look at the RX7 then look at your wallet. You'll have to sacrifice one of those.

 

how hard is it to throw a 4g63 or 2jz into a 7? how much more reliable would the rx7 be with one of those engines into it and would they completely throw off the weight distrubition and screw with the handling? and if possible could i get a rough estimate as to how much it would cost and which engine is preferable. thanks

 

if you're seeing videos of RX-7s owning pretty much everything that is out there, most likely they are modified heavily. single turbo RX-7s are no joke at all on or off the track. you can and will beat just about anything thats out there unless they're the better driver or their own car has more mods done. its really all about what you do to it that will determine how competitive you will be.

if you want to keep it stock and just have it for casual purposes that is the good route to take. perform all the reliability mods as mentioned before and always make sure to stay on top of maintenance! do not slouch on it or you will regret it. the rotary is delicate only when mods are improperly installed or the owner is a slouch at maintenance. if you take care of it, it will take care of you.

btw if you want to pursue bigger power afterall and not remain stock , see to it that you search the Auxiliary Injection sub-forum. that is a must have modification for any owner imo if they want to see less rebuilds in their future.

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...ht=making+case

as to the swap you're askin, read the thread in the link first. if you still want to do it, the favorable choice is to go LS1 (it was painful for me to type that).

 

a stock FD is not the performance killer you think it is. The thing is the FD does take quite well to mods though. But mods do come at a price but if you keep your FD close to stock form you basically only have to worry about the regular stuff as any other other car.

But you can get the best of of both worlds if you only focus on improving the stock components.

Basically for less headaches:
Replace AST, and radiator with aftermarket non plastic components
get aboost gauge
Downpipe
a real CAI (M2 and the like)
Upgraded medium SMIC (not a FMIC as they block the radiator and can cause LARGE anounts of headaches if you ever have coolant issues), PFS is a great unit but if you go with a PFS make sure your aftermarket rad is no thicker than a fluidyne as you will have fitment issues otherwise. The ebay medium SMIC's have been reporteed to work well but you NEED a duct. Without a duct you have taken several steps back in the performance category. So just make sure you get one with a duct.
a RB dual tip catback is a great unit. AS it is quiet with no highway drone. Looks stock and thus you avoid being harrassed by the police.
Boost controller and NEVER boost past 10 psi.

with those mods (and stock boost level) you will improve the performance quite a bit without sacrificing reliability of a stock setup.


just to re iterate:

 

THANK YOU! that was the response i was looking for, its my fault i didnt specifiy and say a modded 7. I know stock theyre not incredibly fast, but yes i was talking about modded and how well they respond to mods. isnt the LS1 a bigger engine and would be more of a difficult swap. would the hood even close?

 

If you're looking for the most pure sports car from the 90's the RX-7 is it. Only an RX-7 fanatic, or an aspiring one will be willing to spend the time and money it takes to modify one correctly. This forum is certainly the best place to start. I just got a 93 myself two months ago. Other than reliability mods and the vital gauges mine will be kept stock. I hope the car you've found is all it sounds like it is. I would not buy it for a daily driver and I personally wouldn't take a fresh car like this one and try to build it up. If you do just know that it will take some time & money to get it right, things will break. Just get it and keep it as a garage queen.

 

the LS1 is bigger but not by much. from what ive read around here on the forums it doesnt really add much weight to the car or mess up its 50/50 weight distribution much either. id say its the most common swap done to the car and it still is a costly endeavor. yes your hood will close, the car will look like an RX-7 but sounds like a 'vette.

personally, im a purist. i will always stand by the rotary engine over going LS1 any day of the week. however, since this is going to be YOUR car you do what you want with it. so you have 3 options:

-stick to the rotary. if you want to devastate alot of whats on the roads go single turbo with a good auxiliary injection system and proper modifications. take the time to research, learn, and research some more. DO NOT go to ebay for knock offs or cheap out on parts.

-go the LS1 route and keep it N/A then add whatever modifications you wish to add more horsepower to it. honestly i do not know much about piston engines, but there is a wealth of information at your disposal here. you can also try to get feedback from LS1 RX-7 owners.

