Rotary build... AKA my midlife crisis :p
 

Finally got my finger out and made a start on the chassis..!!! Yay.!

I got the steel through work as only cost me just over 50quid



So well happy with that, just that I've been working away for a few weeks and then at weekends had no energy to do anything. But now I have started I should have a bit of motivation to get on with it now it's taking shape (sorry for the rubbish phone pics)..



But here's the beasty that's gonna power it..



Cost me £75 with the gearbox but no dizzy, guy that sold it to me said it was an old 12A as it had the Nikki carb and manifold. I got home and found out it was a 13B but someone had got an adapter plate to use that carb and manifold so I was happy with that. I later found a 12A and got it for £25 with a dizzy so got it just for that.
I've since made a little test bed for it so I can run and set it up, not gonna keep this carb, a 48DCOE is going on it later or maybe a set of 34/36mm bike carbs depending on how easy it is to set them up.
As it's an old '85(ish) FB motor they were supposed to push out about 120 horses but with a free flowing exhaust and a weber you get about 180. But this bad boy has had a bit of flow work done so hoping for either a street port (200hp) or even better a bridge port (250hp) should make for an interesting little screamer :D

Ickle vid..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWKVlmDuyuc&feature=plcp

A beast in the making:eek: :cool: . Kin great we got 4pots,4pot turbos,straight 6,straight 6 turbos,v6,v8 and now a wankel. dont you just love this place.

Bob

awesome,

What does it weigh including gearbox?
Just out of interest will a 13b rotary mate to the mx5 box with just imput shaft modification or is it a little more involved? I hope when eventually finances allow to drop a rotary into the roadster. Although that would turn a ten quid petrol blast into a thirty quid blast!!!. I bet spud is watching in anticipation too;)

Certainly will be keeping an eye on this one, a perfect match for the roadster.

All the Best........Andrew

Cheers, yep, love this place, I've been reading the build logs for ages :D

I'll try and weigh it this weekend and take off the weight of the testbed as I've got hold of some bathroom scales I can lift it on to (with a wee bit of help).
As for the gearbox mods I don't know mate as I've never looked into it :(

Thanks ;)


Edit....
@ Nathan, bare block is approx. 76kgs (170lbs)....
http://www.atkinsrotarymarine.com/index.php?pag=2
Carb, alternator, dizzy is the usual regular parts weight, gearbox is about 25-30kgs, flywheel is about 10kgs (unless you go ali flywheel).
Hope that helps, but I will still try and weigh mine as it's with oil and rad.

is that a cravern+nicholas invoice :p Im keen to see this also! you should come see y roadster soon, its starting to get some where now (thank ****) :rolleyes: :D

lol craven + nicks, it would be 10x that, was from Newark steel.
Yeah you'll have to come over when I've moved on a bit, would be sweet to see your build now though.

A few years back I bought an old rx7 with a blown engine with the view to shove a rover in it. I never did the conversion because of the diff ratio and could not be arsed to get that involved with chopping another one in there, but I will never forget how light the engine was. One bloke can just pick it up and shove it on the bench. There has always been the debate on the capacity of these things. When norton ran a wankle bike it was a winner and its capacity was put into question like the mazda winning leman car. i cant think of a lighter car engine.

bob

Got to do a little bit more today, never realised how much work is involved, wish I brought a flat pack chassis kit now lol. Hopefully I'll get on with the tunnel soon and the rest of the back end.

Looking good :cool:

Its nice when you get to that stage, you can start to get a feel for things!

Andy's flat packs are definitely the way forward, then again it was 2 years ago i picked mine up and i'm only just finishing now :o