it depends who does a swap

 

i plan to do a ls swap in mine soon ! i cant wait

 

Come to the darkside! Are you a member on norotors.com yet?

 

Come on guys lol the whole point of owning an rx7 is to have the rotary. If you dont like rotarys buy a car that doesnt have it. There is so many cars in the same class of cars as the rx7 that are similar.

 

no joke but there is a guy pushing over 1k whp in his vette who drives it daily. dont knock what you dont understand guys, please. I am not a hater of the rotary in fact I drove mine around with the stock 12a for a while before finally saying screw it and put the LS1 in. almost 3k miles since the swap and I am very very happy. how many 12a or 13b owners can say their seven can do 0-60 in less than 4 seconds? Well I am sure there are a few but I like the idea of barely touching the throttle and getting quick response verses the rotary where I would damn near have to hit the rev limiter just to get enough power to move the dam,n thing. besides my 50-50 is perfect, my car weighs a ton less than the car the motor came form (literally).

imho, do what your passion dictates. If you are a purest then rock the rotary all day. If not and you feel like you are competent enough toss in the V8. When I began my project I was going to swap the VQ35 but after finding that the LS family of motors weigh the same as MOST V6's it was a no brainer.


oh and to the thread title: not very

 

Im not hatin i understand because the power to weight. But me im a purist and love the rotary

 

Keep the ls1 engine where it belongs, in the vette.

We could put a rotary engine on a go cart, of course it'll be fast.

Its like a girl with implants, they might look nice and feel great, but they aren't what she was born with.

rotary>pistons

 

Lol! They might not be what she was born with, but they can still be a hell of a lot of fun to play with!

 

There's a couple of "purist" and hardcore rotary guys that threw in the towel and joined the darkside at norotors.com recently! There's nothin wrong with being a purist but IMHO, that was a smart move!

Still no one want to argue about the following swaps: 1JZ, 2JZ, RB, SR20, other Japanese engines.... Like I said before there's a general dislike for the American V8 only!!!

 

I tend to agree. The hatred is only because it is an american v8. especially when people say things like "if you like ls1's so much, you shoulda bought a vette" or "if you really liked rx7's, you would want to keep the rotary". huh? why so?

I hate corvettes, i think they are ugly, uncomfortable, and too big. Does that mean i have to hate lsx engines? why?

I also love FD's. I love the size, i love the style, i love the handling. Does that mean i have to love rotary engines? why?

Since i obviously have a swapped seven, i'm sure to the purists, my opinion doesn't matter, I just don't get why you cant love the car but not the engine. I think the myths about ruining the handling and weight distribution are clearly false, so i guess the only thing the purists have left is to stick to intangibles like "taking away the soul" and all that crap.

 

Lol, you're no different than the girls who buy an rx8 and don't know what a rotary engine even is.

From a girl I talked to "Rx8s have a rotary engine? I don't even know what that is, I like them for their body style"

Ive always went by the moral to love something for what's on the inside not the outside.

Rotary >Pistons

 

So.. Will the '79 sa22 12a radiator cool a sbc 350? Ls. +/- 400 hp. I will swap while doing port/rebuild/reseal no question. Leave it in if I fall in love...

72 monte, boat. Floats. dd.
39 dodge t100. Dragger. Locked in for winter.
94 chevy Z/28. Not heavy. Fun. F LT1.
94 chevy Z/71. Tower.

All 350's. All fast. All reliable.

'79 sa, drifter, 12a, sounds better than the rest.
But the day I do blow a seal or whatever, 12a out, 350 in, rebuild 12a with street port and home made intake for sure.... so I can still run for the month of rebuild.

 

um, actually i am very different. I know exactly what a rotary is, i understand exactly how it works, and i can appreciate it for it's simplicity. I also know that from a practical standpoint, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't last as long as a piston engine, it isn't as reliable, doesn't generate the torque the ls does. Explain how it is a better engine? My FD has 60k on it, and the original engine was toast. my ls1 has 52k on it, and is considered low mileage.


have you ever wondered why the rx series is the only car out there with a rotary engine? is it because mazda knows something the rest of the auto manufacturers don't?

And, since i autocross and track my car, i do appreciate what is on the inside of my seven. I love the chassis, i love the suspension design, i love the light weight, i love how much tire i can fit on it. I also love that since i have a good reliable ls1, i can drive it to the track and not worry about it breaking down after a day of abuse.

so tell me, is your car completely stock? exactly how mazda built it?

