Overview
Back in the late 70’s Mazda finally came out with a decent sports car that is a competitive rival to other JDMs in the same class. Well not long after that the RX7 found place in our hearts, started to go from mouth to mouth, appeared in popular magazine covers and famous video games. To cut the long story short it became the next JDM legend.
Okay, just allow me a quick question:
How can you get 276hp out of 1.3L engine with the size of your microwave?
Anyway..
.. the RX7 FD Type RS was presented in 1997 in Japan. So what makes it different you will ask? In comparison to the standard FD models, Type RS edition is equipped with Bilstein suspension, upgraded brakes and turbochargers, lighter weight and reworked transmission.
Pros & Cons
Type RS reminds me of professionally trained police dog – it goes wherever you tell it and it does whatever you want. We are talking about handling on another level here. Couple of rows above I mentioned reworked transmission. Type RS has got longer 5th gear ratio which allows achieveing higher top speed and emission reduction. Should I mention that this also reduce the acceleration time from 0 to 100 km/h. What’s more RX7 in general is compact, lightweight with simple mechanics.
Rotary, rotary, rotary… I’ve had many discussions with friends about the rotary engines and I can’t decide whether I like it or not. So the initial idea is perfect – simple, lightweight engine capable of handling additional boost. Another strong side is that combustion occurs 3 times for a full rotation which gives you the smoothest acceleration of them all. It’s completely different than the piston engines. You are genius Felix Wankel!
Nevertheless the simplicity, many mechanics find the rotary engine difficult to maintain usually because of the sealing. What’s more there are oil injectors adding oil to the fuel and air mixture. This engine loves not just petrol, but oil as well. Make sure you have a spare bottle in the trunk.
Evolution
Mazda RX7 FB (1978-1985)
Mazda RX7 FC (1985-1992)
Mazda RX7 FD (1992-2002)
Interesting fact
Mazda plan to bring back the rotary engine to life in their next concepts.
This fills me up with hope that they’ve found the missing piece. In the end of the day the Wankel engine is like their trade mark as they are the only who kept equipping vehicles with it.
