I dunno what to do with my RX-7. There are so many options, each one taking a LARGE ammount of cash, but leading down seperate roads. Each one having different fun aspects too.

After body work and painting, I'll be left with a nice shell, but what to put in it? I can only afford one RX-7... I think

Keep it stock: These cars are getting rarer and rarer. Rust and wrecks don't help. Couple that with all the engine swaps going on, and there aren't many ORIGINAL RX-7's left around. Hacking, cutting, welding, and other mods don't keep it original. Nostalgia rules. Stock shocks, Stock port, stock exhaust. Pretty it up, surround it in glass and velvet rope.

Drop in a 13BT: Dude, Speed is more fun than nostalgia. Pitch the Dinky 12A... Put it on a lawnmower or whatever you want, but drop a sweet 13B into the FB and melt tires all day! Hey. You work at a tire shop.. You CAN do it. FC brake conversion and Ford 9" differential Mandatory.

Light Mods: No way man! You're gonna die the first time boost kicks in and you loose the *** end. Put her back together, suspension, exhaust, intake, some light drivetrain mods, and maybe porting; Then learn to drive from some SCCA Solo II sessions... Do the Turbo conversion and Nostalgia restorations to another car later.

 

well I went lots faster from learning to drive what I had than I got from mods... so you know what I voted for

 

I know... I should learn to drive well first. Looks like nobody's voted for Turbo...

But the 12A... I dunno. My friend's Ford Ranger feels faster than the RX-7... I've been in Civics and Integras that feel faster than that GSL... I don't wanna have a slow car.

Perhaps a future post will contain a list of mods. (Very Extensive) Maybe a few figures can be calculated out to see what I can beat.

 

Well... I love to drive fast--Through corners

Look at my tires slide!!! WHOOOOO!!!!!

Ever seen Initial D (anime)? Too bad there aren't any street races here... It's all dragging...

 

Didn't they send like 500,000 12a 79-85 RX7 over here? I run into people alot who are quoted like $2500 for an enigne from Mazda and just elect to park their rotary car forever. They are just sitting out there waiting. I still find nice REPU's to fix up and there were only 15,000 of them. Of course, not as often.
I'd still like to do an 80' convertable conversion w/flares. But I don't know I'd do it with my 85 GSL-SE.

 

My car is slow, but lots of other cars are slow as well. I just beat an 85 Celica, and raced a new tiburon. The tib I beat off the line but then he caught up and passed me. If I only had exhaust I would have given him a run for his money. A 180 HP FB would be fairly quick.

 

LOL! A 180hp FB would anihilate most typical cars you encounter at a stoplight. I think alot of people on here either have bads mods or just cant drive because loosing to a Tiburon at any speed is awful. A stock 12A FB with full RB exhaust should tie an Integra GSR. Any more mods should have you beating lots of stuff. I think some people have alot more work to do on tuning their cars or learning how to shift....

 

I agree.

 

I was never fully taught how to drive a manual... So basically I learn myself by reading about shifting, and I've gotten real good at it. I love to powershift... Mmmm

Now--my friend is a different case. He is one un-coordinated bastard. He plays basketball alot, but GEEZ, it seems as if he has NO control over his feet... He's been driving a clutch for about a year now and STILL SUX AT IT!!! It took me about a month or two to master my clutch...

One time he was like: "Watch me powershift."
As he threw it into third, he was slow and didn't get the gear in. GRIND!!! Plus he forgot to let go of the pedal AFTER he failed to put it into gear so the overrev buzzer came on

I'm trying to give him tips... He's a great friend--just not that great a driver

 

You don't think a Tiburon with Intake and exhaust should be able to be a stock FB?

 

Hmmm... Looks like light mods and Autocross for me.

Here's what I'm thinking...

Engine, Exhaust, Intake, and fuel:
Street port (Not by me. No exp...) I will rebuild.. Seems straight forward. Yaw carb and intake manifold. K&N filter wiht cold air intake. Header to high flow cat to Racing Beat Primaflow to keep with emissions. High volume pump... Maybe Mallory. New radiator, probably aluminium, electric fan.

Drivetrain:
Stock differential with 4.44 gears and Miata Torsen unit. Centerforce clutch, light steel flywheel.

Brakes, Whees, and tires:
Stock brake hydraulics; New calipers, master cylinder, and vacuum booster. Hawk Pads, Brembo rotors if available. ROH Snypers or Kosei K1's... Or stock + shaped rims... Not sure yet. Not sure on tires either, but I get good deals on em

Steering and Suspension:
Tokico Illumna adjustables or Koni adjustables... (Someone at work was talking about some other type... It had some long elegant sounding name.. I don't remember though.) Eibach springs for stiffer handling. Maybe some kind of front strut brace. Upgraded sway bars. Polyurethane bushings all around. Adjustable camber/caster plates. Power steering box; No pump.

What class will I be in? Street prepared or the class where money means winning? If latter, what can I drop to get me into SP?

I don't really understand the classing system as I have the 2000 SCCA book and it reads like a really big traffic ticket. Too burecratic.

 

1998 Hyundai Tiburon FX 8.4 16.5

1983 Mazda RX-7 GS 9.5 17.0


Thats too close to call. I can drive fairly well though

 

He didn't "kill" me but he was pulling on me. I'm assuming maybe his runs 16.0 as it has some mods.

