This is a battle you have all been wanting to see. Crazy bridgeport 12a vs a stock t2 13b. 8500 rpm of pure vintage NA goodness vs modern boost. Whats your pick??
I noticed that you’re stuck in 3rd gear. Same happened to us driving an endurance race. They are not worth rebuilding because more modern Miata transmissions with slight modifications will work better. I wound up installing a turbo tranny and made a custom dive shaft. Also, in road racing, using 15” wheels we don’t use 5th and 4th only got occasional duty so we installed a 4:77 diff. Now the car accelerates better and use all gears. Any comments are welcome.
@@nickbetegh3649 I've never raced, but I would think you'd want to shift less for a faster time. Which do you prefer and why? If you don't mind me asking.
Haha, my old S1 RX7 used to get stuck in gear like yours did. It was actually easy to fix it was just a small plastic cup/bushing on the bottom of the gear shifter where it sits in the linkage/selector. It's a common issue they wear out easily. May not be the same with your's. But you might want to pull the shifter out and check out the mechanism.
Alot closer than I anticipated! With such a large arsenal of rx7s and engines in the shop have you had any consideration of doing a full PP na setup? That would be a super enjoyable series to watch
1) Bridgeport idle 2) I don't care for that the turbo sounds. This is just a me thing, but I've always been more accustomed to superchargers... 3) hours/days/weekends/months for an engine swap to get the same horsepower as a Dremel would get you in a period of a day (if you know what you're doing). Also just a me thing, the 12As are cooler because everybody swaps out to a 13B anymore. And I get it, it's done for the aftermarket support, but for me? I don't need 400+ hp. An FB RX7 is my DREAM car and dream cars are not exactly things you want to wreck. Bring that 12A up from the stock 108hp to the 200-250 ballpark via intake, exhaust and some porting and you have a car that will be PLENTY of fun while not being too inherently dangerous. Hell, even 140 would be plenty fun. My Escort ZX2 had 138hp for a 2400 pound car and that thing was FUN, RX7 would be even more fun just due to rear wheel drive. NOT DANGEROUS, but FUN! You don't need exorbitant power for the streets.
I wish you guys would provide the link to the video you "point to" instead of hiding it inside a MOBILE specific format.... I only watch RU-vid via my Chromecast, and 98% of the time anyone says "link up here".... there's nothing, because it doesn't show anything, and if you don't put the same link in the description or comments, well, it's not there. Now that my rant is over, it's a tough call, I love both... and seeing neither are a Series 2 and I can't just pick that, if it was my only car, I'd take the turbo 13B, if it was my 2nd car, I'd take the Bridge seeing as I miss my own Bridged 12A on Webber's, Series 2 GSL in Havana Brown....God damnit I should've NEVER sold it.... I'll never get
Im very lucky and happy to say my coworkers wife has a 1984 12a rx7 she got for 3200 and put 2000 in rims and tires. He wants to sell me her car, for cheap as a "fuck you" hahah. So im thinking trade out my mazda 3 2005.
Dude you can fit 235/45/13s easy in the rear on a 8 inch rim, I have bolt on flares on my s1 rx7 but no guard work done, nankang ar-1s semi slicks they are hell cheap! Get some, the grip is unreal!
My fun car is a 1984 Mazda RX-7 GS (12A) Auto Trans 101 horses unmodified. I love this car. She needs pads & rotors (I might replace myself). Any suggestions?
I would find some stock replacements, or get a set of blank rotors from R1 concepts/some other aftermarket supplier. I would stick with street pads. no sense if its just a stock car. Be aware for the front rotors you will have to have new wheel bearings installed into those rotors if they do not come with the races installed.
Love the video man. I think I’m definitely a full bridge kinda guy, loved the sound. Also where the hell do you find a repu? I’ve tried looking online but haven’t seen anything, how much do they even cost haha
Yea I agree. You can really tell the gearing differences. I'll work on that and come back to it. I'd love to do a stock 12a vs bridge 12a comparison soon
Awesome comparison video! Very well explained without any fluff or lame music....well done! BTW; what do you think is the best year trans for a street ported 12a? It's in my '72 Triumph Spitfire.
What if... You put a K03 turbo on a stock 12A? 🤔 Certainly you can reach 200-250bhp on it at a relatively low cost and get some quite good torque across a wide RPM range.
Hey you might be from my home town. Dad picked up a 1985 GSL-SE this weekend. I should be coming up to pick it up soon. Will have to pick you brain on these suckers :)
It's funny because both your cars would be faster if you swaped trans and rearends with each other. The turbo would benefit from longer gears, and the mouse could use the shorter gears. Oh and I would take that bridgeport personally. It sounds dope.
Hell yeah seen a first gen and been thinking about it ... but the engine was a running block a few months ago so I’m like would it be worth it? Since the car was running and running 12a can go up to 5k in VA and Cali .... hmmmmmmmmmmmmm only reason I ask is because I own an 8 And doing a build on the side to swop into the car that’s already a running block and trying to think of another decent project ..... it would be interesting .... do you have an Instagram?
Is there any chance we'll see 12a turbo conversion content at some point? It would certainly be a larger project, but like you said, turbo 2 engines are becoming cost prohibitive and some of us just have a weird liking for the 12a
@@RADPotential I'd love to see it. I've been sourcing fc parts to eventually go EFI, but the stumbling block continues to be finding an intake/throttle body setup that doesn't break the bank
team all motor for sure, dont use boost to make power if you dont have to. but damn i love the sounds from the turbo car lol. could we get a clip of it running with no bov? i bet it would sound awesome.
