Actually, steve hasnt touched my car in a few years now, and I don't have access to a full-blown rotary shop----Ihor and I basically created our own small shop from scratch out here in NJ. I agree with what you're saying, just wanted to make some amendments ;)

I think all these rotary fans in here are nothing more than in the closet V8 lovers. We know your secrets ... remember, most of us were once rotards too, some of us still are, loving both V8 and rotary.

This thread is like the longevity of a turbo rotary...it keeps going, and going, and going, and...

Yep, turbo rotaries keep going a long time because folks don't drive them much, too afraid the motor will blow up

Track record says otherwise.

Getting back to the actual topic of the thread...

I remember the first time I rode in a LS1 FD. It was owned by a local Naval Dentist. Man oh man, I don't remember having that much fun in a FD, ever. The sheer torque across the entire powerband was just amazing.

i've been around a lot of piston motors, built a lot of piston motors and i just cant see how anyone can say that the rotary cant be as reliable as the piston motor. This is my opinion, if you take care of your rotary motor its going to last a LONG time, the more stuff you change on it to make more power the less reliable its going to be UNLESS you know how to take care of it. The same goes for piston motors, all v8 guys are saying oh i get 25+mpg on the highway well im sorry to tell you that i highly doubt that if you are making 400+whp also how fun can the car be to drive if you have to baby it to get the 25+mpg at least with a rotary that has been cared for properly it will last, get good mileage with gas and you can beat on it all at the same time and still get around the same gas mileage. A rotary motor is more efficient.

They arent for everyone because not everybody maintains cars the same way. Some guys just change oil and go. Others actually take the time to check oil levels, tire pressure and the myriad other things that should be checked on your car whether its v8 or not. If you know how to care for your car and treat it as a member of your family it's going to last a LONG time. Its preventative maintenance, and i guess what got me started being so hardcore about it is racing my dirtbike, after every ride or race i would change the oil, airfilter, trans fluid if it was in a seperate sump (depends on what bike i was using) go over every nut and bolt on the bike make sure nothing was loose or lost, clean the bike til it looked like it came off the showroom floor ten minutes ago and then run it for a bit to make sure everything was cool.

Its all about caring for what you own, some people just buy new stuff instead of maintaining and thats where i believe the rotary motor gets its bad rep, it requires a little more preventative maintenance than a piston motor does, but look at the tradeoff for a little more time spent caring about maintenance.

anyways just my opinion

i wish all the rotary haters would just admit that they dont know how to make a reliable 300+whp rx7 without dropping a v8 into it.

bwahaha so true

So wrong, any knowledgable rotary guy or gal knows the rotary motor has poor thermal efficiency and therefore is not fuel efficient relative to most piston motors. Hell, just look at how much air it takes to make hp relative to a piston motor, here do you think that energy is going? How can you say the rotary is more efficient when it is not, idiotic.

What some are saying is that even the best built, maintained, and tuned rotaries sometimes go boom. When they go boom it's a rebuild. As before I am not saying a V8 is better, it's personal choice and for some it's a helluva challenge to complete the transplant.

Many are not doing it for reliability, it's for the fun of it.

what about torque?

here let me rephrase that because you are correct and what i said was convoluted and kinda confusing. Rotary motors are more efficient in making power because they are capable of more power per liter than a piston motor. What i am saying is is that if you have a 400whp lsx motor and a 400whp rotary motor your going to be getting better gas mileage still because of the small size of the rotary motor. If you had a large rotary motor lets say 5.0 (this is merely an example) versus a piston motor of the same displacement of course the piston motor is going to get better gas mileage because of the thermal efficiencie issues that the rotary has. That is not the case here though because we are talking 1.3l versus a v8 of 5l or more.

This is not true. A rotary gets the same or worse mileage than a LSx motor. Read up a little the rotary is thermally inefficient compared to a piston engine. This is a known fact and not opinion.

My 240hp (same hp as the RX8) 3.5l Honda gets better mileage than an RX8 the Honda weighs 4300lbs empty and has a much larger frontal area.

So. You have decided you want a sportscar, and you have set forth certain criteria for your choice.

You want one that sits low to the ground, has limited interior room with 2 seats, and a rough ride in stock form. You want to have plenty of torque and growling exhaust note at your disposal. You want to make it into a street warrior and track beast. You plan to run staggered wheels with wide tires. You want it to run with/better than just about whatever is on the street or the track. You want the engine to be fairly reliable and the gas mileage to be in the high teens or low 20's for mixed driving. You want people to look at you and admire your car everywhere you go.

