I grew up with a Mazda man for a dad. The list of Mazdas my family has owned between myself, my parents and my sisters. R100 RX2 RX3 RX4 RX7-3 of them MX6 Millennia protege -4 of them Protege 5 The first engine in my 36 Ford was a 12A with a 4 speed behind it. I have always thought the Wenkel design was ingenious. I have plan someday to install a 13B turbo engine into a model A roadster. I know there are more efficient power plant options out there, but I like em….. anyone else?
Here's my first rotary powered car from back around 1995, a homemade dirt latemodel powered by a homemade 4 rotor! The engine was made by putting together a couple of 4 port 13B's... Here's a link to a page of mine with more info about the car... https://grannys.tripod.com/4rotor.html Grant
I had a base '86 RX-7 in high school, and later an '87 RX-7 Turbo II that I eventually sold to fund my first Model A in 2003. They were fun cars, and I always wanted to pick up another FC3S.
I am floored at the cost of the rotary engines. When I was a kid you couldn’t give them away. The 12A’s had the notorious apex seal failures.
Yeah, they cost a fortune nowadays, and if you told me back then how much a clean original FC3S would be worth today, I'd laugh in your face. My '86 had ECU problems. I had an import shop run all the diagnostics and they replaced the ECU. I sent the original ECU off to be repaired, the replacement failed 3 months later and then the original repaired one failed a couple of months after that when I was on my way home from working at the Ford dealer, and I was over it. I made a deal with a local used car dealer to take my dead RX-7 in on trade in exchange for a nice clean little Suzuki Swift GTi (think Geo Metro on steroids). My '87 Turbo II had some goodies... Street Ported, T04B Turbo, injectors, Haltech ECU, titanium exhaust, stout clutch, coilovers, etc. It was a project car and I was bouncing across Texas for work and never had time to dedicate to it. I sure miss the sounds and smells they made, and watching that tachometer keep climbing never got old!
Great memories.....in the late 1970's early 1980's I was living and working in the Des Moines area. Had a great friend and college buddy that bought a brand new RX7. We would run from Des Moines to Knoxville on Sat night for great dirt sprint car racing. Sometimes my friend would get a little over-served cheering for Doug Wolfgang. He would throw me the keys and let me drive home. I asked him about all the rules for driving a rotary. He told me "run thru each gear until the buzzer goes off......then shift "!!! Those were te good ole days
In 1971 I built an MGB with a 12A engine and transmission in it. Weighed 250lb less than a stock B and had MGA front springs to make up for it. Surprisingly fast when you add 60hp at the wheels to a car that only had around 60 to start with.
Big fan. Put many many fun miles on a ‘79 Rx7, lots of revs and a ball on wet pavement. I’d love another rotary. Just don’t flood it! edit, I see you mentioned some non-rotary Mazdas as well, we have 2 M3s in the family, one MZR 2.5, one SkyActive 2.0, we love both of them. I’d like to MZR swap into a 60s compact.
Grew up around them, but never owned one. Still a strong following in Australia, and often see a good RX2/3/4 turnout at the local Wednesday night drags. Redlines that would turn an SBC into a grenade. Sounds like a swarm of bees, man... angry, angry bees Cheers, Harv
Wasn't having a go at you about the spelling. Was more having a giggle about the guy's unfortunate name. Maybe you guys in the states should google "wank"........ or maybe you actually shouldn't.
The Jalopy Journal
