This started life as my normal everyday car.. well until I blew the engine. So now there isn't an awful lot of Mazda mechanicals left.
Stage 1 saw the engine change and this one is a stock 3.9 efi unit from a 1990 range rover that had lost its back end to a bus. Bad for the rangie, but good for me
That was quickly coupled to an SD1 gearbox, which incredibly fit the car with no body mods and even used the same hole for the gearstick! A custom built prop shaft connected the power to the wheels and that was the first phase complete! Cooling was achieved by a custom built allloy rad with a mondeo diesel fan pushing the air through, sounds a bit iffy but does the job remarkably well..Stage 2 saw the original rear axle come out. It was all very well accellerating to 92mph quickly, but that was as fast as it would go! a low revving V8 and a high revving rotary rear axle weren't really a great combination.. We now have a Capri 2.8i LSD holding the rear wheels on mated to the original 4 link RX-7 suspension, with a brake disk upgrade from Caprisport thrown in for good measure. That gives nearly as good performance, but much better top end and as a bonus I even get some semblence of fuel economy????
Stage 3 saw some bolt on mods (didn't want to mess too much with the engine) so it now has a custom built powerflow exhaust and a few shiny bits enhancing the engine bay which include a K&N induction kit and some nice chrome Buick rocker covers
Stage 4 is a new TVR engine, which is bought, but I'll put that in the garage section when I've got something interesting to write about!
I've tried to keep the appearance of the car as stock as possible as I love the old school shape of the Mk 1. Unfortunately this does now mean that I'm a bit of an outcast from the RX owners club cos it doesn't have a rotary... but I think I can cope
Cheers!
Kevin
