Sad Rotorhead lookin 4 an adequate Rear Wheel Drive Car

Life Cars & Motorcycles
1

Hi folks. Just moved in 2 months ago. Kaohsiung area.

Well, I had to leave both my RX-7s in California & Arizona. I really want to import the '88 FC (stage 3 turbo, about 420HP), but I think I’m screwed. It’ll pass emissions in CA (barely), but since it doesn’t have that pesky OBD II port for diagnostics - an apparent requirement here in Taiwan - I’m pretty much effed in the A on that one. Looking into shipping it in as a track-only car…but being that there’s really only 1 track on this rock, I’m worried they don’t even have provisions like that written into the books.

So moving on, what kind of options do I have in the JDM-type rear wheel drive cars that are available here? Toyota MR2s? Nissan 180/200sx? Silvias (s13’s, s14’s)? Are there any AE86 (Corola/Corona) rolling around here any more? Are there even ANY rotaries in Taiwan?

I know all the German cars are mostly RWD, but even though I make OK money, I’d still actually like to SAVE some of it! I’d simply like to have a project car to piece together. Something zone-out with on the weekends and take up to LongDan every month or 2.

And I asked this on the LongDan thread already, but the the sake of exposure, do you guys know of anybody who’s sucessfully imported older (pre 1996) cars, before the OBD II requirements? I keep hearing about this white 3rd gen RX-7 in Taipei. I WANT TO KNOW THIS MAN and ask him how he got the car over here!

Anyway, any and all help is appreciated. Hopefully we’ll talk more as the months & years tick by.

2

Welcome to the board. There were a few recent threads discussing the type of car you are looking for. Search a bit and you’ll find them. A neighbor of mine has an S14 (converted from 240SX and imported from the States) which he paid 400,000$NT for. That’s about all I know about these cars since whatever is out here already has been thoroughly thrashed and isn’t worth much (unless you plan on doing a build).

Cheers

3

You wil not be able to register any vehicle produced more than ten years before the date on which you apply for plates. Clunker law. Advise you sell yours and buy one locally. There aren’t many around but a two-minute search came up with this.

4

Yeah, I saw that one. I’m not as interested in the FD as I am the FC. That one’s an FD. And also 1.25 milllion. :slight_smile: Anyway, I found a way to bring the car in. Thanks.

5

AFAIK there aren’t any FC models here. I’ve never seen one. The FD’s are also very rare.

If you found a way to import and register a car more than 10 years old, please share the info. :bow:

6

You don’t wanna know!

7

PM please. We have a policy that we don’t encourage illegal acts on the board, but I am personally curious. Thank you.

8

Don’t worry. It’s not illegal. I’m just simply not going to drive the car on the road. Bringing in the car privately and using it as a track car. Got a job up in Taipei, so now I’m closer to LongTan. Simple as that.

9

Good solution! Let us know how it goes.

Just to tide you over, here’s some great rotary noise.

10

very nice.

he he… i appreciate the comment way down the bottom where he says it would be nice to idle that one through his neighbourhood at 2am on the way home.

11

HOLY SHIT!! That made my butt pucker!

But that guy better adjust his pipes, cuz his bumper’s gonna melt off!

12

I hadn’t thought about this in years, but discussing (with a friend) possible solutions to the world’s growing energy problems, I mentioned that I had once owned a Mazda RX-3, which had a Wankel rotary engine. My friend had never heard of this engine and wanted to know more, so I checked out Wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wankel_engine

I was surprised myself when reading the Wiki. I had pretty much thought the RX-3 was the end of the line for the Wankel rotary, but it seems it survived a while longer though it never regained popularity. What killed the RX-3 was that it had rather poor gas mileage, and it hit the market just as the first OPEC oil embargo (1973) caused a severe worldwide gasoline shortage.

The rotary engine did have relatively poor mileage, but it was mainly because Mazda used a poor method of emission controls, plus the engine needed some more refinements. Also, there was a design defect in the aluminum heads that caused a head gasket blowout after about 45,000 miles (72,000 km), and this hurt Mazda’s reputation. What I hadn’t realized was that Mazda continued development, mainly for the racetrack, and actually produced a rotary engine that got far better mileage than any equivalent piston engine. It was so good that racing officials decided to ban it from future races, as it had an “unfair advantage.”

