More Update..

After my event DGRR 2015, I had a photoshoot with my friend and a photographer before I started to break down the car. I had at this point about 3 weeks til my photoshoot with SH.











Clean up my garage and hung my Exedy and Rays Engineering flags.



I than started working on the interior of the car. Replacing my old interior (CF) with all OE plastics with zero broken tabs.. and got them refinished.







With Spirit R cluster



Changed the Steering wheel to match the recovered RZ seats.





Changed out the Catback.. replaced the RE-Amemiya Dual Dolphine tips to Ganador full Titanium catback



Got my Defi BF gauges I had for severals years, got new sensors, wires, and tested them out.


New AutoEXE hood struts.


Full Function Engineering goodies


Some Carbon goodies...

Feed interior covers and Feed Ganador mirror cover in CF.


I been a fan of Samco Sport product since knowing Samco were first to produce OE upgrade rad and IC couplers and hoses. Mazdaspeed kit, Samco were the supplier for MS IS kit. So, i wanted to run their goods.



Ended up getting box full of Samco goodies..



And finally the bumper...



And Engine bay

 

More Update..

I put all the new stuff on mainly to make it to my feature shoot with SpeedHunters. Unfortunately, I had about 3 weeks to pull it off but been working on it on the side for months.
I literally pulled it off the morning of the shoot.

Here are preview shots taken at the house, just before leaving to Road ATL.







My journey wasn't a pleasant one... My shoot with Larry Chen from Speedhunters was set at 4:30. I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to get to ATL, avoid ATL traffic, goto my favorite restaurant for lunch, and have plenty of time to clean the car... as I drive this car to all the events.

So, Me and a local V8 FD owner who have never been to Formula Drift left my house around 8AM (9AM EST). As soon as we hit the main road, my car started to accelerate without my pushing the throttle, Since I changed up the several parts, I thought I might of not set the idle and such correctly.. After adjusting and stopping every exit on the interstate, I plugged in my laptop to the ECU to see what the possible issue was.. one of the great thing about Adaptronics ECU was you can reset/recalibrate the TPS. We reset and car seemed fine. Until 5-10 mins later it started to accelerate by itself again. At this point, me and my passenger had no idea what it was doing. Finally we got the car idling fine again and hit the road. Again it started to accelerate. Me and my passenger finally figured out, with the laptop, you can reset and recal the TPS on the fly. Everytime we reset, the car will stop accelerating. We ended up resetting the TPS over 100 times from Bham, AL to Road Atlanta. Our favorite was when we hit 3PM ATL traffic. One of the nerve wrecking drive I had was this drive. I would just shut the car off on the interstate as reset didn't help much. I had literally started the 20-30 times during the over an hour traffic I was stuck in.

At the end, I was amazed about two things I put in to this car,
1. Adaptronics ECU... the abilities to reset on the fly helped. Also, my laptop just plugging in and read the ECU without starting helped.
2. Turblown/Davies Craig Electric Water Pump (EWP). This thing truly worked. It was my first time running this kit and it truly did its job. During my ATL traffic off and on engine, I could hear the fans kicking in and waterpump circulating when engine was off. It kept my engine cool during this stressful time. Which one thing I didn't have to worry.

Oh, I forgot, I was also stranded on the interstate because my Aftermarket Industries (AI) surgetank went out. I was going 80MPH and all the sudden, car just dies. I was about to move from fast lane to right shoulder safely.
What I think it happened was, the fuel line I used inside the tank got undone. Luckily, when I was going from Radium single Bosch 044 to AI triple Walbro 440s, I had to extend some of the lines using brass barb fittings. Luckily, I was able to re route the lines so that I could use the stock pump instead of the AI tank. If I didn't use those barb fitting, we would of had to walk to the next exit, buy some fuel lines, and do all kind of fun stuff. Instead re routing took 15-20 mins and we were on the road.. still with acceleration issues.

We finally made it to Road ATL right around 4:15. I called Larry Chen asking where I needed to meet him and he said to just come down to the paddock. Going through the paddock, I felt little embarrassed. Mainly because car sounded horrible and I kept stalling out because it idled like ***.
When I met Larry, one of the thing he asked me was, "are you going to clean your car?". I guess he thought I was going to trailer the car and not drive what it was suppose to be 3 hour trip, now took 6+ hours. I told him to give me 10 mins.

I cleaned up the car as best as I could with my friend Michael, aka TPS resetter. and we went on the Road ATL for the shoot.

Here are some photos I took with my phone..











I'm now out of time.. I will update more later..

 

Update..

My car was shown under Exedy Clutch USA booth at the Formula Drift ATL..





with one of the Exedy Model


Right before leaving..



Engine bay shot



And finally link to the SpeedHunters feature link..

http://www.speedhunters.com/2015/07/...rotary-maniac/

Here are few of my favorite shots from Photographer Larry

 

Update..

For the past year, I been looking into getting a dash unit for track use. Mainly to monitor various sensors such as: Oil temp, Oil pressure, Water Temp, Fuel pressure, Boost, EGT, etc.. as you can imagine, this will clutter the cockpit with bunch of gauges and problem placing them all.

