The FD rex was a great car, and although the engine was very tweakable, it was also VERY fragile. One "PING" could ruin the tip seals and require a new engine. I put two engines and a tranny into mine before giving up on it...


Mazda was trying to establish racing credentials at the time, so these light cars had beautiful Porshe-like suspensions, with items like forged control arms and rock-hard shocks. It rode like an oxcart, but was hands-off stable at speeds well over 140. Base HP was 255, and 325 was not difficult to get. It was a great buy at under $30K, if you left it stock, because you would definitely want a valid warrantee.

As to the power steering, there was a mod, the details of which which escape me, but it basically took the pump out of the loop, and made it into fairly heavy manual steering, which worked pretty well for racing. Not too handy for parking and around town though.

The biggest debacle with the car was that the '93 cars had such a crummy paint job that more than half the cars were repainted under warrantee by the dealers. Only a couple of hundred cars were sold in '94 and a couple of dozen in '95 before they withdrew it from the US market - it continued in Japan until `97 or `98, as I recall

Your mini is in not even close to the same performance category as a third-gen RX-7 - sorry about that.

 

Mikey:

I've got everything in your recipe (minus the LSD - which is good for 0 HP) in one form or another. Head - check, cam - check, header - check, etc, etc.

I've had my Unichip dyno tuned and the car has been substantially lightened.

You will make nowhere near 265 hp at the crank. I am so sure I am willing to bet you one (1) jelly donut on it.

PM me when you dyno the car. I will forward you my address so you can send me my donut.

 

That's odd, the RX-7 is actually lighter than our MINIs I think. ~2800 lbs if I remember correctly. I guess the Rex guys are just more hardcore than us...

Unfortunately, old Rick is right and the RX-7 will probably beat you seven ways from Sunday. Its 0-60 is in the ~5 second range and ~14 for a quarter mile. In addition, it's really easy to mod the RX-7s and get much more hp. Go take a look at rx7club.com, most of the posters on there regard 300whp as a foregone conclusion.

OldRick, what happened to the tranny? I've heard the the RX-7 trannies are very fragile for drag racing. Hence, a lot of the guys that drag replace the whole rear end on the car and the transmission. Were there some other faults with it?

OldRick is actually wrong for once and the RX-7 continued being produced in Japan until 2002.

 

Hold on, he has a special FTR head which is good for 30hp. Does anybody want to bite on that one?

 

Mikey, what happened to the Webb head you were going to buy? and the Webb exhaust?

 

Yup - sometimes my recollector leaks - I guess it was 2002 that they finally dropped the rex.

My tranny popped because it was an auto tranny, and none too durable, as it came from a much lighter Mazda truck and really wasn't meant for high RPM use. The rear end wasn't too bad in these cars, and had the Audi-patented Torsen rear diff, which it Really Needed, and which was very solid. If people are replacing the rear diff, it's probably to get LSD or a lockup diff for the strip.

I should add that my mini is much more fun to drive, as it is very predictable and controllable with the throttle when things start getting loose. The rex' twin-turbo vacuum-controlled sequential turbo, in combination with the 4-speed AT meant that you never had any idea what you would get when you used the gas pedal in a corner - very disconcerting...

 

Not to highjack the thread, anybody ever driven a manual RX-7? How's the shifting, is it akin to the original miatas? How does it compare to the '05 / '06 MINIs?

 

A few things. First of all, you can't add parts like that. Expect 1/2 [conservative] to 2/3 [liberal] of their sum, or you will be shocked when you get significantly less. The free-er everything before the head flows, the closer a MODIFIED head comes to becoming the bottleneck again. Given the configuration of our factory heads, there is only so much freeing up that can be done without compromising the integrity of the piece. In plain words: the more pulleys and free flowing components you add, the less power is left to tap.

Second of all, the FTR head makes 30 hp with a redline of 8000 rpm, or so it seems from posts. Again, don't be surprised by that. I run 8150 rpm, and my head makes more power up high, too, with a raised limiter- but it's not apples to apples up there.

Last, don't believe everything that every vendor tells you or you will be grossly disappointed. Period. Everyone who does more than the basics gets disappointed sometime.

 

ive driven a 89 turbo FC-RX7 back a few years ago after i got my license (WAYY before the mini).... i came sooo close to getting it because the owner was desperate to unload it and cept for the paint, that rex is almost perfect other than the paint and the fact it hasn't started for about a year... the car drives fine even after we start her up with a jump start

the shifting take a bit of effort for that car, possibly because the clutch is about to go, but that car is tooo sweet! its not till insurance stopped me from getting that car..... or i'd probably still be driving it today (or it'd be at the dump already!)