You have 2 choices. Buy said vehicle in stock form, or build it from parts and pieces of several vehicles. You have about 18-22 grand to spend on this project.

Yes, such a vehicle already exists, and it is called a Z06 Corvette. Drive up, hand over the money, sign the title, put the key into the ignition, and drive away. Done.

The one you could build is the v8 rx7. The money will end up being about the same whether you buy or build your corvette...er rx7. IT will take you months to do and/or thousands of dollars in labor costs and custom parts if you pay someone else, and it will end up as a bastard child of a conversion when it is done. You will have nagging electrical interface issues for every function of the car...cruise, a/c, p/s, gauges, cooling, etc. Some places you go, your car will be admired and welcomed, other places you will get hated on and your car will be shunned at rotary gatherings, not to mention on the internet forums.

That's simply not true. You can get a good FD shell for $5k-$6k. The pullout costs, at most, $4500 for a low mileage engine and tranny plus accessories. Swap kit will run you at most $1600. If you want a stock motor, you've nearly got everything you need. Wiring, PS, AC, Cooling, will run you ~$500. Labor, really depends on where you go. That can range anywhere from $2k-$4k. Tuning can cost from $200-$500. We'll just say a random $1k for odds and ends, just to be generous. That's $17k right there. Last time I checked, you couldn't get a ZO6 for anywhere near that. If you truly want the hp of a ZO6, cam swap gets you there for another $1k. There are plenty of people that have already done them. There's no guess work left, it's already been figured out. Besides, I like the look of the FD a hell of a lot better than the corvette, plus it's not half as costly as one.

There are plenty of people that have already figured out the route to a 400+rwhp rotary FD, there is no guesswork left...yet you and others continue to act like it is rocket science.

The example given above was a z06, but a standard c5 vette would fit the same bill. You can get 'em all day long for $17-22k depending on condition etc. A z06 is a bit nicer, but as you said, you can get z06 power with a cam swap and a tune.

..i have a picture of a dead rotor and housing hanging on my wall...... like a cow skull.

-and you need to stock up on extra 13b's cause you ARE gonna need them.


also, i can assure you, i didn't buy my car for the power plant.

I never said anything about 400+rwhp being rocket science, it's very clear that the difference between the two engines at that level is reliability. Even a rotary running less horsepower is more liable to shit the bed than a hi-powered V8. And you're telling me that because C5's go for, after a quick browse through ebay, ~$20k that we should get one of those instead? Why? You'd still have to upgrade the engine, ~$2000 for cam, intake, and tuning, plus upgrade the suspension, $1k-$2k, to get it to the ZO6's level of performance. After all that, you'd still have a car that weighed 300lbs. more than an FD with a swap, not to mention I think the FD, '99+, looks better than a C5 anyway.

My car's never been shunned at any of the rotary gatherings I've taken it to. People aren't as tough in person as they are behind the anonymity of the internet.

The worst comment I've heard in person is that they wouldn't do it to their own car, which is fine. Different strokes and all that...

Of course, most of the time you then see those same people bragging to their friends online about how they put me in my place/told me where to stick my piston motor/etc. Everyone's a legend behind the protection of their keyboard. :jerkit:

of course it gets better its a damn honda man, i know the rotary is thermally inefficient. I have yet to see an lsx motor get better mileage than a rotary motor that is putting down the same hp. Besides honda v6's are super efficient.

I used to travel to an auto-x about 180 miles away in my FD, probably made the trip 20-25 times. The mileage was pretty consistent driving on I5, 23-24mpg IIRC. I think that is the same or a little worse than a LS1 with a manual trans behind it.

I must have mis-read your other post, I thought you stated the rotary was more efficient than a piston motor.

my buddy has a 500hp or so LSX and he gets around 20mpg. he had one with 350 and got over 20mpg.

If ever there was more of a truthful statement!:icon_tup:

Soory to break it to you Castratikron, I measured 27.5 mpg traveling 80-90 mph, the car dyno'd 405 to the tires. Try the search button sometime.

As to why we don't just buy a corvette? Just a few off the top of my head, cheap interior, corvette's are everywhere (the 1,000,000 rolled of the assembly line in 1988) and the whole midlife-crisis corvette following(religion?) is just cheesy imo. Basically, I don't want a friggin vette!