Practically Classics Forum

Good evening guys,

My names Ian, I'm from Staffordshire and have been reading PC magazine for 25 years + and have also followed Neils projects in the magazine for years too so I'm glad to be a part of this forum. I'll put up a post in the introductions thread but I'm thought I'd post up some pics of my current road going classic....

It's a Mazda RX7 Elford Turbo of 1984 vintage and is used as much as possible. These 1st generation Rx7's weren't very common back in the day..... approx 3800 were imported in the UK between 1979 and 1985 and only 200 are known to survive today...... out of these, only 60 or so are taxed and on the road at any time in the UK

Even more scarce is the Elford Turbo version...... only 540 were converted by Elford Turbo Ltd and just 22 are known to survive today in the UK and around half a dozen more overseas.... so they're a pretty rare animal.

I took these photos one evening last week....






















































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oooooooohhhhhhhh, a turbo wankel [schoolboy] hehehehehe [/schoolboy]

That is a very smart looking RX7. Normally when i see an early one it looks like a rust bucket (there is a white one around that looks like it's ready to fall apart).

I'm in staffs too, there are some great roads for a sunday afternoon thrash!

He's in Staffs, and I'm just up the road from where it was built!

It looks great Ian, show us that engine please!!!

nice car! a few years ago i bought an 85 fb it needed a lot of work & i got it running nicely & abit of welding... then the money ran out & with it being far from finished so i put an mot on it & a guy from from the other side of france came to pick it up.. id only driven it 100 km in 3 years. he drove it home taking in caen & paris which worked out at a 1100 km trip.. not bad for a car that had only done 100 km in 6 years +
id have another tomorrow, a much nicer car to drive than my mr2

Absolutely lovely looking RX7. The uniqueness about it,is that they never get mentioned. When you mentioned the Elford Turbo,it rung a bell from somewhere. It was this post I was trying to remember
http://www.practicallyclassics.co.uk/vi ... =12&t=1207

Ian,is your RX7 an injection setup?

Thanks guys....

they are a rare car these days, the Elford turbo particularly so.
That Elford turbo powered Viva belongs to Alex in New Zealand....his work on the car is awe-inspiring!
The car that Alexs' engine came from is this one which is a good example of how rare the Elfords are.....



The car was rusted out and Alex stripped it and shipped the engine to NZ for his Viva and I made a 300 round trip to collect the front bumper/spoiler off it. The spare parts hardly ever come up for sale and demand is high if they do.

This is the engine in my car...





















As you can see, it's a very simple setup....

A small fast spooling, oil cooled, T3 Garrett turbo sucking directly through a HIF44 SU carb. Unusually for a turbo engine, the comression was left as standard, not lowered which meant the car drove as a normal RX7 off boost but when the turbo kicked in, it flew. The boost was limited to a pretty low 6psi because of this but the performance is non the worse for that.
The Elford conversion was so good and professionally done that Mazda agreed to honour the factory warranty on converted cars....
obviously, Elfords had therefore erred on the side of caution and set the boost low.... common consensus these days is that the engine will safely take 10psi which is achieved by overiding the wastegate with a manual boost controller and a slight change to the set up of this...



The ignition control that cuts the engine if the wastegate fails to open and the boost hits 8 psi.

Here's a copy of Elfords brochure for the car back in the day...









All 1st generation RX7's for the UK market were carb fed and used the 12a rotary engine.... a factory turbo version was only ever available for the Japanese home market.

For the last year of production (1984-1985) in the US only, the car came with a more powerful 13b fuel injected engine. Sadly, it was for the American market only and wasn't offered elsewhere in the world.

There will be 7 or 8 of these cars together at the Retro Rides gathering in august which is the most that have been together in one place for a good while...
come and say hello if any of you guys are there.
cheers,
Ian

As I mentioned in Alex's post, Elfords old garage in Tuckton finally succumbed to the bulldozers over the last month or so, and there is nothing left now apart from a few piles of rubble that is still waiting to be carted off.

loads of info on the Elford turbo and Elford's, Bournemouth here...

http://www.rx7fb.com/viewforum.php?f=21 ... b8e9f01937

aha...it's the draw-through type of setup. It's what the Yanks go for,but I prefer the blow-through like the Esprit