Also, pending what ecu you run some dash unit will not work. So, after searching.. came up with an idea.

Those of you whos been following this thread, I was lucky enough to acquire a Defi Super Sport Cluster. Super rare dash replacement that you can tie into your OE car harness and Defi sensors to replace your OE cluster.



Well, Defi recently came out with something interesting.

http://www.defi-shop.com/products/sm...y_smart_adp_w/

A device you can hook up to your 2008+ OBD II port and stream real time info to your smart phone or tablet. Better yet, you can use their Advance Control unit and also stream Defi sensor(s) reading to your iOS devices!!

So.. I decided to give it a shot!


bought an iPad mini, and downloaded the app called "Defi Meter C".
App looks like this.


My friend at EVOR sold me a Carbon blank cluster surround, which I used it to mount the iPad mini.



And installed it in the car..










And here is the video of it running..


They are coming out with some cool stuff!! such as logging program and even track logging.

 

I need your support!!


I recently signed up for an online battle where top two finalists get to set their cars to SEMA Las Vegas. I am currently in battle round from top 16 to top 8..

To vote for me,

click on the link http://tunerbattlegrounds.com/compet...09-philip-sohn
click on the blue facebook button
click on the yellow star to vote.

If you can vote for me every day, I would greatly appreciate it. Also you can friend me on my facebook for updates!
My Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/Herblenny

Thank you for your support!

 

I wanted to thank you all for voting for me!!!

I am now stage 4, top 8 going into top 4.

My competitor is 2004 Acura TSX with serious community help.


I'm hoping those of you been following my build would support me by voting for me and sharing the link and pictures with your fellow Facebook friends.

Link to vote: http://tunerbattlegrounds.com/compet...09-philip-sohn

There are tons of photos on here, but I actually do track my car


again to vote: http://tunerbattlegrounds.com/compet...09-philip-sohn

Car I'll be taking

 

Absolutely stunning FD's. Did you ever put the magnesium wheels on?

 

Its been awhile since I last updated this thread..

To start, I took some photo of the car 3 months ago..







Still loving the Defi/iPad combo!!

I'm also upgrading my turbo set up with new Borg Warner EFR Turbo set up using Turblown's cast stainless manifold.


Quality of this manifold is just top notch!!


I've mocked it up on my spare engine to see how it all lines up.



I'm going to update this thread more often since new projects are at works this year. Including my 3 Rotor Project..

 

Few pics of the install.




Radium surge tank!

 

RX7 done right is one of my favorites. Awesome looking car & beautiful interior.

 

Phil you're on every forum haha! Great car(s) as always! Can't wait to see that 3 rotor up and running!

josh

 

Thanks Josh! I'm re-doing it next year and hope to repeat sema..

It's been awhile since I last updated this thread..

Well, several things have happened since..

Once the car was done, I took it to Import Alliance ATL, under Exedy Clutch booth.
Made it on to their event video. Thank you IA!!

Click here for the Video (I'm at 5:04) :

 

Few more updates..

Earlier this year, my latest build was featured and made cover of PasMag magazine.

I ended up doing the photos and was honored that they pick my photo for the cover.
Here are few photos from the feature.



Front bumper Knightsport Type 7


Turbo - Borg Warner 8374 EFR with Turbosmart wastegate actuator and BOV.


Lights R Magic HID lights with Custom Carbon Fiber buckets by my friends at EVOR


Hood - Not really sure who made it in Japan. Its very similar to Mazdaspeed hood. Grills were custom cut and made by my friend Micheal Osburn.


Wheels - Rays Engineering Gram Lights FXX


Tail Lights are by EVO-R


This photo was picked for Toyo Tires Shutter Space event in California. I was one of 15 photos picked.


You can barely see my photo in the background

If you fancy a read... Here is the link to the PasMag feature: http://www.pasmag.com/features/4443-...azda-rx-7-fd3s

 

Update: Another feature and some of the photos.

Link to the feature: http://www.zengarage.com.au/2016/04/...ny-mazda-rx-7/

Photos:

Shoot took place at my buddy's personal garage at his house.
Photos were taken by: Ryan Lopez. Amazing young photographer!


One of my favorite photo of my cars


Tail lights are Carshop Glow lights


Interior - Grip Royal Steering wheel, RE-Amemiya 300km Speedo, Mazda 15th Anniversary cluster, etc


Engine bay - BNR stage 3 upgraded twin turbo


Ray Engineering RE30 Monoforged/dieforged wheels, wrapped in Toyo Tires T1 Sports


Works quick release, Bride Zeta III seats

More updates next week.

 

Some 3 Rotor update.

Had the new manifold made by Addicted Performance Unlimited using 321 Stainless. Addicted Performance was recently featured by TV show Gas Monkey and does amazing job! They also sponsor my rotary event called, 'Deals Gap Rotary Rally'.
Check out their site: http://addictedperformanceunlimited.com/

Custom 3 Rotor Flange.


Couple of runners done.


Finished manifold!


Mock up on to Addicted Performance Shop 3 rotor
I'll be using Borg Warner EFR 9180 with external wastegate (Turbosmart)


I'm trying to build 2 x FD's this coming year. Hope to build and have fun with these.