Driving 48 States in Two Mazda FD RX7s - Episode 1

[Music] road trips aren't about the destination if you want to get somewhere far you'll often just fly there in our case road trips are about accomplishing something we've driven from florida to alaska key west to nova scotia we've driven in teslas and race cars and now our most ambitious trip yet [Music] we're going to take our two mazda fd rx7s and drive them to all 48 continental states in the u.s 14.8 miles per gallon you kept asking me to shoot flames i know okay that's fair [Music] hello my name is ben and this is my k20 swapped fdrx7 uh hi and i'm also ben and this is my rotary rx-7 we're going to be taking an insane road trip with these cars we're going to be driving to every single contiguous state in the u.s all 48 states uh yeah why are we taking these cars bud uh because we're gluttons for punishment hmm yeah that makes sense store checks out we decided to up the ante and take the most unreliable cars that we possibly could so we've got the rotary for that oem unreliability yeah and you might think that a k20 is a very reliable engine and i do and it is but uh this is a swapped car which means every single bolt has been touched on this i mean every bracket every piece that connects it together has all been changed so it's uh very likely for something to go wrong and the cherry on top is that we have a deadline to leave which is today uh which means that we just finished doing all the things that we wanted to on these cars yeah we made a commitment to our lovely sponsor advanced auto parts to do two road trips this year we're filming it in 2020 and that means we've got to take these two cars and uh we are just under the wire per usual in getting everything ready for these cars well then i've plotted out this route to be as efficient as possible we are going to hit all 48 states some of them just barely uh but we're gonna do it scooting in there yeah yeah i followed the route out to be about uh eight thousand miles so we should uh we should probably get gone yeah let's do that this trip is less about the destinations and more about the journey we want to hit all 48 states in the continental us because we want to see if we can do it and if the cars can do it we're starting here in our home state of virginia and we're going to head north first it's december which means there's a high chance of us getting stuck in the snow so we want to hit the northern states first before it gets too deep in the winter maybe we could use ben's flamethrower to keep us warm so ben and i both purchased fdrx7s these are both 1993's the very first year produced for the us and we've modified them in very different ways mine is still rotary it has been swapped to a single turbo but it is still that triangle dorito engine style ben of course has swapped over to a piston engine he's a traitor to the rx-7 name but it's okay i'll let them have that that's fine well this is my fd rx7 and it has a k20 in it it's been k-swapped because i really like honda motors and i thought it would be a really good idea to put a k20 in this car i am making a whopping 400 wheel horsepower and that's more than i need in 2600 pounds this car is quite fast meanwhile in the rotary i'm also making too much power the car makes about 360 wheel horsepower i believe driving the car is uh a little bit flamboyant you know once you get into boost it makes noise and the k-swap makes quite a lot of noise as well because the gear ratios leave the engine rpms unquestionably too high because i have an s2000 transmission made it up with the fd rear end my gear ratios are kind of all out of whack cruising around at 4 000 rpm on the highway and uh i think i'm in boost i think let me look at my boost gauge here yeah it it if i just even touch the gas pedal at 4000 rpm i'm in boost rotaries are not necessarily super renowned for their reliability but i'm convinced that that is just a maintenance error it's a user error and if you do all the right things to take care of a rotary then you'll be fine and i don't think that this trip is going to offer much in the way of a challenge to this little rotary engine i think we are going to have a smooth sailing ahead as far as the engine is concerned seriously already at advance what are we doing so my car burns oil by design how much oil are we going to be using on this trip uh i use about a quart every three or four fill ups if i'm burning the whole tank so okay so like 12 quarts for the whole trip that would be great if it's only 12 quarts that'd be awesome we'll find out all right i don't know how often i'm gonna need to fill up the rotary so it's probably best that i buy just a bunch of oil and keep it with me i have a few other things with me as well to make sure that i'm treating the rotary as kindly as possible got my oil back here i've got my inimitsu pre-mix which we use in the gas tank and then down in here i've got uh my spark plugs so we've got the the leading and the trailing spark plugs and uh yeah so when we when you change some of those out we will be all set now that i'm loaded up on supplies we continue north into the night [Music] washington dc isn't a state but we decided to swing by for good measure we're headed up the east coast and into maryland as our second state on the checklist as we continued on i noticed that we kept stopping for gas quite a lot hey ben what's your fuel level look like well then we've got about 204 miles and i'm at a quarter tank hey that's actually not bad okay i'm like at a very like a tick over half so basically half how about how about we go to a gas station and fill up and uh do the math actually see what uh what kind of mpgs we're getting i don't think i want to know but okay i mean i have to go there anyways i think we're gonna find out one way or another yeah fair enough [Music] well the oil metering pump is working the rotary requires a bit of extra work during fill-ups to make sure the engine stays healthy it's just as important to fill up the oil and the pre-mix as it is the gas [Music] all right my official fuel economy 23.8 what do we get so yeah 14 and a half gallons so you