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JAMIE’S RX 323 Discussions


J4m13

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2 hours ago, rusty360 said:

Hey man I'd say that gearbox shaft would have been case hardened, you need a ceramic tip to machine that shit. Its normally about 1mm deep after that soft as butter!

That'd answer it then!! I thought it had some sort of hardening done to it. was hard as fuck!!! once i'd ground down a fair way ai machined beautifully.

I chipped the 2 tips trying to champfer the spline, so just resorted to the same method , ground it with the grinder, and cleaned it up with the tooling.

 

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2 hours ago, Transom said:

Good on you for getting into the depths of the gearbox - was going to do the rx 5th gear swap into my Mx5 gearbox - but it’s the last piece you get to disassembling ... so it stayed 

 

It wasn't all that hard, just really time consuming.

The most difficult part was the tools and lack of, theres a special mazda tool thats needed to remove a nut thats under a few gears, I just cut up the right sized nut, was 41mm from memory, cut a piece of scaffolding tube to the length i needed and welded the sucker together.

Apart from that, just ensuring the shims and spacers are in the right order. 

Give it a crack mate, if you want the website for step by step disassembly, let me know

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Yep I have seen the whole guide to doing it looked at it while I had both gearboxes apart - about that time I figured my new diff was higher geared so no need for a taller 5th gear 

seems the pro7 series race cars do quite a bit of mix and match with the 2 smoothcase gearboxes and mazdatrix has a lot of info on them 

323 is gonna be fun with that tiny wheelbase and some power

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On 04/04/2020 at 17:18, Transom said:

Yep I have seen the whole guide to doing it looked at it while I had both gearboxes apart - about that time I figured my new diff was higher geared so no need for a taller 5th gear 

seems the pro7 series race cars do quite a bit of mix and match with the 2 smoothcase gearboxes and mazdatrix has a lot of info on them 

323 is gonna be fun with that tiny wheelbase and some power

Yea, I did a bit of research from the u.s sites and what not. They seem to have had a fair bit of experience modding and exchanging etc.

im hoping the hatch will be good, I’ve had a couple, my last one was a 13b bp turbo and was too loose for me.

so I thought I’d stick to n/a

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As far as I know, it's fine to run the QA1 Proma stars upside down. The website doesn't say anything about it, but plenty of hotrod guys run them with the adjuster at the top. 

It will work fine as long as the spherical bearings have enough movement in that orientation as the shock swings through its arc (should be fine). The shock body could also get quite close to the shock mount tube as the suspension goes up and down, so take the springs off and swing the axle through its arc to see how everything behaves before locking it in. 

The only other issue is that you won't be able to use all of the height adjustment without hacking the shock mount area or running a shorter spring, but those issues can be overcome too. 

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25 minutes ago, Truenotch said:

As far as I know, it's fine to run the QA1 Proma stars upside down. The website doesn't say anything about it, but plenty of hotrod guys run them with the adjuster at the top. 

It will work fine as long as the spherical bearings have enough movement in that orientation as the shock swings through its arc (should be fine). The shock body could also get quite close to the shock mount tube as the suspension goes up and down, so take the springs off and swing the axle through its arc to see how everything behaves before locking it in. 

The only other issue is that you won't be able to use all of the height adjustment without hacking the shock mount area or running a shorter spring, but those issues can be overcome too. 

Yea, I am more that happy to take some material away if I needed to, as there is plenty of meat left after the mod. I don’t have the spherical roller bearings, of got the bushes. But when I’m buttoning everything up I’ll definitely take your advice and extend everything through full travel etc.

there seems to be a lot of spring rates out there so I have a feeling I’ll be doing a lot of trial and error research, and there’s a lot of stuff popping up here 2nd hand that I can hand and get he basics.

I appreciate the reply mate, cheers 

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Rubber bushes might be a bit more comfortable for a road car and will be fine as long as the bushes don't bind up through the sweep. Although it's easy to order a set of spherical bearings later on if you change your mind. 

What rate are the current springs? I would recommend going to a shorter spring and adding a keeper spring to get a good amount of droop travel. Droop travel a requirement for getting a cert and it'll make the car ride better too. 

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11 hours ago, Truenotch said:

Rubber bushes might be a bit more comfortable for a road car and will be fine as long as the bushes don't bind up through the sweep. Although it's easy to order a set of spherical bearings later on if you change your mind. 

What rate are the current springs? I would recommend going to a shorter spring and adding a keeper spring to get a good amount of droop travel. Droop travel a requirement for getting a cert and it'll make the car ride better too. 

I think from memory... 110, or 90 rings a bell for spring rate. I have them here at work so when I go out to press the bushes in ill confirm. 

What would be the ideal spring rate do you think for a road car??

The shocks are quite long, but i can get a shorter rod from qa1, or machine the current one smaller if i need shorter springs.

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12 hours ago, cletus said:

Yeah I've seen something from qa1 confirming they can go either way up no problem 

That'd be the ticket, ill just run them up the other way and if I come up a cropper, will modify my shock mounts on the body if i need to, at least it'd be minimal as opposed to the modification needed running it right side up

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They look harder than ~100lb to me. I’d say somewhere around 200-250lb would be a good rate for a road car depending on what you’ll be running up front. 

To run a keeper spring you’ll either need to run a shorter spring or “lower” the spring perches to account for the extra stack height of the keeper. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎06‎/‎04‎/‎2020 at 09:06, Truenotch said:

They look harder than ~100lb to me. I’d say somewhere around 200-250lb would be a good rate for a road car depending on what you’ll be running up front. 

To run a keeper spring you’ll either need to run a shorter spring or “lower” the spring perches to account for the extra stack height of the keeper. 

Hey, im looking into the suspension a bit harder now.  Im contemplating getting the spherical bearings for the top shock mount.

Do you know by any chance where to source them and what info i'd need??

Also, where can i find some more info on this keeper spring youre suggesting??

 

Thanks mate.

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On 20/04/2020 at 14:16, J4m13 said:

Hey, im looking into the suspension a bit harder now.  Im contemplating getting the spherical bearings for the top shock mount.

Do you know by any chance where to source them and what info i'd need??

Also, where can i find some more info on this keeper spring youre suggesting??

 

Thanks mate.

Yip, can point you in the right direction. 

Cardwells Racing Supplies should be able to supply the sphericals. They don't have them listed online, but here's the part you're looking for: https://www.qa1.net/automotive/suspension/accessories/bearing-kits . You can also buy them from Summit Racing, Speedway Motors and a lots of other USA websites, although shipping will be slow at the moment. 

As for the keeper spring setup. I don't have any pics of the setup on my AE86, but here's a set of MX5 racecar shocks I put together a while back. 

Resized_20180503_084221.jpeg

Under load: 

Rear.jpg 

To add keepers you'll need shorter springs, locator collars (the silver bit you can see there^^) and a pair of keeper springs. There's a bit of mucking around and measuring to get everything right, as there's different lengths of main and keeper springs available and the combo needs to work for your chosen ride height. 

The first step is to figure out what you've got and choose your ride height. What rate are those springs and how much droop are you getting at the moment? It looks like the rear compressed about 50mm when you dropped it on the ground? In which case you've got plenty of droop at the moment, but the springs must be fairly soft. Give it a bounce and see how it feels. 

It might work out that you don't need keepers if you decide to stick with the current spring rate. 

Springs will usually have a rate marked on them, but if it's not there you can measure the diameter, length, number of coils and wire thickness to work out the approximate spring rate.

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