-keep the car stock with reliability modifications and enjoy some quickness while keeping it casual. while its been said on this thread that the car itself wont put up much of a fight against other cars...remember that the driver also contributes to it. ive seen guys drive circles around high performance vehicles in total shitboxes like a volkswagon GTI and get better lap times. in the corners you can still destroy if you can get skilled.

you're welcome btw just want to help out a possible future 3rd gen owner

 

REALLY appreciate the advice man, i really do. Makes me more confident in going the rx7 route. Only thing scaring me about keeping it rotary is the reliability. so as far as engine swaps the LS1 is preferred over the 2jz? and why did you say not to run a turbo or supercharger with the LS1? Im really into buying getting an FD so any info would be appreciated.

 

the 2jz is an incredibly tall motor due to it being inline and not a v shape, not to mention it is longer (6 in a row instead of 4). However 1 and 2jz swaps have been done. Most forum members here will encourage you to not swap in an LS1 as it is considered by many "de-souling" an FD. I personally would not put any motor that isn't a rotary (2, 3, or 4 rotor) in an FD, but I have no qualms about doing it to an FC. The weight can be an issue as an LS1 or JZ shortblock stripped down weighs about as much as the complete 13B longblock does. I have four friends locally who have, between them, have done 2 1jz FC swaps, 4 (working on number 5) LS1 FD swaps, and 3 or 4 LS1 FC swaps, it really is quite potent (I still discourage it on an FD). It also ins't cheap, if you want to do it yourself expect 5 grand plus, depending on what you pay for the LS1 and how complete it is. If you want a shop to do it, expect double that. I won't even start on the 3 or 4 rotor swaps, if you want more info, there's a separate section for those. But 10k+ is to be expected if you do it yourself.

Now on to modifications of the 2 rotor.
behold, the seldom seen stock engine bay, note that this is also a right hand drive (RHD) car, the master cylinder, steering rack (hidden), and ABS control unit are switched compared to on left hand drive models:


The route that seems to be the best is a quality downpipe, midpipe (or catalytic converter if you have emissions requirements), and catback exhaust. A decent intake, my personal favorite is the Greddy, but it really just depends on what you want it to look like. General consensus is get hard pipes and you're solid. Get the efini y-pipe too. A quality stock mount intercooler is a solid investment. A greddy aluminum throttle body elbow is a nice little dress-up piece too. Then there's the intake temp sensor, located under the upper intake manifold (looks kinda like a half rack of ribs), dudemanownsanrx7 (I think that's his screen name) sells a direct replacement for the stock one that reacts MUCH faster and can be placed in the stock location. Ported wastegate (internally gated on the stock turbos) will help control spike/creep (I can never remember which is caused by intake and which by exhaust).

That's the motor, at this point you're gonna want an Apexi PFC (actually it should be your first mod IMO), it's a standalone fuel management system (ECU) that is basically a hacked factory ecu from my understanding. It allows quite a bit of control and requires someone with know-how to help you out, unless you feel like taking a risk on your motor. There are other options for an aftermarket ECU, but the PFC is the one that is the most used, and generally considered best solution for 95% of cars. A boost gauge and wideband are also, IMO, a must. Keep boost at 10lbs and your fuel system is adequate provided you do a fuel pump rewire.

While you're at it, a good radiator (Koyo, Fluidyne, etc) should be added, along with either a good AST (air separation tank) and new hoses. And if you've got the motor this far apart, you might as well do a vacuum hose simplification, either go non-sequential as it's the easiest IMO, or you can stay sequential, whichever, just make sure you get the block off plates and replace all vacuum hoses with silicone hoses. You should also add meth/water injection, meth adds fuel and cools the intake charge while water cools the internals and both act as detonation prevention, a good thing with these cars. Maybe replace the FPD (fuel pulsation dampener) or remove it too. Remove the air pump too, and get a decent idler and underdrive pulley set. Relocate the battery too if you want to.

This is the engine bay with an efini y-pipe and I believe an aftermarket AST:


All of this, pending you do the install yourself, which really isn't all that hard, you're looking at spending roughly 3-5k, and you should be somewhere between 300 and 350 hp. You'll probably want more traction and a new clutch and flywheel here. However if you want to run wider tires on a road coarse, you're gonna need larger breaks. (not cheap) but for just around town and some spirited driving you'll be fine.

