I’ve been a rotor head for a while, but I’ve been a car freak my entire life. Just recently I have come to do shitloads of research to fill this enormous gap of curiosity in my head related to the 20B. Now, I know that I’m not going do a swap my self, nor do I have the money, not that I even would in the first place. (Pulling a 13B is a bitch) Anyway, what I’m trying to get at, I’m sure plenty of you have heard about a car called the Noble M12. This British guy, called Noble, developed this lotus like, rear engine super car that just fucken blows most Ferraris and 911 Turbo’s. Not only by its performance numbers but its price, $77,000, but that’s the complete car. The car, less transaxle and engine, is only $55,000. Its built somewhere in South Africa and the one’s converted to left hand side drive are engineless, so I read. The car weighs 2300 pounds and with its Ford V6 twin turbo engine, equipped with KKK’s I believe, pumps out 400rwhp. (The GTO-3R edition) For about a month now I’ve been just dreaming of swapping a nicely equipped big single turbo 20B into it. Kida like Auto Illusions’s sick “1000hp” 20B (https://www.rx7club.com/20b-forum-95/1000-hp-20b-street-car-project-315500/). Anyway I just though that would be something cool to post here. Heres some good pics of a noble, the engine bay shots are key. (http://www.lotus-elise.org.uk/noble/pictures.htm)

So does anyone think this would make one bad *** car? Has there ever been any rear engine 20b’s? Damn if I had the money….

 

interesting idea. i think it would be a bad *** car if you could do it. and it can be done with enough money.
about 4 years ago, i emailed Ted Marlow of Ultima about putting a 20b in a GTR. without the motor they are relatively cheap, just like the Noble. i recieved a reply that no one had put a rotary in a GTR, yet , but he thought it would be an excellent choice for a powerplant.
after 4 years, its still my goal to build one of those and put a 3 rotor in, but i'm doing it right now in my fd. once i get the fd done, i'm probably going to start buying the packages, and assemble it piece by piece in the garage. there will be quite a bit of custom work done, but it should be almost one of a kind, (havn't heard of anyone else doing it yet). there are a few GTR's in the states, but hopefully there will be one more in the next few years, but powered by a rotary.

 

Good idea, but one bone to pick. It took me 3 hours to pull my engine.....and its a 13b

 

i know the work involved, trust me....

 

Problem with dropping it in the M12 is that the M12 uses the engine/gearbox (albeit modified) from a Mondeo... which means that the engine is sideways. Overall, not really an ideal platform.

Problem with all these supercars anyway is that none of them have much in the way of downforce. Irritating really... enough to make someone start designing their own (bwah ha ha ha ha)

 

You know I had a similar idea a while ago but I wanted to stick in a semi PP NA 4 rotor. Without the turbos it might fit and you would still have plenty of high reving power when compared to that Ford engine. Just imagine, a rotary in that car that makes 450 hp and revs up to 10k with lowend torque to go along with it. If only I had the money.

 

I know a couple people that have contacted Ultima re building a rotary powered GTR. They were less than enthusiastic about it. To be blunt, they REFUSED to sell the kit to a friend of mine because he wanted to use a 20b instead of their V8. The person my friend spoke to said something like, a GTR will never be powered by a Wankle, as if that off the shelf chevy motor is somehow more impressive. Maybe he has warmed up to the idea now that competition is heating up

There is a connection between Noble and Ultima. I believe the guy that started Ultima sold the company and founded Noble.

Kenku, what do you base your statement on? It seems inconsistent with the info on their webpage.

From the Ultima website:
"Attention has centred around lengthening the rear of the car to help clean up the airflow and thus improve downforce. These developments have been comprehensively tested at MIRA (the Motor Industry Research Association) where the group was so impressed by the results that it was happy to have the Ultima GTR as the centre of its show display at the 2000 Autosport International show at the NEC in Birmingham."

 

engine bay pic... ok this is not working, how do i post a picture?? ohh well, here the direct link (please post someone) http://www.lotus-elise.org.uk/m12/P1010479.JPG

 

Anyway speaking of Ultima GTR's i saw one at an auto show i recently went to and this specific model, was twin turbo charged... most bad *** ultima i have ever seen. Also, Noble has jsut developed a brand new platform, the M14... very clean looking. http://www.fast-autos.net/noble/m14.html

 

Warning: I got kind of rant-y, and this wandered kind of offtopic, so if you don't feel like reading my opinions on this, please don't and I apologize for this. (not being sarcastic)


I base my statement on the fact that while Ferrari and Porsche have gotten past the "wings and things" stage of downforce generation and incorporate some underbody aerodynamics with their top end cars (the Carerra GT actually generates some 600 pounds of downforce at 200mph) they haven't taken it far enough and noone else, as far as I can tell, even bothers except maybe to the extent of making sure stuff doesn't generate enough *lift* to go flying off the road at autobahn speeds.

