Awesome project. I helped a buddy of mine build a LS1 RX7 a few years back and raced it with him. He ended up selling it (at a huge profit, we got it CA legal w/ the BAR sticker and all, which made it worth gold) but we both regret him getting rid of it. It was an absolute blast even w/ the bone stock motor, then we put in a mild cammed 360RWHP setup and it was amazing.
Absolutely awesome platform with a lot of potential. One of my current housemates has a '93 that’s still rotary and I drive it a fair amount. It makes my Z06 feel large and slow to react (but stable). Tire size is one of the big limitations w/ the platform but obviously you’re taking care of that w/ the front fenders and rear flares.
The rotary vs. swap arguement will go on until every last rotary has blown up, no more housings and rotors are available and there is no option. The rotary was a cool idea, but in execution it flat out doesn’t work. Sure, they have specific output that even an AP1 S2K can’t touch (granted, it’s pretty much BS to try and measure displacement in a rotary, but let’s go w/ the 1.3L for a 13B) but they get horendous mileage and flat out aren’t reliable. When my buddy took his rotary FD (stock twins, basically intake, bigger intercooler, and full exhaust w/ stock boost) to Infineon and I took my Z06 (big cam, 42# injectors, open loop tune etc) and I was TOWING A TRAILER behing my Z06 I got about double the MPG that he did. He is a HUGE rotary fan-boy but he’s also realistic and will openly admit all the limitations and issues w/ a rotary. If his car wasn’t one of about 300 (it’s CMY or whatever they call the yellow that was '93 R1 only) he’d go LSX for sure.
Here’s some new pics. 6 Point cage is done, although i’m taking it out having someone tig weld it; i just tacked it together considering i’ve never welded before this project. Building this cage took a long time, much longer than I expected but there was no way I could have got a prebuilt one and fit in the car with the corbeau seats.
I gave the dimensions to someone and had the main hoop bent. I bent the door bars about 1 inch a piece to clear the plastics on the door using an engine hoist and some thinking. The main hoop could be about 1 inch wider on each side once the plastics are on, but it’s not too bad as it is.
The fenders aren’t finished obviously. I put the fiberglass paste on the fender, i’m going to sand it apply a little more, sand again, then a thin layer of bondo.
Fiber Paste
This was where the gas cap used to be.
Back of the 6 point cage.
Door Bars
Bolt for the removable bars
Bottom of the door bar, I still have to chop off the piece of pipe and fill the hole.
Christola!!! I knew that was comin…haha dude, what the hell is your obsession with 20b’s? Everytime you post its the same thing hahaha do you just cut and paste it?
300 hp with a 7k redline is always a good thing. also once your start to get into the larger ports, hell even at a half bridge on a 20b you are lookin at almost the 400 point. with a PP or an ISO you over 500.
The sideskirts and rear bumper would not work without some serious modification because of the rear flares that i’m using. Obviously the burnout flares would be useless as well since they are like 1/3 the size of the ones I have.
Honestly, the sideskirts are nice, but there is no point in even buying hte bumper, it’s basically stock just wraps around the side of the car a little more, but it would interfere with my flares anyway.
We’ll it’s been a while… not even close to where I want to be. The heads/cam come next week as they were shipped to texas for some port work.
I was literally sanding doing body work for 2 months. If I painted cars for a living i would have either commited suicide or become a heavy drug addict.
Car is going to be painted with sonic blue pearl.
Rebuilt the inside of the fender for the pettit flares. Have to do something with that 2.5 inch gap when you cut the stock fender. I think it came out pretty good since I dont know what the hell i’m doing.
All 4 wheels will be flared out it’ll look a little different than most rx7’s.
Not exactly fitted well; i just threw it on there to get an idea.
Painted engine bay; Anyone notice a difference?
Here’s the pics of the new wheels versus the old. Just slightly bigger. 18x11.5’s on the rear 18x10’s on the front. They are CCW Sp500’s with nitto 555r II tires.
You can see in the last picture i have to rebuild the fender again to make it look even… i dont know if I put the petit flares on wrong or what but i had to chop the fiberglass and rebuild it.
The only way to get someone 6’2’’ with corbeau seats, with a sunroof, while wearing a helmet was to build my own custom 6 point bar. Well the only place i could put it was where the bins go. Honestly I have no idea how people have a roll bar that goes behind the seats; mine would have been on like a 45 degree angle to clear the seats. So no more bins, had to do something with the space…
This was early in the day, I finished laying the carpet and securing it, but my camera died. I’m going to paint the silver speaker covers the same color as the roll bar.
