World's First Rotary DeLorean
We have been running this vehicle for a year and a half- and about 5000 miles since we built it. There have only been a few changes since then; we finished the air conditioning system and have tested many different fuel pumps.
At first
glance it simply looks like a black Delorean. If you've seen the car on the road, you'd realize that this is very far from the truth. The stock Delorean was armed
with a 2.8 Liter foreign engine with about 130HP. We determined that
this was not satisfactory for a car with the looks and handling of the
Delorean. So... we made a few changes…
ENGINE
We've successfully
installed a Mazda 3-rotor rotary engine into this car! Rotary people
know this engine as the 20B, it is a 1.962 liter engine with sequential
twin turbos. This engine was originally made for the Mazda Eunos
Cosmo, we picked up a model year 1990. This engine yields about 300HP, and
297ft-lb of torque at 3000RPM. We have not had the time to weigh
the car, though the stock Delorean claimed just over a 2700 pound dry
weight. We guess that the 2.0 liter rotary and the 2.8L PRV V-6 engine
weigh about the same. With this horsepower and low weight, this car
really moves!
Transmission
It was determined
that using the stock transmission with this engine would not be a very
good choice. Some parties claim that the stock transmission was very
reliable and well built, others have told us about transmissions that they
ripped in half with 250 and 300 horsepower. Plus, it only makes sense
to get a stronger transmission when you're increasing the stock engine's
horsepower by over 230 percent! For this reason, we bought a Porsche
6-speed manual transmission with Limited Slip Differential. It came
out of a 1995 Porsche 911 Carrera 2.
Digital Dashboard<
We took
the dashboard that came with the Eunos Cosmo and stuffed it into the Delorean
as well. The Delorean dashboard is quite dated, and the Cosmo dashboard cluster seemed like a reasonable replacement choice. The Cosmo dash cluster is partially digital and partially analog.
The trip gauge and odometer are digital, as are the fuel gauge and engine
temperature gauge. The tachometer and speedometer are analog, with
a thin red line in front of cool blue dials. The "180" speedometer
is in KPH, not MPH, so really only goes up to 112MPH. The theoretical top speed of the vehicle is
164MPH. This was determined using computer programs to calculate aerodynamic, powertrain,
and other frictional losses. For the Delorean people: I removed the angle drive and replaced it with a hall effect sensor. The new dash openly accepted this change…
When the
car is off, the dashboard is, obviously, off as well. We put in a
tinted piece of plastic in front of the dashboard, so when the car is off,
the dashboard is completely opaque. We found a radio that does the
exact same thing!
We also installed
some other buttons and displays that has a clock, average speed-meter (where
the ashtray used to be), and other trip meter controls. We also installed a 'start' button, the red button in the picture.
Some videos of the car are available!
Click
here to download the low resolution WINDOWS MEDIA video.
Click
here to download the high resolution WINDOWS MEDIA video.
Click
here to download the low resolution REAL MEDIA video.
If the movie does not load properly, you may have to open your Windows Media player and use the "open URL" option.
Warning:
This car is very fast. Very Stylish. May attract women.
We brought it to a car show and we didn't even have to ask the models to
come stand by it. Click here
to see what I mean....
We brought the vehicle to another show, where it won "Best Exotic".
**Performance update** Zero to 60 has been measured at 4.5 seconds. Quarter mile has not been tested, but is estimated to be about 13 seconds.
This car is **SOLD**
Email Jim.
Here are some links that you might be interested in:
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