ME LIKES!!! I'm trying to go, just waiting to buy tickets to make sure I'm not working, I'm kinda shellshocked into believing otherwise lately, haha.

 

Be still my beating heart! Dammit Josh, you're tampering with my faith and love in my rotary wife! That is gorgeous though, so clean. I'm happy for ya man. Weren't you just telling me a few months ago that I should go LS1? HAHA. I believe we were doing the beloved vacuum line replacement on my car. Now I guess you can run in the Piston Cup, haha.

 

how close were we to just tossing the whole thing, and going single HAHA!

on another note:

come to the darkside, luke. together we can rule the empire.

 

HAHAHA. Excellent quote Josh. Someday, when I'm on my 8th rotary engine, I might think of switching to the dark side, but it will probably be in a second FD residing in my garage. One question though...can I keep the blue lightsaber? Red isn't really my color.

Well I'm still pretty much planning to go single...I can sacrifice instant spool for fewer problems. With the problem I'm having right now they're not spooling up til about 3 grand anyway, haha, so it's simulated right now of what I'm going to have.

 

i never missed the twins faster spool. how are the wheels coming along?

 

Don't know, I got about 3 days short of a month to go, haha.

 

Josh,

We could maybe go get our cars tuned at the same place. I'm going to Carolina Auto Masters in Durham to tune my Megasquirt. They specialize in GM stuff but they happen to be the only guys around who can tune a Megasquirt. I'm just waiting for my MSD 6A ignition box to come in and then I have to cut the frame a bit to fit in my new CAI. They tune for $400, including dyno time, plus they have experience with GM powered rx-7's. Then again, is there anything on your car that will actually need to be tuned?

 

not for now. by the end of the year i plan on having a cam, and longtubes on it. that will be about the extent of my mods on this one. you don't need to do much to get 400RWHP out of 5.7L.

for a second i thought you'd gone LS1, Ray, LOL.

 

All of you dudes are turning against teh rotary!!!!!!!!

 

^ nah dude. How many guys do you know with a standalone on an N/A ? If anything, I'm being a pretty hardcore purist at the moment. 2 rotors, no spray, no turbo, nothing.

 

so far it is really only me in the RRDI group, everyone else still loves the spinning rotors. for me the high power(400RWHP+) rotary is like communism, it only works great in concept. sorry, i have to say things like that now that i have gone to darkside.

 

hey your brother came into advance today, told me the rx 5.7 is coming along very well. once youre done I call dibs on a ride next RRDI I go to.

 

^Dammit, I'm next after him!

 

rofl okay no problems guys. i am going to start on the wiring today. after that is done, it is all about waiting on hinsons kit. which is gonna take about a month.


if i'd ordered the kit a month ago(before the engine blew, lol) i would be almost finished. it is not hard at all, with all the info out there.

 

I've had a v8 in mine for a while now.

 

Josh, how much power were u getting from the orig set-up?

 

What is that?
All those moving parts, that thing can't actually work!
Who in the world would've made something so complicated?

With that many moving parts somethings gonna be breaking all the time and how much energy is wasted pushing everything up and down and around. I just don't have any faith in something that complicated, heck you probably have to have a computer just to make it all work like its supposed to and its computer probably runs on Windows Me OS.

Good luck, but maybe you should've kept your rotary engine around for backup. Besure to remove the CFM before you put that monstrosity under the hood.

 

I have to voice my opinion on this. I can't sit here and listen to this and not say anthing. This is kind of like the argument that import guys have with domestic guys. All the four cylinder guys say i can put on a turbo and beat your V8, then the domestic guys say if they turbo'd there v8, there car would be faster. Well no crap, they got an exra four cylinders! It really just comes down to preference.

Now when it comes to owning a rotary, you really have to love the engine for what it is. Some of us love it for the high revs, some of us, like myself, love it just because we are different from all the other cars on the road. But if you want to be the fastest thing on the road and want it to be dependable, i would have to agree with the decision that josh made. In the long run, it will be cheaper, more dependable, and a heck of alot less frustrating. But once you put a v8 in a rx-7, its not a rx-7 anymore, it just a mazda at that point. Good luck to you josh, and i want a ride when its done.

 

Steve! You going to be able to make it up here on the 12th for the VIR meet? How are things going with you?

 

Damn nicely put!

 

no doubt, if i was content with about 300RWHP then I think the rotary can do the trick nicely. it also has the advantage of an extra 2K RPM, longer between shifts, can definitely be an advantage. anyhow, everyone knows why i am doing the engine, cuz i want/need 400+HP, and i am tired of pouring money into a bottomless pit. somehow a $5K engine that only holds up for a 1.5 years is not my idea of fun. so i chose to replace it with an engine that will take the kind of abuse that i would have LIKED to subject my rotary to. honestly, i only drove my car hard every once in a while, fearing the day it would blow.

as far as it not being an RX7, you are right; there is no rotary xperiment left. however, what i am left with is one of the hottest Mazda body designs of all time(arguably one of the hottest designs to ever come out of Japan), and enough HP/torque to keep me happy anytime i wanna drop the hammer.

like i mentioned before, i don't really want anyone else to do the LS1 swap, honestly, i wish that less would do the swap. however, i think we will start seeing a larger number of people going to piston engines.

anyhow, how is your car coming along Steve?

Greg, never had it on a dyno, but just knowing the dyno numbers of some of the cars i ran against. i would say around 400RWHP would be a good guesstimate. i raced cars with more horsepower (440-450) and came out just about even. given the lighter body of the RX7(about 500-600Lbs). i wish i'd dynoed her, but i never got around to giving her a propper tune (just did one on my own and always kept the ration between 10-11:1.

 

Nope, that's mine!

 

Dude I drive the hell outta mine every day and even though it has a few problems, it's still bangin' out the miles. I think it having the problems and STILL working for me is quite amazing actually. I think they like it better being driven hard every day, and I'm more than happy to comply with that, haha. I will agree with the power and torque argument though, who could argue? And don't worry about the dyno numbers, I'll let ya know when I get it done!

 

yea, maybe i didnt abuse her enough, keep the carbon out.

for me and quite a few others the choice was made simple. you get to bring the best thing about the rx7, the looks, together with the thing you love most about american muscle, lotsa cubic inches, power, and reliability. it's not for everyone, you have to love the pistons for this relationship to work. it took me two blown rotaries to be seduced by the darkside, but it happened.

i understand all the die-hard rotorheads, and appreciate that they defy logic for their love of the rotary. it is romantic idea to cast aside reason, for something that you love. so like i have said before keep the rotors spinning.

 

I see Josh's point of view...bigger engine=more power!!! Can't wait to see it when it's done! I remember a few year's ago seeing a Fiero back home in TX with a small block 350...an FD with an LS1 is good match. I'd still prefer a rotary but, to each his own.