A South Australian racer, Dean King, has raced a rotary powered sprite for
a number of years. It is indeed ungodly fast but the handling leaves a lot
to be desired. That rotary engine is a heavy sucker!
On a handling track, his car was beatable by the big HP A-series cars; on
the high speed tracks, sorry there was no contest.
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: Jackson Zimmermann <JZIMMERM@exch.co.albemarle.va.us>
To: 'spridgets@Autox.Team.Net' <spridgets@autox.team.net>
Date: Monday, December 14, 1998 10:53 AM
Subject: RE: Off Subject, Rotary
>I seen one Midget with this transformation and spoken with one owner who
>was going through the process. They were apparently ungodly fast, but
>were real PTAs to create. The one owner that I spoke to said he would
>never do it again and the only reason he finished it was that he already
>had too much money and time invested to let the car sit unfinished. It
>may look easy, but it is not. First getting everything bolted in is one
>big job. Second, the diff cannot handle the extra power and therefore
>you MUST replace the rear axle assembly with something more substantial
>(the owner had trashed 3 diffs within 2 months before finally paying
>gobs of change to cut down an American car's rear axle to fit). If you
>are looking to create an E-mod car, maybe some of the 2 cycle snowmobile
>engines are something to take a look at... High HP and very, very low
>weight = winning engines in current A-mod field.
>
>Jackson Zimmermann
>jzimmerm@albemarle.org
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: VolksPEZ@aol.com [mailto:VolksPEZ@aol.com]
>Sent: Friday, December 11, 1998 8:23 PM
>To: spridgets@Autox.Team.Net
>Subject: Re: Off Subject, MGA needs an Engine
>
>
>Personally I have been researching the RX7 rotary swap for the Spridget
>and
>like what I see...compact lightweight motor...good stock horsepower with
>lots
>more on tap with tweaking...almost a drop in for the spridget with just
>a
>little fabrication...and if you are like me the idea of the old wankel
>(rotary
>engine, lets keep it clean) may seem a bit daunting, but after spending
>time
>learning about them they are acutally quite simple...a real marvel of
>engineering that should have gone further...
>
>To top it off I have seen good running cars that are otherwise beat in
>this
>area going for $500-$700...get the whole car then you have all you need.
>I
>almost bought a 97 RX7 TURBO for $700 the other day with the hopes of
>finding
>a clean spridget (or preferrably and Arkley) to put the mechanicals
>in...overall I would stick with a naturally aspirated rotary for
>simplicity...but the idea of the gobs of HP in that turbo motor strapped
>into
>a spridget just makes my brain go squishy :)
>
>All my research has been for the spridget so I have no Idea how any of
>this
>applies to the MGA...but it is a nice compact motor which fits well in
>small
>places while making alot of power....
>
>just my .02.....
>
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