Took the car out today to the local "Cars & Coffee" event held at a Starbucks. Car wasn't running that great but knew I most likely had a bad spark plug. Felt hesitation and was shooting flames out the back Turns out the plugs were pretty fouled from my recent alternator failure and also discovered one of my spark plug wires was bad. Apparently when the plug failed, the wire then arced to metal and blew it out. Runs much much better now with a fresh set of plugs and a nice new wire, made by me.

The event was fun, probably 100 car of all types showed up. I went out with Neil, local FD owner and driver instructor. Several other RX7 guys were there and it was fun hanging out. Lots of Mustangs (looked at us imports with distain), a bunch of Porches and an Aston Martin Vantage owner that was not too happy with my comments about his car and its lack of HP. Hey, just calling them like I see them.

Ran into a very nice Acura NSX, very well preserved. Basically stock engine with improved airflow but nice looking car. Had a good chat with the owner until he started telling me all about 3 rotors and how they were an option you could get from the dealer. Pointed out my three rotor to him and politely tried to tell him he was wrong, but no dice. He claimed one of the dealer cars was sold at Barrett Jackson a year or two ago and didn't believe me when I told him that was a Pettit Racing Banzai car. Oh well.

Some pics of the event:

 

More pics:

 

I concur. Remember I thought about not doing the 3 rotor conversion and buying an Aston Martin Vantage instead? The car looks gorgeous and with the new 400 HP engine, would be fun to drive. I test drove last year's model and walked away very disappointed. Underpowered, very bad clutch, and much less fun than I thought. Very poor visibility, etc. but beautifully hand crafted.

 

Damn that black nsx looks awesome. Always loved those cars.

 

I met this guy in person at a Bay Area meet a few years back while he had your car. My first and only impression was that he a was a tweaker.

 

Just a reminder to get and install the "Battery Bug" by Argus monitoring system from O'Reillys before your trip . . .

:-) neil

 

Already done Neil! I took your advice and hooked it up yesterday. Battery is 100% and the charging system is 100% so I think I am good to go. For $40, it's really good piece of mind knowing everything is working correctly.

For those that don't know what we're talking about:

http://argusanalyzers.com/index.php?id=32

 

Tweaker is a nice polite way of putting it. Hope he has turned his life around.

 

I must say David's car is incredible. Even with only 3-plugs working, that beast can PULL.

I'll have to catch a ride next time David!

The flames were long and lasted a LONG time (5+ seconds). My youngest said it looked like the Bat Mobile, and she loved seeing the fire.

More pics here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...&id=1560728625

:-) neil

 

That's 5 plugs to you Neli, it's a 3 rotor. The plug that was bad was the leading one so it did basically shut down the rear rotor. That's why the flames were so big.

 

Hey David... are you at DGRR yet? Post up some pics!!!

 

David, since you're running the Pettit big-brake kit, I thought you should know that I had the Pettit aluminum adapter plates remade in steel (stiffer and stronger), with new measurements so that the brake-pad tops are NOT sticking above the rotor, and the rotor is more centered between the caliper.

I'll be testing them out in early May, and may have them available for sale, if there is a need.

:-) neil

 

Let me know how it turns out Neil. As I want you to teach me how to drive, I'll take any improvements I can

On another note, made it back safely from the Deals Gap Rotary Rally on Sunday. The event was fantastic and I highly recommend it to all of you. 200+ rotor heads, 140+ Mazda RXs, beautiful weather, and one awesome road to drive.

I tail gated up with Garret from Daytona Beach and Dan and Faye from Cocoa Beach. Trip took about 9 hours. As this was my first long drive, it was good having others join in. No problems at all though. Temps never exceeded 85 celsius and were mostly in the low 80s. Because of the voltage issue I had recently and the bad set of plugs, the car was running way too rich and was shooting flames out of the tail pipe. It's nice and crispy back there now and it has toasted my carbon fiber exhaust plate. A new one is on order and I am taking the car back to Jesus Padilla this Thursday for a retune and a new bumper paint job.

A video from the Tail:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvpp_zjarmQ

A few pics:

 

Looks like a good time David. Car is looking great. However, you *may* want to update your sig...

 

Thanks Gordon. It was a relief to drive it all that way and have nothing happen. Regarding Rich, what a camera hog It's like he thinks he was going to win the "best third gen" title or something. Oh, that's right, he did! Bastard.

It was great meeting him in person. Very good guy as well as his brother Ryan. Gave both of them the keys to the 20B for a short ride.

 

Car sounds sweet!

Congrats on an uneventful, fun trip.

 

Good stuff David!! I saw all the other pictures posted on rotary car club, looked like a great event! You going to drive up to Gordon's in August?

 

Such an innocent start to such a long journey!

 

Rich has always been a bit of an attention *****

Glad to see the car ran well for you, one of these years I'll make it to Phil's great event!

 

FYI David, KillBoy has some photos of your car. The pics of your car should show up around the top row of these three links:

http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/Thum...79&g=03&s=1233

http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/Thum...79&g=03&s=1563

http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/Thum...79&g=03&s=1610

Those are all from Friday on the Dragon. The main gallery links are here: http://www.killboy.com/calendar.jsp

 

David,

It was great meeting and thanks for letting me drive your badass 3 rotor! Definitely an experience I will remember! Rich only won best third gen b/c he had me detailing it

Ryan

 

Thanks man. I'm going to order a few of those for the collection.

 

Great meeting you Ryan and glad you liked the ride. Will have a better tune next time so get ready! Taking the car to Jesus tomorrow to have the pig-rich taken out of it and to turn up the boost a bit.

Rich cracks me up. Every time I saw him he was detailing his car. Or was that you?

 

If I knew then what I know now...

I'm going to do a write up soon on the do's and don't of the 3 rotor conversion and ask those that have been through the process to add to it their comments and observations.

 

My father-in-law and I were talking about this on the way home from DGRR. We're going to look into renting a trailer for the car and towing it up as I don't know how I'll fare driving the FD that far. Don't know my butt can take it