Hey Kiwi, havent seen you since Barrie Speedway How are things?

They will take mild driving on gravel but their sidewalls aren't strong enough for anything near 6/10ths of gravel driving.

Just from visual inspection I would say the strut towers are unsuitable to sustain heavy abuse. If you're going to go all out with my little SA you might as well dip it then seam weld it and then cage it.. reinforcements to the strut towers should be done at the same time as the cage.

 

Cages mandatory anyway for rally.

My strut towers are holding up just fine, so far. I don't see reason to be worried. Remember, even though you're running stiffer springs, you're not going to be bottoming out constantly. Even mild bumps cause the stock suspension to bottom out, so your spring rate is regularly going "infinite" on the STREET. 200-250lb springs and decent travel and proper bumpstops (auxiliary springs) prevent you from smacking bottom-out, so in theory stresses should be *reduced*.

 

Strut towers are really the only thing that I am worried about on my project at the moment, but I have some reinforcements planned. Along with some major suspension work.


you know any good places to purchase rally tires then? I'm planning on just using the stock wheels for now, but the way I understand it they won't last very long, so hopefully I will be able to find some heavy duty steel ones or something of the kind.

 

Stock wheels are just about ideal, I think.

Lucky for you, they're cheap and abundant. I've got 8 spares allready.

 

Well, I have a few ideas for strengthening the strut towers if your worried about them. Also, I may be able to sell you the Fiat springs I got for the rear of my car. I recently came across a full set of RB springs on a parts car I'm buying. The car also has centerline wheels and some other aftermarket parts. If you need anything let me know.

 

You might regret saying "anything" because right now i'm looking for everything. Everything from a GLS or -SE rear end (so long as it has LSD) to caster/camber adjusters...

yeah, the real problem right now is trying to find the damn key for the thing. I only got one key with it and went to the local key place to get a copy made and i didn't have the key in my pocket anymore.

 

you can get the key code from the dealer, but don't get it cut there, because the code machine that most mazda dealerships have is the old "muncher" style key cutter, and they almost never work right.

 

Very sad re: SCCA dropping rally.

Anyway, the most important mod that wasn't mentioned is the driver himself. Go to a rally school to learn how to drive your car. There is a big difference between FWD, RWD and FWD cars on different surfaces. Knowledge is the best safety equipment.

 

There is a guy I rallycross with who is STUPID BAD FAST with his FWD. He's heavy on the left foot braking to keep adjusting the car's attitude.

That works well... for him.

I'm getting to be STUPID BAD FAST with my RWD. RWD is somewhat trickier to drive in some respects, but easier to drive in other respects. (Both understeer when you power on in a corner if you're not already sliding, but if you have too much rotation in a FWD you better have enough front grip and power to pull through. RWD, just let off the throttle a hair to allow the tires to grab, and simultanously reduce countersteering so they don't grab hard and sling you around the other way, doesn't matter if you have enough power or not)

 

That is a benifit I have of growing up doing just about half of my driving on gravel roads at insane speeds. But cornering... thats another issue. I have plans to make it to a rally school if my schedule permits it once the car is done.

***update***

seats will be on order tomorrow hopefully and the iron for my cage will be picked up if it comes in. Pics if and when i get a new camera (mine bit the dust a month ago)

Currently trying to figure out/work up prices on suspension setups. Going to talk to Ground Control and GForce Engineering and see if they can help me set up a good system that won't bottom out and have lots of travel.

 

If you do make sure that they sell you stuff that can take hefty side loads.

The best bang for the buck, if you're serious, is revalved Bilsteins. You buys the struts/shocks, then send them to a certain Bilstein location (California somewhere?) and they revalve them for Rally work.

 

I'll have to look into that. Right now though, its just figuring out what has to be done to this thing to get it ready for the suspension. The first money i'm spending is on roll cage/seats/harnesses/engine rebuilt. All of which right now is going to total about $5,000 if I do it all myself, which is the plan.

 

FIA seats are mandated for 05, Just in case you had missed that release from NASA.

On the tires, I have been eyeing the ones on the tirerack.com
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....del=ECSTA+R700

I am thinking about pulling my project out from the cob webs. Maybe NASA South East series in '05.

 

where did you get that coil rack?

 

Yeah, Allready have some FIA homolugated seats picked out. I just have to figure out how to get my fat *** into them (doing some major training right now trying to drop weight)

As far as tires go, trying to get one of the local tire places "sponsor" me with cheaper tires and i'll put their stickers on the side of the car. Who knows. Everything is kind of up in the air right now. It all depends on how the rules shift concerning new to sport drivers.

 

Here is a link that might be helpful re: cage building :

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show...hreadid=428869

Good luck!

-s-

 

that's pretty cool!

update on my project:

finally, after like 2 months, I got the car.

I've got a parts car too, just need to get it home.

Pictures:

http://img1.photobucket.com/albums/0903/marques/RX7/

 

Nice links

 

argh! and the engine is blown!

Looks likeI'll be putting a new one in...

should I go for a big nasty bridgeport 13b or a cheap reliable stockport 12A?

 

if you haven't ever rallied before, don't go big. It is hard enough learning how to control a 100+ HP car in loose conditions like that. No sense going huge with it.

I'm facing pretty much the same thing atm. One of my engines has all of the seals leaking (oil and coolant) and the other one has a blown apex seal.

 

YEs i do rally but not an rx-7 i know a couple of people that do rally 1st gens, they have told me it is a blast and the one thing they told me to change if i ever made my rx-7 a rally car is the steering box, take the Gsl-se steering & put it in

www.dustdevilsracing.com

 

The GSL-SE box is the same as any other Series 3 box.

The manual box is the same turns lock to lock and total steering angle as any other 1st gen manual box, and the power box is the same as the power box in the GSL.

Maybe he was thinking "switch to the power box". Not all GSL-SE have power steering, and not all power steering are GSL-SE.

Even with the power box, you'll still want to put a steering quickener in there. You could use the manual box also but putting a quickener on the manual box is more difficult because the input shaft goes most of the way up the steering column.

But you do want about 2 turns lock to lock, so you'd want a 1.5:1 quickener for the power box and a 2:1 quickener for the manual box.

 

I didn't even know quickeners existed

as far as a motor goes, I'm going to use whatever motor pops up first, I've got a line on a 12A and a line on a streetported 13B, so we'll see what happens.

 

For rally you want a bridge or peripheral. Street ports can work but you can't beat the huuuuugely long powerband in a peripheral port, versus the "wait the power's coming soon... okay here it comes... wait for it... YAY IT'S HERE! okay time to shift" you get with a street port. Or a stock port for that matter.

 

yeah, I don't have much experience with these non-turbo rotaries, so I'm not really sure how that'll be.

my stockport 12A wasn't that bad, though... it felt better than my TII down low, and wasn't bad up high!