Finnish race car project

[re japi]

Ok, my brothers -84 RX-7 is home from storage. It has been waiting for 5 years now. Its time to start building it again, finaly...

There´s lots and lots to do. But ill try to update as often as i can.
I really want to hear that 9000rpm sound soon!

[Steve-A]

Cool project

I\'ve not seen those wheels before, I presume they\'re aftermarket? Have you got much rust to deal with, or is it a case of put it back together and make faster? What\'s your brothers plan for her?

Looking forward to more pictures

[re japi]

Not sure about those wheels. But we were told that they were secondary wheels with winter tyres. Primary wheels are those rotor looking things. Amazing thing is that they are in very good condition.

She is still in very very good condition. No rust at all. I swear that she is in better condition than my Beemers!

Well, still lots of work. Rollcage, welding(to make her more harder), modifications for axels, rebuild the engine, new diff, remowe old electric, lose more weight, rebuild brakes and cluch...

We do have carbonfibre bodypanel models ready but we might have to do them again...

[CHC (RIP)]

Quite like the look of the secondaries too but those rotar rims are really nice - had a chance to buy a set last year but had other priorities to deal with.
Looks sturdy enough already and good to hear she is solid.
Keep the photos coming and things develop (another Gold resto there Steve)
Ta
Cliff

[re japi]

Yes, and those rims are in very good condition. Rotor rims are good too. I wonder how much money they are worth...?

Just checked, she only has about 145000km on the clock. When my brother bought it, she had 113000. Engine braked in about 120k km. Carb was broken and tuned wrong. Then engine was rebuilded and ported. And carb was rebuilded too. After that she was my brothers everyday driver for 1 and half years. Then my bros race car broked and rx became a project. First modifications were custom intake and carbs and custom headersand and exhaust.

[CHC (RIP)]

The set I was looking @ were to be imported from Japan and the price was (door to door) between 350 - 400 GBP and the condition was excellent.
Current pricing - at the end of the day they are only worth what somebody is prepared to pay for them
Ta
Cliff

[re japi]

Wow!?!?!

[re japi]

Ok, need advice. What kind of diff? She needs some kind of LSD or lockdif. 1.5way maybe...? Manufacturers and/or what your choice would be...?

[re japi]

Ok, my brother is considering to swap rebuilded renesis engine and gearbox to her. Seems like good idea at this point. We have talked and thought about it, alot. Does anyone have heard about using carbs at renesis engine?

And another question: 13b NA engines. If you do porting or heavy porting on it, does old ECU works, at all? And can old ECU be re-mapped?

[Steve-A]

If you\'ve got an rx8 engine and box, I\'d have thought the best best would be to transplant all the fuel injection gear, loom and ecu from the rx8.

If you do any porting the old ECU wont have the right map in it. I\'m not sure if you can get the old one remapped, but I suggest you\'d be best going for one of the commonly used aftermarket ECUs for their extra features and tune-ability.

[Will66]

FB with an RX8 engine would be immense!  The 192 would probably be the easier one to manage since it\'s not got the control system for the auxillary ports to worry about.  Not heard of one running a carb but it should be possible, you\'d need custom manifolds though, as well as a custom exhaust and you\'d need something to control the ignition.

[re japi]

Problem is that those aftermarket ECU´s are expensive and i dont really know who can tune it here.

Renesis swap should be easy (in theory). Manifolds, exhaust is no problem. And i dont worry about ignition either. We thought alot about transplanting all that electronic crap with the engine, but realized that IT would be difficult. I think that its more simple to do it all oldschool style. No electronics, just basic ignition and massive carbs!

And i heard that in very high revving engines, carbs are easyer to tune. And they will work better in higher revs, compared to ignition. Thats why bikes have carbs

[Will66]

I\'m not sure the RX8 has the ability to run a distributor but since it\'s fundamentally not that different from a 12a, if you could make an ignition system for it you should be able to make it run.  

Carbs are easier to make run as they don\'t require a high pressure fuel rail and precision control of the fuel feed.  It\'s why they\'re more popular for DIY stuff.  Plenty of high revving bikes run fuel injection.

[re japi]

Oh, i mean injection, not ignition...

Ya, dont know difference, i havent seen Renesis engine so close. But im pretty sure that it can be done DIY.

I have tryed to hunt donor car for few days now. Found few, even if chassis is in very bad condition, they are expencive...

[re japi]

Ok, finally some good news from AKK (national federation of motorsports). Rules are now modified so they allowes rotarys, in stock displacement. And we where supriced cause they approved 13b engines also. Limit in national rallycross series is 2050cc and 13b with multiplier 1,7 is much bigger.

In process of fighting against AKK, my friend did get few supporters to rotarys also. So, in few years there will be few more rotary powered cars racing in that series. My friends Lada 2107, maybe another Lada, Volvo PV544 and hopefully my brothers FB.


Then some bad news. My friend decided that he wont be braking apart his Lada, again.  He just managed to get that thing work. Good setups and so on. He started to build another car, just for that rotary engine.

So Mr.Hayward, im sorry but our little project is onhold now, for a year i think. I really wanted so your engine here in next season. But i understand my friend, he wants to build the best possible car for that engine...