like two hours for a flight back home to Detroit.
10:58 So hopefully we get this thing coming to life before Scuds has to go.
11:01 You ready?
11:02 All right, so we're going to start this thing up.
11:29 All right, hands off.
11:40 Turn it on.
11:41 Accessory on.
11:42 Accessory.
11:43 Now crank it.
11:44 All right, good work everybody.
12:02 All right, let's take Scuds out of here.
12:14 So we just did the first startup.
12:15 Obviously, we have little odds and ends to do.
12:18 But the car started up first try.
12:21 The motor sat in my garage for probably a year.
12:24 I never ran it.
12:25 So it was great to hear it run, run strong.
12:28 And everyone just busted their ass.
12:30 I just want to thank everyone at Hot Rod Garage for letting us do this.
12:33 I mean, we took a friend's dream and made it a reality, which is super awesome.
12:40 I know his family is going to be hyped on it.
12:42 So to be able to complete this form is unreal.
12:45 All right, so you heard this thing fire up and it sounds awesome.
12:51 Everybody really helped out a ton.
12:52 We knocked out a lot of work in a really short amount of time.
12:55 And I'm really proud of the effort that everybody put forth.
12:58 This thing sounds rad.
12:59 We've got a couple of things to button up now.
13:01 And we're going to take it to the track and drive it how Mark intended.
13:06 After some serious off-camera hustle, we finished up the exhaust and cooling system fabrication,
13:10 put the finishing touches on the wiring, and bolted everything back together.
13:13 We also set the ECU out to get tuned.
13:16 And once back and installed, this thing fired up and sounds mean.
13:20 We decided to get our buddies together and invited Robin Hurt from Hoonigan and turned
13:23 Mark's vision for his RX-7 into a reality.
13:31 Stop!
13:34 Stop!
13:37 Stop!
13:39 Stop!
13:42 Stop!
13:45 Stop!
13:48 Stop!
13:51 Stop!
13:54 Stop!
13:57 Stop!
14:00 Stop!
14:03 Stop!
14:06 Stop!
14:09 Stop!
14:12 Stop!
14:15 Stop!
14:18 Stop!
14:21 Stop!
14:24 Stop!
14:27 Stop!
14:29 Stop!
14:41 Stop!
14:54 Stop!
14:56 Stop!
14:59 Stop!
15:02 So that's it for this episode of Hot Rod Garage presented by Lincoln Tech.
15:08 Thanks for being a part of it.
15:10 Thanks for watching us honor our friend in the only way that we know how.
15:13 Thanks to Mike and Jeff for all their hard work.
15:16 Rob and Hurt from Hoonigan for coming and hanging out.
15:19 And Corey for being buddies forever.
15:21 Also thanks to Cosmis for the wheels, Achilles for the tires, and the Lenardon family for letting us do this.
15:27 [Closing Music]
15:29 [Closing Music]
15:31 [Closing Music]
15:34 [Closing Music]
15:37 [Closing Music]
15:40 [Closing Music]
15:42 [Closing Music]
16:11 [Crashing Sound]
16:14 Bam!
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