- Stick around to the end of this video because I have a huge announcement about the future of this show. Yes we did an Up To Speed on the RX-7 a little over two years ago. No you are not going crazy. It was our seventh episode of this series. This is everything you need
to know to get up to speed on the Mazda RX-7. And I sounded like I don't even
care about this freaking car but guys I want you to know that I do. I love this car. I care and love about this car so much that I wanted to do it again. Today we're gonna talk about this automotive icon's game changing tech. How it developed over it's lifetime and dive deep into the awesome community centered around this car, they've seen a huge resurgence right now. (squealing tires) Buckle up for the best reboot since Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man because this is everything
you need to know to get up to speed on the
Mazda RX-7 2020 edition. (upbeat music) A big old thank you governor to Keeps for once again sponsoring today's episode of Up To Speed. You've heard about all the signs. One day you've got a full,
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action and prevent hair loss, go to keeps.com/uptospeed50 or click the link in the description to receive 50% off your first order. That's K-E-E-P-S .com/uptospeed50 and now back to the show. Up to Speed. Chapter one, Willy
Wankel's Dorito factory. Augustus Gloop is stuck in the apex seals. Old me was right about one thing. It would be impossible to discuss the RX-7 without talking about its engine. We really do need to start with the motor because it's why this car is so unique. The RX-7 used what's called
a Wankel rotary engine and if you've been watching Donut, you know that we've talked
about this engine a bunch. - It's time to do a
deep dive on the rotary. - The Wankel rotary. The magic Dorito boss. - I love rotaries, I need to get an RX-7. - A rotary engine. - It's rotary time. - And if that's not enough, you can listen to the literal two hours of us talking about it
in a two part series of our podcast Past Guest. I'll put a link to that
in the description below. The Wankel rotary engine
was invented in 1951 by a dude named Dr. Felix Wankel which is objectively top 10 funniest names in automotive history and there are a ton of funny
names in the history of cars. And it was designed to be an alternative to the piston engine. The quick and dirty version
of how this thing works, is gonna be covered in a Tech Talk. (upbeat music) An engine creates force by trapping fuel air
mixture inside a chamber, pressurizing it and exploding it. The force from those explosions moves the parts of the engine, which in turn move the
rest of the drive tram. In the standard four stroke engine, pistons create those pressure chambers. In a rotary engine, a triangular rotor creates
them hence the name. It does that by rotating around the inside of an oblong oval. As it moves, it creates space
to intake more fuel mixture while simultaneously pressurizing fuel in another part of the oval. There are pro's and cons
to both which again, if you wanna know more detail about that, check out those other videos. But the top line benefits
of a rotary engine are weight, power and price, surprisingly no matter what you've heard. The Wankel has a power
to weight ratio of 3:1 over a standard engine. It also revs at significantly higher RPM's and since it doesn't have
nearly as many parts, it's much cheaper to produce
than a piston engine. In the 60's Mazda's
president Tsuneji Matsuda saw potential in the rotary engine and licensed it from NSU. NSU used to be Audi. Pretty cool. And NSU Audi were the first ones to pick it up from Dr. Wankel. Once they had the tech, an engineer in Mazda
named Kenichi Yamamoto solved the last big
problem with the engine, apex seals. There's a big problem with rotaries and that problem much like my
middle school football team is scoring. As the triangle in a rotary rotates, the tips or apexes score
the inside of the oval and over time this means incomplete seals in the combustion chamber leading to engine failure. So what do you do? You put a strip of
graphite over those apexes that wear more evenly and preserve the
integrity of the chambers, an invention called an apex seal. Now NSU and Audi had a
version of the apex seal but it was Yamamoto who
really improved the design making this engine a viable option. So with that problem solved and like a bunch of boring legal stuff that includes the gas crisis that you guys don't wanna hear about, after that stuff was solved, it was finally time for this bad boy to be dropped into one of the
