Steve Verplank's '86 RX7/LS1 w/ATI ProCharger
This update from: 10/31/2009

Steve Verplank has a very clean '86 Mazda RX7 that he had already installed an LS1 in. For most people, that would be all the power one would need, but you know how it is... Steve asked us to look into installing an ATI ProCharger on his car, and the GTO kit looks to be a shoe in for it. Well, almost...





The engine already had a cam and modified cylinder heads on it, plus Steve had the stock LS1 exhaust manifolds honed out.





Guess what showed up? Because of the Christmas Holidays, we just received the supercharger from ATI this week. We had to dimple the inner fender in slightly to get the GTO designed ATI ProCharger to fit, but it looks great, and was the best choice from ATI ProCharger to go with for this chassis. As can be seen in this photo, there is very little room for the electric fans. The fan that came with the GTO kit will not work, as there just is not enough room for it. We have ordered up two Flex-A-Lite 10" fans that look to be what we need, and they should do an excellent job of keeping this engine cool. We ordered in a Fluidampr harmonic balancer that was  required for the ATI ProCharger GTO kit. This balancer works with the 8 rib pulley that comes with the ATI ProCharger kit. This combination is not going to allow any slippage!



Steve wanted his ProCharger polished, and it looks great in his car!



Here is a picture of the Fluidampr pn# 740102, and ATI blower pulley.



There is a plenty of room for the large intercooler, and once we get it mounted it won't be too noticeable. It looks so nice that most people actually don't want them hidden...





Here is a picture looking down at the intercooler from up top. Everything is fitting with a little room to spare.



Looking at the right side of the engine, there is plenty of room for the ATI ProCharger plumbing.



The fans have arrived! The good news is that they fit really good, and there is plenty of clearance around them. That is one problem that is conquered...



The next problem is the air intake into the supercharger. We have dealt with problems like this in the past, such as on the '77 Corvette project car. No, the hood wouldn't close if we left that tube on the other side of the supercharger the way it is in the picture. Don't worry Steve!



We are going to most likely make an airbox off of the back of the blower, into which we can connect the tubing and route it around the left side of the supercharger, out to the front. That is where a tig welder and all the plumbing pieces we keep in stock really help.



Here is a good picture of the engine bay after we started cleaning up the wiring routing a little.



As you can see, the LS1 engine along with the ATI ProCharger GTO kit make for a very clean installation in this RX7.



Here is a good picture of where we are going with the air intake for the supercharger.
We have the filter mounted up underneath to where it is easily accessible for servicing.



The underneath of the car came out looking very sanitary.



Here are two pictures of the filter assembly from underneath the car.





Back on top we added an elbow that we used from the ATI ProCharger GTO kit.
It won't take too much more to get to the back of the supercharger. We are going to cut up the tubing from ATI ProCharger, that was made for the back of the supercharger, and modify it for this application.



As you can see, the tubing modification came out looking really good!



The hood clears perfectly, and the installation came out looking great!





It looks like it was all made to be there, this installation came out looking very nice. The polished ATI ProCharger D-1SC came out looking great!



And now for the fun part! The Mazda is strapped down to our Mustang Chassis Dyno, ready to get tuned.



You can see our Brent Malone at the computer tuning this engine/supercharger combination in.



This engine made a ton of horsepower and torque. Each pull only lasted seconds as this car quickly rips up through the power band!



That purple number on the screen is the horsepower. This was the third run we had made while tuning this car in. We just about could not believe the power that this engine put out. 563 rwhp on a Mustang Dyno! This Mazda is going to be totally insane!!!



Here our two pictures of the gauges that we added to the interior.



Steve is not going to have any time to watch these gauges when he is driving this LS1 powered Mazda!



One of my mechanics removed the fuel rails and painted them to match the body, which came out looking really good.

We took this Mazda out for a spin today, and the power is just incredible! Steve is going to have to get a license plate that reads "Insane"


Update!  4/28/05



Steve was having some engine temperature problems in stop and go traffic, so we added a Meziere Electric Water Pump. We also added an extra electric fan to the front of the radiator, and between the two it seems to have cured the heating problems.





