Rhawkins,
It fits like a glove. Before the RX7 I had a 98 Z with a built 8:1 motor and the Incon Twin Turbo kit, 680hp and daily driveable.
The LS1 conversion kit consists of a new front subframe for the most part. The motor drops right in, there is a VERY small clearance issue at the back of the motor that you have to mill off a couple of millimeters to get the intake to clear and thats it. The T56 drops right in, a 4L60E requires some trans tunnel clearancing but not too much.
Other than that it runs the stock engine controller and they sell a modified wiring harness to work with all of the Mazda stuff. You also need a torque arm for the T56 but no geometry changes and it drives EXACTLY like a stock rotary RX7.
You LOSE weight. People forget, rotaries are iron castings and the rotors themselves are solid iron, plus the weight of the turbo's and ancilliaries. I dropped about 45lbs off of the front compared to a stock Rotary RX7.
Headers just came out for it too. Check out www.hinsonsupercars.com they sell the conversion kit, I think the whole package runs around $1,600, plus motor/trans about $4,600 and of course the donor car.
RX7's are ridiculiously expensive for their age, but they were one of the kind cars and a non-running car can go for 6-7 thousand. Running cars go for 12-32 deppending on whats all done.
I picked up mine from a guy who screwed up the install. He had the motor sitting on the steering rack and thought he screwed up. I bought it not knowing this because he failed to tell me, but all works out in the end. He put the motor mounts on upside down, flipped them over and it was running in under 10 hours :)
I've put some track time in on it and its a killer setup. Its very much a "have faith" car, it can be a bit jittery and you always think your going in too fast before it grabs and turns. If you baby it it feels good but not STUCK like some cars, but if you drive it hard it will amaze you. Of course I'm talking about driving it at 8/10's on a track. If its not going to be a track car its street manners are awesome.
Also check out www.torquecentral.com and look in the V8 RX7 section.
IMO it is the best performing package out there, especially for the money. The support considering there are probably only 25 running cars is amazing.
AI
