Finding a flawless, daily-driven 25 year-old project car is like finding oil in your backyard—rare as fugg. But after perusing the Motion Auto Show earlier this year, we were proven wrong. Ryan Deguzman had just finished this breathtaking ’87 Mazda RX-7 with all the right parts and styling cues. And he wasn’t any pansy either. The 33 year-old drove this FC to work everyday with 350whp of rotary power at his disposal.
Like all of us, Ryan’s been building cars since he was a teenager. “I had a few Hondas and then got a 350Z in ’03,” he began. “Everything started evolving from there but I noticed everyone was getting into Zs. So I came up on an RX-7 and never looked back.”
Now grown-up with a career in the pharmacy industry, Ryan had the bank to live his childhood dreams and build badass cars. But why the hell an RX-7? “It’s just something different,” he explained. “A lot of people were fixing up other cars because of the bad reputation rotaries had.”
Ryan’s journey started with the newer and more popular FD chassis. His ’93 RX-7 had all the right equipment with Endless brakes, HKS suspension, SSR wheels, custom yellow paint and more. It took him two years to finish his first rotary build. “But I definitely underestimated it,” he laughed. “FD’s nickname is financial disaster. You can’t go half-ass on it because it’s not your typical kind of car. You really have to take your time and take care of a lot of stuff. I’m always changing the oil religiously and making sure the plugs are good.”
With a little more experience and rotary knowledge under his belt, Ryan moved on from the finished project and picked up this ‘87 FC last year. The goal was to make the car reliable and fast yet still maintain its classic look. Not an easy task especially since he would be doing all the work from his small two-car garage. But he was up for the challenge…
If you’re unfamiliar with a rotary, flip back to our September issue where we broke it down in detail. The jist of the engine is that the internals use rotors as opposed to pistons (hence the name rotary, duh). So instead of pistons moving up and down to create combustion, rotors spin to experience the intake, compression, ignition and exhaust cycles.
Ryan’s ride came with a powerful turbocharged 13B Series 4 motor rated at 182hp from the factory; however, he picked up a lower-mileage Series 5 motor as well. Both 13Bs were pretty much identical except for some advantages in the cooling, injectors and compression that gave it a 12hp bump. “But I was going to change all that anyways,” Ryan laughed.
A common power-building technique involves porting the rotary housings. This increases the amount of air moving through the engine, thus improving power especially on the top-end. Ryan opted for a mild “street” port which also retained factory-like drivability.
Addressing boost came next. “When upgrading turbos, it’s not advised for a rotary to use anything smaller than a T4,” he revealed. “Most people go with a GT35R or T4 but I wanted more response so I went with a T3-size ball-bearing GT30R. This way, I’m getting full boost at 3800rpm to 8000rpm with a flat torque line all the way up.”
The quick-spooling turbo mounted up to a high-flow HKS manifold. The injectors were also upgraded to 1000cc Injector Dynamics parts, along with larger stainless fuel lines. Then, Ryan added an AEM water-meth kit to reduce air inlet temperatures.
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We don’t blame Ryan for switching out his stock seats for these sick Recaro Pole Positions