wankelgrandfather

iTrader: (2)

I am currently in needs for some motivation. I was speaking recently with a lot of people, with quite highly modified cars, and a lot of them that are serious car builders told me the same thing about their really powerful car: they are not that fun anymore!

Their cars are really powerful and everything, but they don't drive them just for a sunday ride, because their cars are too powerful to be pleasant to drive without beating the hell out of them. The clutch is to hard (on/off feeling), the turbo is spooling too brutally, the exhaust is extremely noisy and smelly...

On one hand I am really excited by having a decent car with a lot of power to compete the cars of today (M3, sl500, Mustang gt 2011, corvettes), but on the other hand a 200 whp TII is really fun to drive around town and my girlfriend is not afraid to sit in it).

Don't get me wrong, I don't do it for her or not! I just want to know if a 400whp RX-7 TII (with a street port and a T04R for example) can be used for a "polite and civilized" ride. A lot of very powerful modified car owners aren't using their car that much anymore, because it's not like it used to be.

I would like to hear what do you think about it. And please if you are 16 years old and you just want to street race don't even answer, as I've been there too and done that a while ago...

schaft

iTrader: (1)

Now my car us no where near these levels but I feel if a ebc was I and set to a high and low boost setting that a high hp car would be very streetable. And as far as the exhaust you can still use a high flow cat and some mufflers

jerd_hambone

Honestly, the car has to be like your life, constantly changing. Once you stop improving and modifying, you've lost the passion.

If things never changed, we'd probably all get so bored we'd kill ourselves.

BUT FC's tend to not be a "civilized" type of car. They were more purpose built than other cars. But with time and motivation and money, sure, you can make one civil.

rommellikewhoa

iTrader: (6)

I think its not so much the horsepower but the amount of parts and things you have to get to make the car high horsepower that takes the casualness out of driving the car. More hp and aftermarket parts=more breaking!

Imo I think the higher you go past a certain hp number, the more unbalanced the car becomes also.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

i've had that happen, there are a bunch of ways to do it. the stiff clutch, loud exhaust, no interior is one way to do it, the car will suck the 90% of the time you have to drive it normally! ive driven a bunch of FD's where you have to stare at all the gauges too, which is crap.

actually when you do the $2500 body kit and $5000 paint job that sucks too, because the car's too nice

the other pitfall is that sometimes you can have too much power, i'm in northern california, the roads we have are the ones in the car commercials where they read the fine print, 100hp is fun 200hp would be really fast (if you know how to drive), 400hp would be useless. however if you're in arizona and have a 2 mile stretch of straight road, then you need 500hp.

the cool thing is that you can actually build a really civil FC that's fast. my old neighbor has a 10AE with a hybrid, old greddy front mount, RB turbo back with a cat in the middle. so its pretty quiet, PASSES CALIFORNIA SMOG, drives like stock, and it'll take a Z06 on the freeway.

the suspension is eibach/tokico i think. its still pretty comfy. full interior.

its a really basic car that works really well, without giving up much in daily driver/comfort dept.

DaBrkddy

Contrary to popular belief, the FC was originally designed to be a "civilized sports car" with a "business-like interior and controls". But I think we tend to lose touch with that when we get into the more extensive modifications. I think the reason they constantly change is because we are constantly trying to find the perfect balance; but some people go overboard and then decide they don't like it and start slowly regressing back to stock. (As they get older)

Somewhere along the line, I've lost touch with what "stock" was like. Honestly, I kind of miss it, and sometimes I wish I could just start back from scratch. I have a friend who was building a 20B FC with a T88 hybrid... He ran short on cash, and in the middle of it all he decided he was too "mature" for a stripped/dimond plate and roll caged interior and 700 RWHP. I agree with him now... Sometimes it just gets to be too much.

jerd_hambone

Even stock they were built to perform. Business-like controls and interior are just aesthetics. They were built to outperform the 944, 300ZX, Supra, and such. I've owned a Z, and driven a 944. FC's are far less comfortable, but a lot better to drive, and have a LOT less creature comforts.