Here's roughly what your engine bay could look like at this point. This is a local guy, and I absolutely love his car. He has relocated his intake temp sensor to the pipe in between his intercooler and throttle body elbow. His motor is all polished, something extra he did.


Time for more power? Here's where it gets fun. Bigger injectors... the stock injectors are 2 550cc injectors as primaries and 2 850s as secondaries that come online in higher RPMs. To turn the boost up with those upgrades you'll need a fuel pump, and either 2 850s in the primary slot, or upgraded secondaries. The 850s will do just fine up until about 400 whp (that's 450 ish at the crank, stock nissan GT-R territory!). If you want to keep the 550 primaries you have a few options. One is to get 1300cc injectors from I believe RC engineering, do a search for this as I'm not completely sure. These will fit in the stock rail, but I've heard of problems with them as they're bored out stock 850s. The other option is to get 1600cc secondaries and a new fuel rail, this is enough fuel to take you quite a bit past 400 rwhp and since it sounds like you don't want more than that I won't go further.

With all that extra fuel you need more air to be able to utilize it. At this point, realistically, you've probably blown up a motor (not literally blown up, but at least lost an apex seal, or potentially six). If you're going to rebuild it instead of buy a reman or a used motor, you can have the builder (or a machine shop) increase the intake and exhaust size by using porting templates that are available (for a cost) from various places. Bigger ports = more air flow, which is what the rotary does best, push air. Start searching for the various types of ports, street, bridge, and peripheral.

Here you can expect to be seeing as much as 400 whp, although 375 is more common.

From here on up it all depends on which single turbo to go with. If you lost an apex seal however, figure your stock turbos were probably chunked up quite nicely too. Bigger turbo = more air, however it also means boost lag, which sucks. If you go single it is also encouraged that you get a GM 3 bar map sensor.

Anyways, this is another local car, single turbo, 403 rwhp on 17lbs of boost with a street port. He's basically done everything I've mentioned at this point except the larger brakes.


Oh yeah, somewhere in there you'll need ignition upgrades as you'll probably be seeing some break-up in the higher rpm ranges. Common upgrades are an MSD, or something like a hks twin power or Jacobs FC1000, people also use the FC coil. Ignition isn't something I've dug too deeply into yet, but there are people much smarter than I that can help you out. Heat range 9 or colder plugs are also a good idea at this point.

Here's a few other example's
(I can't remember his screen name, but he came in second at the SCCA pro solo nationals in SSM) this is a single turbo car with a v-mount intercooler, not sure what power level, but over 400 whp I think was the last number I heard.


This is a twin turbo car belonging to Mr. Dan Chadwick (Chadwick) he won SCCA solo nationals in SSM:


And here, for reference, is Mr. Strelnieks amazing single turbo 3 rotor FD, pushing over 500 whp, he won SCCA pro solo in his class (also SSM):


this is a local single turbo LS1 FD, unsure of the power as it just has a street tune on 5 psi IIRC, currently for sale:





Ok, I think I covered everything, fellow FD crazies did I miss anything? If I did it's probably because I'm so tired at this point and should probably go to bed. But I would rather continue to play modern warfare 2.

 

maybe someone should copy that into a sticky for all noobs to read, I wonder how many questions it'll save from being asked.

 

really appreciate the detailed response and pictures. personally, im just looking for a well rounded car, with great handling and power to match that wont break down on me. Everywhere i look, that has anything to do with an rx7 i hear about reliablity. So as you can assume, its easy to discourage me from keeping a rotary, definetely not enough to disourage me from buying an FD as it is, in my opinion, better looking that ANY car out there. old or new, except for a MKIV supra, to me they are equal. To be completely honest, im no mechanic by ANY means. I have a cousin who is a licensed BMW mechanic who would help me to the swap, and maintainance and get my parts for very good prices. But with the rotary im afraid of too many problems coming up that i wont know how to deal with. Im not looking for a 1000hp drag queen. My first goal is buy an FD, keep it stock for over a year and really learn about the car through driving it. After that, im looking to push about 450HP. ****, at the end of the day, i might just keep it stock and do simple mods and have a beautiful car.

