From Car and Driver, September 1988

 

Wow, Icemark, you have everything!

Also, I'm still not ever seeing anything in the "attached thumbnail" section. Any reason for this? It just started a few weeks ago.

 

Nope a 20B N/A

They built a couple 10th AEs with the non turbo 20B. They were Arctic Silver. They did testing in the USA for them.

The 89-90 GTUs was also originally designed to have a non turbo 20B.

But cost, poor gas mileage, questionable cooling and transmission choices sealed the 20B's fate in America (the biggest Rotary engined vehicle market in the world).

That would be completely a fabrication/made up. The FC was not designed to have a 3 rotor or 20B in it. The first 20B motors were not even put together until 1986... a year after the FC was first built (May 1985 as a 86 model year).

 

Yeah... that just go's to show you how accurate Magazine articles are... They saw the testing of the 10AE models with a 20B and assumed that was what was going to happen.

Don't know on that... I did originally post it as a thumbnail then added the link in an edit.

 

Its not just you, its every time anyone posts it that way. If they link it like you did I can see it in the main post, but I still can't see the thumbnails. It doesn't do it all the time, but it does do it a lot. Once I get some time I'll have to experiment a bit with it, but it would be nice if it was a simple fix. Oh well.

 

Wasn't one of the most expensive parts in the 20B, its manufacture of the eccentric shaft?

 

^that's what I thought too.

But I guess now with better alloys + whatnot, that wouldn't be as big of a problem as it was 15 years ago.


So did the roadrunner have a wide body on it?

 

They didn't do it because you guys have a hard enough time trying not to blow any seals with just 2 rotors. Three would have been just to much for you silly Americans.

 

a non turbo 20b was no more to make than a 13BT... in fact probably slightly cheaper.

But the completely different cooling system, and revised transmission would have pushed it to a higher price.

The GTUs didn't sell with a cheaper non turbo 13b... can you just imagine how little they would have sold with a GTUs that was the same price as a loaded Turbo.

 

here is another pic of it

 

I have some FC development information from the design team, and I have been unable to verify that rumor. Everything I have shows that the FC was designed for an updated version of the 13B that was used in the 84-85 RX-7. In fact, some of the proposed FC body designs had hoods that seemed to be sloped too much to fit a 3-rotor engine. I do have verification that the FC was NOT designed for the 12A, and that it was intended to have a 2+2 variant.

http://cp_www.tripod.com/rotary/pg25.htm

 

I could swear there were turbo vers that were produced... I have a commercial vid here of one... Here it is on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G861KewuVeU

 

Lots of them MADE, but none imported to the USA! AFAIK all of the RHD verts were turboed.

So that means the only 20bt was the JC cosmo? (god I want one of those)

 

That's easy. All of yours aren't because all of mine are.

 

I'm pretty sure that all FC's in japan were turbo. I heard a story about a guy who had an exchange student come over from japan. He saw an NA FC + immediately called his buddies back in japan to tell them what he saw.

 

I can see it now hey dude!!! FC's suck in America there like heavy truck slow. Oh but they have days of our lives here.

 

DOH!!! of course the JC cosmo was the only turbo 20b. Stupid dogie.

 

You guy have got it good!
Here in the Uk Petrol (gas) is about £1 per litre
Thats $2 ish to you.

 

WTF is he driving his vert through a wheat field for?

 

+1 lol

 

I think the real question is why didn't they offer the 3 rotor with a manual trans.

 

...in a GTUS model FD.

 

Perhaps there was no 3 rotor because it would have been out of character with the type of car they were building. FBs were targeted at the Triumph MG crowd. FC was targeted slightly higher at the low end Porsche crowd. They were building a fun to drive sports car, not a grand touring car. Weight and handling were a bigger consideration than power.

Just a thought.

 

Because they didn't have a tranny strong enough... see my above answers.

Although people aftermarket have used a R type manual tranny with a 20B, it would not be durable enough to make it too 100K miles in a production street driven vehicle.

 

and I know why you couldn't find the pic that mark posted. I remembered it as the roadrunner instead of the roadBURNER.

either way that was the car I was talking about. I have a better pic at home where the caption can be read clearly. I'll try to upload it sometime in the near future.