I have been thinking alot about replacing my 12a carb'
d with a 13b since I can't find a CA smog legal fuel injection system. I don't want to put a 1st gen engine in primarily due to poor reliability of the injection system. I don't want to put a TII engine in, I like to completely avoid turbos all together.

Has any one put in a 2nd gen non turbo engine with good success? My goal is longevity and reliability. I don't want to change my tranny out. I just want to bolt in the new engine add the EFI and be done with it.

 

i'm doing this swap right now. there was a pretty good discussion from some questions I asked about it a little while back. Use the search feature. It should pop right up.

 

There are several people in Germany that have put a FC N/A engine in a 1st gen, with good succes. I'm in the preparing stage of doing the same, but might ad a turbo anyway :-)

 

Paul did it. With ECU, EFI and everything.

 

This swap lies somewhere in my cars future. How my HP can you get outta a NA FC engine? How much power can a GSL rear end handle safely?

 

now I'm confused about somthing.... in the pics, he started with the wireing harness and removed most of it..... dont you need it?!? THe thing runs to every thing electrical in the car... right?

 

The way I see it, the only part of the harness from the FC is the ECU part. So you could keep most of your old harness and just wire the engine with the FC harness part.

If he put in an 86 then you're looking at about 135 HP right? WHich is about where the stock 13b for 85 is (exlcuding his other performance mods). My goal is really not to increase power but to move away from carb'd. I can't find anyone to do a descent job fixing them. I get shunned every time I go to get it smoged 'cause most places now don't even touch carbs at all.

Even the dealer laughs at me. They say it'll be 350 for labor plus parts to rebuild the carb. Just the factor needle and seat are 100 bucks a pair. The estimate was a grand for everything.

Then you add in all the other little vacumm doo-hickeys and compensators, it becomes a nightmare fast.

 

Speaking from personal experience in FCs, I'd highly recommend the 89-92 high-compression 8000RPM redline sweet-tuned dual-stage intake motor. It's the same mounting and a "few" (hee hee) different wires that you'd have to muck around with, but it's a sweet sweet motor. Smoothly torque-full down low and kickin' *** up high, but it's no turbo.

I'm still grumpy that I blew up mine, but I'm still considering rebuilding it...

 

jec-31, what wiring differences are there in the later FC engines? Cause thats actually what I was thinking about doing. Since those have like 150+hp right? and I'll ask again, how much hp can a GSL rear end take?

 

86-88 About 146 HP
89-91 About 160 HP

N/A - about as much as you can muster. Plenty of people running Big Carbs and bridgeports, pushing over 220 to the wheels with no problem.

Forced Induction...It's another story.

 

Yeah, I've always heard that torque is the big rear end killer and not horsepower. If that's true the bridgies should have no problems.

 

OK I am doing the 89 swap... so could someone help me on this wireing mess? How do I connect what to what, what are the parts that I need on the harness.

Keep in mind this is a GS, not a GSL-SE so I have to hook up the sensors.

 

Thanks directfreak. Thats what I thought.

 

Well, the reaon I replied is that I too thought long and hard about putting a 89-92 NA motor into an FB car. Then I realized that it's the same amout of work as putting any TII motor in but without the power, so why?
I decided to stay 12a because I want to play with carbs, not computers, and I have 2 good 12a's and no good 13b's.
And I live in Michigan, with no smog checks.

One important thing to remember is that the second generation of Rx-7 is notorious for electrical problems in it's engine management.

BTW, I do not know the intricate details and differences between 86-88 and 89-92 wiring harnesses, but one search of the FC section of the forum will lead y'all to bountiful info.

But it's still an excellent upgrade, because they're great motors.