 

Just to clarify. A PFC is not really needed until you start upping the boost. Stay at 10 psi (no creeps no spikes) and the stock ECU works just fine as it runs rich enough to support all boltons.


if the AST looks greenish like this it needs replacing:



originally they are black. Green=old.

also cleans the carboin build up which extends the enige's life quite a bit. My first engine died from carbon build up at 108K miles.



whaat? he should not be blowing up motors if he's got the right mods. Apex seals blow from detonation. Detonation is casued by a lean mixture of air and fuel. The AI is appealing because it can be used for insurance purposes (race gas) and it's cleaning properties. Make sure your AF is correct add AI for insurance (meaning don't tune for it) and you should have nothing to worry about.


actually the stock map sensor reads only up to 17 psi so whatever set up you have, BNRs, single turbo, if you start approaching that 17 it's time to upgrade.

I got a GT35R and my high boost is 15 lbs. The only reason I upgraded to a 3 bar map sensor was for insurance purposes. Though my high boost is 15 I'm actually tuned for 19 just in case I over boost for some crazy reason (which it has happened to me before).

 

ugh, I wished that picture would resize.
I'll go back through and edit that post, thanks montego. There really is a lot of conflicting info on this forum.

 

i say keep it N/A to avoid all the extra hassles going with turbo or superchargers bring. since the LS1 can already put down good power you can enjoy the car without that stuff imo. if you still want to do it, then more power to you!if you're scared about the reliability of rotary, just look at that link that i showed you in a previous post. the engine can be reliable with the auxiliary injection route and with the proper modifications. if you have any rotary specialists in the area, you can go ask them for tips or meet up with a 3rd gen owner.

you also have to know that its a different animal all together and requires a different style of driving as well as maintenance/care. because of that, that is why many people find it to be unreliable or intimidating. they either do something wrong, they dont maintain it, or cheap out on parts and BOOM! it detonates then they cry THIS ENGINE SUCKS! of course there will always be guys who say they took care of it and did things right and still it blew, but thats when the phrase "**** happens" comes to play, because it does (this is with ALL sports cars too not just rotaries). just do things right, and if it happens you wont kick yourself for ******* things up or half assing it thus blaming yourself in the end.

ive seen honda motors blow, ive seen silvia KA's blow, LS1's, BMW engines too. point is, all sports cars or modded vehicles blow their engines. that is a grim reality that many of us enthusiasts have to know and deal with. which we do, otherwise we'd just get another hobby.

 

appreciate all the responses, man. I see where you are coming from, Im not basing the rotary at all. Im just thinking for me personally, an engine swap might be better and less hassle. I had my hear set on the the 2jz but it seems the LS1 is the better choice. also, is there any advantage for me going with something like an LS2 or LS3 instead of the LS1? or can they all pretty much generate the same power. At the end of the day, im really just looking for a good 450-500hp.

 

I hear 20b na fd coming along .

 

no problem man, i know you aint bashin the rotary at all im just sayin to not be afraid of it. its a tougher engine than many people make it out to be

as for your questions regarding the LSX engine series i cannot tell you much. i just know they're V8s and they can run pretty hard/nice. i would recommend you search around the net for feebdack on them and see which one would be best for you. ask some LSX FD owners, hopefully they will be nice enough to provide you with the information you desire. all i know is, LS1 is the most common swap.

by the way, happy thanksgiving!

 

appreciate it, man. I think the best route to go, for me atleast, is the LS1. As long as it doesnt cost too much to do.

 

LS1 on a good tune with boltons can net you 350 whp, and LS2 with bolt ons will get you right at 400 whp, same with an LS6. I would imagine an LS3 will be just a tad more. We've got a lot of LS1 owners locally so I hear a lot of stuff. 400 whp in an FD, even with an nose heavy LS1 in it SHOULD run low 12s even with a somewhat amateur driver. That silver single turbo FD that I posted ran an 11.3 with that exact setup, 403 whp. I would shoot for 400 hp and see where you're at. 11.3 is new z06 territory, you'll be hurting some butts with that. The blue turbo LS1 FD I pictured cut an 12 flat at 125 with 3 pounds off boost on street tires. I'm not sure what he puts down for power tho, but I would imagine it's very close to 400 also.

