787b

  • Thread starter Colinod
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Dammit, dammit! Best time I can get on midfield is 57.343 on soft tyres. For some reason I couldn't get as quick on super-softs - best time was 57.975.
That's in a 787b (upgraded turbo) with about 900km (600miles or so) on the clock. Havent tried a stock turbo run yet.
 
Doing best times alone is the way most people do it...in a perfect world, where tires are green all the time. People also use the best tires too.

I got 62 seconds with medium yellow racing tires, and no turbo. I can take off a few seconds with super softs. Just ya'll wait till im done with my PD cup.

I bet I can take on most people in my area though!
 
Wasn't it actually 'too' reliable for the FIA, so they banned it? I recall reading that the after-race inspection said it could've run another 24-hours race...
 
Wasn't it actually 'too' reliable for the FIA, so they banned it? I recall reading that the after-race inspection said it could've run another 24-hours race...

Gotta love it. They banned it for being too reliable... Isn't reliability one of the things they look for in the race - hence it being a stupendous 24 hours long.

In reply to Black Bird, yes the 787B was/is rotary powered. It was powered by a 26B, 2.6L four rotor engine. Naturally aspirated (if you look at the photos in my previous post) it made around 700hp and redlined at 9,000rpm. Phenomenal.

[Conspiracy theory]Isn't it funny that they seem to ban anything that's too good? I think the 787B was another 'too good', so it got banned.[/Conspiracy theory]
 
[Conspiracy theory]Isn't it funny that they seem to ban anything that's too good? I think the 787B was another 'too good', so it got banned.[/Conspiracy theory]

Except they didn't ban it. The FIA did, sort of, but they don't govern Le Mans.

But otherwise a good theory.
 
If it's a Blanket comment then where are the nice Mazda RX1, Rx2, RX3, RX4 and RX7's from the 70's 80's? 90's?? You think there being save as collector items? There not and This is fact! I owned a partnership of Tripoint Racing in Gardena California for 9 years and all we build is Mazda Rotory 12a and 13B engines, When these engines are Street ported and Turbo charged they are monsters But longevity is a major problem with rotor balancing, It caused major vibrations and the end result was several bearing failures in return made me lots of money! The average 12a in most up to 1985 Rx7's were nice little screamers once Bridgeported or street ported but only lasted approximately 60 75 thousand miles, Not good at all! This is also the reason you very very rarely see a older RX7 Rotary running around to date, The 787B is a totally different Engine all together, It has 4 Rotors and uses far less power than it's capable of.
 
The street Rotarys are garbage, They don't last a third of most cars engines life, Atleast not here in the states!

When these engines are Street ported and Turbo charged they are monsters But longevity is a major problem with rotor balancing, It caused major vibrations and the end result was several bearing failures in return made me lots of money!

The empasis on street in the first quote is mine, as in your second quote you move to talking about engines that have been modified.

Now to me that reads as talking about two different scenarios?

In addition am I supposed to automatically know you are talking about specifically modified cars from the single sentance you posted?

I refered you to a thread that has a lot more relivence to the subject you mentioned (i.e. the Automotive forums rather than the GT3 forum), in addition plenty of conventional engines can deveop just as limited life spans when modified (I can think on R5 turbo engine straight off the bat).

I was simply trying to indicate a better place to disuss the subject, and i'm sorry if you took it as a personally issue, but lets be fair I didn't have a great deal to work with from your rather basic post.

Regards

Scaff
 
Why didnt they make a street legal version?

Probably they didn't have to. Nowadays, "street legal" race cars aren't made unless the carmaker has to comply with some sort of regulatory rule. For instance, the Ford RS200 rally car found in GT2 and GT4 had a street-legal version, but only because Group B rally regulations required that the car maker had to produce 200 production vehicles along with the racing version.
 
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True. Even cars like the R390GT1 road car and the TS020 road car (Toyota GTOne) were only made due to regulations - and notice they aren't for sale.

If I remember correctly, the 22B was born from the same kind of regulations - hence why only 400 were made in total. I could be wrong though. We got 5 22Bs in Australia. I think Possum Bourne got one of them, Subaru Australia kept one that toured their dealerships (I laid eyes on it at their Penrith, Sydney dealership). Three went to private dealers (although I have heard that one has been written off). Beautiful car in the flesh... :drool:

Also with the 787B, I wonder how if it would have been too difficult to modify them to meet compliance.
 
It costs A-LOT to develop a race car, and then to further make it street-safe is a whole nother dilemma....money, government regulations, and the car-maker's reputation must all be addressed. I'm sure it was simpler back in the days when Ford had to come up with several hundred GT40 production cars after they decided to take on Ferrari for the World Cup. All they had to do was install real glass windows and a muffler...perhaps a radio and some creature comforts, and the production cars were good to go. Other than power and basic comfort, there was little difference between the GT40 race cars and the production cars. Same goes with the original Shelby Cobras. Nowadays, research & development ALONE can far outweigh the cost of the early GT40s and Cobras.
 
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The road GT40's had all new bodywork to the race car's, it wasn't that simple. The engine had a lot of work done as well, de-tuning it to make it usable on the road.
 
