Local Ride: Evan’s JDM FC

These days it seems, when you want more power in a rotary, the thing to do is just get rid of it all together and swap in a V8.  Now don’t get me wrong,  I love a good v8 swap and can definitely see the benefits.  But I know plenty of people will agree with me when I say there is nothing like the scream of a big turbo/ported rotary!  One of those people is Evan Bahr, and this is his 1990 JDM Mazda RX7 FC.

Let’s start with what you see first, the looks.  Now Evan is more of an ‘under the hood’ kind of guy,  so the exterior is fairly simple.  A lot of the time though,  simple packs the most punch.  Currently he is sporting stock side skirts, rear bumper and spoiler, S5 taillights, Shine roof spoiler and what he believes to be a RE-Amemiya front bumper.  It was on the car when he got it so he is not positive.

The stance of this FC is brought to you by Zeal coilovers with Swift springs.

The wheels are XXR 527,  17 x 8.25 +25 up front and 17x 9.75 +25 in the rear.  Behind those wheels you will find some EBC Redstuff ceramic pads in the front and Project Mu D1 Spec pads in the rear.

Here is the interior.  Simple, clean and functional.  Of course, with it being a JDM RX7, the steering wheel is found on the right side.

Now we get to the meat and potatoes of this car.  When Evan first purchased it,  the original motor was pretty tired.  So like a true boss would,  he bagged the shit out of it and blew it up.  With that motor out of the way, now sits this little beauty.  A freshly rebuilt and street ported 13B with 2mm apex seals built by David Jerome of Rotary Rebuild Store.  Once the motor showed up at his house,  Evan added a Greddy manifold and a Garrett T04S turbocharger.  The air is cooled with a Trust FMIC and shot with fuel by Bosch 550cc primary injectors and 1600cc secondaries.  Boost is controlled at 14 pounds with a Greddy Profec Spec 2 controller and a Tial MVR wastegate.  All of it is street tuned with a Apexi Power FC;  Evan has gathered a good amount of experience with tuning Power FCs and he has even tuned mine, so I’ll vouch for him!  He is even jokingly known as “Bahr Tuning”.  Although it has never been dyno’d with the current mods it should be sitting somewhere close to the 400whp mark.  In short, this thing rips and sounds fantastic while doing so.  Helping put that power to the ground is an ACT clutch and flywheel, a 1.5 LSD diff and a CorkSport shifter.

Here you can see the 4″ turbo back Greddy exhaust.  As well as the S5 taillights,  which have the three circles.

So that wraps up Evan Bahr’s 1990 Mazda RX7.  A testament to the fact that the rotary motor is no where near extinction.  All I hope is that everyone out there one day has chance to hear the lumpy idle,  and the near perfect pitch of a ported rotary unleashed at high revs.  This combined with the sound of a big turbo and external wastegate screaming into your ear is sure to put a smile on your face.  If it doesn’t, I don’t know what will.