I have a stringent definition of "taking downforce far enough" though, one that's come about from spending way too much time studying GTP cars. And yes, they have perfectly applicable lessons, as the road courses of the series forced relatively soft suspension settings and large ranges of wheel travel. For one example, the '87 Nissan ZX-T developed 7000lbs of downforce at the same 200mph as the Carerra, yet this downforce package worked on a car that had a total of 6 inches of suspension travel. By the series end in '92, the top cars were making around 10,000lbs of downforce at 200mph, and probably 2000lbs (or about 1G) by 100mph though that last is just SWAG. Aerodynamic drag is higher (using those cars, the ZX-T has a little bit less than twice the drag of the Carerra GT) but the penalty in top speed is meaningless in comparison to the absolutely massive amounts of grip that exists at speed.

That, in my view, is a real supercar. Not to say you can't have an impressive car relying mainly on mechanical grip, and not to say I don't respect the Carerra GT, M12, Ultima, etc etc etc. It just feels frustrating as all hell when I can compare these state of the art big-buck supercars to closed wheel race cars from almost 20 years ago and watch them fall flat by an order of magnitude in one, fairly important, area.

Thanks for reading this far.

 

You complain about the difficulty of pulling a 13B, but you want to build a kit car and wedge an exotic 20B in it? LOL

(Raises hand)

http://www.kitcarmag.com/featuredveh...ble/index.html
http://www.1gracing.com/
http://www.noblecars.com/new-noble-site/index.html

However, I am more of the old school type, so I would prefer their P4 kit with the 20B, although I'm not sure if they offer it anymore. OK, so I'm old, but there is just something about those curves.
http://www.carclassic.com/html/BP22.htm

http://www.teamspencer.com/
https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...light=delorian
ftp://ftp.sysadmin-racing.com/videos...roan3rotor.wmv

... you could buy a good used Ferrari for less.

 

I still say that there needs to be a rotary supercar. By my definition of supercar, as I ranted about in the other version of this thread in the 20B subforum.

 

i like the ford tt v6 more

 

That M14 is the ****!

 

Moderator note: All threads on this subject have been merged.

 

[QUOTE=Evil Aviator]You complain about the difficulty of pulling a 13B, but you want to build a kit car and wedge an exotic 20B in it? LOL

Maybe you misread this from my original post... "Now, I know that I’m not going do a swap my self, nor do I have the money, not that I even would in the first place."

 

I have thought of this conversion as well. I am not to far from where they import the Nobel (1g racing). When we have our auto show in Columbus 1g has had a Nobel down here the last couple of years (could be more I just noticed it 2yrs ago). When I questioned the guy from 1g racing he pretty much just had the attitude of why would you want to do that.

 

I see where you are coming from on that. But when you think about it the Enzo and the Carrera GT etc are street cars.

What would you need with high levels of down force like that on the street? If your driving fast enough that the mechanical grip and standard amount of down force these cars provide is not enough for you than you probably don't need to be driving on the street.

Most of the drivers of these cars aren’t really capable of driving these cars to their full potential anyway. The people who really can drive them probably drive race cars already.

You could say that you could use the down force on the track, That’s true. But how many people take their 300,000+ thousand dollar cars to the track (and again, posses the ability) enough to justify the aero-dynamic and aesthetical changes that would be required to produce that kind of down force? If you can afford a car like that and you can drive it, you could probably pick up an old Porsche 956 or 962 to race.

Also, these cars are running on street tires. You would probably be better served with better tires (slicks or otherwise) than massive amounts of down force.

I'm not an engineer but I would think that the changes to the body and chassis required to produce that kind of down force would have a negative effect on the looks and the functionality of the cars. Yes , race cars look cool but really they don't make good looking street cars in my opinion. Look at the MB CLK-GTR and Porsche GT1 they looked like race cars, probably produced high amounts of down force with their large wings and so, but they were ugly especially compared to a car like The carrera GT.

You can only produce so much down force without the use if wings, and I think the civics have it covered in that department.

I'm not arguing with you or anything, actually you are right. But this is my spin on things.

 

I think a big concern with this project would be how are you going to keep a 20b cool in a mid engine configuration. Any thoughts on this???