used six more gallons so what's the math on that you got 14.8 miles per gallon okay chill out you kept asking me to shoot flames i know okay that's fair 14.8 highway all right it'll get better i'm sure it'll get [Music] better it feels like we aren't making any progress as we stop at what feels like every gas station along the way we've knocked out two of the states on the checklist as we head up the east coast ben's car is clearly less practical as he's getting around 16 miles per gallon and let's not even talk about how much oil he's consumed it's probably just a matter of time before he blows an apex seal unfortunately for me i'm way overconfident and sure enough the k-swapped fd is the first car to break well we are about to get to new york city and i look down i notice my voltage is running a little low on the car so i'm thinking maybe the alternator isn't charging the battery system um but because i have a k-series engine parts are readily available and there is an advanced auto 10 miles up the road so we're gonna go i'm just gonna buy another alternator rotaries are not good alternator was bad this is why you test out cars before you drive them on 48 state road trips but here we are and uh thankfully the alternator was under a lifetime warranty um so i'm just gonna return it to advance here and uh we'll be right back on our way fantastic ten minute ten minute delay that's not bad at all ten minutes later and we're back on the road but my confidence has gotten very low i'm nervous for the car and what else might go wrong but i'm glad i noticed the alternator issue when i did because we're about to cross into new york city and that's the last place that i want to be broken down now i can get back to making fun of ben's terrible fuel consumption hey ben what's your fuel level looking like i'm at about a half a tank so i'm assuming you might need to fill up here pretty soon yeah i do technically but we are in jersey yeah so what's wrong with being in jersey this is one of two states where you're not allowed to pump your own gas and typically i wouldn't really care but in this particular triangular situation i i have special needs ben [Music] hey man uh i have to put this into the gas tank do you want to do that or should i we should yep yeah the car is kind of picky about how you fill it up okay so um you see the level get it down to like about 24. can you do that so just down to about there okay more more just a little bit more a little bit more perfect thank you and uh 93. nice guy [Music] well then as taylor swift once said welcome to new york are you feeling 22 yeah uh shake it off the states through the northeastern part of the country are very condensed we've made our way through five states now and we'll hit a few more tonight as we drive towards maine [Music] we drove late last night to make some progress but between ben's breakdown and my constant need for fuel we're running a bit behind pace just to clarify a little bit on this trip we're trying to do all 48 states efficiently we don't necessarily have time to stop and see all the sights and sounds we've done that a lot in our previous road trips this trip is more about kind of can we do it um so a lot of these states were just blasting right through or just barely hitting um just to actually hit the state so we're not going to like special landmarks because that would double the length of this trip and uh this trip is already quite lengthy as it is so i mean yeah the objective is really just can both of these cars do it [Music] and after only three days we made it to maine holy crap it is cold dude i'm so glad the heat has started to work in my car a little bit that's good yeah you probably need it right now yeah i don't know what temperature it is but it's cold enough you know what consistently gives off good heat what could what rotary yeah believe it or not yeah yeah how hot is it in there oh i mean it's very comfortable oh that's good could be worse we'll see what happens when we get to texas well here it is maine maine huh yeah honestly i think most of the east coast looks pretty similar like i could see this in virginia maybe it's cold yeah it is cold oh you want to eat some food yeah do you like lobster oh perfect except i hate seafood well almost perfect after a nice meal it was time to turn west [Music] after hitting 10 states now the novelty of this trip is starting to wear off and the vibrations for my drivetrain and solid engine mounts were starting to give me a headache we k-swapped this car in just a few months and there wasn't enough time to get this project car to be more comfortable and complete but no worries there's still time so i've ordered some more interior pieces for this car last night while we're at our hotel uh i found some clips and some little tiny little plastic pieces here and there to help help continue to finish off the interior and hopefully that calms down some of the rattle i got this piece coming hopefully we'll have a we'll have a functional a pillar [Music] okay welcome to the rotary rx-7 it's pretty nice in here uh we've got a resting decibel about i don't know 75 db or something as we just cruise along the highway 3200 rpm going about 70 miles an hour in fifth gear very comfortable got apple or i'm sorry we got android android auto down here just uh got our google maps going got some spotify mazda mazda knows how to make a car i'll just leave it at that mazda knows how to make a car sitting here and i noticed a little puddle underneath the car and [Music] i think my power steering is leaking so i'm going to turn the pump off thankfully it's all you know it's electric power steering i don't know where it's leaking probably one of these fittings so i'll just turn the pump off and we'll drive with no power steering for now hopefully it's just a fitting it needs to be tightened down i don't know well it is not looking good for the k-swap fd we knew it would have some issues because you know it's a new project build it's still very fresh there's a lot to figure out but i think i need some spark plugs because the boost is cutting out on me when i get on to boost we're