A little background first: My third car and first true love was my FC GXL. This car ended up being a turbo and the list of mods goes on... Later on in life I owned an FD R1. That thing was laying down 400 horses and was a lot of fun. It is no longer with us... I have always wanted to get into track racing. Although a set up car can be bought for a reasonable price, we all know that doing at least some of the prep is half the fun. I used to own a semi-prepared Miata. That car was just so much fun and so predictable--if put my FD to shame. I recently got bitten by the racing bug again due to chatting on a M3 site. The M3 while a great platform, is seriously expensive to modify, race, buy tires for, and crash. Someone asked on that site about a good track car. They were bombarded with the usual list: Miatas, Mustangs, etc. I got on there and started an argument for the FB as I have seen them race before and I know they are fun cars and can handle well when set up correctly. Plus, the cool factor will always trump a Miata. My arguement was so convincing that I convinced myself to get one.

Rust and rice was all I was finding in my search. I did see some stock stuff that would need a lot of work. After searching for a few months, I found one that a fellow member of this forum was using to autocross. He was nice enough to let me attend an event and run it (thanks R.J.!) I loved it, it was nicely sorted, no rust, and was clean. Stock engine, no cats and a great suspension. Original engine at 96,000 miles. I ended up getting his trailer too and I had to purchase a tow vehicle ($1,600) that successfully drove from IL to Philadelphia towing my new toy.

My first weekend home with it, it received new oil everywhere. It was not long before I tore out the interior once I realized how much some of that stuff weighs. Since I have had it (for about three weeks) I have been searching for track events. One of the NASA sub-clubs was running Pocono last weekend and I signed up for their HPDE 1. New tires, a helmet, and some clutch stuff (thanks RX-7 Doc) was all that I needed.

This thing was a blast and I do not think I will ever autocross again! R.J. said it had 140hp at the wheels, which is doable. I soon realised that I could hang with or catch anything (in my class) on the corners except a lotus that could pass me on the straights like I was sitting still (I was going 122 MPH) and I really had to push it to keep up on the corners. In all I was very happy with the car and the only thing that I wished for was more power. The event was set up with classroom time and four track sessions at 20 minutes each. Great fun, but 20 minutes flys by when you are hot laping and passing Mustangs, Corvettes, and BMWs.

The FB performed flawlessly. No overheating, no oil issues, breaks did not fade (partially due to me trying to carry as much speed through the corners as possible due to my power disadvantage). Half-way through the day, I was trying to get an extra hp or two, shave some weight, and actually hear my engine. I pulled off my muffler and drove a pissed off offspring of a weed eater and a hellicopter. I do not know if it added any power, but it did sound bad-*** (or bad) and at least I could hear my engine. I did notice the rearend lifting more under heavy break/turn-in. Poor stock engine, I spun it past 8k a couple of times. It just kept ticking. It does have an dowl pin oil leak, so a rebuild in it its future and I am seing what it can handle.

Videos below taken by my girfriend with a picture camera. Notice, I am trying not to be too aggressive on the butt of the yellow car. My instructor was always chiding me for being too aggressive and some of these drivers were breaking at weird times and not accelerating when they should have. Best to stay back till you get waved to pass:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuMFo5EXsf0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRP7_slWMGQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSrd9HC2xlU

The car performed so well and predictibly, that my instructor signed me off on HPDE1 that same day. I went solo the last session which was amazing! I guess that was the only way to beat the Lotus, he had been doing HPDE for two years and they would not sign him off.

I am glad to be back in the rotary family and proud of my little car. I do need a couple of things from you guys:

1). Looking for the best race mufler as the straight-pipe option is too loud for most tracks. What is the best/cheapest option?
2.) Still running a stock engine. I need more power! I want to stay NA as I need to keep costs down and reliability up. Also, not wanting to run stand-alones etc. If I currently have 140hp, I think I need about 100 more. I know this is pushing the NA build, but it should be possible. What is a good tuning house/engine builder on the east coast so that I can do a rebuild over the winter? How about an RX-8 swap as it is right around my HP goals. Too complicated?
3.) Who on here is racing and/or wanting to race? Lets go! There was only one FC TII out there, and I did not ever see him running (trailer queen).

Comments and suggestions appreciated!

 

From what I've heard, the RENESIS swap is pretty difficult. IMHO an NA S5 13B swap with some x-core porting would get you near your power goals and be a lot less trouble to swap in. You would need a GSL-SE front cover and crossmember to mount the engine, and I think someone sells modified tranny mounts to fit the TII tranny into an FB. I think you need a custom driveshaft too, but all that would be less than trying to do a RENESIS, I'm sure. I'm leaving out/forgetting a bunch of stuff, but a bunch of people have done the swap, so there should be good info out there.

