Group B RX-7

I don't know much, but a guy named Dave Paveley in the UK is getting ready to run in some vintage rally events. Apparently its one of the actual 20 Group B RX-7s Mazda built.

I'm asking the old timers at Mazda to see if any of them have any good stories...












-Dave

Sweet car, and awesome house! I wish you could find that kind of styling here

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Welcome to the cult of JVL drink the koolaid or be banned.

Dude is my hero.

Love limestone and love group b shit

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MAKE NEGATIVES of all those flares!

Cheers

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Andrew M
Onterrible
30ish

It can't just be me

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Andrew M
Onterrible
30ish

No kidding! If he made negatives of those bad boys, I'd buy an RX7 for my next rally car simply for that reason!

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Ben Hetland
1973 Volvo 142 project car (with some cone-smashing on dirt in it's future, however)

"No. Rally Racing is a back alley sport filled with jackals, headhunters and thugs!"
-Pops Racer (Speed Racer movie)

www.utahrallygroup.com

If you're talking about the house, you can... You're just on the wrong side of the country.

And Dave, nice pics!! And there you go again with the Rally Compe wheels. You're killin' me.

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Michael LeCompte



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/2009 07:59PM by pikespeakgtx.

I was told that the fenders etc. are still available, but I haven't been able to find out where from. (And that Mazda wasn't the driving force behind the Group B effort)

I have a few piccies I found somewhere, will try to dig them up. The part that kind of surprised me is that the rear suspension is remarkably stock. It appears that they retained the spring mounts, shock mounts, Watts link, lower links, and upper link mounts on the axles, and then used lower links on top after cutting into the wheeltubs suitably to make mounts. Kind of halfway making it like a Gp4 Escort.



What kinda axle? Looks almost like a full-floater.

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/2009 09:07PM by Pete.

I'm not extremely familiar with RX-7's, but I assume that's about an '84 first gen, right?

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Ben Hetland
1973 Volvo 142 project car (with some cone-smashing on dirt in it's future, however)

"No. Rally Racing is a back alley sport filled with jackals, headhunters and thugs!"
-Pops Racer (Speed Racer movie)

www.utahrallygroup.com

One of the chassis engineers in my office, Yoshihiro Watanabe, said one of his first jobs at Mazda was measuring the bent axles coming out of these cars so they could figure out where to reinforce them.

I've also spent some time with Takao Kijima, the lead suspension engineer for all three RX-7 generations and the first two Miata generations, and the program manager for the current Miata. He told me about the first time he visited the team and watched the car in action. When he saw how high they were getting on the jumps (I think he was in Finland), he realized he had underestimated the forces on the axle by a factor of 3. He went back to Japan, redesigned it, and they suddenly stopped breaking axles.

So I have no idea what kind of axle it was, but I know who designed it...

-Dave

Looks like an '84 to me too, but the owner said 1987. That's 2 years into the 2nd gen body style, but who knows, maybe they were still racing the old one?

-Dave

That'd be the only downside of getting a hold of a set of those flares, is getting axles or spacers out far enough so is doesn't look totally retarded.

But still, for it to look that great, I'd find a way...probably by asking everybody on here.

The hunt for fenders begins!

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Ben Hetland
1973 Volvo 142 project car (with some cone-smashing on dirt in it's future, however)

"No. Rally Racing is a back alley sport filled with jackals, headhunters and thugs!"
-Pops Racer (Speed Racer movie)

www.utahrallygroup.com

eyesoreracing Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Looks like an '84 to me too, but the owner said
> 1987. That's 2 years into the 2nd gen body style,
> but who knows, maybe they were still racing the
> old one?
>
> -Dave


It's not an '87. Group B was banned in 1986 and 1987 was the first year of Group A & N only. Mazda Rally Team Europe was on to the 323 by then (actually already starting with Monte Carlo in 1986.) MRTE used the Group B RX-7s in select rallies in 1984 & '85. Their best finish was 3rd overall by Ingvar Carlson at the 1985 Acropolis. Rod Millen finished 9th overall at the last rally they used them at, the 1985 RAC. (I have that one on tape.) They sold a few cars to privateers as well. Much like the Opel Ascona 400 the rear axle was the Achilles heel. They had a lot of failures there.

As you can see from the photos, the car was not really exotic compared to most of the other Group B cars. Just a peripheral port 13B with a Weber carb and some fancy fiberglass. Actually, Andrew Havas' RX-7 is quite a bit more developed and more trick than these cars. Back then to be eligible for Group A had to have a back seat and you had to rally with it in the car! Mazda had a 2+2 Rx-7 so that qualified. Road racer Dave Jolly finished 22nd in the 1986 Olympus WRC in one. You always think of the monster Audis and Peugeot 205T16's and such when you think of Group B, but there were different classes. Ray Hocker ran a Honda CRX in Group B (class 11. Class 12 was for the big boys) in the 1986 Olympus. It was a pretty much stock car. Why Group B, why not Group A or N you ask? Because it had no back seat! It was a 2 seater and therefore only eligible for Group B!

eyesoreracing Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Looks like an '84 to me too, but the owner said
> 1987. That's 2 years into the 2nd gen body style,
> but who knows, maybe they were still racing the
> old one?

AFAIK, all GpB RX-7s were 1984. Maybe they competed with them until 1987. (When was Group B banned for non-international rallying? Was it ever fully banned?)

Doivi Clarkinen Wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------
>Actually, Andrew Havas' RX-7 is quite a bit more
>developed and more trick than these cars.

Sure, hindsight plus more time for development. (Plus the orange paint)

When I get to look in-depth at Group B cars it amazes me how much of them is so.... hokey. Like they were given a car and told, you have a month, now go build it. Money's no object, here's $20.

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2009 07:55AM by Pete.

Pete Wrote:
> (When was Group B
> banned for non-international rallying? Was it
> ever fully banned?)

Since they were going to run one at a NASA Rally Sport event (Rally Idaho) earlier this year... I'd say no, it was never fully banned. And even though I don't think that panned out, they had three of them competing at Rally Barbados last year.

So they're still out there and running. (that's how you end the camp fire ghost stories. )

Anders

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

is that an oil cooler hiding in the spoiler?

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