So really, they were less business-like than they were meant to be.

beefhole

iTrader: (29)

Go drive on a race track if you're bored.

coxxoc

iTrader: (3)

I have the street port t04r 400hp+ FC. It is fun. I've driven 300+ mile days with no comfort issues. It is not and will never be my daily.

UncleDavid218

iTrader: (2)

I drove my 400RWHP LSx swapped FC all summer and it was amazing. Now I'm shooting for 600RWHP with a turbo LSx and am building it specifically with daily drive-ability in mind (only a 4 point roll bar, quiet fuel system, not too low, etc.).

arghx

iTrader: (3)

I have a street ported T04R FC in a similar power range. I will admit I've been getting bored and frustrated with it lately. The biggest reason I have determined is the 6 puck clutch and lightweight flywheel. I have a stock flywheel and street disc sitting in a box, but I injured my shoulder and haven't been able to install it.

The thing about an FC with this power level is that it is absolutely terrifying to drive. I'm scared every time I drive it. It's terrible in the rain, and if you give it gas in a turn you will die.

And yet it's still addictive.

You do reach a limit though--there's only so far you can take 80s technology. This car at a high power level will never have stability control, a refined clutch, nice interior electronics, a modern engine computer that doesn't constantly need tweaking--basically all the things you get when you buy say an R35 GT-R or even a C6 Z06. You can't say "oh just keep modding it" well in terms of performance you reach a limit for what you can do on the street, and you can't race it every weekend. You can change the looks around but after a while you get tired of that too.

I'm hoping that putting a more streetable clutch in will make me less bored with the car. I've been tempted to put in a cat as well, just to cut down on the smell.

Banzai-Racing

iTrader: (11)

Our 450whp Vert is very mild at low RPM's, it is very quiet and unassuming. The reality is I built it for Elaine to drive. Really these cars just don't make a ton of power below 3500 rpm, which means you can drive around endlessly with a streetport without much effort.

Proper tuning is essential. For example, we get cars shipped to us all the time with Microtechs that are not tuned in matrix mode, which makes most of those owners hate their cars for anything other then 1/4 mile drag pulls. When properly setup in matrix mode the cars become much more street friendly with easy part throttle acceleration. The Power FC is another great option, this is what we run in our Vert, which has lots of low end driveability tuning making it just as driveable as a stock Honda Civic. The problem is that anyone can tune wide open throttle on a dyno, but it takes a lot of skill, time and patience to get the driveability good, regardless of engine management system installed.

The only time a clutch will make a car uncomfortable to drive is when they are spec'd out incorrectly. We would not recommend a 4 or 6 puck for anyone that primarily drives on the street in any type of stop-go traffic. Trying to easy out a puck style clutch takes a lot of effort to get right to prevent bucking and jerking. Installing an organic clutch with the correct torque capacity is the key.

arghx

iTrader: (3)

I think part of it is deciding what you want to use the car for. I picked a 6 puck clutch initially because I intended to drag race the car. Later I changed my mind because I don't feel like fixing something if it breaks. So now I'm putting an organic disc back in.

I'm totally with you on the driveability tuning. A lot of cars run like crap because whoever tuned it didn't have the knowledge or time spent on driveability tuning.

Aaron Cake

iTrader: (1)

My first thought was that these cars, while they are high HP cars, are poorly built.

There's no need to have an on/off clutch with a high HP car. Many of the off the shelf clutches are on/off when it comes to high torque capacity, but that is not the only choice. A nicely driving clutch that can handle 500HP can be custom made very cheaply and have only a slight pedal effort increase. Custom clutch companies (like EuroDrive) can offer recommendations on compounds and pressure plates. For example, a sprung 6 puck clutch with a stock pressure plate is easy to drive and will hold 400HP/300FT-LBS. It will wear the flywheel more but unless you creep all day in stop and go, it won't be an issue.

