I got her off the frame and in the air. Kinda a bitch to do as I'm in a single width garage and not the two of the old house, but its mine so I'm not bitchin'
I pulled out the RX7 rear-end and decided to do the scary bit of narrowing
The very first thing I did is check my numbers and then recheck and recheck again. My desired width is that of the original rear end. I got this from when I put the new wheels on and found that the 205/50-15's fit perfectly, enough room in side and out, doesn't even rub when the suspension is bottomed out. One thing Im doing is taking and additional 1/4" to 1/2" off (maybe more I can't remember). The reason for this is in this instance it's better to be to narrow rather than to wide. Because once everything is welded up I wont be able to narrow it up, but I will be able to put in spacers to push the wheels out.
I don't have my notebook next to me so I'm approximating
The original axle is 48 ish wide and the RX7 is 57.25 ish wide. So i'm pulling 9 - 9 1/2" out of the axle, ya know... not much. I'll get the numbers later.
So pulled axles out and set them to the side to get trimmed at Moser but I'm going to wait to send them so I cant measure when the rear end is done to get the right trim. Pulled the 3rd member and put it off to the side. I'm going to rebuild it while its out, the LSD disks are supposed to be still available from Mazda...at least I hope they are.
I then installed the cut down Miata third member I acquired for this project, with the alighnment bears I have. I then fit the rest of the alingment jig on to see the fit (sorry forgot to take pictures
) Took it all apart and got to cutting...well measuring some more and some more. Lets face it I was nervous!
I first cut off the axle ends These axles ends have been machined to slide on to the ends of the axle housing tubes that have been machined to fit accurately...I dont have those kinds of tools so I'm going to wing it
. I was able to extract the remanent of the axle tube from the axle end with surprising ease.
Then I measured some more and then just cut.
I now have to get the tubes into shape, mount the ends, weld, get the axles back...cheers
Matthew
, looks like they did a great job, and have been itching to see how they fit. I have a couple of super cheapy bearings that i can sacrifice to the car gods, so I decided to put the narrowed rear-end together. I put my new rotors on and calipers (that are crazy dirty) on with the dust shields (the right side shield is mangled but good enough for maching up for the final construct of the four bar.)
. Buddy of mine got one and raves about his, the reviews are overwhelming positive, so I got one; which makes 4...well truly more like 3 1/2! It’s rated at 6cfm @ 90 but only has a 6gal tank. I have a 26gal crapsman, that the piston rod broke on....again!, that I’m going to use as an auxiliary tank. I think this will work out great for my needs! Now I just need to spend time on the roadster and not money on the tools for the roadster, at least that’s what I tell my wife there for
. 
. So I decided that instead of finding the mystical sweet spot I would instead build in adjustablity. So far I have one inch of adjustment at each rod end point on the top links. This has given me a surprising amount of adjustablility. More on that when I’m done with the bottom links.