KEEPERS
Engineer Roger is celebrating 31 years of enjoying his exotic rotary sports car with a weekend of wheel-cleaning – a true enthusiast!
‘I’d long fancied owning an RX-7 when – in 1991 – I heard one of the US Air Force men from the local airbase who frequented our local pub, the Swan at Elstow, talking to a friend about an air force colleague who wanted to sell his Rotary. I introduced myself and arranged to visit the base and inspect the car. I discovered that it had been delivered new to the US military base but from a UK dealer as a UK-specification RHD car. It had never been registered in this country, always running as a US vehicle and hence free from UK taxes.
‘The car had been impeccably maintained by the local dealer and the aircraft engineers on site, who applied wax rust-proofing to the car every time they changed the oil – which was frequently.
‘Since our silver wedding anniversary was due, my wife stepped in and suggested that we made the car our joint anniversary present. I agreed a price of £3400 with the owner and paid the British government around £600 in taxes to get it UK registered. The engine is a two-rotor Wankel said to be 1146cc but rated by the DVLA as 2348cc.
‘When I first acquired the car, the only tiny flaw that I could find was some very localised stone damage to the leading edge of one sill – that was easy enough to rub down and re-finish using the trusty spray gun that I first used when I painted my Austin A35 way back in 1966. And thanks to all the regular Ziebart wax treatments, which I’ve kept up to this day, the body is still in amazing condition.
‘I’ve also maintained the regime of regular oil changes using traditional 20/50 mineral oil and the engine has now covered 100,000 miles; and it’s still lovely – never been touched. The rotary tended to flood during starting but fitting a switch to turn off the fuel pump has cured this foible. ‘The only other modifications are a stainless-steel exhaust and an electric fan from a Volvo 940. The car originally ran a viscous fan but I found that it fitted like a dream and looks factory after cutting the lip off the Volvo unit. While I was designing the stainless-exhaust system I decided to remove the ineffective and heavy cast iron “thermal reactor” that Mazda installed in what was its forerunner to the later CAT systems. The thermal reactor was fed by the air pump and air control valve with a secondary exhaust pipe that leads all the way to the rear of the car.
‘My only engineering issue came when I detected some wear to the roller bearing at the back of the crank, which would lead to jamming the output shaft at the rear of the gearbox if neglected, so I replaced that and renewed the clutch at the same time, even though it was fine.
‘The RX-7 continues to be my playthin