Turbos shouldn't spool brutally. A proper and linear AF curve throughout the map means a smoothly spooling turbo. Big turbos are still going to have that surging feeling when they come into their stride, but smaller turbos are going to be very linear. An electronic boost controller can help out quite a lot.

Exhaust smell...Well, that's a consequence of running catless. There are high flow cats out there but it's an area rarely explored. Anyone making under 400HP with reasonable porting should be able to run a cat. However the exhaust stink on a catless car is cut considerably by a proper tune anyway.

Exhaust noise is another thing that doesn't have to exist. With a well built exhaust, a few resonators and a decent muffler, the noise is cut considerably. This does not mean a pipe straight back from the turbo to some rice cannon. It means at least two stainless packed resonators, and a good offset muffler. 2nd gens are easy to keep quiet because they have dual mufflers.

And for that matter, any stock or street ported car (high overlap ports like bridges are excluded from this) with a well tuned standalone has no business not getting better fuel economy than OEM.

Absolutely. I'd choose a slightly different turbo for 400HP, because the TO4R is more of a high 400s turbo. GT35R at ~16 PSI...

I've been driving my bridgeported 500HP GT40R 2nd gen almost totally for the month of October because I've been doing some work on my daily driver Insight (rebuilt transmission, replaced brakes, new clutch, fixing all kinds of little issues, now in the body shop getting paint on the new rear bumper) and aside from the fuel consumption, it's been no problem. Full interior (none of this stripped out tin-can crap) with Dynamat, quiet exhaust, nice bridgeport rumble at idle, nice Kevlar 3 puck clutch with a slightly upgraded stock pressure plate. Fuel economy sucks though.

Banzai-Racing

iTrader: (11)

Arghx, my clutch statements were directed at the OP's statement about the On/Off clutch statement. Since his post is about the car being pleasant to drive, it implies it must be a primarily street driven car that he is building.

I too ran an ACT 6 puck Extreme in my 13b-rew FD when I used to go to the track alot, then I switch to primarily street driving, all it took was one trip to Chicago and back for me to swap it out for an ACT organic. Now I am using the Exedy twin disk in the 20B, which is two 6 pucks, but very streetable due to the pressure plate design.

On a side note, making the car too pretty to look at limits the places that you feel comfortable driving. I can not bring myself to leave my FD unattended in a parking lot, people are always touching it, wanting pictures taken with it, etc. Then there are the jealous people that want to scratch or harm it is some way. Basically this makes the car show only, or point A-B only and not something that you can really go out to eat in. This doesn't matter if you don't care about your car, but most people that have spent enough for 400 reliable HP have more respect for their investment.

cbrock

iTrader: (1)

I agree, Chris did my 430 rwhp FC in Matrix mode and it drives pretty much like stock. Get over 3500 on the loud pedal and hold on for dear life

If anything, the car gets boring because you get used to the power and want more

RHDturboII

iTrader: (4)

I am pretty happy with the clutch that i have in my fc. It drives like stock, the clutch feels lighter than stock to tell you the truth, you can slip it and its nice in traffic. Its the OS giken twin STR-2C. The tuning is very important in driveability too. My car has 725s primaries and 2200s secondaries and it drives like stock.

wankelgrandfather

iTrader: (2)

Thanks for your input, I was looking forward to hear that, as you are the first that ringed the bell in a previous post. I went asking other car owners/builders after that...

I really like the go Kart feeling of an FC, and I am not particularly inclined in newer cars especially because there is no feelings in the driver seat. I've tried a lot of amazing cars in the last few years, if not about every single mass produced car made in the last decade, and I still smile more in a 1987 TII. I don't wanna have the feeling of sitting in my living room couch while driving really fast, I like felling everything while driving.

