Teach me about rotary swaps

BTW, about gasket kits: they are not exactly SBC cheap but aren't that bad, at least for the 12A and NA 13B.

http://atkinsrotary.com/store/catalog/Gasket-Kits-title0-p-1-c-739.html

Ahhh, the memories. 12A in IT trim with header and carb upgrades could make 170hp after a visit to ISC. Nothing could pass me on the backstraight at RA. My experience with 13B's is limited to a few street cars. ISC did build me a enduro spec motor for a GTUs that I was driving on the street. I was going to let my wife drive the car but it didnt have a sunroof or power windows so it got sold. I also stopped by a used car lot to look at an interesting looking RX7 GSL-SE which turned out to have a "truck port" 13B with holley intake and header. The locals couldnt keep it running but I recognized that the intake had an air leak in it and got the car for a song. Turned out that the car had been gone thru with a lowered suspension, upgraded brakes and the engine mods. I never lost a race to a 5.0 or an IROC of the same era.
Not sure if I would want to race a Lemons race in a 12A early RX7 because of the size but a second gen RX7 with the six port motor wired open and the oil pump blocked off would seem to be the best way to have reliable speed.

fastmiata wrote: Ahhh, the memories. 12A in IT trim with header and carb upgrades could make 170hp after a visit to ISC. Nothing could pass me on the backstraight at RA. My experience with 13B's is limited to a few street cars. ISC did build me a enduro spec motor for a GTUs that I was driving on the street. I was going to let my wife drive the car but it didnt have a sunroof or power windows so it got sold. I also stopped by a used car lot to look at an interesting looking RX7 GSL-SE which turned out to have a "truck port" 13B with holley intake and header. The locals couldnt keep it running but I recognized that the intake had an air leak in it and got the car for a song. Turned out that the car had been gone thru with a lowered suspension, upgraded brakes and the engine mods. I never lost a race to a 5.0 or an IROC of the same era. Not sure if I would want to race a Lemons race in a 12A early RX7 because of the size but a second gen RX7 with the six port motor wired open and the oil pump blocked off would seem to be the best way to have reliable speed.

Nobody is talking about entering Lemons with an RX-7, by the way, that would be silly.

Greg: I went huntin' my intake stuff, sorry to say I do not have the bottom third. I have the middle section, the dynamic chamber and the throttle body.

In case no one figured it out, I'm team captain of the Tunachuckers. I usually go by 'mechimike' on other forums; I'm on the 24 Hours of LeMons forum a bit. tuna55 and I discussed the rotary swap idea privately, and its something I think we've both been batting around in our heads for awhile now. Especially now that Charlie is out of commission for the near future. The Tunachuckers will be at CMP in May; we have a 1975 Ford LTD Landau that we'll be campaigning. It sure is a marked departure from our previous endeavors with the Amazon.

I think I speak for the team when I say we're all pretty emotionally attached to Charlie. We've done 5 races with him, and we've been through everything together. We won IoE our first time ouot, and the most recent race we were actually running in the top 20 before a moderately serious wreck put us on the trailer on Sunday afternoon. I don't want to downplay the damage to the amazon, but anything's fixable- especially when you have a garage chocked full of Amazon and 1800 parts.

The B18s and B20s we've run in Charlie have been good motors, but I think we really want to turn things up to 11 in both the wacky engineering department and the performance department. For a stick axle 1960's car, we had the handling set up pretty well- the original car leaned in the corners and lifted the inside rear wheel. It also had some weird snap oversteer tendencies. In 5 races we've managed to find a pretty sweet handling point for it- the wheels all stay on the ground (most of the time!) and the handling has a very slight oversteer bias. Its really a sweet car to drive- small, so it fits anywhere, light, because its not bloated and we've stripped EVERY non-mission critical bit out of it, and as you know, very different from everything else on the track.

A rotary would really work with the current setup. The weight balnce woudn't change; if anything it might shift a little back as the 13b is about 4 inches shorter than the B20. The final drive ratio is already a 4.88 in a Dana 30, so the engine will be free to rev to the moon and its a pretty bulletproof rear. The brakes work well when they work- we could late brake and almost everything. The fronts are Mustang rotors so they are stupid big for the car's weight. The backs are drums which have actually been pretty bulletproof and worked well. We have an adjustable proportioning valve to dial them in. A dual master cylinder and some new lines and the brakes will be about perfect.

Anyway, sorry to be so long winded, but I would love to get this project off the ground and I see that tuna55 is once again succumbing to the LeMons itch. A two car team would be awesome if we could find the extra team members to help wrench on and drive the cars and having the '75 LTD parked next to the '66 Amazon in the pits would be like IoE heaven.

Our team is sort of loosely based around the Greenville, SC area. I live in Tigerville, and the rest of the team are anywhere from Boiling Springs to Easley. We're a bunch of geeky engineers with bad taste in cars and corny senses of humor. We firmly espouse the "no whining" philosophy (Rule 2.4 of LeMons). If anyone is interested in getting involved, our blog is www.tunachuckers.com/blog and we have a team email at gmail which is pretty self- explanatory.

Now what to call this concept...Wankel-Volvo? Rotolvo? Swedish Spinning Triangles?

"Now what to call this concept...Wankel-Volvo? Rotolvo? Swedish Spinning Triangles?"

Hmmmmmm....

Whacked off Amazon.

Wankazon

Volvanka

Doritos R Us.

I would love to help with some wrenching, but from Charleston it might be spotty. Let me know when and where and I'll try to fit it in the schedule.

The Wanked Swede

Well, ISTR Volvo is Latin for 'I roll', so it really is appropriate.

How about 'Wolvo' ? (Wolvo-rine?)

My Girlfriend really likes Swedish Spinning Triangles, and it would make a pretty good theme, too.

Piston-free is the way to be!

http://images3.cpcache.com/product/361364633v7_480x480_Front_Color-White.jpg

volvoclearinghouse wrote: My Girlfriend really likes Swedish Spinning Triangles, and it would make a pretty good theme, too.

I like it too, actually. We could have outfits with the swedish flag and a rotary triangle on it.

volvoclearinghouse wrote: Piston-free is the way to be! http://images3.cpcache.com/product/361364633v7_480x480_Front_Color-White.jpg

And I ordered one of these for the wife. Someday I'll even tell her about it.

In reply to tuna55:

That is brilliant.

Brett_Murphy wrote: In reply to tuna55: That is brilliant.

Thanks! Now someone who knows photoshop needs to help me make it less ugly looking, and we'll put it all over the car!

How about something like...?

In reply to cghstang:

That's not bad!

Did this happen?

If not, why not?

I have parts and knowledge to help. (except I am a few states away)

Rob R.

wvumtnbkr wrote: Did this happen? If not, why not? I have parts and knowledge to help. (except I am a few states away) Rob R.

It did not. The car was hit and hit hard. It was shot by many an enthusiastic team member with varying round sizes and accuracies. It has been replaced by the LTD, which is much uglier, much heavier, much less fun, much more automatic-transmissioned, but much easier to drive.

I hope I'm not late to the party here, but you might want to read this article to learn a little more about how rotaries work and what goes into a "performance" build. I learned a lot from this:

http://www.motoiq.com/magazine_articles/id/2645/rotary-radness-mazdatrixs-13b-rewmsp-hybrid.aspx

EDIT: Oops, I fail in the "check what freaking date the thread started" department.

late to the party, any other un answered questions?