On 13/08/2012 9:42 AM, Larry Colen wrote:
On Aug 12, 2012, at 10:07 PM, William Robb wrote:
On 12/08/2012 6:07 PM, Larry Colen wrote:
And just because I'm the sort of person who will hand hold (leaning against a
pillar) a 1/5 second photo with a telephoto lens at 2:30 AM, just because I
like a challenge:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/7769849298/
I always wished they had put the Wankel into that body and called it the RX-8.
Not me. I had a first gen Rx-7 GSL, raced a '91 miata and had a '93 daily
driver as a complete set of spares for the racecar. The 1600 in the Miata is
much, much more reliable and tractable than the 12A Wankel. A friend had a
third gen Rx7, and I helped him replace the motor, those cars are an absolute
nightmare to work on.
A friend who used to own an auto repair shop used to rate cars by the size of a ball you
could drop between the motor and the fender wells. He commented that an old Chevy pickup
with a straight six was the best, you can crop a basketball between the two. He said a
softball is good, a hardball is workable, but with the 3rd gen Rx7 he had to come up with
a new metric: "If you piss on the engine, will the ground get wet?".
I owned a couple of RX-2s back in the 70s. They were pretty easy to work
on, but that was before emission controls. I never liked the look of the
RX-7 (I actually preferred the RX-4, though the 7 handled far better).
The RX-8 is OK, but I think the Miata with a Wankel would have been a
really hot little car.
As an aside, when the RX-2 got up to over 100mph, the front end would
sometimes lift off the ground. I was going down a fairly long hill near
where I live, passing a friend. I hit just over 120 and the car left the
ground completely. He said I was airborne for nearly a 1/4 mile. This
was the 2 door coupe, not the sedan. The sedan wasn't as much of an
airfoil as the coupe.
--
William Robb
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