Heat. A word many rotary engine car owners know all too well.

The last two times I drove my RX7 FD and boosted it hard I had water temps sky rocket to 109'c and come down by a degree every 2-3 minutes or so. For me to safety park off my FD after a decent run would take almost 30-35 minutes of idle time with the bonnet open, I've always wondered is there something wrong with my FD?

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It turns out there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's standard practice for the a stock FD to run at high temperatures. On a stock ECU, the fan is set to kick in at low speeds at 95'c then only 105'c at high speed, the reason for this was to pass emissions laws and provide better fuel economy. The hotter the temperatures the more carbon would be burnt and the hotter the temperatures the leaner the fuel would be. Is this a bad thing? Yes and no. Mazda recalled a lot of FD's in 1995 for a fan switch upgrade as under bonnet temperatures were causing fires, other than a flaming engine bay rotary engines can withstand the heat.

With the help of a buddy, Ben (and his trusty FC-Hako interface device for my Apexi PFC), I changed my fans to kick in at 85'c and 90'c respectively. This will effectively use a little more fuel or at least in theory it will but it will stop my FD from a fiery death and not having to leave my car on for 30+ minutes after a spirited drive. The great thing about this is I'm going to be modifying my FD pretty soon and we all know with modifications there will be added heat.

This isn't where you change the fan speed settings but was the closest picture I could find
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While we're on the topic of my FD, I've picked up my final paperwork. I'm ready to go on Monday and licence the car! 11.5 months later and I will have a road legal RX7 FD3S! Cannot wait to blast around town in this soon to be beast of an FD.

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