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This Mazda RX-7 Is A Flamethrowing, 9,000 RPM Monster…On It’s SAFE Tune!


This Mazda RX-7 Is A Flamethrowing, 9,000 RPM Monster…On It’s SAFE Tune!

Yanking the 13B-REW rotary engine out of an FD-generation Mazda RX-7 and jamming in a seriously kicked up Chevy motor seems to be the first modification for any of these little Mazdas, and it’s a bit hard to see why anyone wouldn’t, especially since making stupid levels of horsepower is too easy. If you need any more indication why a V8 RX-7 is appealing, the only thing you need to know is that in the entire time I’ve known Brian Lohnes, he’s only turned down a ride in one car ever, and it was a ProCharged V8 FD RX-7.

But it’s not like the 1,300CC rotary was a bad engine. Quite the opposite, actually…in full swing, the car sold with 276 horsepower on tap. If it came from Japan and it’s older than, let’s say, 2005, “276 horsepower” should be taken with a grain of salt the size of a basketball. It was part of the Japanese auto manufactures’ “gentleman’s agreement” to keep a horsepower war from escalating. Yet anyone with a tuned ear could hear that more than 276 horsepower was blasting out of the FD’s exhaust; a lot of that has to do with the sequential turbocharging system.

But if you think, for one second, that this particular Mazda is packing stock power…oh, do we have a nice shock for you. 700+ horsepower, at the wheels, on the safe tune, which still allows this car to blow flame out of the back like none other. 1320 Video got the chance to go for a ride along on some test pulls, and if there is any curiosity about just how well this Dorito chip-powered car can hustle, the broken speedometer should tell you everything you need to know.


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3 thoughts on “This Mazda RX-7 Is A Flamethrowing, 9,000 RPM Monster…On It’s SAFE Tune!

  1. Nick D.

    Always glad to see Rotary-powered stuff. It makes me sad whenever I see an LS-swapped RX-7, because the rotary is what makes the RX-7 special, so when you remove that, you’ve taken away what makes an RX-7 an RX-7. You’ve essentially just made it a Camaro with an RX-7 body kit.

    1. guy with a LS rx7

      If you think a V8 rx7 is just “a camaro with a RX-7 body kit”, then you’ve never driven a camaro or a V8 rx7. Apples to Pineapples comparison.

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