Import motor swap?

You are a bit outta touch with todays racing. They have front drive 2 ltr cars in the 7's and rear drivers over 200mph. NHRA runs a separate series for the compacts. Heck, even the Chevy Cobalt 4 bangers will produce 650+ HP with the factory parts. We have a gal here in So.Cal. that runs a Cobalt 4 banger with front drive in the high tens. She ran 11.20 with a passenger at Pomona two years ago.

A $10K Honda 4 banger in a Civic will run 9's at 140mph and idle like a street motor.

My son's autoshop teacher has a Mitzu Evo with less then $3k in some new injectors and computer work and he runs 12.2 at L.A.C.R. which would be about 11.9 at sea level on street tires and still gets 20+ mpg, passes smog check and is his daily driver.

 

i'm supprised toyota didn't drop jarrod after what he said as speedweeks. lol! "those people" lol!

as i said b4

http://www.importtuner.com/events/0402it_nhra_street_glow_extreme_rush_2/

6's! yeah it not cheap.. but nor is running 6's in any car. thats old news too.

but wait no ones getting mad cuz i said TOYOTA are in NASCAR... god i to be the devils advocate

well said what i have been trying to say all along 3k to run 12.2 i wish i could spend 3k on my stock maverick and make it go 12.2 in the 1/4 and drive 80 on the fwy at 3000 rpms... er with the air on.

 

hah i actually took the time and read every single post awesome thread, some may not like what i have to say but i'm not biased to any car manufacturer, i work for mazda which is by a popular believe is actually NOT owned by ford, it has a partnership with ford, a single family in japan owns 66% of company's share holder, so now thats out of the way, yes i work for mazda, yes i own 2 mazda's and 1 ford, yes both of my mazda's are 4 bangers, one is 76k miles not a single check engine light, not a single part has been replaced on it yet, other one is a 4 banger turbo, which was the funnest daily driver i ever drove, i'm going to road race it this april up at gingerman raceway with a VW club, now yes my maverick has a 302 in it, i kept it same brand, now i saw few people mentioned a 13b rotary into a maverick, which i think would be very very easy, specially if you put a carb on that rotary, the engine itself assembled you can pick up off the ground alone so its very light, its also very small so you can fit it in our engine bay very easily, also both of the motor mounts are directly in the middle lower half of the engine, so fabbing motor mounts would be simple. anyone willing to try?

 

A rotary in a maverick just wouldnt look right though. It would just look like someone pulled the ford motor and put a milk crate sized box/lawn mower motor in there. Plus rotary motors are sometimes plauged with problems.

 

Useless trivia:
Ford built some rotary powered Mustangs about 65...
Mazda didn't invent the engine, they just used it large scale.
Dave

 

A triple stack rotary with a turbo would be pretty cool. You could push that pretty far back into the car for a good weight distribution and probably stay under 2,000 lbs. I forget who makes custom cranks for the triple and quadruple stacks.

Just have to keep up on the tip seals and they'll run forever. The eccentric gear and the crank are the weak links in the engine. Well, that and simply overspeeding the rotor. The rotor only spins 1/3 the speed of the crank though, so it's pretty hard to spin the rotor out of the engine.

The dynamic compression on the rotary is crap and as such fuel economy and driveability suffers. However, they do love to be turbo-charged, and idle quiet as a church mouse. Good sleepers...

Mr. Wankle invented the rotary, and I believe it was intended for use in aircraft before it was put into a car. Correct me if I'm wrong on that one.

 

Most motors have some problem areas. Fords have four bolts per heads, Chebbies have some upper oiling issues, Mopars have oil pan issues, blah blah blah...
Rotories kick booty! You can make a bunch of easy hp, and when you through a bridge or P-port on it, look out.
Toss a turbo, and its a whole new world...

BTW, can you tell I had one???

 

As with ZooomZoomGuy, I too read the whole enchalada yesterday...It was the best of threads it was the worst of threads, I laughed--I cried--once I nearly died!!!

Being new to this board--a little about my bent. I'm an average family working guy with a background in motorcycles, and old firearms--none of the black plastic crap. I'm new to the car stuff within the last 2 years.

I hate to say it, but I think I may be an I6 junkie. I am vey much a function over form; however, if it can be made to look good, it should!!! I would never ugly somethin up out of spite.

Keeping with the function over form thought, as we each build our own rides it is of the utmost that we ask OURSELVES what it is that WE wont these little gems to do for us.---If it is a DD I can't help but think a nice feul injected jap configuration would be in order. It's not the way I will go, but I can see the functionality, and I would love to see someone do it just to see!!

Off topic--to make my daughter's 76 mav a DD I am experimenting with mpfi for the 250. I'm just about done with the first prototype for the intake mods. I may be throughing time down a hole, but like I tell the kids--"If you can think and read you can do anything."

 

actually the eccentric gear and crank are not the weak points of the engine, the apex seals are

 

Well obviously those wear out/break first, but they won't kill the engine unless they get cocked in there weird and really scuff up the case bad.

I was thinking more along the lines of what make it go BOOM!

 

well nothing really actually... never heard of one actually going boom, i've read some university spun one of em to 27,000rpm few times i think they used liquid nitrogen to cool it or something like that. actually from what i've expirienced from working on them, the more you beat on it, the longer they seem to last, which is weird. i've spoke with mazda engeneer about the rx-8 rotary, he said you can put your foot down on the accelerator pedal and hold it at 9k rpm (redline) for as long as you want and it won't damage the engine

 

Back in my youth, I raced stuff that turned left and right. One of the cars that most excited me back then was a Lotus 7 with a RX3 Rotary. It was called a Rotus and it flat boogied. Always wanted to build one of those. Later a friend put one in a Triumph GT6. What a sleeper. He could piss off a Porsche 911 driver with no problem. A Mav with a three rotor like was used in the prototype cars at Le Mans and Daytona would kick butt.

ZoomZoomguy, Sorry 'bout that Ford owns Mazda thing, they are a working partner as is GM with Isuzu who I work for. I own 3 Fords and my Plymouth is Chevy powered.

The Toyota 6 would work great in a Mav.Take a Supra 6 with FI and a 5 spd and you have instant HP and drivability.

JnkYdMod, I'm hooked on 6's as well. Have a 3x1 set up sitting on the workbench for my Mav and most the parts to convert to a 5spd.

For 6 cyl info go to: http://fordsix.com/

I built the motor in my '63 Ranchero from the info on this site. You can also find info on adding TBI to a Ford 6. Not that hard to do.

American Hotrod ingenuity has place many American engines in import cars since the imports came to the USA. Turn about is fair play.

 

When the earth is gone and even the cockroaches are not to be found, this thread will live on.
Dan

 

hey no bigie man, i was just pointing it out just out of curiosity, RX-3 motors were called 12A correct?

 

yes 12A, 13B and 20B a tri rotor that will do over 1000 hp! power all due to the porting. street port - bridge port - peripheral port