 

basic motor swap info:

Primary options: 2JZ and LS1
Secondary options: 3 and 4 Rotor (20B and 24A/26B)
the 2jz is an incredibly tall motor due to it being inline and not a v shape, not to mention it is longer (6 in a row instead of 4). However 1 and 2jz swaps have been done. Most forum members here will encourage you to not swap in an LS1 as it is considered by many "de-souling" an FD. I personally would not put any motor that isn't a rotary (2, 3, or 4 rotor) in an FD, but I have no qualms about doing it to an FC. The weight can be an issue as an LS1 or JZ shortblock stripped down weighs about as much as the complete 13B longblock does. I have four friends locally who have, between them, have done 2 1jz FC swaps, 4 (working on number 5) LS1 FD swaps, and 3 or 4 LS1 FC swaps, it really is quite potent (I still discourage it on an FD). It also ins't cheap, if you want to do it yourself expect 5 grand plus, depending on what you pay for the LS1 and how complete it is. If you want a shop to do it, expect at least double that. Renesis (RX8 2 rotor) swaps generally aren't considered worth the time and money. They are as intensive as LS1 swaps, yet yield lower power than a stock FD 13B-REW has from the factory. I won't even start on the 3 or 4 rotor swaps, if you want more info, there's a separate section for those. But 10k+ is to be expected if you do it yourself.

Now on to modifications of the 2 rotor.
behold, the seldom seen stock engine bay, note that this is also a right hand drive (RHD) car, the master cylinder, steering rack (hidden), and ABS control unit are switched compared to on left hand drive models:

also notice the green container with the yellow cap directly in front of the intercooler, that's the AST. It's gone bad in this picture. Green = old and worn out, black = still good (usually)

The route that seems to be the best is a quality downpipe, midpipe (or catalytic converter if you have emissions requirements), and catback exhaust. A decent intake, my personal favorite is the Greddy, but it really just depends on what you want it to look like. General consensus is get hard pipes and you're solid. Get the efini y-pipe too. A quality stock mount intercooler is a solid investment. A greddy aluminum throttle body elbow is a nice little dress-up piece too. Then there's the intake temp sensor, located under the upper intake manifold (looks kinda like a half rack of ribs), dudemanownsanrx7 (I think that's his screen name) sells a direct replacement for the stock one that reacts MUCH faster and can be placed in the stock location. Ported wastegate (internally gated on the stock turbos) will help control spike/creep (I can never remember which is caused by intake and which by exhaust).

That's the motor, at this point I suggest an Apexi PFC (actually it should be your first mod IMO), it's a standalone fuel management system (ECU) that is basically a hacked factory ecu from my understanding. It's not required until you start upping the boost, however right now there is a chance you will see boost creep/spike. It allows quite a bit of control and requires someone with know-how to help you out, unless you feel like taking a risk on your motor. There are other options for an aftermarket ECU, but the PFC is the one that is the most used, and generally considered best solution for 95% of cars. A boost gauge and wideband are also, IMO, a must. Keep boost at 10lbs and your fuel system is adequate provided you do a fuel pump rewire.

While you're at it, a good radiator (Koyo, Fluidyne, etc) should be added, along with either a good AST (air separation tank) and new hoses. And if you've got the motor this far apart, you might as well do a vacuum hose simplification, either go non-sequential as it's the easiest IMO, or you can stay sequential, whichever, just make sure you get the block off plates and replace all vacuum hoses with silicone hoses. You should also add meth/water injection, meth adds fuel and cools the intake charge while water cools the internals and both act as detonation prevention, a good thing with these cars. Meth/water injection also cleans out carbon build ups in the motor which have caused many motors to fail. Maybe replace the FPD (fuel pulsation dampener) or remove it too. Remove the air pump too, and get a decent idler and underdrive pulley set. Relocate the battery too if you want to.

This is the engine bay with an efini y-pipe and I believe an aftermarket AST:


All of this, pending you do the install yourself, which really isn't all that hard, you're looking at spending roughly 3-5k, and you should be somewhere between 300 and 350 hp. You'll probably want more traction and a new clutch and flywheel here. However if you want to run wider tires on a road coarse, you're gonna need larger breaks. (not cheap) but for just around town and some spirited driving you'll be fine.

Here's roughly what your engine bay could look like at this point. This is a local guy, and I absolutely love his car. He has relocated his intake temp sensor to the pipe in between his intercooler and throttle body elbow. His motor is all polished, something extra he did.