Thus not having a power steering but keeping the A/C, the whole interior, a reasonable sound system, a not so loud exhaust is what i'm searching for. I want a street car for sure, that I can put occasionally (read rarely) on a track. I also have a complete suspension set-up that is still comfy in the streets.

But my main concern in my project is the driveability regarding the engine power. I really like the turbo lag for that matter, as you can have both world in a single car. I don't live in California, the weather here is often shitty and rainy, so if it starts to rain while I'm driving I don't want to kill myself or worse someone else.

It won't be a daily, I've had 4 FC in the past and always had another car for that purpose. I just don't want to end up looking at my daily and my FC and always choosing the daily, these cars are meant to be driven, and I absolutely keep that in mind. I don't want a show car (I prefer it to look shiny stock) and I surely don't want a track only car.

Basically, I would like to avoid the others mistakes that led them to stop enjoying their cars. That's why I'm asking for your input and experiences.

arghx

iTrader: (3)

Dont' get me wrong. I enjoy the car, but it has basically turned into a crotch rocket. It's something you only enjoy under certain conditions and certain types of driving. Sitting in traffic sucks. I'm hoping a more streetable clutch will alleviate that, but it still has no A/C and I'm not going to bother trying to make that work. The fuel economy sucks, but that comes with the territory. It rattles like hell, but it's an 80s car. The ride quality is terrible, but that comes with the territory and it only wears on you after owning the car for a long time. It is absurdly fast for a street vehicle. If you lay into it, you are almost immediately on some car's *** or you are twice the posted speed limit in a few seconds. What are you really supposed to do with that? After the novelty wears off, how often can you drive it like that without something bad happening?

The car still handles really well and compared to today's heavy vehicles it feels nimble and well balanced. You are still taking your life into your hands when you drive it though, and this is because the car is too old to have the technology that could make it somewhat safe. Dangerous is fun sometimes but it's also a pain in the ***.

So if I had a BMW 335 or 135 and I hit the gas in a turn, as the *** end is about to step out the car brakes individual wheels for you (stability control). Sure that takes away some driving excitement, but it also reduces the risk of killing yourself and others. And a 335 doesn't even have a limited slip differential. The higher end RWD and most of the AWD cars have a torque-vectoring LSD usually with a planetary gearset inside to dynamically adjust the torque split between two wheels or the front and rear axle. Again, that takes away something from the raw driving experience, but it also saves your *** in inclement weather and it saves you from your own carelessness and overconfidence. Thus these newer cars with 300, 400, 500 horsepower are in some ways safer and more driveable than 80s cars with 200 horsepower.

It's the difference between a car that as engineered by guys in lab coats to perform at a very high level and a car that was modified to that performance level by people with more limited resources. I'm not trying to come across as complaining... I know a lot of guys "wish they had these problems" It's just the reality of having a heavily modified older car. ANY heavily modified older car--it's not just an Rx-7 thing.

wankelgrandfather

iTrader: (2)

Sorry, but that is completely false. These cars I'm talking about are extremely well built cars, the owners probably did what everybody seems to do in forums: They searched for high power, clean looking exteriors and astonishing performances. That's what they achieved. They probably forgot the pleasure that one can have in a Miata with 140 bhp, but that's why we modify car ain't it? In search of something more impressive in the driver seat, a lot of them found that they went too far... Sometimes, a bit too far and in some cases, really they exploded the reasonable level, but they surely made everything perfectly and "balanced" for the whp goal they wanted by building their cars. Well the whp they taught they wanted at least.

I am not just speaking about RX-7, I'm speaking about different cars with all the same problem. The builders went for set-ups made for street use, but also for occasional drag racing, or lapping, or track use. That's probably why they choose a clutch that is a bit too radical for being pleasant on street use, but it was perfect for occasional pure performance use. Its really easy to put some stickier tires and lighter wheels when on the track, but changing your suspension and clutch every time is technically impossible on a reasonable budget.

