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What parts do you need to EFI swap your carb classic? Workshop Manuel explains...
if you've seen the LATEST EPISODE on Marty's classic '82 RX-7 Mazda, you'll see the lads are jumping into swapping from a carburettor to electronic fuel-injection. Many old school car fans see EFI as some kind of overly-complex mystery, but the truth is that fuel-injection is incredibly easy to install on an old car today. I went through this job on my 1964 Pontiac, so here is what parts you'll need, and how to hook it up: First, you'll need an ECU. We use Haltechs because we have used them for years, know a bunch of tuners who can PgUp them like pros,...
Australia built one of the best RX-7s Mazda ever sold
I don't think there are many people out there who don't love an FD RX-7, even if you aren't a fan of triangle motors. While the Spirit Rs, Bathurst and all manner of Series VI-VIII special editions are highly valued today, I believe the best FD Mazda ever sold was the SP. If you're not from Australia, you may not have known of the SP which was developed and sold solely by Mazda Australia as a homologation model. The sole purpose of the SP was to win the Bathurst 12-hour production car race. This wasn't the 1000km Bathurst 1000 touring...
How a rotary works & why it makes the most engineering sense (on paper)
If you read THIS STORY you'd know the Otto cycle rotary engine isn't solely a Mazda engine. So what is the appeal of the tiny triangle donk, and how to they work? While it was first drawn up in the late 1920s, it wasn't until the mid-1950s that Felix Wankel's rotary engine really came to be A Thing. Wankel was after a smooth-running powerplant that didn't suffer from vibrations found in piston engines of the time, and this has always been a key highlight of the rotary. While a piston engine has to transfer the up-and-down motion of the pistons...
The rotary couldabeens - the Dorito-powered cars which never made it
If you have see the LATEST EPISODE (click HERE) then you'll know about the piston-less shenanigans which have entered the MCM shed. The rotary engine has a long and varied life outside Mazda's famous performance models. The dorty little triangle engines (latin name, Brapsalotyl Noisemaximus) have been used in all sorts of vehicles, including planes, but most people link them to Mazda. Quite a few other manufacturers have had a tilt at triangle motors, and here are some cool cars that were maybe a little too advanced for their time or didn't get the support they maybe should have. NSU...
How BAM BAM makes cars faster
If you've seen the LATEST EPISODE (get your BAM and also more BAM here) then you'll see the box of wonder, sparks and flames the boys fitted to MOOG's museum-spec 180SX. But, why do people froth on cars banging out the exhaust and popping flames? Basically, it all goes back to motorsport from 40 years ago... The wondrous, flame-belching technology referred to as BAM BAM is actually colloquially known as anti-lag, and came from top-shelf Formula One, sports car, and World Rally Championship motorsport. In the 1980s, back in the early days of turbocharged race cars, engines typically had low compression ratios...