Racing an RX

[AtomicRex]

no i want to do the 24hr race!

[TonyC]

That would be pretty damn good, but don\'t forget your spare bulbs! and pants!

Do you have a fuel sponsor? That is going to be expensive. My friends who race the V8 engined MGZT (Dreadnought garage in Scotland) did the Britcar 24hrs in the ZT last year, and Brian told me the fuel bill (IIRC) was about £1400!

[AtomicRex]

Im gonna sell the rides for it, so that will be a major factor!!!

[TonyC]

Well last night Freddy from Transcars was kind enough to let me look at some of the cars he has and let me see a single and sequential turbo setup. A big thanks to the fella for giving up his time for me last night, it was very useful.

Really it just confirmed what I was thinking and I was already about 99% certain of building up an RX7 as my next race. So looks like the project is on, jst waiting for the current race car to sell off e-bay - then I can source my base car and begin work.

I\'ll keep an update on here/or build up a web site as the project moves along. I\'m sure as I work to lighten the car some people may be shocked by my level of controlled butchery!

Still undecided on sequential or single - the sequential was pretty linear in it\'s power delivery to be fair. I\'ll address that as I go through the engine build and make a choice a little further down in the process.

One thing I did realise is that I\'m going to have to fit a removable wheel - it was very difficult getting into the car with a fixed bucket seat - and it\'ll be harder still with a cage with door bars!

Hopefully in a week or two I\'ll be able to update this saying I\'ve got the base car.
One thing I need to soruce is a workshop manual of some kind of the car - are these available on the web,or from mazda?

Tony

[nikp]

Excellent news! So you\'ve been won over the Supra then. I think that\'s a good decision.

[AtomicRex]

Hiya Tony,

Shame you cant come down to Combe tomorrow....We are at Bedford in a couple of weeks if you fancy coming down to that?

We have a removeable steering wheel too.....actually very useful because you can use a smaller wheel and not have your hands fowl against the stalks and also as you say allows ease of access into the car over the tubes

We are going to be developing a number of items for next year....if you want to chat further about them you can use some on yours if you like!

We might meet on a circuit soon

[TonyC]

Yes, shame about CC, but my wife is running her craft stall at the local fair tomorrow so I\'m on kids duty. When are you at Bedford (and if you are able to run at Bedford with their noise regs then we REALY need to chat about your exhaust - must be fabulous!) as I would very much like to come down.

Handily Freddy did have a Supra as well - and it just looked a big bloated thing -It would be at least 200kg heavier than the RX7 in race form and that adds up to a lot over a lap time.

It\'ll be interesting to hear about what items you are developing, and it would be nice to see two RX7\'s on track fighting it out :Thumbs-up

[Initial-D]

Ohhh a seam welded FD! I\'d love to get mine done but it\'d have to be completly stripped!!

AtomicRex, do you run on standard Mazda bushes? Oh and if you don\'t mind telling me what spring rates do you run and have you changed the roll bars or mounts?

[AtomicRex]

At the moment the springs are way too hard!

We are running 1200 on the front and 1050 on the rear 6" springs plus helpers.  We are planning to move up to 9" and then Im gonna buy a range of springs from 800 to 1000 for the front and similar for the rear....see what the difference is.  Ive had to wind down the bump on the shocks to 1 for Combe which doesnt leave me much to go on for the wet!

Some of the changes for the winter are full inboard outboard rose joints.  Im also going to get the uprights machined so as to lower the roll centres.

The other major thing is weight!  It is still has loads of weight to be removed...so its all coming out  For a start Im getting a carbon fibre dash made

[TonyC]

1200! Blimey. Are you using 2.5ID springs on coil overs? I was going to speak to Leda about coilover/dampers/springs, I know other racers/rally drivers who speak highly of their products.

[AtomicRex]

Why not use the Penske ones im running???

All of the valving has been worked out, and they werent that expensive but make one hell of a difference

[TonyC]

I like to research options. Bit of a control freak: even though somone may well tell me the perfect answer I have to go around and then find out that was the case anyway! Drives my wife mad :Thumbsup!

I\'ll certainly be looking at them as well.

Something I did mean to ask, do you still run the brake servo. I\'m not a terrific fan of servo brakes - do you run with, or without - pedal feel and modulation ok if you do? Or have you swapped the whole pedal box, master cylinder, etc anway?

Also, I was looking at a car Freddy had brought in from Japan as an ex-race acr (Jap style) and it had the power steering removed. This struck me as a tad unusual and not something I\'d considered as useful or needed - any comment from your expriences?

[nikp]

I suppose an option would be, if you don\'t want the engine powering the power steering pump would be too fit an electric power steering pump? Would that be a possible option?

[TonyC]

It\'s not something I\'m considering, I\'m wondering why the Japanese car I was looking at, had it removed.

[AtomicRex]

Having fitted the KAD brakes to the car the stopping power was incredible....but very dangerous! Especially in the wet.  Because the original installers left the Servo on, the brakes are just way too powerful with no feel, and all at the top of the action!  I have a bias Valve fitted but all that does is just cause the rear pads to fade.

To get round this we took the vacum pipe off to the servo and although the feel isnt as good as it could be its giving me more pedal travel, without the monumental lock ups!!

One of the other winter projects is to remove the pedal box and replace with a Tilton one.

Im also thinking of swapping the rack for a quicker rack without the power steering...why do you need it?  I cant think of anytime I will be driving down to Sainsbury\'s

Id beware of bringing anything over from Japan already converted...some of their fabrication isnt the best ive seen, although better than some I have!

And also their rollcages are horrid!  I ended up paying a lot of money to get a good cage put in....Round the ring it feels very secure!!!