 

Chows & ingsoc-
I've decided to go ***** to the walls if you know what I mean. My goal is to have the fastest street legal, non-turboed/twincharged MINI on here. That is the goal. Whether I actually will, is left to be seen. But without goals you are shooting for nothing. Chad told me that the 260+ number was going to be tough to reach, so I know that it's not exactly going to be a walk in the park. My first mods and Chad if you are listening here they are, are going to be a Milltek Cat-back, Header, Crank Pulley, SC Pulley, and Alta CAI. All of those ON A GOOD DAY add up to about 210-215chp, JCW territory for 2 grand(not so much JCW territory). Add the high hp head, your around 240-250. An intercooler, 245-260 depending on the model. Uni-chip can make a huge difference, so that will make it anywhere from about 250-270chp. Who says I will be done there though??? So 2/3 liberal would be 234chp, I really start to question your judgement on that. Who says you can't add parts, these gains are over stock, and I haven't done anything with the stock parts yet? Yes I know that they are trying to sell stuff, but false advertising is against the law last time I checked. I know more than likely I will not get to the 260/270 number right off the bat. Frankly I don't care. IT IS A GOAL, nothing more. It might even get to the point where I like it at 240 and don't do anything more to the car. This is all @ the crank though not at the wheels just to make sure we're crystal.

Something that I found out today when sitting down with AGOKART(Chad from Detroit Tuned) and TheFutureQueenofNebraska (Tori from Detroit Tuned) and riding in both of their cars, is how much of a big deal the suspension is in all this. If you bury the throttle on a JCW MCS with the JCW suspension, it doesn't take it too well. That's only with 210chp too. Now when you do the same with a 200whp car like Chad's that would be disasterous, that's why he put the stiffer H-Sports with Koni Yellows and H-Sport front and rear sways, THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE. I am considering doing this when I get passed the JCW hp range. Because I don't want to slam the pedal and end up in the Dillards parking lot.

Mikey

 

AGOKART is a good guy and honest- and I think that he was being nice to you when he said it wouldn't be easy. IT ISN'T.

Again, honestly, a head makes more on a mildly modded car than on a well-modified car. I have one- I am sure that anyone else with one will tell you exactly this. You're gonna be very disappointed and out of a lot of money.

I must also stress: once you've got header, catback, and all the rest including head, there's NOWHERE left to go to make good power- maybe p+p SC and runners/intake manifold. Don't expect any higher than 230-240 chp [with 11% driveline loss] if you're lucky.

 

Why is that?

 

You can only shove so much air through a hole without increasing turbulence. Thereafter, with more pressure forcing air in, you get markedly less flow through. The head, which was freed to clear a bottleneck, can again become a bottleneck with even more air flow.

 

Interesting. Man all I'm sayin is it's a goal, hopefully I can get there. If I don't though I'm not going to be disappointed, I'll just twincharge.

 

All you can do is try your hardest.

 

Very well said. In this case, I can see that you'll be doing it for the right reasons... you will certainly have some fun along the way!

PS: You do realize everything including a head and then adding a twin charge on top is a lot of money, right?

 

Hi,

A little off topic, but it's such a relief to hear realistic comments about the MINI's performance compared to a superior sports car. Some of you might recall a board talking about how some guys MCS beat the crap out of a brand new 9114S...

Anyways, just wanted to underline how much more constructive it was when everyone stays realistic towards the little cars we love so much.


That being said, I was a big fan of the 3rd gen 7 and thaught it was always under rated when it came out. It seems like most people only realized how much potential it had only 10 years later.

 

so don't waste the $ anywhere else...go big....or go home...


I did it...spent WAYYY to much on stuff that is ALL gone other than the suspension...UGH...

 

If you are adding up HP numbers that include more power from sparkplug wires, you are going to be very disappointed. It's only a 1.6 liter engine, no matter what you do. How about an Audi five-cylinder transplant?

That said, have fun - we need someone to keep these vendors in business so they can continue to claim absurd power gains and sell 20-inch wheels as Hi-Performance items. We need the entertainment...

Don't we ???

 

and older he gets more negative and bitter he becomes

 

on the topic, when you pull up to your friend in your renovated mini, have some smooth Jazz playing..

 

As far as extracting the most from what hardware you have it is the tuning: A/F and timing, set specifically on your vehicle. Make provison for that and you might hit 230+ at the wheels. Check out the Autronic ecu that the legendary Onasled is going to pioneer.

 

The Mazda RX-7 especially the FD was a great car, very underrated. if we're just going to go by HP numbers, then the answer lies in the driver. all RX-7's were RWD, and leaving the MINI FWD, you have a disadvantage. But like I said, it all relies on the drivers ability to drive the car.

 

Spoken like a true bench racer....this is why the RX7 will spank you man. Your doing to much reading and internet performance math. Get out there and learn about cars...plain and simple. I'm not trying to insult you but it's rather obvious you don't know a heck of a lot. Do some research on sites like "how stuff works.com". You will never beat him even with all those mods. Not to mention you'd spend less and get more power out of a twin charger kit.

Take a look at different vendors sites. They all post different hp #'s for the basicly same type of upgrade kits (all are read in chp which annoys me). Every car is different and every mod reacts a little differently.

 

The only thing you will have to take into consideration with this power adding is the launch...even if you don't Twincharge...your power will be exceeding the minis ability to hook with out some serious drivng....

Also...as for the parts listed...MORE IS NOT BETTER

Global Motor Works made 220 WHP with ONLY a 15%, CAI, exhaust, header, and ported head/intake... They ran a 13.2...which is silly fast for a pulley car...no one has touched that without Nitrous