I love our East Coast followers: They're just so enthusiastic. Usually when we shoot a West Coast car the owner joins the Witness Protection Program shortly before the photo shoot, conveniently making information about the car impossible to source. East Coast people are cut from a different cloth, though. They love their cars, but they love published affirmation of their work even more.
For this Fort Myers, Fla., 1993 Mazda RX-7 and its owner, Harrison Schultz, we rolled out the red carpet treatment. We flew out our ber-professional photographer-who happens to be one crazy Red Bull and coffee chugging, red-eyed late night owl-to Florida and told him to grab the very soul of Schultz's RX-7. Since the photo shoot took place thousands of miles away and our photographer was only tasked with grabbing photos, I expected some very slim written information. Would I have to make 30 long-distance phone calls to get the info? No, racking up that kind of bill would probably get me fired. If I were going to lose my job over this feature, I would just make up all the Mazda's mods: four-barrel carbs, unobtanium driveshaft, and a genuine Stonefish transmission.
But I was in for a pleasant surprise. Schultz is a very hardcore third-generation RX-7 enthusiast, and it showed. Modifications were clearly listed; he provided more than enough background; plus the car looked pretty damned good.
This story starts during Schultz's pubescent days, a time when his voice started changing, hair started growing in strange places and he started noticing things-like RX-7s. Unable to afford a FD3S RX-7 to go with his newly earned license, Schultz settled on a Ford Probe GT. Not quite the rotary beast, but at least it had a single turbo hung on it.
Five years later Schultz still only had one thing on his mind: to get an RX-7. He listed his Probe for sale. The buyer was in Kentucky, but this RX-7 was for sale in Virginia, which spelled out "road trip." With a friend in tow, Schultz trekked from Florida to Kentucky and pocketed $8,000 for his old Ford, which broke its transmission during the test drive. As Schultz put it, "I drove it this far, so you're SOL." One snowstorm later and Schultz was in Virginia handing over large, unmarked bills for his very own RX-7.
Back in his Southern climate, Schultz grew dissatisfied with the car's semimodified condition. He thought he could improve boost response and power output. That's where a stop at Rotary Extreme came in. The complicated stock sequential twin-turbocharger setup was dumped for a Rotary Extreme 60-1 single turbo kit, along with the very first Rotary Extreme Monster V-mount intercooler and radiator setup. Making room for that setup is a Rotary Extreme minibattery and polished battery box, which matches the polished piping, intake manifold and aluminum AST. Backing up the new turbo is a set of 1300cc secondary fuel injectors fed by a Walbro fuel pump and an HKS Twin Power ignition amplifier with NGK plugs and wires. Tuned with an A'PEXi Power FC, everything was all and well-for a while. Then rotary hell struck: an apex seal broke.