 

Pele,

With these Mods will have a very nice car that will retain a lot of it "stockness" As for me I went with the 13B. But it's not for everybody.

http://my7.rx-7.org/Paul

 

I said an FB with exhaust mods. I havent been in a bone stock FB in awhile but I remember them being incredibly slow... maybe on par with a Tiburon. Once those RB headers are on there though, I dont care if that Tiburon is straight piped and K&Ned, you should be miles ahead .

 

As for the tiburon... I've driven one, a close friend of mine bought during the summer. Her tiburon had just as much power as a stock -se rx-7. Her tiburon was stock, it was 3 days old at the time. But not much is needed to destroy a tiburon.

As for ideas for your 12a keep the engine and do it up. Keeping the car stock is boring and is for Gezers. You are young, make it flashy.

Mods are best done in stages... learning how to perfectly tune each component at a time will teach you alot about your car. If you get everything at once, it's like cheating on a test.

It's always interesting what can be acheived with the motor the car was origonally equiped with. True that swaping the engine would be the easy way out, but it costs alot of money at one single time.

Word!

 

JImmy 54. I posted a note on a thread you were showing your car in and forgot to foward it when the responses came. What kind of Air Flow Meter are you running on your SE to enable you to use a cone filter. The AFM didn't look stock.

 

I agree, most stock RXs are disappearing while trying to make a 20year old car into something where it can beat a small modern family car.

What will happeh in the long run? In my student days we hotrodded 30-s and 40s cars. Now people are buying out the few remaing often thrashed vehicles and spending a fortune going back to stock. Cars I owned as a student are out of my price range now. I reckon the stock RX-7 will become a collector's item. Try and buy a genuine 12at in Japan and ialready ts way over a million yen!

But back to Pete's decision. His thoghts in the last post are great. That is the way I went. Its called upgrading maintenance. As something wears out buy a better part. You end up with a great car with little expense. It will look like a classic but with good performance and handling.

Going down ways like the 13bt route is great if you own shares in an oil company of tune shop and have a good friend in the highway patrol!

Learn to drive better? Perhaps the cheapest option we all need. But there is nothing better for making you look a good driver than having a good car. Have a loud exhaust and everyone notices your mistakes.

My vote, upgraded version of the same.

 

180hp FB? Hmm that sounds familiar (Hi Max7!! )

You don't need 180hp if you go light... of course that means crappy stereo/very loud in car because there's no sound insulation (you would NOT BELIEVE how much a difference the heavy rubber/foam mat under the rear deck makes!) and on another note, 180hp + very light car (go SA, not FB! ) would be PDQ. We're talking in the low 14's/high 13's... still not enough to beat up on Mustangs but plenty to chew up Hondas

 

Don't knock the 12a. They might not produce the numbers the 13b's do but they last forever.

 

Who's knocking the 12A?? I think we are all agreeing that the 12A is great. In fact, I like it better .

 

I will have my revenge against that Tib.

 

I hate North Carolina. We got to pass damn freaking emissions. I sweare, i need to find somebody and bribe them to pass me with a RB exaust. Im stuff with the damn converter...o well. My car is still 100% stock except for the radio, heh. Its semi-slow, i agree, BUT, people at school CANT DRIVE. It seems like people are affraid to floor it. Kids at my school drive rustangs, corvettes, old superbees, trans-ams, and chevells. Even so, i sweare that they never push down the gas more than 1/2 way (except for my friends 750HP Trans-Am, jesus, its accelerates faster than the damn space shuttle!). I was next to this IBM'ers kid in a bmw and i smoked his *** off the light. Guess the point im trying to make is that we are better drivers for it. Stick me in a corvette against my friend's 99 z-05 and i could have his *** kicked in 2nd. As far as uprading and ****, you can do plenty of upgrades and still look stock. K&N filter, fuel pump, shocks/springs/polyurathane bearings/mild street port and a high flow cat. You do that and you really could not tell it wasnt stock, yet you would have descent power and the ability to return to totaly stock in a few hours. I think thats the way ill go. Light streetport when i rebuild in a few months, high flow cat, and new springs and shocks. They are willing to do the streetport for $200 with the rebuild, so even if i only get 10 or 15Hp, thats more than i had before And, someday, ill be able to sell a RX-7 with a good 12a for a crap load of yen.

 

Emissions? EMISSIONS?!?

Lemmie tell you about freaking emissions!

First they check your gas cap to see how much vapor passes.

Then they put your car on a dyno and shove a probe up it's tail pipe.

They measure for Oxides of Nitrogen, Hydrocarbons, and Carbon Monoxide at idle, 15 MPH and 25 MPH.

No cheating because you have a clamp that goes on your ignition coils, so you can't just be in a high gear, running the engine slowly.

After all that, they go through the visual inspection, usually just noting if you have a PCV Valve, EGR valve, Charcoal canister, and the like, They rarely follow the entire vacuum hose routing diagram. Just the biggies.

Enter all that and it goes into the computer, but you're not done yet. You get a printout. AND it all gets sent VIA modem to the DMV and DEQ along with your licence plate number and VIN.

The way I bitch about it, you'd think they were shoving the probe up my tail pipe.

 

I thought I lived in a police state!! That's nuts! And to think, you're paying once in taxes for that pleasure and then again to the crony who beats up your ride for the actual inspection!