 

Unfortunately the only way to get that much power would be some serious porting, which will then require a standalone EMS to run the fuel/spark system. A cheap one can be had from Megsquirt, but you have to build it yourself. Looks like your a really smooth driver, and the car looks really composed through the corners.

 

The picture of your car with the hood popped is my new wallpaper. Beautiful car... EXACTLY the way I'd like mine to look. My dog looks the same as yours too (what breed?).

I have similar goals and I've swapped an S5 NA into my GSL-SE and am installing an Electromotive TEC3 EMS. Check out the thread (work in progress): https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generation-specific-1979-1985-18/my-gsl-se-project-838278/

 

I think I know that car. In fact, I think I have old bruises on my behind from past autocrosses. And, the owner's name was R.J. but he is/was from Michigan. Does his last name start with a P?

If so, then yeah, its a very nicely built car with an interesting history. it was always my goal to beat that car, but I was always on cheap street tires compared to his race rubber. By the time I finally got my build sorted and got serious about autocross, he stopped racing it, so now I'll probably never know. lol.

Good luck with your new obsession.



.

 

Yup, this is RJ's old car. Great car and it handles so well. Come out to the track and run, you still have a chance to beat it!

Lots of cars out there with TII swaps, and lots of TII engines on ebay. Trying to stay in budget here. Maybe a standalone is an option if it is the only way to get 200+ HP on an N/A.

Maybe I will end op going TII here, you never know. More suggestions and cost points would be great.

One of the reasons that I bought this car was because the body was so clean and there is no rust to deal with. Hey, it looked perfectly fine next to a GTR (even though totally out of its element).

The dog is my girl Sherry. Great dog. She is some kind of terrier mix.

 

Thanks! Although it is easy to be smooth when you have your throttle floored the whole time .
High HP is when you really test your driving skills.

Some more pics...

 

So what exactly has been done suspension wise on the car?

 

Alright guys, I'm seriously thinking of purchasing this car and swapping everything over to mine. Any opinions?

Thanks!

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generation-rx-7-1979-1985-vehicles-109/gsl-se-restoration-w-s5-turbo-swap-10-driveline-miles-since-build-848593/

 

Nice car. Good to see you out there on track so quickly. We had a couple of articles in Grassroots Motorsports recently about the car and the build.

I have a "built" 13B NA motor in my GSL-SE. I have 3rd gen rotor housings a mild streetport RX-8 internals and a S4 intake. It is running a Megasquirt and put down 160RWHP on a dynapak (should see about 175 on a Dynojet) and I think we can find about 10-15 more hp with more tuning and an S5 intake. It is enough to feel quick but is not overly powerful. I doubt you will find a whole lot more than 200RWHP in an NA without some serious porting. The car is great on track but more of a pain to drive around on the street with the hard suspension, 9lb flywheel and 6 puck clutch. Sometimes I wish I would have just left the car alone aside from the exhaust and some Koni shocks.

You dog looks like mine aside from the coloring. He weights about 55lbs and is a Chow, Staff Terrier and a Italian greyhound of all things. The fiance had a DNA test done.

 

First of all, I love GRM and it is the only auto magazine I subscribe too. My only complaint is that I have not received the last issue (the last one I received is the perfect garage one). What gives? I never saw any articles on this or any FB build. I was not a subscriber for a couple of years, but I re-subscribed about a year ago. How can I get those articles and the latest magazine? The last rotary article I remeber you running was about a FD (which inspired me to purchase an FD). Also, I need some stickers so that I can get in the "Stuck on You" section. I will be racing every track on the Eastern seaboard so there should be some decent pictures.

I tend to do things quickly and I hate procrastination. This is a blessing and a curse. I'm tempted to go crazy with an engine since I am pretty happy with the rest of the setup now. At the same time, I really do not need it and a port and S5 intake may work for me. I'm not sure. I have gone crazy with builds before and spent way too much money and that is not something that I want to do. Maybe GRM can do an article on setting up the perfect FB. I will pay the cost of all the parts and you guys set up and tune it. Sound like a win-win to me . You can then paint it in all the GRM livery and it will be the talk at every track event and will sell 1,000,000 subscriptions. Trust me, I have an MBA.

I wish I could enter in the 20xx chalange, but I overspent by 1k. I may have been able to make it by selling parts off, but I have neiter time or paitence for that.

Need some more juice! Any help or input is appreciated. Also, streetability is not an issue. She is a track car and registered as an antique--so no emmissions and gets trailered everywhere.

Also, I have thought of getting the DNA test done. As everywhere I go, people ask me what she is. I do get "Benji" a lot. I picked her up from a carboard box at the local Wal-Mart in Newnan, GA. Somone was giving away puppies and I just had to take her home. From riding around in my former Miata, she has learned to anticipate corners and lean before I even get to them. She loved that damn Miata.