going to make a quick stop at advanced auto to change out my spark plugs and see if that fixes my issue i only have an issue when i'm on boost so it's not a catastrophic failure but what fun is an fd with no boost [Music] and i know i need to pop my hood every time we get gas to do oil and stuff but you're popping your hood more than i was expecting you to be on the strip yeah honestly i am too the spark plugs in this are still the original spark plugs uh they're not meant for boost so these are like original this was in like a honda odyssey like spark plugs rsx but sure okay they're all the same same thing yeah yeah wow okay another 10 minute park change and we're back on our way but before we leave i want to check where my power steering leak might be coming [Music] stop stop from okay found the leak jeez that's a big leak all right i'm definitely gonna have to make a new power steering line to fix that but that'll have to wait until later [Music] unfortunately the next day things weren't looking any better and it does appear that my brake lines are perspirating a little bit of horsepower uh in the form of a leakage at one of the fittings you said your brake lines yes that is correct my brake lines are leaking oh ben this is worrying i mean but it's okay because we're on the highway and on the highway you essentially never need to use the brakes so i think we're okay i don't know why i keep going through this it's like for some reason i think it's a good idea to take a freshly built project car on a road trip well i think it's more of a uh you're always rushing right like no even if you book something a year in advance one year later you're still gonna have 15 things half done on the car yeah honestly that's true and if you use the excuse of like it's not done yet i feel like it just might never happen you just gotta bite the bullet baby you just gotta jump into the deep end and the deep end is an 8 000 mile road trip we are 11 states down with 37 to go and i'm dying to stop somewhere to rest we're conveniently near niagara falls so we're gonna stop and see the sights and sounds this thing is freaking killing me dude oh is it not comfy no it's not my hands are like vibrating still oh no so how are you liking the k-series in the rx-7 be honest it's got potential okay i think that's the best way i can describe it like the recipe makes sense i'm just not executing well yet like it still needs a lot more money and stuff like it's it's definitely not a cost thing yeah like it's going to cost you a lot more money to do a case swap than a rotary you could probably buy 10 rotary engines for what it costs to do a case swap but once it's done i feel like you know i'm getting almost 10 miles per gallon more parts are readily available you know like it makes sense it just requires a lot of work not a lot of people have done it i've only seen like three people do it so nobody's really like ironed out the details you don't think it might be uh cursed do you people went ls swapping these things for years yeah there's a reason that most of the cars on the road are piston engines yeah because people are boring there's a reason most cars on the road are front wheel drive i think just because it makes the most sense yeah it's the most practical it's the most you know uh no nonsense exactly yeah yeah but i'm not into cars because i don't like nonsense i mean you slap a turbo on that thing 400 horsepower is is pretty nonsense and yet i'm still getting i'm getting 24 miles for everything i'm saying it doesn't work it's still a prototype it's still a prototype [Music] niagara falls arguably the eighth wonder of the world is a spectacular sight but it's not just the falls themselves that are beautiful the scenery here is peaceful and the squirrels are quite peculiar they're not afraid of people like most squirrels are it's rumored that they're so friendly because they came from canada i don't know somebody caught one apparently i've never seen squirrels so interested in people but we can't play with them all day we've gotta get back on the road [Music] despite traveling across a few thousand miles already both the rx7s are still looking clean and we're feeling like the coolest things on the road but we're wrong new york seems to be really loving their big lifted trucks they are everywhere i went inside to grab a snack at a gas station and i just can't get away from these lifted vehicles lifted veyron you must really like lifted vehicles there's a lifted ferrari 488 but the raptor is not lifted we keep making our way west across upstate new york the days are feeling shorter and shorter as we head deeper into the winter unfortunately that means we've got a lot of driving to do at night if we want to make any progress which is tough to do because we stop at what feels like every gas station you know ben this k-series thing has really grown on me it makes total sense i mean parts are cheap i can find them almost anywhere and it makes power super easy i mean i'm detuned and it's making 400 horsepower and i'm getting like 24 to 26 miles per gallon yeah i mean seems to make sense no problem modernizing an old car i mean this could get pretty decent gas mileage too i just you know i've been kind of like messing around and stuff shooting flames and whatnot but like obviously it can get a lot better they could probably do what that's doing but still cool then the only reason that we're stopping so often at these gas stations is for your car because i am like i'm at half a tank right now okay this no that's the same gas tank i could at least do what you're doing ben i can go like four or 500 miles on a tank this i could get significantly better one i can go at least as far as your car no it can't all right i'm not going to fill up until i need to next time and we'll see if you can keep up no problem you're gonna regret this ben you're gonna eat your own words this is the boy you're gonna get the horns you never should have said that i didn't show him not even my final form how you like low arrow mode the gloves have come off then you're about to see the full capabilities of a rotary engine low aero