I'm Brian, aka Duffer. I'm on a few import forums, always as Duffer cuz I'm usually the oldest guy participating! I'm an Everett Boeing guy and I've 'stumbled' into the Wankel world quite by happenstance. Here's my story:

I hit the streets legally just before the 70s fuel crisis. Always a gearhead, my first car (after exploding the transaxle on my mom's bug) was a '63 Nova SS. I worked spare time at a friend's dad's body shop. I put a lot of energy into that car! Then the crunch came and my stepdad talked me into an import for gas mileage.

I sold the Nova and bought a Corolla with the lil hemi. (2TC) and commenced to go crazy on it too! Weber, Offy intake, header, Quickor bars front & rear. It was never enough.

I sold it and bought a Datsun 510 and really went over the top building an SCCA boxfender machine. I loved that car!

Now during that time, the body shop had an RX3 and my buddy had a wagon with an RX7 engine in it. Don't remember much else except for the rotarys were technically WAY over my head! I remember yanking most of the vacuum crap off the wagon and I remember that my friend and then roomate would get up every morning for work just as I had gotten home from a graveyard shift. I'd hear him crank, crank, crank that RX7. It would eventually fire. Then he would floor it! Dead cold. It would **** and cough and complain and slowly build up RPMs until it finally reached 10K! Then, as Kenny would say, "it's warmed up!"

Many, many hotrods have come and gone now and I always wanted the challenge of 'doing a rotary'.

Then just a couple years ago, a young family friend moved in with us to get a start at Boeing fresh out of high school. and for a commuter he bought a 1st gen RX7 with a 12A. We tinkered with it a bit. Added a Holley and a header, but it was not enough for him. He got a big bonus and I talked him into ordering one of those JDM 13B-TT/5sp/ECU/harness packages.

Long story short, he got the mounts built, looked at the wiring and vacuum projects looming ahead...... and bailed! Feeling a little guilty, I swapped him out of it and now it's mine. It sat for a while. I tried to sell it. I finished my 'building and selling Hyundai Tiburon turbo kits' hobby (just burned out on that) and as of yesterday the RX7 is back in my driveway. (it was in my box trailer) Last night I started tearing into the engine to eliminate all of the vacuum/smog/sequential stuff. Simple is best for me right now.

Thanx to this site, I've found lots of info on this as well as the ECU wiring which will be next up. Thank You to all who have maintained this rotary info and its special place in history!

 

Welcome aboard, Duffer! That sounds like it's going to be a helluva ride when you get it all sorted out!

Mario III

 

Another Washington head, welcome!