Greetings from California

Hey guys, Dominick here! Cars have always been a passion since early childhood, Hot Wheels, Gran Turismo, model cars and car shows are what got me hooked! I started out working on my Mitsubishi Lancer when I blew the head gasket speeding to work one day. Since then I've been honing my skills at wrenching in my free time. I'm a CAD Drafter/Designer by day depending who you ask lol. I'm pretty much self taught through Factory Service Manuals, forums & Youtube. I understand how engines work and finally feel confident enough to start a legit build. My current project is a second gen NA Rx-7 that I've owned for around 4 years. I've been reading up on tuning and finally decided to commit to these classes and really push towards really getting a full understanding of it while I have time during this quarantine.

I'm really excited to see where this goes! I hope to learn alot from all of you and share info I've learned thus far.

Thanks for taking the time to read that lengthy intro, have a good one lol.

Hi Dominick,

Welcome!

You will find the courses and forum super helpful, especially with your ability to be able to self teach!

You should jump over to the build section and start a thread for your RX-7 as you work through it. Would love to see progress.

https://www.hpacademy.com/forum/build-threads/

Hey Chris, thanks, appreciate the welcome!

I knew this would be worth it from the forums alone. The ability to network with others with more expertise in this field is definitely priceless!

Thanks I'll head over there to create a thread soon. As you can probably tell from the lack of information on my goals with the car I'm still unsure on where I want to go with the build.

All I know at this point is running a standalone ECU, fabricating a custom harness and keeping it NA. I'm sure it won't be an easy task tuning a pure NA rotary but it'll definitely make for a good learning experience.

Although, I might try to use a piston engine(have an 02 Mitsubishi Lancer sitting at the moment) to learn on beforehand since the rotaries are so sensitive when it comes to detonation. Is that something you would recommend or do you think I should just devote all my time to learning the nuances of the rotary? Even if that means blowing an engine before I become competent lol. I do have some spare parts I could use to build a sacrificial engine lol.

Thanks in advance, have a good one!

Where are you located in California? There are a couple of folks on here in California that have dynos, when you're ready to tune. I've run several NA rotaries on mine, including an ex-Speed Source RX8 that was good for around 400 hp (without a restrictor needed for SCCA racing).

David Ferguson

Veracity Racing Data

Paso Robles, CA

805.238.1699

Hey David,

I'm located in Stockton, so Northern California. That's awesome, I'll definitely need to tap into the network to see who's closest or most familiar with NA rotaries when it comes time to tune. It looks like you're based out of Southern California so it would be somewhat of a trek to make. Though considering you've tuned a 400 hp NA engine might make it worth the travel! That's really impressive! I've read on the forums of Rx7club that 300hp was hard to hit in NA rotaries though that may be dated information. I think that info applied to the 13b engine design & not the renesis though. Would love to hear more about that build as I'm sure its heavily modified.

Thanks for reaching out, I appreciate the info!

Glad to see more rotary folks getting into the fold. I'm further south (but not by a whole hell of a lot) than David F, Santa Barbara to be specific. I run my semi-private shop out of Mariah Motorsports' old building as the current owner of the building just wants a place to keep his toys. The only thing non-rotary was my MGB, however that's currently getting a T2 swap, so if you're in the neighborhood drop by in the future (post lockdown).

With regards to NA rotaries and the 300 mark, it's doable though it's going to require a peripheral or a solidly large bridge port. I just dyno'd an engine from an ex NASA car with one and I believe it was in the ~340 range on my engine dyno, I haven't put it on my Dynapacks yet. The last bridge port I built made ~320 on the engine dyno and I want to say 265ish on the Dynapack. This is from memory, if you're really curious I can get specifics.

On a side note, David F, I'd also like to drop by sometime to at least introduce myself/network if you're OK with that (pre or post, it'd be nice to put a face to the forum posts).

Dominick, the RX8 engine build was last done by Darryl Drummond I believe. I just did the testing, and a bit of tweaking (sequential gear box shift cut, etc) as we replaced the GrandAm-spec'ed Bosch ECU with a MoTeC M800.

I would suggest that David Guy would be an excellent resource for you -- he's got the real rotary experience (and an engine dyno!)

Contact info for me can be found on our website Veracity Racing Data. Feel free to call, email or stop by. I'm in the shop everyday.