Car 345, rx7 rally car.

[Whizbang]

picked up the new toy. 1982 Rx7, Group 5 logbooked rally car. Built a few years back by a fellow i know who has moved on to Subaru and open class.nni

The bits:
12a streetport built by pineapple racing
Weber 48 IDA
Mazdaspeed 4.88 ring and pinion (spares are all 4.78s)
Miata gearset in FC transmission.
Bilsteins
GM alternator
many other smaller items

came with more spares than i know what to do with.

[N.RotaryTech]

Cool.

What are You going to do with it.

[Whizbang]

first rally should be in October at the Mt. hood Rally. Next year i plan to run the Idaho Rally and one or two others. Im co-driving for PPIHC 2012 so we shall see how many i make.

[speedjunkie]

That's awesome Alex! Should be a lot of fun haha.

[88turboii]

that looks sweet! i almost bought a open-class subaru impreza rally car earlier this year. i want to rally so bad...

[Whizbang]

open class is just not the place to start lol. Too much money and simply not good to learn with that much capability. Open light (awd, naturally aspirated under 2650cc) isnt terrible.


or 2wd : )

[Whizbang]

rally cars, in order to be allowed on stage, must have a few items. Namely road hazard triangles, first aid kit and spill kit. The original setup for the first aid kit was a tackle box attached to the floor. The spill kit was in a cardboard box in a garage box behind the seat and under the helmet net. Hard to get too etc. So i elected to redo all this via random military bags i have laying around.

i also liked the idea of small shovel if you get stuck. I have seen this done by a few people prior. I had a couple folding shovels in mollie bags so i attached one to the cage behind the spill kit. easy to get to from the passenger side.

As a last bit of safe mindedness, i added a smaller med kit to the passenger side sill bar so that we can access a kit from the seats if the need arises (wrecked and cant get out). This came in the form of a miltary IFAC (individal first aid kit).

[Whizbang]

hopefully i will be getting out this weekend for some driving at a rallycross.

[Whizbang]

Redid the tire mounting so it sits in the spare tire well. Move the triangles, and am planning on changing the jack. Going to go up and find an FC rx7 jack since they are aluminum, weld a lug to it for easier lifting and a plate for surface area since the underbody HDPE rendered the pinch rail style thing useless.

also put a surefire flashlight and a leatherman in there. That should be it for "adding" shit. Now, im going to look if there is anything i can remove for weight savings. Probably not much though, which is fine.

[Whizbang]

solved both the lack of a red cross and the possible issue of loss during low visibility. military reflector belt (its rather reflective despite the picture) cut and hand sewn by me, littely inebriated.

[speedjunkie]

Good work! What's cool is that most of the work you would normally need to do should already be done at this point haha.

[Whizbang]

[Whizbang]

after this weekend of running it hard i can tell i need to improve the cooling

[speedjunkie]

All I can think of from that first pic is Dukes of Hazzard LOL. Looks like you had a lot of fun.

[Whizbang]

the car can certainly take a beating. The revalved Bilsteins and the unknown rate but rather stiff springs seem to make the landing rather nice. And the car seems to take the landings without complaint, which is nice too.

Ill have it registered here soon then im going to really get some seat time in it. There are some hillclimbs (paved...) i might go run just for some racing seat time as well. I wont be able to make the Mount Hood rally this year, but i have a schedule in place for next year to make three or four. (two 2 day, one or two, one days). In the meantime, i just want to get used to the car, and make little improvements where i see fit.

The car isn't fast on pavement, might be the weight, might be the fact i drive a faster car every day, but on the dirt, this car does scoot and has some excellent traction.