most bad ass cars of all time. This is not an up to speed on the rotary, this is an up to speed on the RX-7, I'm talking about the myth, the prettiest boy at the bowl, the RX-7. Chapter two, the FB RX-7. Mazda's first car with the Wankel was the 1967 Mazda Cosmo. It was a halo car and was gonna serve as
their proof of concept for the rotary engine. On their next rotary model, Mazda went all in. The RX-3 Savanna was after
the Cosmo in the rotary lineup and it developed a rep as being sporty despite being a five seat passenger car with no particular performance features. That's how much fun everyone was having with the Wankel. Mazda saw this and said, oh you like fun well why
didn't you say something, we can give you fun. And they got to work on the RX-7. Which would be a true sports car. For this car, Mazda took their inspiration from the Lotus Elan And you can see it in
the long sloping hood with the pop up, up and
down freaking headlights. I mean these things just look really fast. Oh yeah immediately I could tell that that is a very fast car but I am a very intuitive person. You stink. Now Mazda knew that
customers might be wary of buying performance a car with a rotor since it was so unfamiliar. So they idiot proofed the rest of the car to keep from intimidating customers. It's like when you're trying
to get your kid to eat broccoli so you put a bunch of cheese on top. In this case the cheese
was the super simple MacPherson struts up front and an unfussy live axle in the back. Disc brakes for the front
and drum brakes in the back which any mechanic will be familiar with. The steering was a very
simple worm and roller system rather than the more
complex rack and pinion, now we'll come back to that in a minute. And if all that is gooberly good to you, just know that it's a very,
very simple standard set up and it was all done intentionally to make this car totally approachable in spite of this wild new power train. The simplicity did have
a draw back though. None of this stuff that I just said is particularly sporty and this was a gosh darn sports car. You know what I mean. Mazda wasn't worried though because what it lacked in performance technology it made up for in weight distribution. She's a good looking car, she's got good weight distribution. And because Wankels are so small, Mazda could put it low in the
car and behind the front axle. They called it a front midshift design. And it meant that the RX-7 had
a near perfect 50/50 balance and a very low center of gravity. The car debuted in 1978, this first model was called the FB and made a blistering 101 horsepower People were still psyched for it though because the curb rate was just
2300 pounds so it could zip. Rotary engines by design
need to be driven hard or they build up carbon deposits. So Mazda actually advised people to drive this at red line a lot. And enthusiasts were like, okay, twist my arm why don't you. Performed so well at high rev that Mazda actually had to
install a warning buzzer to let you know you needed to pull back because the car felt
so right being pushed. And before the end of the first gen, Mazda introduced, a turbo version. Which upped the power up to 160. So considering the weight, this thing absolutely freaking flew. (screeching tires) Chapter three, ABFC. The second generation of the RX-7 would be completely restyled and instead of a Lotus inspiration, designers looked at
Porsche 924's and 944's. Just as it did during the
end of the FB generation, these new FC's would have
two engine options baby. The naturally aspirated 12A and the turbo 13B. This time the 12A would
make 146 horsepower and the 13B would put out 189, almost double the original base model which means, say it with me, more power baby. I didn't even exist the
last time you did this one. I made you and you all made me. I'm not even real, I'm a figment of your
collective consciousness. - [Narrator] New RX-7. - Mazda took the opportunity to make the whole thing more refined. The FC was launched in 1986. So the RX-7 had been around long enough so they didn't need to
baby mechanics anymore. The most noticeable change was the upgrade to rack
and pinion steering. First RX-7's oversteer was so bad on account of the worm and roller, but the rack and pinion helped
to clear that up a little. Handling was also improved by the addition of fully independent suspension and a dynamic traction suspension system which offered limited rear steering to fully correct oversteer. And disk brakes all around 'cause it aint fun to go
fast if you can't stop. Overall this generation
had a much softer feel, in line with the GT car. Some enthusiasts were
a little disappointed by the more disconnected feel but it sold great. It blows my mind that people
were saying this that long ago. It basically drives itself, it's like it's such a primitive car. Now it feels like you're