@@RADPotential Would love to see you get a turbo set-up from a 1st gen. GSL (from OZ or 🗾) and see the whole process. I know someone that can make cold forged high or low compression rotors just let me know!
@GbbJunkie Yes! Still running trials and accumulating data though. Hot forged to start and then eventually moving to cold forged. Could be a game changer for all of us 12A afficinados.
My driver is a stock 85 GSL-SE, 190,000 miles, still runs great. Only problem is my heater core started leaking. Bypassed it but huge mess on the pass. side floor. Have to figure out if I can pull the dash to r&r it.
It's a RB dual primary header to a y pipe into 2.5 inch. All the way to a 2.5 inch steel core packed muffler, 5 inch OD can. Much like the RB rotor muffler but super cheap. That's it.
@@RADPotential do the headers really change the sound that much? Im running the stock header 2.25 inch to a high flow cat, 2.5 all the way back to a steel packed magnaflow 4" round straight through. My car has way mellower tone than yours
Wondering if you could post a short video of the sound of the fuel pump. I have an 85 12a gsl that seens to run out of fuel in the carb towards the end of 3rd gear. Previous owner put a new pump in but it doesnt sound like a normal pump whine. I can tap the key to start and hear the pump make more of a clicking noise for a second. Are the factory pumps good enough for a bridgeport or do i need to change it?
Id switch to a rotary vein style. Not a pulse style like the oem one. If you have a holley their holley blue pump would work, if you have a weber try a Carter pump I think its the 4070
That would be my average mixed driving. Pulls here and there, and some highway. Driving out to the Tail of the Dragon, I got closer to 25 solely highway. Worst I ever saw was 12, running it hard hard
I’m a sucker for NA rotaries, just can’t beat their rev-happiness and instantaneous throttle response. I’m slowly piecing together bits for a semi p-port NA 13B. Hoping to make a high-revving 180-200hp street engine at the end of it all that I can swap into my car, once my dead-stock 200K mile 12A konks out - whenever that happens.
@@RADPotential - Compression is still strong and all! Gotta love 12A’s. I’ll strip it down when compression starts fading and probably give it a thorough going-over and rebuild to be my backup engine, but not until then.
I have a gslse axle I could stick under it for a quick test, hook it up no brakes and do the comparison again.... may do that when I do the swap to the new chassis.
Can you do a video on mixing a rx8 engine with a gsl-se engine. That combo is suppose to bw killer with more exhaust flow. Also pp port video, for example is it possible to semi pp port a 6 port 13b???
@@RADPotential all good! Im currently building a 84 gsl-se into a track day toy..wide body, gutted...etc. im in-between getting rid of the stock injection and adding a webber....always decisions! Keep up the RAD Work!💪
That's a dream engine for my FB. Mazdatrix used a similar setup in their old RX8 racecar with a turbo. Put down consistent 450whp+ and like mid 300's for tq. But I want NA. It would be so sick.
@@RADPotential I’m guessing it would destroy that other one after that? In the piston world the artificial displacement motor almost always wins for a lot less money but it seems not so with rotarys? Sounds like it’s running out of breath up top? But if you boost it can you rev it higher without hurting it? Is there anything you should do with a booster motor or is set up the same? Sorry for the ignorance but I know very little about killer Doritos.
In the rotary world, the more air you can get the better. that Bridgeport pulls much harder 7K RPM plus than the non ported smaller turbo engine. now if you put a bigger turbo on the stock engine, then yes, it will pull harder up top. With boost its a balance of porting and turbo selection to achieve your power goal IMO, much like choosing a cam/heads for a piston engine to accompany a power adder. Going turbo lets you keep a small port(CAM) and make the power with extra boost. you can rev a boosted engine just as high as an NA engine if its balanced, and you have enough ignition to support the RPM.
@@RADPotential You’re the reason why I did mine and also Aaron Cake! I have videos on my channel showing it off so much fun. I don’t know how on earth you got away with it on 9:7:1 rotors! I think 6-port turbos are going to be the new thing soon!
Yea for sure. Just boost anything that is rotary. Parts are getting hard to get haha. 😪 I was only on waste gate and a baby turbo. So it wasn't a huge stress. And if you really think about it 9.7 :1 is still reasonably low compression on the grand scheme of things
@@RADPotential that swap should be pretty easy. Doing lifts isn't bad but definitely depends on how much rust your fighting! Just make sure to PB blast the rear shack bolts a few days in advance. They were the biggest pain for me
@@RADPotential i rev my fd to 10 all the time i’ve put 85000km on my 13b rew engine its a stock oem mazda crate motor im about to ditch the oem twins for a new garret ball bearing turbo
@@Phil2stroke terrible idea with an unbalanced/not side cut rotors motor and steel apex seals! Guaranteed when that motor comes out (and it will as goes with all FDs) the housings are going to have major chatter and I’d be willing to bet your rotors have smacked the end plates more than a time or two.
@@brianskotch2922 10 months later your right my FD did blow up it took 40 000km it broke a apex seal on the rear rotor no chatter marks though and only re rear rotor and rear housing was damaged the rear iron and mid plate was fine being rebuilt as we speak! im using machined RX8 rotors for the rx7 apex seals thats 128012km by the way! With a bit more than 40000km of hard abuse and honestly it was great! it kept running on one rotor and i got it home!
