Now I know you're definitely a Jeep guy. . 8.8 is the way to go. I owned a YJ for 10 years. Miss that car a lot...

Good luck to you, hope it turns out as cool as it sounds.

 

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...ighlight=rally

makes me think of this thread.

 

Did someone say lifted + rx7???? You need to be talking to this man (was for sale on craigslist somewhere in the states a while back):

 

8.8 is a great rear but if u put a leafspring suspension on the car, its not gonna be a rally car. its gonna lift the car entirely to high for any kind of performance driving. Why not just invest in coilovers and see how far they can be adjusted up?? My kei office can actually get pretty high, look for the easy solution opposed to adding a completely different suspension to the car.

 

Actually that explains everything. It's a jeep thing, we wouldn't understand.


Allthough i myself figured out the jeep thing in a hurry, thats why i wheeled toyotas before getting into RX-7s.

 

id look for a car with a double wishbone suspension instead of this contraption of a rear we got.
Something with torque wouldn't hurt either.

 

what i would do is if you want to rally the rx7 is get a granny kit 8.8 rearend with some high gears like 4.50 or something like that,or dont wanna go that route get a couple washers to lower the subframe and diff and get a camber adjusters ,,,and get a set coilovers and raise them and you are set it be ready for rally

 

Agree 100%

 

This is true. The rear suspension in the FC is weird, probably wouldn't react to well to that much lift.

 

Given how it reacts to lowering, you'll probably end up with massive positive camber.

I haven't had to tear apart the suspension on my car yet, so I'm not too familiar with it, but hypothetically you could just find every suspension mount on the bottom of the car and fab/weld something in to space it out a couple inches. Though I guess that might not help since the subframe and differential would still be low. The best way would probably be the way outlined a few times here of pretty much rebuilding the whole damn thing.

Good luck. I've always wanted to see more RX-7s in rally.

 

the rear suspension on are cars is the key to its great handling , a solid axle diff like the 8.8 would horrificly alter its capability to be worthy for extremely light duty off roading , and would be horrible on those lovely twisties we all enjoy so much. I would keep the ias in the rear but make new spindles up front plus some widening all the way around and maybe some rancheros for added stability. A dana 35 might work well for an upgraded rear, but thats just my .02 cents

 

No, if we want to start getting technical he can forget that Ranchero junk and go straight Old Man Emu suspension on all four corners....

 

wt*?,,, the car is getting raised its not going to handle how it suspose to around the (twisties),,,,,, do some research of RALLY rx7s most all went to a live axle convertion, dont count the 1st gens.

 

Back in the 80s, Rod Millen used to actually run modified 4WD RX-7s in rallies, though I believe those were mostly first gens. If you look at the old photos, they often did have a couple of inches of lift on them. I think the suspensions they used were totally custom and not readily available to the public. I guess you could try to figure out who built those cars and see what kind of info you could dig up, but I wouldn't even know where to start.

 

If you are not a pro fabber or engineer this will require deep pockets and a lot of dedicated time. Those are 2 things rarely found together in a FC owner. If you were a pro fabber or engineer you would not be asking these questions, you would be telling us the answers.

I don't see this "project" going further than this thread. I would love to be proven wrong and see a rally FC, but I just can't see it.

 

/thread

 

What would result if you spaced the front and rear subframes (and rear diff mounts) down 2"-3"?

Aside from the damper/spring length difference. And the simple things like longer shifter/cables/hoses needed.

I mean, what would the detrimental effects be that makes this a horrible idea?

 

if your worried about rocks why not just make skid plates i think that would be much easier to fabricate to protect what your trying to lift.

 

SKID PLATES. Yes.




"lift kit"

If you're going to go through that sort of trouble, might as well buy an evo/wrx..... Alot more fun than all the bullshit you're trying to do that is probably going to turn out feeling pretty shitty. Wrong car for the job (fc3s), definately.....

 

could just run larger wheels/tires and raise it a tid bit that way, then perhaps some good dampers and stiffer springs.

Your not going to be doing WRC speeds or jumps without serious roll cage action. But the typical amateur events im sure you could do it.

 

you don't put lift kits on rally cars, run stock suspension height.

 

I rallycross my stock height impreza on a pretty rough rallycross course (summit point) and it works fine... just get some skid plates and you'll be fine.

if you really want to raise it you can get some 1" strut spacers made at a machine shop fairly easily. the only thing to be worried about is what that does to the rear suspension (as other people have noted) you don't need 2-3 inches though.



I would talk to subaru guys, RX-7 guys aren't really going to know...

There is an FC that rallycrosses around here and he does fine.

 

Our local sports car club is multi-discipline, and one of our members rallied a FC for years - he moved from here to Ottawa a year or so ago though, so I don't know how to contact him about his suspension setup - or whether he kept the car when he moved or sold it. Seems to me it was actually pretty close to stock, including ride height - maybe an inch or so higher, possibly on some custom-wound springs, but it certainly didn't look particularly tall, and to my mind the stock height looks pretty jacked - these cars do actually have a lot of suspension travel with the stock suspension, even though the stock suspension and struts won't handle rally well (might do well for rally-x though, probably a good mix of travel and firm but not too firm).

I do remember seeing him stuck in a foot of mud on the TV coverage of the Rocky Mountain Rally (the local event in the Canadian national series ) - but then most of the cars were getting stuck at the same location. Rocky is famous for heavy rain or snow and muddy forestry roads.

Like several have already said, lift usually not so much for rally cars, skid plates, definitely yes.

I don't think you'll get 2-3" of lift without major mods to the chassis to allow the axles and steering geometry to work. But I don't have a problem seeing a 7 modded for rally - 7's is meant to be raced.

 

Once again, what if you use a strut spacer, but also use spacers where the subframe and diff mount to the car? Wouldn't this keep the suspension geometry correct?

 

just do it already, i wanna see pics. lol