Before the next step, if you haven't put in an Apexi PFC, you need to know to control the larger injectors and tune for higher boost.

Time for more power? Here's where it gets fun. Bigger injectors... the stock injectors are 2 550cc injectors as primaries and 2 850s as secondaries that come online in higher RPMs. To turn the boost up with those upgrades you'll need a fuel pump, and either 2 850s in the primary slot, or upgraded secondaries. The 850s will do just fine up until about 400 whp (that's 450 ish at the crank, stock nissan GT-R territory!). If you want to keep the 550 primaries you have a few options. One is to get 1300cc injectors from I believe RC engineering, do a search for this as I'm not completely sure. These will fit in the stock rail, but I've heard of problems with them as they're bored out stock 850s. The other option is to get 1600cc secondaries and a new fuel rail, this is enough fuel to take you quite a bit past 400 rwhp and since it sounds like you don't want more than that I won't go further.

With all that extra fuel you need more air to be able to utilize it. With these motors, just like any other performance motor that gets beat on, there's always the chance that you'll blow one up (just like any other motor. (not literally blown up, but at least lost an apex seal, or potentially six). With the right mods, AI, and a proper tune this can be avoided, but sometimes **** happens or something goes wrong. If you're going to rebuild it instead of buy a reman or a used motor, you can have the builder (or a machine shop) increase the intake and exhaust port size by using porting templates that are available (for a cost) from various places. Bigger ports = more air flow, which is what the rotary does best, push air. Start searching for the various types of ports, street, bridge, and peripheral.

Here you can expect to be seeing as much as 400 whp, although 375 is more common.

From here on up it all depends on which single turbo to go with. If you lost an apex seal however, figure your stock turbos were probably chunked up quite nicely too. Bigger turbo = more air, however it also means boost lag, which sucks. If you go single and wish to run more than 17 lbs of boost you'll need a GM 3 bar map sensor. The stock map sensor only reads to 17lbs. One thing to consider however is, if you're running the stock map sensor, you can overboost, and due to the inability of the stock sensor to read past 17 lbs, cause your afr to go lean, causing detonation and possible damage to the motor. As has been pointed out, the 3 bar sensor is good for insurance purposes, even if you have no plans of running more than 17 lbs.

Anyways, this is another local car, single turbo, 403 rwhp on 17lbs of boost with a street port. He's basically done everything I've mentioned at this point except the larger brakes.


Oh yeah, somewhere in there you'll need ignition upgrades as you'll probably be seeing some break-up in the higher rpm ranges. Common upgrades are an MSD, or something like a hks twin power or Jacobs FC1000, people also use the FC coil. Ignition isn't something I've dug too deeply into yet, but there are people much smarter than I that can help you out. Heat range 9 or colder plugs are also a good idea at this point.

Here's a few other example's
(I can't remember his screen name, but he came in second at the SCCA pro solo nationals in SSM) this is a single turbo car with a v-mount intercooler, not sure what power level, but over 400 whp I think was the last number I heard.


This is a twin turbo car belonging to Mr. Dan Chadwick (Chadwick) he won SCCA solo nationals in SSM:


And here, for reference, is Mr. Strelnieks amazing single turbo 3 rotor FD, pushing over 500 whp, he won SCCA pro solo in his class (also SSM):


this is a local single turbo LS1 FD, unsure of the power as it just has a street tune on 5 psi IIRC, currently for sale:


Once again, it's not that these motors suck or are unreliable. They're just a little more responsive when things go wrong. Regular maintenance is a must to keep the motors running happy and healthy. I personally know people with NA FCs that have had the motors last well over 200k. If you mod it right, with the right combination of parts, you can easily get many miles out of a well built motor.




Ok, I think I covered everything, fellow FD crazies did I miss anything?

 

Ok, that's the post with the corrections courtesy of montego

 

I hear you about the conflicting info Through the years weve gone through a lot of myths here and IMO the best way to use the forum is to gather the info then step back and see if what people are saying actually makes sense.

Perfect example: being that there are those that say runinng the twins non-sequential produce more power at the same PSI level than in sequential form. I'm still trying to figure out how they make that claim given that at high RPMs (past 4500) both setups are runing the turbos in parallel.