 

Some info here. I can get you more info on the rear setup if you need. I did not do it so all I can do is tell you what I know.

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generation-rx-7-1979-1985-vehicles-109/fs-1984-gsl-se-auotx-race-car-grand-rapids-mi-794534/

 

Thanks for the support and kind words. I am actually the "model" on the cover of the shop issue. Sexy =)

My car isn't a project car build its just been in a couple issue. Dec 08 vs Tims 240Z and then the latest issue we did a basic write up on the megasquirt install. Just call the office and tell them you didn't get the issue. They will send you another.

We did a 1st gen build about fifteen years ago and compared it against a third gen which was relatively new then. I don't see a 1st gen build in the future though my car may make occasional apperances in comparisons and one off small articles.

 

Mike,

I'm so glad you are happy with the car. It was a lot of fun while I had it. I just didn't have the budget or time to do it justice anymore. It looks like you do. That is awesome.

If anyone is curious about the suspension setup I can get into more detail also. Basically, the rear end was all of the G-Force Engineering stuff....tri-link, panhard etc. The front is coil over adapters on the stock shock tubes. The shocks are Tokico Illuminas all around. They are the ones that MazdaSpeed sells/sold in their racing section. A lot of the speed that the car has was more in the tuning than in hardware. We spent countless hours measureing, corner weighting and developing a mathematical model of the suspension.

Mike, you got a lot of car for the money. I hope it gives you a lot of good track time.

 

Nice to see you're still around R.J. Any plans for another rotary in your future? No doubt she is a beautiful car and a very nice job on the build. I am, however, still a bit bummed that I never got the chance to go head to head with you while I was running the last bit of life out of those used Hoosiers I picked up last year.

I guess I'll have to find another goal now, since I'll never get another chance to try to outrun you in that car. Beating Porsches is just too easy, and that damned turbo Lotus is just a little too far out of reach to be a practical goal at this point (450 hp in an Elise, OMG!!!). lol.

 

Mike

If I were you, I would run some lucas in the motor to help control the dowel pin leak, and just run the hell out of it for the remainder of this season. Spend the winter putting in something new. Why spend the racing season with the car up on jackstands when you could be getting even more experience on the track?

 

R.J., I know you were sad to see it go. I'm taking good care of it though and putting it through it's paces in the race environment. Like I mentioned, it handles amazing! I slapped some new TOYO R888 on it since they are the cheapest 205/50 15s that I could find. Put it this way, the whole time I was on track, I never once worried about grip and understeer/oversteer. Car felt great and took everything that I threw at it. I scared the instructor a few times as I was breaking late and turning in at the latest possible time to nail the apex. You would have appreciated seeing her on the track, she definitely held her own--and then some. SC Lotus was the only car in our run group that could walk away from it--everythign else got passed (mainly due to bad drivers). This includes a C5 Corvette, and a Mustang GT.

The only thing, as I'm sure you can imangine, that is lacking is power. The setup that we were running at Pocono was only half of the infield. That means that we were running half of the speedway. It was a lot of fun to take those banked corners at speeds that even the Lotus was not willing to follow. As soon as I hit the straight, it was game over though. My top speed that I was able to reach was 122mph. I also expected to see break fade, but I did not. I could break late and there was no pull to either side. Just a fraction of a second for the rear to settle after the high-speed to hairpin transition, and get back on the gas. After I pulled the muffler off and lost the instructor, I did scare myself a little as apparently the end had not settled before I got on the gas, and the tail wanted to rotate. Next event is at NJ Speedway, so the muffler has to go back on.

I'm running this engine till the end of the year as it pulls great and does not give me any problems. However, this winter, I plan on either going with a built S5 or a Renesis. I'm speaking with Rotary Resurrection about the build. I hope you don't mind. I like to keep things original, but sometimes the power gods call. Either way, it will be a rotary, so at least it is staying with its roots.

In all, I am very happy with it and am glad to have a rotary back in the stable.

 

Yup, no engine builds this year. That will be my winter project. As for mixing oils, I prefer not to do that as suggested by oil experts as oil companies spend millions of dollars in developing their oils, and then we think we know better then them and mix them together.

Every rotary I ever owned had a nice slick underside. Not the cleanest work environment, but it is what it is. I'm a big fan of synthetics and doubt that Lucas can beat or improve on Formula Shell's formula. I prefer to top off when necessary and not mess with it.

 

No plans in the immediate future. Someday I would like to do a rotary powered boat. I'd also like to do a lotus 7 kit car with a rotary someday.

For now, family and general recreational boating are taking all my extra time and money.

It is good to see that Mike is able to take the car out and have fun with it. I will miss it.