First off, I must say that I'm not a big proponent of the dreaded V8 swapped Rx7's... Regardless of my personal position, I'm down with his new car and I think it'll be a lot of fun for everyone.

So yeah, it's an '87 Sport model with only 51k miles on the chassis. According to the previous owner (a 55 year old man), the swap was done by a reputable V8 swap "guru" shop. I must say that the swap appears very clean and well done. Everything looks bone stock--except of course the large hunk of 'manly iron' found under the hood.

The motor is out of a '97 Z28 Camaro and I believe it's bolted to an auto transmission from the same Camaro. It has a straight-through exhaust and some sort of an intake.

Now, I'm aware of the power-potential from this motor--but I must say I wasn't too impressed in it's current form... Is this normal? My guess is that it's likely a mid-14 second car. Does this sound about right? BTW, the car supposedly weighed in at around 2500Lbs.

Anyways, what should his "mod" list look like? I know he's really set on doing the T56 tranny swap, but he's not sure if we can pull it off... Any suggestions or direction in modifying this V8-7 would be really appreciated.

I'll post some pics up later in the evening.

 

LT4 kit! Longtubes if there already.

 

mid 14's because it won't hook, or because of lack of power?
The best power mod I've done was by far the headers, I used the grannys speed shop headers and really like them. Was a kit used to mount the motor, or was it custom made?
A well sorted mostly stock LT1 auto should have no problem hitting mid 12's.
My motor is mostly stock except the headers, home made cold air, and no PS, AC, or emissions with the stock tune. I managed a 12.8 my first run ever, and a best of 12.66@107mph with some light transmission trouble.

 

I don't think the LT4 kit is worth it, for the same price you can get a getter heads and cam setup.
I agree on the longtubes, even without the head swap.

 

Yeah, that should be a 12 second car easily. Especially with an auto and a 97 (best, last year for LT1).

Luckily being a 97 he has the best optispark (relatively speaking anyway) and a few other year-year improvements.

LT4 kit is a waste, get a good cam, valve springs/retainers, and headers if it doesn't have them. Heddman 69640s fit (Jeep headers) but aren't the best flowing. Torquecentral.com has some threads on other headers that will fit. GrannysSpeedShop has some as well (any SBC header will fit an LT1 with very little effort).

Having the stock Al heads ported wouldn't be a bad plan either.

When you're done with whatever else, a tune would be in order.

6 speed swap is pretty easy if the car was originally a 5 speed chassis. Not much worse if it wasn't.

Oh, and I like the tailights on your (old?) car.

 

Erik my 4th and a half roommate, are you crazy? mid 14's? The car is 2500lbs. The car was extensivly tuned to ~325 at the flywheel. Sure its an auto, but it's a beast..... I would say a mid 13 second car would be conservative.... but hey, we have the ability to test it; so quit stalling and get your *** back to our house.

 

This should be interesting........
I'll be home in a bit and provide some digital support

 

Crap it just started raining out I guess the "experiment" will have to wait.

 

Stalling my ***! I was on my way outside when lo' and behold it was RAINING.

Just an FYI, 13bpower is referring to the agreement that me and the owner of the LT1 Rx7 made several hours earlier to "race" our cars to see which is faster... Just before I got on the 'net I was on my way up to get gas, and meet up to race the V8- 7. Maybe it'll clear up...

BTW, You can see the mods my Rx7 has in my sig. I'm pretty sure I'd be able to eek out a low-13 second pass (never been to the track) with what I've got, but I doubt I'd be able to run in the 12's, which is supposedly what this LT1 Rx7 can run. Of course, we all know there's only one way to find out which car is faster...

 

Thanks mang, (for the info too). This is my latest Turbo II:



I sold this one in December:

 

Hah, i was just giving u ****!

 

 

Hey guys I just wanted to let my fellow v8 friends know that I am the owner of the freshly bought lt1 fc in this post and it turns out that one of my good friends and the creator of this post, eriksseven might be eating his words a little bit after our race last night. It seems that my car is not a a mid 14 second car (as posted by author......noob!) it is more likely to be a 12 second car (haha).

 

Jeez, why didn't you guys wake me up for the race! Oh well, I can't wait to see the video when I get home today. I won't spoil any of the details.

 

We thought you were asleep dude, we didn't know if you wanted to be involved in our late night antics.

We definitely could of used the extra body to give both cars the same passenger driver combo.
You will have to roll when we do the daytime race

 

If all the plug wires were hooked up on the LT1 I think I can predict the outcome.

 

It was very, VERY close race from 10 mph up to 125 mph. Eriks T2 is really fast..... I should know, It used to be mine and I built the engine.... 310-320 HP at the crank. But Erik just wasen't giving the Tylers V8 FC ANY respect. Shame Erik!

The video should tell all.

 

HAHA so you are the one that bought the 7. Congrats on the purchase. Should be a fun ride.

Z

 

ready for the video

 

Haven't got around to uploading it yet......
I holding out for some better day time footage but ill try to get up what we have so far.

 

You could also look to swap the rear end on the car and put in a Ford 9" for posi unless your buddy's car already has the stock lsd that some rx's came with.