Hinson Supercars sub-frame is superbly constructed and the engine fits w/ lots of room left over. Borg-Warner fits well. The hood closes w/o touching anything.

Anyways, our shop is replacing the engine [not fault of the engine]. We will be examining this conversion further and we're impressed.

 

thats just wrong!

 

That turned out nice!

How much longer/shorter is the T56 compared to the stock FD tranny?

 

Ah, the car came in late Saturday and I took the pics this a.m. The driveshaft and PPF are custom made. The shifter is in stock location w/ no problems.



We're also replacing an engine in a 2003 Ford H-D supercharged truck.



That's what a mail-order chip will do for you. Two rods went through the block and the new engine costs $7000.

 

Who's car is that Mark?? Looks familiar..

I've seen couple of Hinson Super Cars converted 7s and they all are very well built.

 

Very Nice!!

 

I think vetts are hot why not get the whole car

why would you wanna drive an old rx7 with a zo6 engine?
I cant imagine how weird of a driving experience that would be, from starting it up to driving it and shifting earlier than redline

c5s are so cheap right now and its an awesome car. I really dont understand the reason for going through all this trouble

 

The car came into our shop for an engine change. It isn't my car. I ain't driving it. Check the garage or do a search to see my ride. Nobody said this was a Z06 engine. If C5s are so cheap, then where's yours?

I hope you didn't make a mess 43 years ago when Carroll Shelby shoe-horned that vaunted Ford V8 into the pathetic AC Bristol and named it "Cobra".

 

right, I realize it isn't your car
I wasnt trying to give anyone a hard time! youde know it if I was
Just saying that I honestly dont understand the reasoning behing this and you said it is a LS6 engine I thought that was out of the zo6 but I dont know much about other cars just the 3d gen RX-7
I could easily be driving a C5 that's no biggie

 

I definately don't like when people do that to FD's, they are rare enough as it is, then to do something like this is pretty pointless. You take a great handling car, then drop something nice and heavy into it, and throw all the engineering to ****. I'm a fan of the Z06, and the FD, just not mixed.

Just my opinion.

 

While I respect your right to your own opinion, you need to realize that the LS1 is not much heavier than a 13brew when you include the turbo assembly/intercooler/etc. I think the total difference in weight is in the 30lb neighborhood. MUCH less than someone putting a system in their car. The car is still a world class handler after its done, insanely fast, and will get 30mpg on the highway. Can you build a rotary that is just as fast? Sure. Will it get 30mpg? lol Do a search for these cars being weighed after the conversion is done. They come in around 2800lbs and still retain the 50/50 weight distribution...the main difference is the amount of power available at 2k rpms.

 

Because it's fun as hell, and I'll stop right there!

I believe the guy is on TC and it's a LS1.

 

Mark57,

Just found out who's that was..

Well, I wasn't a big fan of LS1 Fd's.. but they are pretty neat.. 25MPG city, almost 30MPG highway.. I would do one to drive every day! Not sure about modding it though..

 

Maybe you should have done some research before making that statement...

 

You don't really have to mod them unless you're big into drag racing. Most stock LS1's dyno 315-325 with the same amount of tq. Once in a FD you have to make a better intake and exhaust so that'll make a few more ponies and most people throw a cam in there while the motor is out. The optional long tube headers made for this swap are a 25rwhp gain over stock manifolds, so making good amounts of power and tq while keeping a relatively stock motor is easy.

 

Anybody who is not a fan of LS1 FD's has obviously never driven one. Talk about blind devotion...

 

did anybody dyno these things and get a +25, I thought someone got 15 on a cammed motor. correct me if im wrong, I hope I am. Mike

 

It's hard to believe that they are still 50/50 weight ratio. Look how much more of the engine sits forward. that's a lot of the weight ratio. 13b's sit half as far back, which is a lot of the weight distribution.

I'm not saying it's not fast or anything, I'm just a very loyol rotar head and see RX7's as being Rotaries. That is the main reason why I don't like it. The rotary set's it apart even more from the rest of the crowd.

 

I'm a rotary fan too, but it comes off as pretty dumb to come in and spout off about something you don't know about. People have completed the conversion and corner-weighted their cars and were still 51/49 or 50/50. It always pays to do a bit of research before making such a bold statement.

Trust me, two very respected forum members with hundreds of hours of track time in their FDs have driven an LS-1 FD and found it to be an incredible conversion (DamonB and TurboJeff).

 

I think you need to do a search on 50/50 weight distributions. Thats with the car sitting still, not in motion. The proper weight distributions matter when the car is in motion. Look at the Lotus Elise, it doesn't have a 50/50 weight distribution and definintly handles like its on rails. What good does a 50/50 weight distribution do you while sitting still?!

-Alex

 

The FC and FD unibodies were/are/will continue to be ahead of their times. The chassis/unibody accepts the SBC and does well with it. It seems to be a lot less complicated than a 20B install.

 

looks cool. but on a chassis with alot of miles (not sure about that one), how would it handle all the extra torque, (talking mainly a modded ls1 or other v8). also how well does that custom subframe follow the original suspension geometry. i was just wondering, looks nice though, i would probably do it if i had the money! bet that thing hauls ***.

 

youre forgetting that the entire turbo rotary motor setup includes an oil cooler which is way up frotn ahead of the radiator and also the intercooler.. these parts add weight in significant positions when talking about the car's balance.

you were misinformed when making your statement on the LS1FD/FC being far from stock in weight distribution, its a myth that an LS1 swap is heavy so you need to get over it. so, even though it might be ''hard to believe'' as you said, once you do a swap yourself or even just get the chance see a swap being done, you will understand it completely.

well by that definition we have made our rx7s even more unique than ones with rotaries in them... it takes a lot of work to do the swap (or a lot of $!) and some of us have made very serious cars out of them with some suspension and chassis work, so dont think we're all backyard mechanics tossing in an old, heavy, low-revving, technologically-dull, ironblock V8 out of an A-team van from the 80's.


back to topic... that car looks good! any mods in the works or what?

 

my FC had over 188,000 mile swhen I did my LS1T56 swap.
I threw on some tein coilovers and it just rips and corners like a champ. I havent even thrown on the poly bushings or toe elimintaors. the car is just a rabid hungry beast looking to tear up some corners. seriously, the LS1 swap has only made the car twice as fun to drive and now its twice as useful... its easy to drive at 1000 rpm even in 5th gear around town, the tq available at any rpm is just unreal. its even ''quiet'' since you dont need to rev super high to get moving out of traffic and it MOVES!

 

This stuff is covered every week. As for shifting before redline, all you need is a larger cam with appropriate valvesprings to make full use of the fd tach. With my medium sized cam,stock heads, I have a 6800 redline, although power drops off ~6500. Ported cylinder heads can also shift the powerband up. Who needs 10k rpm if the first 5 are useless?