Hello everyone in rotary land. I do not now own or race anything Mazda but but I am a racer, a Bonneville racer. Recently the organization that runs the Bonneville Nationals, the Southern California Timing Association,(SCTA) have come to their senses and have changed the swept volume multiplier from 3X to 2X which starts to make the rotary look pretty good for a Bonneville car. I am designing a lakester for Bonneville and was planning to go with a motorcycle engine but this new ruling and my previous experience with the Mazda rotary has me rethinking my engine selection.

A little background on me. I worked on the very first American made RX7 used for IMSA GTU competition back in 1979. The engines were the 12A size and with some development we were able to get around 310 hp at 10,000 rpm and I am thinking that a 13B with todays improvements could probably make over 350 hp which I think would be competitive. I have joined this site to try and "dilute my ignorance" regarding what has been developed for the rotary in the last 30 years. I know there have been some advancements in materials and design and I want to find out more regarding these and see if a rotary could be a good selection for a Bonneville car. I will probably be asking some "dumb" questions and will need to have my hand held at times but please be understanding of what I ask. I have been inside many rotarys and have probably ran at least 25-30 on the Drake Engineering dyno so I am not a complete loss but I do need to do some catching up.

Rex Schimmer