 

Well, in my view, supercars are blurring the line between street car and race car. I agree that it's true that downforce would make them able to generate far more grip than people need on the street. But they already posess many characteristics that are incredibly beyond what people need on the street. Why can't massive downforce generation at speed and far more grip than people can use be a selling point when a 200+mph top speed is? Plus, you could say that, if sufficiently biased towards downforce generation, you could be seeing noticeable additional grip at even freeway speeds, which I'd argue would be far more useful and fun. The majority of the owners would never take advantage of the car's abilities to their full. I can't argue that, but I think that's the lot in life of supercars; again, the majority of Enzo buyers aren't going to see what the top speed is like, or test the limits of grip either.

Talking of aesthetic necessities... well, that's a matter of taste. Truth is, a lot of the styling already is aerodynamicially driven, just towards different ends than I have in mind. I personally like the way prototype cars look.

Slicks... well, sure, they'll work better than street tires, but they're not street legal, and a supercar sort of assumes the best legal rubber available anyway. Besides, the difference in grip on a car fully optimized for each kind of tire is likely only around half a g. You're on the right track with the idea of just buying a used 956/962, but you can't go and drive them on the street. I want something with similar capabilities that *is* street legal. I don't see why other people don't seem to. Oh, and wings are useful for downforce generation to be sure, but ground effects can just work so much more efficiently. Think of how much force a 1psi pressure drop generates spread out over the whole underbody area as opposed to the tiny area of a wing. 'course, you can use wings to augment underbody suction too... but that's neither here nor there.

In the end, I'm not really disagreeing with a lot of your points. Major downforce on a street legal car is mostly unnecessecary, but so are ridiculous top speeds. My opinion is that I want the downforce because I want to try to drive things to their potential on tracks; the ideal in my mind is to be able to drive to a track, set or come close to existing lap records, and then drive home. With a rotary.

Ambitious? Sure. Will it ever get finished? Uh, I'll get back to you on that. But if I'm going to have a dream supercar, might as well dream big.

 

Whats the point of having 7000 lb's of downforce at 200mph on a majority time road car? 600lbs of downforce at 200mph, is still 600lbs of force keeping your on the ground. Granted u can corner at higher speeds, but I highly doubt there are any street tires that can handle that high cornering loads. BTW, u do realize that if u have a 2000lb car with 7000lbs of downforce that suspension is gonna have to be setup to handle a 9000lbs car. Thats gonna be one uncomfortable ride. I guess U'd just have to get adjustable dampening.

I personally would like to get my hands on an m12, but also build my own supercar (actually a pickup). awd, TT SBC (around 1000-1200hp), 6speed, and design the underbody to use the ground effect (use part of the bed to help shape the venturi). It doesn't need to have 9000lbs of downforce, just enough to keep it from lifting off the ground at speeds. as long as the suspension could get it in the .95+ range (on DOT legal tires) I'd be plenty happy myself.

 

What's the point of having a car that can do 200mph for something that's a road car the majority of the time? I'm picking and choosing my excesses. Street tires that will hold up to the forces should actually not be that hard to do given the advances in radials since the mid-80s... look at some of the AMG offerings cornering at close to 1g and it's clear that there's common tire packages that will generate a good 3-4000 pounds sideways. That's already 1.5 to 2g.

And yeah, the suspension needing to handle 5 tons of apparent vehicle weight without beating the driver to death was a big gigantic design headache for quite some time. Then I figured out that it got solved a long time ago and I just had to copy the right people.

 

The purchase price on a used Ferrari would be comparable, but the cost of replacement parts and service work is out of this world. Additionally, the reliability of Ferrari's line isn't what you'd expect for the money you put down to own one.

Evil, I've been out of the Florida rotary scene for awhile now. What happened with the 20B project Scott was working on?
Best,
John

 

Hawk,
You hit the nail on the head there. It would be incredibly difficult to cool a turbocharged rotary in both the Noble and GTR.

I think the best solution is to go N/A with a 4 rotor, if it will fit.
Best,
John

 

I put it on hold pending my new job location because I didn't know if I was even going to be living in the US, and there was no point in throwing more money at the car. Two months ago I found out that I am staying in the US, so the project will continue. It should be drivable sometime in 2005. It really just needs a new EMS (probably getting a Wolf3D V4 Plus), intercooler plumbing, and a few other odds and ends. Just as long as the current drive train holds out during base tuning, I am not going to worry about it until I get it back up to St. Louis. (crosses fingers, lol). Anyway, the plan is to just go with a TII drive train, trade out the NA spline clutch disks for TII spline disks, and modify the starter position to engage the NA diameter flywheel. I'm not sure if it will work, but that's the plan. I don't want to spend the money to race it in SPO, so it will just be used on the street and in moderate club racing events where the TII drive train will hopefully stay together.

Well, there is a lot of room up front for a nice radiator. You could also put oil coolers in the brake ducts if it's just intended for street driving.