 

The heart and soul of the car is the engine, which you removed.

The car was designed and engineered for a 13b, you only appreciate an rx7 because it has everything a vette doesn't (lightweight, better styling etc).

Rx7s are for passionate enthusiasts, those who lack love and passion for the rotary throw a v8 in it or whatever else.

Personally the whole reason I like rx7s is the rotary engine, take that away and its the same as every other car.

All I'm saying is putting a v8 in an rx7 is admitting you can't handle maintaining a rotary engine and can't appreciate it.





Rotary >Pistons

 

i can respect your opinion, and still disagree. I consider myself a very skilled auto enthusiast. I did my swap completely myself (minus the subframe fabrication), and i would have no problem handling the maintenance of the rotary, and frankly, it is a little closed-minded to think that anyone who would rather have an ls1 couldn't handle rotary maintenance.

i actually spent countless hours researching what the best plan for my car was 3 years ago before i decided on the ls1. Honestly, i read a ton of these back and forth arguments like we are having here. I came away from it realizing that the entire pro-rotary defense is grounded in emotions, such as "taking away the soul", and not based on any concrete technical reasoning. Don't get me wrong, half of being an auto enthusiast is emotions and emotional attachment, but i don't get the attacks on the people who don't share the same emotional attachment to an engine design.

can you honestly tell me that a properly maintained rotary would withstand the abuse of dozens of autocross events every season, and hundreds of track miles, the same way the ls1 would? If i was driving the car on weekends and nice weather, sure, i can see why you would want to keep the rotary and keep the car as designed, but that's not what i am doing.

I just don't get why you make such a generalization. It's the same as any other car if you take away the rotary? arent you discounting every other piece of engineering mazda put into the car?

I honestly think that if you spent a week driving an lsx powered fd, when you weren't grinning from ear to ear, you would say it is how the car should have come from mazda to begin with.

 

How hard is it to put a LS7 into RX7 and can you still add a supercharger without chopping the hood?

 

It was meant to be the way they made it, the fd3s is the best rx7 out there.

Rotary >Pistons

 

Actually not just mazda came up with rotary engines. General motors, Rolls royce and a bunch of other companies came up with wankel engines. Even diesel powered. And they say they arent realiable? what about the 787B? it won tons of races till it got banned from le mans cuz of the weight advantages. You just gotta take care of wankels. Iv heard of the hit 300 - 400 000 km

 

Yet none of these manufacturers are currently making a car with this engine, are they? GM still uses the same LS-based v8 in every truck and 8 cylinder car. I really don't want to come of as a gm rump-swab here, either. I really don't like gm in general. I DD a m3 and also have a grand cherokee. I have had 20+ cars, with more than half being fords. I just really like the LS engine for this application.

A built race engine that most likely gets rebuilt after every race is not really a good barometer for reliability. If you want to use it as an argument for the performance capability, you have a good case.

I understand that is the case under normal use, but no one has answered my question above. If i am autocrossing over a dozen times a year, and putting hundreds of track miles on the car, will a rotary stand up to it (at 300-330 HP at the wheels), even if I am taking car of it religiously? Would you be willing to bet your paycheck on that? I am not willing to.

 

same as the rest of the LS family of cars, it will fit. if you go with a huge IM and TB then yes you will need to trim the hood some. Also the supercharger you are talking about mounts on the side not the top so it will fit easily.



you can not use the stock radiator. I am currently running a FD drop in replacement radiator (smallest radiator in a swapped car) it is the 3" dual pass variety and I still get temps up real high at only 350ish hp. And that is with the LS1 which iirc doesnt need as much coolang as say a SBC

 

Make sure you get plenty if air to your radiator. I used a solid fan on the front of my water pump and an electric fan on the front of my radiator to pull cold air in. No problems yet

 

I also have wrapped all of exhaust well past my transmission and since I'm running a tunnel ram heat escapes thru the hood. Add some function fender vents

 

Great info! Thanks! Maybe I should just turbo one of the 12a's sitting on my shop floor... streeet port for sure... turbo off the 300zx.... hmmmm.... or bigger radiator will work for all 3..... decisions decions... but I will be PISSED if my brother blows his 12a before I do and rebuilds... he already has the intake and weber...

 

This is something I would really like to do when I own a FD

 

Poor mans corvette... wtf?!?!?! Get a clue... That's called a CAMARO.... which I have had a few... and loved....