Shep's Rotary Blog

Here is a video from when I first got my RE-5.  You can hear the purr of the rotary engine.

Suzuki RE5 from Chris Shepherd on Vimeo.

The frame had collected a lot of rust over the past 34 years, so I decided to strip it all down and give it some fresh paint.  I did two coats of Rust-Oleum metal primer, three coats of black, and two coats of clear.

Newly Painted Frame

Here is the exhaust manifold after receiving a ceramic coating from RüK Coatings

Coated Exhaust Manifold

This seat was custom made using the stock RE seat pan by Andy at Pangea Speed

Cafe style seat

The tail lamp is a brake/indicator LED light with plate bracket from Hapsco Moto

Custom LED Tail Lamp

I will have a lot more to come with this project.  It will be getting a new wiring harness, custom exhaust, and misc accessories.

After owning my ’93 RX-7 FD3S for 2 years, I decided to get a baseline dyno run at our SLCrotary Dyno Day. I purchased the car from a friend as a rolling chasis in 2008. My main focus for the car was to just have a reliable, fun, weekend cruiser. The car is “mostly” stock aside from intake and exhaust mods to help it breathe.

Here is a bit of information about the 1993 Mazda RX-7 FD3S as from the manufacturer via Edmunds.

It has the stock 13b-rew motor with the stock twin sequential turbos working almost flawlessly at 12psi. You can hear the bit of hesitation I’m trying to figure out during the primary/secondary turbo transitions in the video.

So, the final results were 244 RWHP and 211 TQ.  Overall I’m please with the results, and its right about where I expected.  With the factory specs of 255 HP and roughly a 15% drivetrain loss, that puts me about 30 HP over stock.  For the next year, my primary focus will be on getting it ready for the track at Miller, but inevitably, I will need more power.