Anyway, my experience with the rotary engine was that it was exceptionally smooth, quiet, powerful and (had it not been for the design defect in the heads) reliable. The RX-3 was just a small economy car, but in drag racing (not that I did that) it easily beat big bad V-8 “muscle cars” from Detroit. Mazda probably could have put a much smaller displacement engine in that car, but the compact size of a rotary engine allowed them to make it into a racing machine. The cars sold like hotcakes for a brief period - anyone who drove one was easily impressed.



Wankel rotary engine

Rotary engines have been used in motorcycles, aircraft and even chainsaws. But alas, they just never gained the reputation they deserved, and I doubt you could buy one in Taiwan, or maybe anywhere. A pity.



Mazda RX-3

13

Knew someone who had NSU R80, which was nice. Very quiet, though the floorpan had foamed-in-place insulation (which apparently made it very cosy to sleep on in the winter. The guy skied.) so that might not have all been down to the engine.

Not sure what happened to it, but the engines didnt last long, and I think he sold it for buttons when it started to wear out. Worth a bloody fortune now etc etc blah blah…

IIRC there was a eventually a retrofit “rotor seal” upgrade kit (I think third party, Swedish) that greatly improved longevity (not sure about fuel economy), but by then a lot of the cars had been retrofitted with Ford (V4?, presumably for shortness?) engines and the original powerplants junked.

Shame.

One should never throw anything away.

14

There was the rx-7 too, never drove one unfortunately

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_RX-7

15

I saw some Rx7 ripping around Taichung once.

I’m back in Vancouver burning fuel in my Rx3 these days. Check out my “oldschool rotaries” club on facebook if you want to see the whole lineup from the 70’s.

:slight_smile:

16

I hadn’t thought about this in years, but discussing possible solutions to the world’s growing energy problems, I mentioned that I had once owned a Mazda RX-3, which had a Wankel rotary engine. My friend had never heard of this engine, so I checked out Wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wankel_engine

I was surprised myself when reading the Wiki. I had pretty much thought the RX-3 was the end of the line for the Wankel rotary, but it seems it survived a while longer though it never regained popularity. What killed the RX-3 was that it had rather poor gas mileage, and it hit the market just as the first OPEC oil embargo (1973) caused a severe worldwide gasoline shortage.

The rotary engine did have relatively poor mileage, but it was mainly because Mazda used a poor method of emission controls, plus the engine needed some more refinements. Also, there was a design defect in the aluminum heads that caused a head gasket blowout after about 45,000 miles (72,000 km), and this hurt Mazda’s reputation. What I hadn’t realized was that Mazda continued development, mainly for the racetrack, and actually produced a rotary engine that got far better mileage than any equivalent piston engine. It was so good that racing officials decided to ban it from future races, as it had an “unfair advantage.”

Anyway, my experience with the rotary engine was that it was exceptionally smooth, quiet, powerful and (had it not been for the design defect in the heads) reliable. The RX-3 was just a small economy car, but in a drag racing (not that I did that) it easily beat big bad V-8 “muscle cars” from Detroit. Mazda probably could have put a much smaller displacement engine in that car, but the compact size of a rotary engine allowed them to make it into a racing machine. The cars sold like hotcakes for a brief period - anyone who drove one was easily impressed.



Wankel rotary engine

Rotary engines have been used in motorcycles, aircraft and even chainsaws. But alas, they just never gained the reputation they deserved, and I doubt you could buy one in Taiwan, or maybe anywhere. A pity.



Mazda RX-3

17

The RX-8 had one too … still poor mileage … my brother drove one, he is a Mazda fan but he was really not satisfied about it … tried to sell it … no one wanted it anymore … the rotary engine has still a bad reputation

18

Thanks for the post! I have always been fascinated by rotary engines and feel the concept was never fully explored or developed to its true potential. Really interesting to hear about the race engine’s development. Why havn’t we seen that in production cars? I think a small rotary engine in a two wheeled vehicle would be awesome and allow for other major engineering developments in overall frame construction, that is developing a motorcycle free of v-twin or in-line constraints. …really fascinating. Do you know any published technical data on performance? like comparing torque , horse power to traditional piston engines of equal displacement ? complete speculation here, but if one could develop a higher performing engine of equal displacement (cubic centimeters) then that would provide quite the market advantage in countries/states with engine displacement restrictions. like taiwan!

19

Yeah, back in my day it was the rx-7, would have liked to have driven one

20

It’s called a two stroke.

The rotaries came in all sorts of things. Chainsaws, motorbikes, lawnmowers. Mazda R100, Rx2, Rx3, Rx4, Rx5, Rx6 (just joking), Rx7, Rx8, and my favorite… the RE-PU (pickup truck)