driving a skateboard. This gen would see a few special models. There was a convertible, which was way cooler than James Gardener made
it look in the commercial. - Spend some time getting
to know Mazda's new RX-7, but I'll warn you, it will flat spoil you for anything else. - There was also the
10th anniversary edition with 16 inch wheels, crystal white paint, freaking bronze tinted windows, I didn't even know that was a thing. And a rotor emblem on the front fender. The tag for it was, 'Very special, very scarce'. Which is actually the same way I described Donut's new gas crisis shirt. Remember when I made a joke about making an oil crisis shirt? And you guys were like,
yeah you should do that. Well we did it. Go to donutmedia.com and get yourself a sweet oil crisis shirt. It's got a car coming out of a thing and oil squirting all over the place. And then it's got all the
milaze cars there on the bottom. It's one of my favorite
designs that we've ever done. I love the gas can on the front. Go to donutmedia.com and get you one. Up To Speed. There was also a limited
run of an RX-7 GTU model designed to be even more
light weight for racing. That made sense because by this point, the RX-7 had a super
impressive motor sports resume. Going back a little bit, early in it's history in 1979, RX-7's placed first and second
at the 24 hours of Daytona. Then in 1981 it edged out a BMW
530i for a win in the Spa 24 which made a huge statement, not only for Japanese
sports cars in general, but also for this new
Wankel triangle engine. Professional racers and cool
but dangerous street racers started picking up RX-7, so Mazda made a model for them. Chapter four, the yellow
one from the cartoon. The next big redesign came
in 1992 with the FD RX-7, and for a lot of you this is
why you're watching this video. The FD is not only arguably the best RX-7, it's one of the best Japanese
sports cars of all time. For starters, it's absolutely beautiful. I mean look at this thing. It's one of the prettiest cars ever made. I love them. Mazda did away with the molding around the exterior of
the previous generation, for an incredibly clean, unbroken line. They even hid the door
handle up near the window so that nothing interrupts
the visual flow. Very, very Mazda. While the first model
was inspired by a Lotus and the second model was
inspired by a Porsche on the FD Mazda designers
went completely their own way. It's just timeless. And it's not just the look
that makes the FD a legend. It has to be said again because
it's so important to the car the RX-7's weight
distribution was incredible. It was so well balanced and the handling was so precise that you could just toss this car around. And this generation was a return to it's more performance oriented roots. It was a touring model yeah, but enthusiasts loved the R model. The R stands for (growling). It's stiffer suspension
because of Bilstein shocks, they had a oil cooler so you
don't overheat at the track, they had front air dam and a big old spoiler and finally any video about the RX-7 is gonna include a section on the FD's ultra smooth
sequential twin turbo. All the videos make such
a big deal out of this because that power delivery meant a boost for almost the entire rev range. Because rotary engines don't
really make a lot of torque until they get in the higher RPM's, this was a game changer for performance. It was amazing. So if everyone loved the FD so much, why did Mazda cancel it in 2002? What the hell happened to it? Well a few things. First of all we've been
talking for most of the video about how amazing rotary engines are but if they're so amazing, why doesn't every car have one or literally any other car? Because it turns out, they're kind of a pain in the (beep). Remember those graphite apex
seals I was talking about? They break and wear out, kind of a lot. And when they do you can
have total engine failure. To protect the seals oil
is injected into the engine but that leads to its own problems which also has a little bit
to do with another problem, bad emissions. Wankels get really crapy fuel economy and the 13V turbo in
particular gets very hot. So hot in fact that Mazda had
to put a huge warning light right on the center stack and in addition to all of that, Ford showed up at the party
and did what Ford does, ruin the party. Ford bought a controlling
share of Mazda in the 90's and went to work on a new car, the RX-8. Nobody will directly say that the RX-8 was meant to replace the RX-7 but the timing and name
are very suspicious. The RX-8 tried to solve a
lot of the RX-7's problems but in doing so created some real messes. Rather than being a compact two seater, it was now a weird four door thing four seater which meant that it was longer and it was heavier. So that perfect weight
