Ok all.. I want the honest truth…we have here a 1982 RX7 12A with Racing Beat System, garbage removed.. like the air pump etc…What I’m wondering is….are these First Gen’s suppose to be fast like everybody boasts about. What I mean is, from first to second gear…well it don’t mean anything in the city, almost anybody can beat you. These cars I guess are only for highway…. am I right…. from third gear and on ?? We don’t have no Porting job on the motor, however, we hear talk from other guy’s who have the same First Gen’s, no porting done, but doing donuts in parking lots and beating all these cars . Can someone out there be honest and clear this up . BTW the motor is fine, compression and timing etc. What would you suggest before we install a 327 or 350 under the hood.

 

Watch your mouth, keep the rotary. You can rev higher, and it won't throw off your 50/50 weight dist. And they weren't originally made to be straight line cars. It's got tow hooks, and nasty cornering and braking for a reason. It's made to turn left and right. And the high revs, low weight, and good HP/LB is a perfect car for the road course.

 

Put the 327 or 350 in some other car than the RX7...these cars were not designed for that. I am trying to get that image out of my head, already.

 

What are you expecting from a 20 year old car that puts out 100 horsepower?

 

327 is the best SBC, but that's kinda like saying skin cancer is the best cancer.

Get a Ford! Smaller, lighter, fits the engine bay much more cleanly, quality iron instead of the silly putty that Chevy uses, and best of all it's not a Chevy.

- Pete (Bow ties are for little boys)

edit: It's getting really, *really* hard for me not to build up an 11:1, hairy-cammed (with gear drive of course) 302, for throwing into the '85, just to **** people off. The only things going against it are my lack of a suitable rotating assembly and engine block (have nice heads already ) and the near impossibility of finding a Ford Toploader trans for less than severely ouchful pricing. Because if it's a V8, it *must* be a four-speed.

Hrm, then again, there are lots of 300-6 powered F150s and E150s in the junkyards with the 4-speed OD trans. The gear spread on those is kinda crappy (basically imagine an FC transmission with 1st slightly taller, 2nd halfway between 2nd and 3rd, 3rd as 4th, and 4th as 5th) but heck, could keep the 3.91 gears, and the 302 should have *zero* problem moving only 2600lb of mass wit hthe wider spread, especially with higher squeeze and a lumpier bumpstick.

 

Damn you. Damn you all to hell.

That one major sticky wicket (the inability to find Toploaders) has turned my whole procrastination justification inside out.

The RUG trannies (the OD evolution of the Toploader), in the trucks anyway, are every bit as strong as the old Toploaders. Which were THE strongest 4-speeds ever put in a passenger car.

They are also practically worthless! Worthless to people who want Toploaders, which are many, since they are "just different enough" that they're of no use to people who want something for their Torino or Falcon or whatever. And since they are pretty much bulletproof, there isn't much junkyard demand for them either.

Now I have visions of $150 RUGs dancing in my head, as well as rumbling through the street in a 250deg @ .050", 108 degree lobe separation. 11:1 compression 302 powered FB, fingering the Hurst shifter, zapping the Holley poking through the hood to clear the spark plugs... and i should have been asleep an hour ago.

Part of the problem is the Camaro that's been in the shop the past several days. Had to pull it out every morning and bring it back in every night while we waited for partsage. It had a hairy small block that had an idle like a clothes drier with half a set of billiard ***** rolling around in there. THUMPatathumPAtaTHUMPata... And the Hurst shifter! Criminy, here was something that both had a nice short throw, yes was also super easy shiftin's. The reason I have the shifter extension on the FB is because I use my fingers, not my arm, to shift. Ths Camaro had the sweetest shifter... now I see why they were so popular in the day! Too bad it was a Chevy or I would have thought I died and went to heaven just driving it a hundred feet through the parking lot.

I really must sleep, before I start pricing out piston sets or checking the classifieds for pre-'82 302 short blocks.

 

who cares about gear spread? you have a big hp v8 in a 2600lbs car, you can just leave it in 4th all the time

 

Well, piston engines don't tend to have flat torque curves like rotaries do. So even with the narrow LDA you're still not going to be doing much at low engine speeds.

Besides, what good is making power at 7500-8000rpm if you have to be going 160mph to use it?

 

yeah but you still have way more tork from idle to redline (ok 4500rpm) than the 12a

 

327! enough said!

 

More torque everywhere on the powerband, really. But the gear spread has to be matched to the powerband.

 

yeah if you have power from idle to redline who cares where you shift! i had a 4 speed 68 mustang and it really only needed like 2 gears..... i sold it cause it was slower than my 86 base fc