Tesla Powered Mazda RX-7 Could Be The Best Swap Ever Performed
I know for a fact a lot of you may disagree with this, but it makes complete sense to take what is a flawed engine out of a brilliant car, and replace it with an all-electric powertrain. Hear me out.
The Mazda RX-7, while modified can produce a lot of horsepower, only makes 276 horses from its 13B Rotary engine. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love this engine. I love the way it revs, I love the way it produces power, and I love the way it sounds. But sometimes you have to sacrifice something to produce something beautiful.
This RX-7, nicknamed Project Lithium, embraces the powertrain of a Tesla Model S, and produces 400 horsepower instantly. There’s no word as to how much the car weighs however, and as far as we can tell, the batteries have been placed at the front of the car, which isn’t perfect in regards to weight ratios.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2tCkpNgbi3/
Looking through the Instagram account of this project, it’s fair to say the car wasn’t in a good condition before the swap, so don’t think this was a perfect RX-7 that’s been stolen from the road. It was junk, and the owner went through a lot of work to pull this off. Plus, there have been hurdles getting the EV powertrain to work. “The drive unit inverter failed” and“the precharge relay and resistor exploded,” they posted to Instagram back in December 2019.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bzo1UmbJflU/
While this may offend some Rotary enthusiasts, and trust me, I get it, just be grateful that it’s not yet another LS swap that plagues these cars. It’s something different, and we applaud that. Now all I’m wondering, is where can we find an RX-7 shell so we can do it ourselves?