mode engage i got some tricks up my sleeves short shift like they do in racing never hit boost 3000 rpm shift oh coast coming up to a stop coast easy yeah you're gonna look real dumb buddy yeah you're gonna look like a real joker ben did you did you remove your wing i have absolutely no idea what you're talking about that little troll thinks that he can beat me got a mind like a steel trap i know every trick in the book there's no chance ben um the speed limit here is 70 miles an hour we're getting passed by everybody why are you going so slow you know exactly because your car is slow let me hear that turbo spool give me a give me a little pull all right ben now i know this is what the people really want uh this seems like a good stretch of road to do it so uh i think i think we're ready to do a quick little race right here you want to go no ben that doesn't seem responsible oh what's the matter i would kick his ass right now we've hit 14 states now soon to be 15 as we exit off the highway and drive one mile north just into michigan and u-turn to head back west hey uh just a quick michigan detour yeah i mean that counts we're just over 250 miles on my tank officially making this the longest i've driven without stopping for gas in this car it's starting to get dark out but if i leave my headlights down i should be able to decrease my drag coefficient over thorns hey ben it's getting pretty dark out here you really should probably have your headlights on then it is not my fault that you don't even have a grade school understanding of aerodynamics i'm feeling pretty smug about my efforts to hypermile the rotary no wing headlights down coasting short shifting driving at the peak mile per hour for the peak afr but hang on i'm still almost out of gas [Music] despite my best efforts it looks like i'm gonna have to give this one to ben's grimy piston engine okay then i concede i gotta get some gas man i was wondering when you're gonna ask i think this is the furthest that we've gone i i do you know how many miles it's been yeah it's uh 320. well uh this is embarrassing ben for you when you when you see how good a gas mileage this thing got oh yeah we'll see you gonna are you gonna break into the twos maybe oh i don't know what that means like the 20s oh this one sure yeah i'd like to have you in the in the 20s club with me sure yeah yeah no problem coming right up what'd you get i got 21 and a half miles away damn i think that is an all-time best for rotaries ever that's seriously that is impressive wow 21.5 miles per gallon may just be an all-time record fuel economy for the 13b and i don't even care what thorne got 28.1 that's that's what you look for in a sports car is fuel economy yeah that's the new goal 30 miles per gallon [Music] we're in chicago illinois so we thought we'd stop by our friends at gridlife and have them give us the chicago tour but first let's check out gridlife's [Music] headquarters good to see you man welcome to chicago this is uh from what i understand an old tank factory is what it was originally so we've got all of our like little joke cars like the the van over there and and these things in my crx and then walking into here this is a kind of shop and storage so we've got all of our festival stuff over here and a little chill zone all the merch gets shipped over here we've got a printing press yeah rad i'm stoked you guys uh finally made the stop i feel like you always whiz by us tonight's gonna be rad we're gonna do kind of the uh the dark knight tour so we're gonna go into the city uh go below lower what below whacker drive above lacquer drive down michigan avenue along the lake shore see all the buildings it's gonna be rad [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] the group's too big [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so chicago was a breath of fresh air it's so great to be able to hang out with our friends and drive around this awesome city but it's time to move on to many more states [Music] okay ben good morning and i guess technically good afternoon short drive today just gonna make a small detour as you know ben i've spent a lot of time in our next state here wisconsin uh my my good friend andy smith guards up there i think maybe we can just stop at his shop for a little bit uh you know just get some stuff done on my car you know normally i would say that's not really in the spirit of a road trip but uh in your case i think i think your car uh needs and deserves it yeah i mean i just got i have a little few things to do and you know my brake line as you know is still kind of leaking uh so for the sake of safety you know i think we really should probably address that maybe replace the brake lines um and you know while we're in there maybe do some you know motor mounts some softer motor mounts you know just a few other things it'll only take like a few days sorry ben you're breaking up a little bit it sounded like you said a few days you said a couple hours a couple days yeah the k-swapped fd could use some maintenance and we're conveniently in wisconsin where andy's metagard's shop is he's the guy that did the k-swap on my fd and i'm relieved that i'm here because i know that he can take care of any issues that i've had hey so uh the car has been really great now but like the the vibrations are really bad okay so i'm thinking if we can put in some like software mounts like 68 durometer mounts that'd be awesome i also have a rear diff coming uh to lower the rpms a little bit uh which speaking of which the speedometer doesn't work oh and the power steering uh was leaking i also have some interior plastics i mean i can throw those in oh yeah the brake line unfortunately is leaking i don't know if i i think i sent you a picture about that i was even thinking about maybe maybe changing the transmission out i could find one some different gearing sure [Music] [Music] yeah but the car is awesome it's still running it's still running exactly i can't believe it's still going either i thought for sure i was going to have to take a road trip pick it up well i mean 17 states down there's still there's still 30 years too

