The long wait is over
I finally found some time this weekend to move over the HKS Power Flow Intakes from the black FD to my silver one!
It took me roughly 2.5 hours to do the swap and return the black FD back to standard (Well sort of, I'm missing a clamp so need to grab that tomorrow from a hardware store)
How did I do it?
Firstly excuse the cellphone pictures, I was too lazy to get my camera charged and ready for this.
I started by stripping the stock airbox, wow what a crazy mission. To get the clamps off I had to use a pair of gas pliers, vice grips probably would have worked better but I didn't have them with me. I fought for around 25 minutes removing stock pipework.
See that purple pipe? Well, that's the upper radiator hose. I landed killing two birds with one stone. I flushed and removed all the water from my coolant system and then took out the stock radiator pipework.
That's the stock obtrusive airbox...
Once I finished with the purple radiator hose installation, I pulled the HKS intakes off the black FD. I'm really fortunate to have them both side by side to compare and know exactly where everything goes.
Notice anything? Big shiny blow off valve on the left... It goes psssssssshttttt when I come off the throttle :)
And here we have it, completed installation of the HKS air intakes!
I forgot to take a photo of the engine bay with the air flow duct cover thing that's supposed to go where the pliers are sitting in the above photo. Anyway you get the idea.
But why is your strut bar and radiator hoses purple and your intake green?
Well, I'm getting there slowly. I need to colour code the vacuum hoses in purple and I've just pulled the trigger and used SBD to buy $70 worth of purple HKS intake filters
Oh and there's that red silicone that's connected to the intercooler piping, well the stock one broke and I've thrown that on temporarily. I'm not sure if I'm going V Mount intercooler or front mount yet so that can stay on for the time being.
Anyway I'm one step closer to getting my RX7 done.. I jacked the car up earlier on and attempted to remove the bolts on the stock exhaust but they are super tight. I've soaked them with some magic substances and will try again another day.
How does it perform and sound?
I just came back from a spirited drive around our busy town of Umhlanga and to be honest I don't feel much of a performance difference. I think once I open up the exhaust and give it a little tune then it will come alive. Either way still pretty damn quick for a semi stock car. Otherwise it sounds fantastic, really cool turbo sucking sounds and the pssssssssht from the BOV is cool too!
So that was my productive Saturday, I also worked on the house for 6-7 hours. We cut down another tree and build a box for my new drainage system but I won't bore you with those stories.
Hope you enjoyed this little DIY, will see you in the next blog!
