What the FC RX-7 Always Needed Was… A General Motors V-6

I needed something cheap, fuel efficient, and at least as powerful as the rotary it would replace… What I came across was something that didn’t excite me much but fit the bill fairly well, a 3.8 liter V6 and T5 transmission out of a 98 Camaro complete with ECU and harness, the price, $600… Turns out GM had their stuff together on this little bastard. It’s a little heavy due to being all cast iron and the heads don’t flow well but it’s rock solid reliable and gets great mileage. Plus it’s power numbers are not far from the 5.0/T5 I was originally looking for. Time to get transplanting.

And that’s how a fellow in an Ohio garage wound up building a race-winning RX-7 that happens to be powered by a Series II 3800 V6.

Johnstown, Ohio’s Matt “Tinman” Johnston has acquired a fair bit of rep in the Midwestern racing community for fabricating all sorts of things from scratch. Your humble author directly credits him with his continued existence on this planet: a few years ago I hit the Armco at Mid-Ohio nose-first at a very high speed and kept my legs thanks to a Tinman-built cage.

Several years ago, Tinman put an actual NASCAR V-8 in an FC RX-7. The resulting car was great for midnight street racing but a little difficult to operate on a road course. So he did what you’d expect: bought another RX-7 and put a V-6 in it. The full build of the car, along with all sorts of drool-inducing shots of rollcages and whatnot, can be read at NoRotors.

Without the NASA-required ballast, the Mazda weighs 2,470 pounds dry and puts 199 horsepower to the rear wheels. It’s capable of running with 370Zs and the like on-track. Tinman’s won a few NASA races with it, but he’s now building himself some sort of tube-framed ASC road-race stock car powered by a NASCAR V-8. Therefore, the RX-7 is for sale.

What’s next for Tinman, after the stock car? I’m glad you asked. It’s a 2.4L Plymouth Voyager engine swap into a certain Lapis Blue Neon… that’s right, after three years away from NASA Performance Touring, I’m returning. With a vengeance. Well, strictly speaking, there’s no real vengeance involved. But it sounded cool when I thought about writing it. The big-block Neon might well find itself lined up against the RX-7 at Mid-Ohio next spring, so if you think you have what it takes to show your tailpipes to my Mopar, you know where to send the check, right?