FWD rotary conversion

[Damkid]

Ok so i know rotary's never came FWD, but i think it would be cool to have a FWD rotary setup, so here is my little project..... at the moment i'm not sure if this will even work, so i don't have a recipient car lined up yet, the goal of this thread is simply to show my progress on converting the 13B to FWD setup for everyone to see if its possible or not, which i will soon find out

So i'm sure some of you have seen the KL powered Miata, they use an adapter plate and an RX7 tranny, so that tells me the flywheel/starter situation works with that setup, so why not use a KL tranny on a 13B?

A friend of a friend is a tool and die maker and he has his own CNC plasma cutter and is very good with CAD drawings, if i am not able to locate a CAD drawing for both the 13B and KL bellhousings, i will get him to make up the CAD drawings using any of my spare components and then cut out an adapter plate for me, if the adapter plate is too big for his CNC plasma, then there is a local laser cutting shop that i can have the plate made at

I figure the starter placement on the KL trans should work nicely on a 13B, and since i have a couple spare KL tranny's, the first step is to get a 13B to mess with

$200 later and here i have a complete setup from an 89' RX7, wiring harness/ECU etc. (tranny will be F/S later on after the adapter plate is made)






And i started taking a few things off the motor to get an idea how its built



The clutch looks pretty similar to the KL clutch but i haven't check spline count or anything like that yet, i do have a spare KL clutch disk that i will use if the splines on the 13B clutch do not match the KL ones





I do understand there will be a bunch of custom work for this setup to work, but that just adds to the cool factor if i manage to pull it off, this will most likely be a very slow build as well since its not my priority build, i still have a festiva to finish turbo'ing and a 323 that needs a new B6T lol

Anyways, wish me luck lol

[bogaut]

good luck! this should be very interesting.

[Racerboy]

I've been wanting to do this myself.... I'd go 12a peripheral port if i did it, though. And idk if you know this already, but rotary front wheel drive has been done before on a few civics. So I think it's just a matter of time before someone does it to a mazda.

[Damkid]

Yes I have seen a civic with a rotary, so I know it's possible, but has anyone ever done it in a Mazda?

If so I'd be curious to know what setup they used

[Turpro]

I saw a pic of a fwd mazda setup a while ago. It has been done but never saw any details on how. Good luck. Sub'd

[DuRWooD]

An '89 13b would be street legal (and bad ass) in that '89 323. Just sayin'

[Damkid]

I've seriously thought swapping the 323, I'd just almost feel bad doing it though considering the rarity, that's why I made a separate thread for this until I decide what car to put it in lol

[mx-3_4evr]

My opinion: It's a waist of time making a fwd rotary as you have everything to make it RWD besides the rear end (use a miata rear end). What are you going to do once it's done? A RWD drive set up would be useful in any race event that there is. I'm just talking from experience. That's my 2 cents... Good luck with whatever you choose to do! I will be subscribing

[Damkid]

converting a FWD car to RWD in my opinion is a LOT more work then converting the engine to run FWD, i just want to see if i can do it

But yes i agree RWD setup is more useful for racing, but i'm just not ready to go that route yet

[atomicEGT]

**** the haters, make this happen :D

[Ace]

DUDE. No lie I've been doing some serious thinking about doing this for a while. The spline count on an FWD G series is 22 teeth, as is the clutch on a 13b, both also have a 7 7/8" clutch disc. PLEASE do this. It would be beyond awesome. I'd go with a nasty street port and a carb though over the fuel injection.

[nerd racing]

I've seen a setup in a laser before Chris. They used a honda or mitsu variant trans so the exhaust ports faced the front of the car and were away from the axle. Getting over the axle clearance with the exhaust port will be your biggest hurdle.

[Racerboy]

I've seen a setup in a laser before Chris. They used a honda or mitsu variant trans so the exhaust ports faced the front of the car and were away from the axle. Getting over the axle clearance with the exhaust port will be your biggest hurdle.

All the conversions I've ever seen on the internet and the one car I've seen in person used a honda transmission. (my buddy had a rotary powered vw corrado up until last summer. It had a honda K20 transmission, a 13b non turbo motor, and used custom axles made by thedriveshaftshop.com..... Then it got stolen 3 weeks after he finished building it. And all the photos of it were on his lap top, which just so happened to be in the car when it was stolen.... So I have no photos of it..... )

[Damkid]

^^thats sh!tty that it got stolen, I'd be pissed for sure

As for using a Honda tranny to have the exhaust port face the front, that is a good idea but I don't wanna spend the money on custom axles so I'll see what I can come up with to make it work

[KAinjection]

This will be a cool project, and I certainly hope you can pull it off