Channel: Gears and Gasoline

Views: 1,930,935

Rating: 4.9642944 out of 5

Keywords: road trip, Gears and Gasoline, GG, 48 states, 48, continental, epic, big, driving, mazda, FD, RX7, FD3s, Kswap, K-swap, K Swapped, Rotary, 13b, k20

Id: MMGvCH4ljcE

Length: 33min 34sec (2014 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 23 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/HilariouslyLargeBong]

Man the Rx7 is one of the most beautiful 90’s era cars IMO

[u/agod2486]

It's been really fun to follow these guys on Instagram as they built out these cars in different ways. I love that they're able to take them on these crazy adventures and makes me think I'll be able to do something similar one day!

[u/NoNameNoWerries]

TRIANGLES

[u/Persian2PTConversion]

I wonder how their lower backs feel after that. I got lower back pain just from a 2 hour drive in my S2000. The RX7 seems to have more or less the same comfort level.

[u/Bartholomeuske]

I didn't know rx7 were so bad on fuel.

[u/magus-21]

I hope people turn off their ad blockers for this channel. These guys deserve the revenue.

[u/R35VolvoBRZ]

They are both great. But the red one is absolutely beautiful.

[u/Playful_Art_5364]

Takashi bros back to remake Project D.

But for all real news I want an RX7 now. Wish they kept making them.

[u/Hurr1canE_]

I WILL own an FD RX7 in the next few years. CYM, mazdaspeed wing and 99 spec kit is the absolute dream.

They're just too cool. Or hot, I guess.