You are absolutely right, but there is simply no rotary engine tuners in my area! There is only one coming each years or so, invited by a local club to tune the rotary cars of the whole province. Good tuners are invited, but after a while if the tuning is not well adapted to the drivers tastes he cannot fine tune it again without waiting a year or so or driving 12 hours.

That's also right, but the people I asked reasons why they don't take their cars anymore on the streets aren't just RX-7 owners, that's probably why I wrote that.


About the GT35R, no one in the province has an RX-7 equipped with it, with the magical 400whp numbers. But anyways, I am questioning if these hp numbers are wort it outside of a dyno, or a track.

Just out of curiosity, if you go beyond 3500 rpm under the rain, will you do an instant u-turn? I can drive a fast car under the rain, I've been driving unbalanced powerful cars in rainy days, but it wasn't that pleasant if I went up on the power band (to merge on the highway for an example).

Again there is a cruel lack of tuners around here... Can a car be tuned within reasonable price and have two maps, One for the Sunday street and one for the aggressive pulls, and be interchangeable in the driver seat with a commander? So you can really have two cars in one if everything is set-up properly?

arghx

iTrader: (3)

Banzai raises a good point about making your car too pretty. You are constantly worried about it getting messed up, and it affects where you drive the car or where you park it, how much you worry about ground clearance etc.

You can turn the boost down with the PFC Commander if you are using that to control boost, or turn it down with whatever boost controller you are using. It does make the car safer to an extent. But even at wastegate spring pressure you have to be careful. The Power FC has the most online tuning support for Rx-7's, so if you go with the Banzai adapter you can find help to tune it yourself.

Banzai-Racing

iTrader: (11)

Instant u-turn? No, with the LSD both wheels just spin in the rain, besides if you are caught in some hurricane type conditions and you know that your car make a ton more power at 3500 rpm you just baby the car until the weather clears.

Boost control is a wonderful thing, the PFC gives you 2 setting, other controllers allow multiple settings (Blitz is 4), tune to each boost level, the map does not change for 10psi when you are tuning 12psi.

Rob XX 7

iTrader: (8)

a properly tuned and built 400-450hp FC can drive like a kitten when it wants to be.

You want to build a car with a super loud exhaust and a really light flywheel and puck style clutch then it will suck, you dont need these things for a street car. Remove the interior, AC, PS, etc- it now sucks.

And as j9 already said- you start putting alot of money into paint, kit, wheels, etc and now the car becomes a worry. Is it going to rain? Will there be good parking? too many potholes? Hows the roads?

Now its just my opinion but a 300hp car can be alot more fun then a 400+, it just requires less "thought", its easier to throw around a car with less power and have fun with it, almost like having a built in fudge factor- not enough power to really get you in trouble.

arkady151

iTrader: (15)

I agree, its about the fine medium. Not too much , not too little. But it all depends on the person too, everyone has their likes and dislikes. And that plays a big part when you decide to modify something. And I agree that there is something as too much, especially when you start getting older and more little **** starts to bother you. You want to be somewhat comfy, you dont want a donkey dick clutch thats a pain in the *** in traffic, a loud car is cool when you are in the mood and then it just becomes annoying after a longer ride and it starts to drone and you cant make a phone call or have a conversation.

Thus I'd say its all about finding the fine medium. Especially for a street car because at the end of the day, depending on where you live and the roads you drive on, how many times do you actually enjoy the stuff you spent lots of money on. I'm just lucky that all my friends are into cars and have already pursued the lots of power route, I've gotten to sample it and know that I'm too bitchy and too picky to deal with it. I'd shoot for reliable, and quick and still comfortable then you get to have the best of both worlds and a car that is fun to drive almost all the time.

Rob XX 7

iTrader: (8)

but at some point the evolution of the car comes into the picture, own that car for 15 years and you just want to do things to it , and usually that involves more power.
Everyone lives, learns, and adapts