balance was off now, ruined. They also tried to overcome
the heat and emissions problems by getting rid of the freaking turbo. Without the turbo, the RX-8 got very little torque, maxing out at 160 pound-feet That's like a freaking 90's Honda. It does have it's fans, I don't wanna poopoo on it but the general consensus is that this car was a mere shadow of the
thrill that was the RX-7. Chapter five, the RX-7 legacy. Now one of the things that I mentioned in the intro to this
video is the community and how the community around this car is having a really big
resurgence right now. Something that I didn't
get into at all last time, was just how much this
car means to car people. For a car nerd this is like up there. This is like one of those, you know. It's like pretty much on
everyone's bucket list. First of all, a whole generation of enthusiasts was basically created by stuff
like The Fast and The Furious and Dominic Toretto
himself drove a '93 FD. This '93 FD, if you pay close attention, you'll even see an animation
of the inside of the motor even though I'm pretty sure
they used V8 noises for it. And if Fast and Furious didn't
turn you into a car person, a video game might have. And the RX-7 grew up right
alongside driving games. So it's all over the place. Here it is in Gran Turismo, here it is in Forza, here it is in Initial D, here it is in Sega GT. You could literally grow up with the car by playing it in your bedroom, if you were lucky enough to
have a TV in your bedroom. And if pretending to be
a pretend race car driver isn't your thing and you just wanna watch
pretend race car drivers do their thing, there's a little thing called Initial D where not one but two of the
main characters drive RX-7's. And if you don't like
pretend races at all, the RX-7 kept ripping in
real life for instance. Like I said, once it
established itself on the scene, it stayed there. In 1991 Mazda took everything
they learned from the RX-7 and applied it to the 787B which would go on to win
the 24 hours of Le Mans That would be the first time
a Japanese car would win and it wouldn't happen
again until Toyota and Gazoo took it in 2018. There's a very, very
interesting story to this race and if you wanna learn more about that, I can't encourage you enough to check out our two part
podcast on the rotary. Listen to this thing. (roaring engine) Sounds like a pissed off pig. The RX-7 was also the winning car in the IMSA Circuit in the 80's. The RX-7 dominated the MCGTU
series for 10 solid years. From 1982 through '92 and won more IMSA races
than any other model. All this stuff means that there's some really special examples that car folks have gotten into. We did a whole bumper to bumper on High Low co-host Erin Parker's FD, but I'm mentioning it again here so that we can put it on screen because it is so sick, definitely one of the coolest
cars that my friends have, and Erin's one of my coolest friends. Abel Obara has a virtual RX-7 empire as the most famous person ever
to drag race a rotary engine. If you're at all into rotaries, you gotta check out
what that dude's doing. You've also gotta check
out Rob Dom's RX-7. It's a four rotor beast
with all wheel drive that he's been working on for years. This thing is a engineering marvel. That thing's awesome, he has a million videos on it you should check him out. And everybody's favorite crocs God, Hert from Hoonigan has
a 450 horse power RX-7 that he's lovely nick
named the twerk stallion. It's a very, very cool car. It's. Good job Hert. Now all these guys make
awesome videos with rad cars so technically they're my competition but I gotta shout 'em out
because car culture is most fun when it's about community and that community is at it's raddest when you're talking about
something as unique, as rare as fully freaking legendary as the Mazda RX-7. Hey guys for the first time in 167 weeks, we're gonna take a little
tiny break on Up To Speed. Nothing's changing, we just got some really big eps coming up and we wanna focus on those plus I promised Nolan that I would teach him how to ride a bike by the end of the summer and summer's almost over. So I wanna be a good friend and teach my friend how
to ride a two wheeler. We'll be back in about a month with bigger, badder,
cooler, sweeter shows, until then, you can watch me on the D-List, you can listen to me on the podcast and I love you. So post your RX-7 up on Instagram, tag me @jamespumphrey, tag Donut @donutmedia. I'll throw you guys on my story, give you a little shout. Thank you guys for watching this video and all the other videos on Donut. If you liked it make sure
you hit that subscribe button and the notification bell so you don't miss anything.
