So, I may have a chance to get my hands on a del sol which is basically/really close to being a shell. No engine, tranny's there but needs to be repaired, body is fine from what I was told, interior...eh, it's mostly there. A friends dad currently has it and has plans to make it a golf cart, my plans though are to make it road wirthy again...not sure if it'd end up being legal though but we'd see in the end. My plans are to drop in a rotary and convert it to rwd. So, I seen a 1st gen rx7 around town at a local garage who fixes cars for used car dealers, afaik he still has it at his shop and if I could get my hands on this del sol...wow, a match made in heaven :P Granted the 12a only puts out 100hp, but I think the rear end would work with a 13b though. Which leads to the main question, engine retailers/importers...I'd like some legit ones cause I've never ordered an engine before. I've browsed, just googling jdm 13b and stuff of the like which brings up quite a few distributors who seem legit but yea. The costs I've seen from these guys are perty cheap too, about $2k for a 13b with turbo and most components, like wiring harness, ac+ps, iono, they just come with most everything needed to drop i to an rx7...soem also come with a tranny so yea.
Legit engine umm...retailers. :)

 

Putting a Ls7 in a Rx7 is semi-ok...
Putting a 13b into a Del Sol makes baby jesus cry.
If your gonna insult the Honda Gods, at least go 20b =P

 

i like that idea :)

 

haah, I've only found 1 or 2 dealers with a 20b(dunno how legit they are though)...and then you have to find a tranny...and iono what MT's you can bolt up to a 20b :/ I mean, I'd be cool with the AT the cosmos had but an MT would be o so much more fun :) And that was originally my plan this winter...get an ae86+20b and create a crap load of fun, but none of the cars I found worked out so yea. And 20b's are like k series...friggin expensive :P But a 20b in a del sol...omg, I'd wait till there was a cage to drive it :) And 13b's are easier to come by...sorta. If only mazda sold crate engines liek domestic man. :( I'd hopefully have a renesis.

 

You are in for a world of hurt money wise if you are serious. I've delt with Mazda RX-7s, expecially 1st gen 12As for almost a decade now and I have looked into several hybrid swaps similar to what you are proposing. The biggest key is wheelbase. If you can find a donor car that matches closely to the wheelbase of a 1st gen rx-7, the rest won't be as difficult, but you are still talking thousands of dollars and months of fabrication.

You are almost better off making your own subframe from scratch. You would have to re-create the rear and floorplan for the drivetrain, rear diff and axles, and tunnel for the driveshaft. It wouldn't be an easy task but making room for rwd would be most of the problems over just dropping in a 12a which can fit in almost any engine bay. If your serious, talk to the guys at mazdatrix for parts and engines

As in terms of reliability, you are also dealing with a very tempermental and fussy powertrain. On top of the conversion issues just to make this work, the engine itself its a very difficult setup to keep running, expecially if you are racing it. In my opinion, I would look at a different powertrain. The engines are a pain even in their original chassis let alone an alien one.

 

haah. Yea, I know it'll be some money, but if I can score that fb I seen...there's an fd somewhere in town, a local dealer had it on his lot for a day and haven't seen it since so iono where it went.
The wheel base wouldn't be a disgusting issue, the del sol is fairly close( about 50mm's shorter in the del sol) it'd be the track I guess I'd be worried about cause the del sols track is I think like 2in. wider...but would that really be a problem, someone could prolly fab some type of extension for the rear axles. I think I'm gonna go to tintmasters here in GF sometime this week and talk with them cause they'd be able to help me locate an rx7 and possibly if I'm lucky some of the shop :) lol/ If I'm able to do this I really hope that nothing happens to that del sol :/

I did post over at nopistons.com but haven't gotten a reply yet so I'll check out mazdarix.

EDIT: here's the jdm rotaries I was talking about earlier...
Mazda Engines : JDM-Online.com, Imported JDM Engines
Mazda : got-jdm.com, JDM Imported Engines, Performance Auto Parts at Wholesale Prices

sites like that.

 

You're better off trying to make a RWD conversion with all S2K equipment. Better reliability and technically legal minus the RWD part =|

 

not the point I guess. if you've seen the 20b ae86, you'll see why I wanna do this lol. I wanted to do a 13b ae86 at first but I like the del sol body more and ones hopefully available and if it is it's local. And being legal isn't a big deal in ND really.
And swapping in s2000 stuff seems like it'd basically be the same undertaking. There's tracks are closer...s2000 is .2in wider lol, but still. Iono

edit: so I've been thinkin about the honda s2000 idea :) Cept getting one is perty spendy along with it's driveline. I seen one here or some other foum that was totaled and was getting parted out...thought of that as a nice donor cause the price for it wasn't bad but I Can't find it anywhere, grr.

 

Well, started looking on craigslist for rx7's in my area and wow. I wish I lived in minneapolis, MN . Almost every single one is down there, found a couple clean ones for a decent price too(2-4k) and they were 2nd gens so that's nice. No turbo ones though but that's cool, can always do that later if everything works out and it turns out I'm able to do this. rotary and rwd del sol :) lol. Crazy how much one can learn in 1-2days too lol.

 

I've had a first gen rx-7 sitting in my driveway for the last 2 years and I can't figure what I want to do with it. I was thinking a sr20det swap, but I just can't pull the trigger on it.

For your project, there are also the jdm engines with the factory turbo 12a. They are a little more expensive and hard to find, but give you quite a bit of power and its factory tuned so you know it will not give you as much trouble.

 

Yea on the jdm import sites I've only seen 13b turbo engines. lol, I'm still tryin to find a place I can have both cars at...that's in doors. My family has a farm that I could go to with a quanset...in this case it'd be a shop, but that's an hour drive to go there. Nother friend of mine who lives ona farm has a shop and I think about everything but a cherry picker but for that I could even go back to my school and do it there cause yea...the 2 autos teachers are perty cool bout past students comin back. Gonna see what that guy/shop with the FB wants and what's wrong with it, never know, could be a perfect 12a...hopefully 13b though :)