Hey all new to this forum.... I was just curious if ne one has done this or if it is a good idea in GA i have a 97 miata with a blown motor i have had an idea to take the motor and tranny from an RX-8 or an RX7 and swap it out if this is somthing that has been done please let me know where to look for info on it i really think that investing time and money into that project would pay off in the end thanks in advance.....[sm=feedback.gif]

 

sounds sweet. just picked up my '96M about a month ago. 2nd mazda, 1st was a '79 rx-7. bad thing abought the wankel eng is the weight. don't know the specs but would be worth looking into as the miata is ALL about the go-kart like handling. on the '96M, my understanding is if the driver is 125lbs it has 50/50 weight (front to back/left to right). i think most go with the turbo app (i think most mx-5 drivers weigh more than 125) to keep rear weight bias. this is all spec and rumor so check it out and let us know. may want to ceck out "M----A.NET". good lokk and ley us know!!

 

I believe there was a company in Japan that already did the 13B-REW motor in the Mazda. They did remove the turbos and went for an NA build though. So I'd be looking into some older, crashed FCs for reference. The rotary is an excellent motor and in terms of weight, it shouldn't throw the balance off by much since its still a rather compact engine. Look up on the internet about the company with the rotary MX-5....that thing is a monster.

 

I remember reading about this kind of conversion a few years ago. It can be done but if I recall correctly the main problem was that the output shaft on the rotary engine is located much higher than on the piston engine. This meant that you either had to butcher up the drive train cage ( probably not the right terminology) or you would end up with severely limited ground clearance under the engine. Some of us kept hoping that Mazda would do the engineering someday and introduce the rotary Miata, but so far no joy.