Project: "Last RX-7" by Herblenny

[WE3RX7]

Scavenger pump in the works for that turbo setup?

[Herblenny]

December 30th, 2011 - Not much update on the car... but in a rotary related thing, I had a chance to go see some rare historical rotary cars in Nashville, TN.

Thanks to Founder/Director of Lane Motor Museum, I had a chance to see, hear, and touch some historical and super rare rotary cars.

Here are some pics from my private tour.

1967 NSU Spider - This is the first production rotary car with single rotor, rear mounted engine.









Another Rare NSU Ro-80 - A Birotor sedan









Citroen GS Birotor - I knew about the NSU, but did not know about this Citroen vehicle.







And finally a super rare Citroen M35 Prototype single rotor vehicle... This is the only one in USA.

[speedjunkie]

I'd love to have seen those. I didn't know Citroen made any rotary cars either. I like those single post steering wheels, but I wonder how stable they are haha.

[MaczPayne]

That is amazing. You learn something new everyday!

[20b 3rd gen]

Man Phil, i wish i could have gotten off to go with you...........lucky S.O.B lol.

[RICE RACING]

Hey Phil, you know I have actually driven a RO80 back in 1993.

They have the characteristic PP idle, the coolest thing though is how it "bucks" in gear at light load and the no clutch system on changing gear, you just put your hand on the knob (BDC style) and it "responds" lol (disengages the clutch) and lets you change gear.

The bloke who had it was one of my customers in my engineering job and he was a scientist who bought it from new and even had spare motors for it, I got to see the internals and the PP intakes were tiny tiny lol.

Interesting piece of history

[speedjunkie]

Originally Posted by RICE RACING

...and the no clutch system on changing gear, you just put your hand on the knob (BDC style) and it "responds" lol (disengages the clutch) and lets you change gear.

Now THAT is cool! Not the BDC part LOL, but how to shift without a clutch.

[Herblenny]

Originally Posted by 20b 3rd gen

Man Phil, i wish i could have gotten off to go with you...........lucky S.O.B lol.

LOL! I hear ya John But it was a very hectic day!!

Originally Posted by RICE RACING

Hey Phil, you know I have actually driven a RO80 back in 1993.

They have the characteristic PP idle, the coolest thing though is how it "bucks" in gear at light load and the no clutch system on changing gear, you just put your hand on the knob (BDC style) and it "responds" lol (disengages the clutch) and lets you change gear.

The bloke who had it was one of my customers in my engineering job and he was a scientist who bought it from new and even had spare motors for it, I got to see the internals and the PP intakes were tiny tiny lol.

Interesting piece of history

I actually took a video of this running.. I'll see if I can upload it somewhere..


January 4th, 2012 - Happy New Year!!!
Well, not much have been done to the car as I was busy at work... Also, I'm about to trade this shell for an R1 shell without the sunroof. Hoping to do that this weekend.
Anyhow, the little time I had, I stripped out the dash and refinished the rusty metal dash frame.



I sanded it down to bare metal, treated with rust inhibitor, and primed it.

I then sprayed with gloss black then quick shot of gunmetal and clear the whole thing.. Shouldn't rust again



I'm heading to my fabricator's shop (www.MPFab.com) to pull the engine out and get it ready for this weekend's shell swap.

[TitaniumTT]

It's in the details! Nicely done Phil

Trading for a non-sunroof car? I drove 800 miles and towed for 800 miles specifically for a sunroof car!

[Herblenny]

Originally Posted by TitaniumTT

It's in the details! Nicely done Phil

Trading for a non-sunroof car? I drove 800 miles and towed for 800 miles specifically for a sunroof car!

I didn't want all three cars to have sunroofs Also the car that I'm getting, I know personally from my earlier years. Bit of history in it and I think that makes it even more the reason for me to get it.

[TitaniumTT]

Originally Posted by Herblenny

Also the car that I'm getting, I know personally from my earlier years. Bit of history in it and I think that makes it even more the reason for me to get it.

I see... I understand

Clutch.. LOVE IT... I love my Exedy twin... wouldn't trade it for anything

[Herblenny]

January 5th, 2012 - My clutch for the 20B came in today from my favorite clutch company, EXEDY CLUTCH!! Here are few pics

[FC Zach]

That's Beautiful Phil!

[9krpmrx8]

Nice man, makes me wish I could fabricate.

[Herblenny]

January 10th, 2012 - Well, I would of made an earlier update but I had to put 14 hour day at work yesterday and didn't have much time to tell you all what happened to my trip.

Well, last week I was running around town trying to get my shell ready for a swap with an R1 shell (without sunroof) that a friend of mine had in GA. So, I had to pull the 20B out, get the hatch from my friend's shop (which I was going to paint it and put on my MB FD), find a trailer, and a friend to help me tow it. Because my fabricator does not come in on saturday, I also had to go there day early to pull the car out so I can load it day after.

Saturday morning (Jan. 7th) - We loaded up the car and got to my friend's place in GA. We started taking stuff off of his car and started to transfer to my shell.



During this process, the car smelled really bad and we found some crazy stuff. Like dead mouse





I guess the car was sitting outside for awhile and a mouse made a nice home out of this RX-7.

Since I was going to strip this car to bare metal, I didn't really care about the smell or the dead mouse.... but I did care about what I found next, a bent frame that lead to bent head light assembly mounting points. This is a bad sign as when headlights are mounted and pop ups go up and down, the geometry is messed up so the lights might not line up. At this point, I was quite upset.. Just because I asked my friend to check the car as he knew the car was in an accident before. Also because my car was on hold for 2-3 weeks as my fabricator couldn't cut anything on the shell because of this swap. And I wasted my weekend, other people's time, etc just because my friend didn't take 10 mins to check over the car carefully and to see where the accident was. But he's a friend and he feels bad and going to help me out later so I cant be mad at him.

Anyhow, we loaded the car back up and drove it back to my fabricator.



Hopefully, I'll have more fabrication updates later this week!