Water pumps don't get any better looking than this!



We also added a chrome radiator overflow can to Steve's Mazda as he just had a hose running down towards the ground. Most race tracks require that some sort of overflow container is required, and we all know that sooner or later this car will see some strip action!

6/29/07 Update:

This car is heading to the Super Chevy Show, held July 13-14-15 at O'Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis, Indiana. Look for it at the ATI ProCharger display. See you there!



Steve's car was still running hot for him in heavy traffic, so we did some modifying and moved the radiator forward. We then installed some high cfm rated Spal fans to the back of the radiator. This was something that was impossible to do before as the radiator was very close to the engine, before this modfication.



Steve now has to be careful because these Spal fans will suck in all the neighbors garbage, right out of their garbage cans!



As can be seen in this photo, we cut out the radiator body brace, and relocated it further forward.



The new location for the radiator brace we made and installed can be seen in this photo. This eliminated the hood latch, and we installed four hood zeus fasteners to keep the hood secured.



As can be seen, the radiator has a lot more clearance now.



We also ordered up the rubber flap that is found on late model Camaro's and Firebirds, and installed in under Steve's RX7. Between these last mods we have done, Steve said the car now has a hard time getting up past 150 degrees. That is a much easier problem to correct!


9/24/07  Pic's from the Super Chevy Show:









Isn't this an awesome picture? Lance, from ATI ProCharger, did a great job of getting a lot of really cool looking shots of the cars. This car drew a lot of attention at the show, as curiosity drew people to the car to check it out.











Here is ATI's Lance himself, taking a break from the Camera.












2/8/08 Update:



The first thing we did was to install a S&W mild steel rollcage in Steve's RX7. Luckily this car has never found traction in the past, as it surely would of trashed the chassis. The rollcage will really help to strengthen the chassis up.



Access will be somewhat harder as it is with most cages, but the car will be much safer.





We removed the six speed transmission and will be using a turbo 400, which will make this car much more consistant. A Powerglide would be a great way to go with as light as this car is, and would be lighter and use up less power, but Brent is loaning Steve his turbo 400, converter and shifter, so the price is right!





Next we ordered up a Ford 8.8 rearend from a place called Granny's Performance that Steve had found that made rears for the RX7.



This rear will really help to launch this car. We thought we would have approx eight hours in the installation, but Brent had to do a lot of modifications to make this rear work, and ended up having three good long days in it.





We also added Hal/QA1 coil over springs and shocks on the rear of the car. The front suspension is still stock, and this car is going to need front QA1's in order to get weight transfer to hook up.



New rims and tires were also ordered up, and now the RX7 looks much more aggressive! Pro-Star wheels and Mickey Thompson tires will help to get this car down the track.



The front tires are 25.0/4.5-15 Mickey Thompson's.





The rear tires are 275/60R15 Mickey Thompson drag radials.





Brent welded up a new dual exhaust system for the Mazda, as the old system would no longer work with the new rear suspension.





Here Steve is loading his RX7 up for the return trip back to Indy.

Steve's RX7 placed 3rd in the Memphis Oct 2008 LSX Shootout's Sunday car show "Top 20 LS Muscle Cars" category. Congratulations Steve!


12/17/08 Update:



Steve brought his RX7 back to have us swap out the 347 for a 408 shortblock we just built for him. We'll have this car in the nine's before you know it!



The old engine is shown next to the new shortblock we built, that is wrapped in plastic.

12/24/08 Update:



We swapped out the ATI ProCharger intercooler that we had previously installed that was part of the ProCharger GTO kit that we started with, for a larger 31x12x4 air to air intercooler. This is the same style of intercooler that we use in our F Body front mount intercooler kits, and we successfully used it in our race Camaro at 1000 hp without any problems at all at the LSX Shootout.





The 408 has found it's home in Steve's RX7.

 

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