RotaryMiata

Hi all,

I just moved from Japan to Germany and immediately went to work looking for a project and daily driver RX-7 (I had a very nice FC while there).

To the point, I found a guy who's selling an 1981 SA22 with a "TWR kit". I've done a search here and come up with this:

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...&highlight=TWR

An extremely nice body kit with some other goodies... VERY Cool

Anyway, the gentleman that owns this SA sent me a couple of pics, but they look nothing like the afore-mentioned post. I'm not sure how to get two pics in one post so this one is the exterior: please view for comparison.

Now, to the question: can anyone give me any indication if this is (or even looks like) the real deal? If anyone knows anything about this model (or any other), I'd appreciate any info you might have. I want to look at the car, but he's many hours away and would like to know what to look for before I get there.


Thanks for the help!

RotaryMiata

Hey all, pics were too big to post on the forum, so you can find them here:

http://community.webshots.com/script...bumID=32997136

Please take a look and tell me what you think. Also, if anyone could point me toward where I can find more info on the TWR Kit, I'd appreciate it.


Thanks again.

PaulFitzwarryne

There was no such thing as a TWR kit.

Tom Wilkinshow tuned RX7s and was very successful with Pentax sponsored cars in the British saloon Car Championship. He formed a company selling RX7 and 626 performance components by mail order

These included a turbo kit, spoilers, and roll cage,. and minor rebadged dress up parts such as road wheels, steering wheels and seats.

If its a fully optioned TWR street car, it will have a turbo, alloy 13" alloy wheels with the TWR logo, front spoiler with more squared look than standard, lightweight driving seats with the TWR logo on the top, and a full decal set. However you could buy any combination. Many boy racers just went with the front spoiler and wheels [plus of course the decals!].

Some club racers also had wide wheel archs bolted on after extensive cutting back the existing body work. These were made and markrted by a different company but I am not sure whether TWR sold them. The Mireck car, incorrectly identified as an Elford on an earlier thread, had them smoothed into the body with filler. Very expersive unless you are a Mazda dealer.

Note the 'factory' racing cars had different wider steel wheels and did not use the small road going rear spoiler. In effect it TWR was a commercial operation to exploit the name of the factory success. It is ironic that the race cars looked more like standard RX-7s than the street cars.

The European 12A specs were different from the USA models and produced slightly more power.

If its a TWR turbo conversion then the main point to check is the compression. They used standard rotors and the seals quickly wore out. The Jspec 12AT rotors were different being designed for turbos. In general, cars with aftermarket performance items tend to be driven harder and become worn out earlier. Those with turbos added are often suspect.

In summary, its a standard RX-7 with a few aftermarket goodies, so look for the usual faults in a 22 year old car. The TWR add-ons are not a collectors item, thus the sale price should be not much more than standard.

Good luck in your decision.

RotaryMiata

WOW!

Thanks for all the good info. Looking at the pics he sent, it's obvious that the interior is not stock. However, it's lacking the "TWR" logo as you described.

Possibly it's just the motor and a couple other things (hell, maybe it's just the stickers!)... Which is fine because the plan was to drop in a 13B turbo and make a nice street fighter project car. Once I got the pictures I thought that this car in perticular may be something special and I didn't want to take an exceptional car just to satisfy my go-fast lust.


Obviously there's no way of knowing until I get underneath the thing, but thank you very much for your detailed answer!