FWD rotary conversion

So you had me second guessing the year of the engine so I talked to my buddy who picked up the engine for me (I never talked directly to the guy who had the engine) and he sent the other guy a text to ask and said the car is actually an 87' and I was just mis-informed

But as for plans to tear it down and rebuild it, probably not, unless the conversion is a success I may never use the engine, it's really up in the air lol
 
so last night i had the tranny off the KL from my festiva and i measured the KL flywheel for comparison to the 13B's

KL flywheel diameter measures roughly 11-1/4"
13B flywheel diameter measures roughly 11-1/2"

Basically the 13B's flywheel is 1/4" bigger in diameter, 1/8" top/bottom..... so if i shave an 1/8" off a few high spots of the KL bell housing, the 13B flywheel will clear

So the next thought would be starter location, if the flywheel is 1/8" taller on top/bottom then i will need to move the starter location by 1/8"..... a different thought is that if the gear on the KL starter will interchange with the 13B starter gear, then if the 13B gear is smaller in diameter, it may give the correct spacing.... something i will be looking at for sure

The next issue would be the spacing between the flywheel teeth and the block, on the 13B, the flywheel teeth are 1-1/4" away from the block, on the KL, the flywheel teeth are 1" from the block...... so if i run a 1/4" thick adapter plate, the flywheel spacing will match up with the KL starter

It's seeming a lot more possible now that i have some better measurements to go from
 
Ok so it's been a while since i've had an update for this thread so here we go


I found a guy in new zealand with an old school 86' mazda 323 who has completed a FWD 13BT swap in it, he re-used the stock F series tranny, but what got my attention the most was the modifications to the flywheel since i will end up needing to do the exact same mods

Here's a few pics of the 13BT 323

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I've also picked up a 2-1/8" socket and i made a breaker bar for it and i got the flywheel off, next week i am taking the 13B and a KL transmission to a local tool and die maker (Friend of a friend) and he is going to make a CAD drawing of the bell housings and use his CNC plasma cutter to make me an adapter plate and i should be able to get him to do the machine work to the flywheel as well, so depending on his schedule, i should have some big updates in the near future :)
 
I'm very confident that this conversion will be a success but I dont think I'll go as far as building a 4 rotor lol although that would be absolutely sick
 
I did just start a thread on rx7club about this in the newbie technical section, thats how i came accross the guy from new zealand
 
Hmm... that's pretty sweet... but unfortunately, I'm waiting for everyone to become super fanbois and attempt to jump on the wagon just because "someone else did it so I can too."
 
I don't see why anyone would do a fwd rotary conversion just to jump on the band wagon. I see people doing it because they see it as an option and that's what they want to do to their car. I know I sure as hell wouldn't do something like this just because someone else did it. I'd do it if that's exactly what I wanted to do.
 
You'll be surprised how fast "Because I want to do it" changes after someone proves that it's possible.

That's all I'm saying.
 
lol well guys, after its all said and done and i've got the setup working 100% i may look into producing adapter plates to sell ;)

Yesterday i dropped off the 13B/KL trans to a friend of a friend (a tool and die maker) to get the CAD drawings made up and to get the first adapter plate made for testing, so now its the waiting game :)

The guy has other projects on the go right now so it may take him a few months to get it done though, but that's cool with me since i don't really have a car to drop it into right now
 
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