I'm in love with the idea of a rotary engine and have been rabidly looking for an rx-7 to buy, but the idea of a sleeper car with a streetported 13b sounds much better to me.

An FC stripped down without being unstreetable is roughly 2400-2500 lbs at best. Is there a car out there that is lighter and can be made to handle a lot better due to that lower weight?

I am aware of the toyota starlet, but that's a bit old and fugly. Anything else?

 

How about an RX-2/3/4?

Or maybe see if you can find a rear wheel drive GLC. That is basically a piston powered RX-3 just like the 808/Mizer. Supposedly RX-3/RX-7 (?) crossmembers go right in, allowing for painless rotary power. Mainly you hear about these swaps in Australia, where they call them RX323's since the rear drive GLC was called a 323 there. (NOT to be confused with our 323, which is FWD and a minimum of two generations away from the rear drive GLC)

Unfortunately though ANY rear drive car that is lighter in weight is going to be 70's, maybe early '80s. If a Starlet (those were made around '81-83 right?) is too old for you then you're pretty much out of luck.

 

Hahaha. I probably am out of luck. There's a company in the UK called Z cars that has a kit to make a Mini cooper into a RWD motorcycle engined car. If it could be adapted to 13b that would be sweet. The only problem is the kit without the engine is 3404 british lbs, which is over 6k USD. Hmmm...

 

look at the 62 daimler link

 

Where would be a good place to look for a starlet? I checked cars.com and they only had one and it was 1200 miles from me.

 

Seems like they're all in New Jersey. At least, every Starlet I've seen online (that was in the US, have seen some European Starlet rally pics lately) has been based out of there.

- Pete (Starlets to the east of me, Mazdas to the west, here I am, stuck in the middle of UAW)

 

I have seen rotary Suzuki Samari jeeps and it an easy swap! Take out the 4/4 and drop it and put some weld wheels on it and there you got your sleper

 

ebay.com

autotrader.com

 

maybe an early model Datsun? i have a 1973 Datsun 1600 about to be converted to 13bt from a series 5 mazda rx7,it weighs well under 1000kgs,im not sure how to convert to your units but it is really light,even witha standard engine it should produce between 150-170kw at the wheels!! its going to be great, a real sleeper with original paint,....

 

i've seen a datsun 1200 with a 13b j-port. autocrossing. it absolutely ripped. very light.

 

240z

 

or and old beetle/thing

 

i've seen a datsun 1200 with a 13b j-port. autocrossing. it absolutely ripped. very light.



yea my mate owns a datsun 1600 with a ca18det with full engine work making roughly 11.5 280-300kw,beautiful and just over a ton with sounds!!

 

You can strip a 1st gen down to around 2000lbs without spending a lot of money, plus they have tons of aftermarket suspension parts available to make the handle like a fascist.

A Starlet would be lighter, more around the 1800lb range and I've seen plenty of them with rotary swaps. Although I think people who have a fairly good knowledge of cars see a Starlet that sounds a little strange and automatically think it might be some crazy 13B or 3T blow-through turbo nitrous dragger. I guess what I'm saying is that many people expect a Starlet to be a sleeper so its not really a good.... sleeper

Personally, I've always wanted to use a dune buggie/sand-rail trans and mount a ported 12A or 13B into Mazda's micro R360:



Rear-engine rotary + 380kg (837lb), I think you know what I mean And no one would know what the hell it was.

 

Want one now!

 

awesome ive never seenone of those over these ways,is it nortern hemisphere special?? imagine a 13b bridged in that!!!

 

my old teacher is building a lotus replica with 4wd drivetrain and a 12a extend port,roughly 500kgs,200hp.....

 

Porsche 914 They're cheap, weigh a little over 2000 Lbs, mid engine, 5 speed, Kenedy makes a an adapter, you can sell the old engine to recoop the cost of the adaptor (alot of people are putting the the bigger type4/914 boinger engines in all the good old VWs), chicks dig a Porsche Thats just my $0.02

 

A Subaru 360 is one micro car I'd love to rotarize. I've never seen a Mazda R360 in real life before; only the Subaru.

 

81-84 iirc there as old as first gens

heres one of the many sites http://kp61.net/gallery/

they maybe fugly stock, but with a straight body and a lil imagination...

im defending them cuz i used to have a 81, on 16x7 Epsilons.

I

 

I've always wanted a Volvo 1800. RWD, but I don't know how hard the swap would be. And they've got to be light. They were made from the early sixties to the late seventies.

 

u are forgetting the best car of all


HACHI ROKUUUUU

 

Maybe I should put a single rotor 13B in a Subrau 360 (if I can find one)? Heh, it would be a 654.

 

what about a old honda 600 maybe 12 a or 13 b streetport with a nice 48ida or 51. want to talk about light, thats jenny craiged already and its fully loaded.

 

R360 looks cool (it actually sounds like they took the Subaru 360 and made it a coupe), but I think that the B360 would be like a micro REPU ....that'd be schweet :






Or, the T360 :


But in all reality, I think that a Nissan Micra would make a really cool car to make a rotary...they're cheap, small, and relatively light....