The road going versions of the GT-40 were only the smaller capacity (4.2L?) version, weren't they? The later two versions of the GT-40 race car (MKIII & IV, if I remember correctly) were the big 427cui (7.2L) V8.
 
The road going versions of the GT-40 were only the smaller capacity (4.2L?) version, weren't they? The later two versions of the GT-40 race car (MKIII & IV, if I remember correctly) were the big 427cui (7.2L) V8.

You are correct there. And even then, the engines were further detuned to increase the engine's flexibility. Though only seven exist and none appear to be driven on the streets, this concept is interesting in that Ford did not seem to suspect that customers would be exceptional drivers, and yet the car's racing pedigree would inevitably contradict that.

Were smog laws implemented at that time, too?
 
It was the 289ci engine they used in the GT40 originally wasn't it?

In rotary engines, basically 1 rotor is equivallent to two normal piston cylinders.

The 787 was not the fastest car at Le Mans that year. Sure it was fast but it only won because the faster Jaguars and Mercs were side-tracked.
 
It was the 289ci engine they used in the GT40 originally wasn't it?

In rotary engines, basically 1 rotor is equivallent to two normal piston cylinders.

The 787 was not the fastest car at Le Mans that year. Sure it was fast but it only won because the faster Jaguars and Mercs were side-tracked.

Yes it was not the fastest but the strongest and most reliable it was the 12th fastest qualifier. They said they were just sidetracked just becuase they did not like the thought of loosing too a 2.6 liter NA car while they the Mercys and the Jads had bigger Displacments Mercedes C11(one of them was the 1st fastest qualifiers) had a 5.0L TWIN TURBO (KKK's) V8, and the jags were more reliable with their 7.2L!!! V12's!!!!!! Two of the three Merc's that enterd could not finish because of engine problems not sidetracked and tone of the Jaguar's did not finish becauso of a broken input shaft. oh and what was that all the invinsible 787B's finished in perfect condition in the TOP 10!

Sorry to burst your bubble but the 787B's did not win beacause their opponents wer sidetracked:lol: more like becuase of iferior engineering on their opponents part:)
 
It was the 289ci engine they used in the GT40 originally wasn't it?

In rotary engines, basically 1 rotor is equivallent to two normal piston cylinders.

The 787 was not the fastest car at Le Mans that year. Sure it was fast but it only won because the faster Jaguars and Mercs were side-tracked.

Here is the road-going GT-40, courtesy of Wikipedia:

The Mk III was a road-car only, of which 31 were built. The car had four headlights, the rear part of the body was expanded to make room for luggage, the 4.7 L engine was detuned to 335 bhp, the shocks were softened, the shift lever was moved to the center and the car was available with the steering wheel on the left side of the car. The most famous Mk III is GT40 M3 1105, a blue left hand drive model delivered in 1968 in Austria to Herbert von Karajan. As the Mk III wasn't very appealing aesthetically (it looked significantly different from the racing models), many customers interested in buying a GT40 for road use chose to buy a Mk I that was available from Wyer Ltd.

So I was wrong too...

And yes, the Sauber-Mercedes cars were faster, leading the race until the reliability as well as speed of the 787B came through. Interestingly, when the winning car was inspected, the motor itself was in excellent condition, and 'could've run for another 24 hours'. This dispensed some myths that the Wankel rotary engine was unreliable, but, then again, as HYBRIDLVR had said, the 787B's motor is a complete departure from the Rotar2 Rotary engines found in the later 90s Mazdas.

(FastFerrari) can some relay some good raito numbers to me so i can push my 78 over 230mph...tryin for at least 240-250mph. THANX

I am not much of a gear tuner, but try pushing the auto setting up by 5-7 notches. With only 5 gears, though, acceleration may diminish...

(Renesis Power) Yes it was not the fastest but the strongest and most reliable it was the 12th fastest qualifier. They said they were just sidetracked just becuase they did not like the thought of loosing too a 2.6 liter NA car while they the Mercys and the Jads had bigger Displacments Mercedes C11(one of them was the 1st fastest qualifiers) had a 5.0L TWIN TURBO (KKK's) V8, and the jags were more reliable with their 7.2L!!! V12's!!!!!! Two of the three Merc's that enterd could not finish because of engine problems not sidetracked and tone of the Jaguar's did not finish becauso of a broken input shaft. oh and what was that all the invinsible 787B's finished in perfect condition in the TOP 10!

Sorry to burst your bubble but the 787B's did not win beacause their opponents wer sidetracked more like becuase of iferior engineering on their opponents part

If I can understand this statement correctly, they were sidetracked. By poor engineering. Much like the 1952(?) F1 race at Rheims, when Jean Behra's French Gordini beat the Ferraris, whom were poorly prepared for the race. So, all in all, the C11s and XJR-12s, being ill-prepared as well (their newer C291s and XJR-14s under the new 3.5L formula that year failed to qualify; their final entries were obselete Group C cars) were sidetracked by unreliability of their cars, while the new Mazda 787B took home the victory, its sister car finishing sixth.

Again, that's only how I interpret it...
 
If I can understand this statement correctly, they were sidetracked. By poor engineering. Much like the 1952(?) F1 race at Rheims, when Jean Behra's French Gordini beat the Ferraris, whom were poorly prepared for the race. So, all in all, the C11s and XJR-12s, being ill-prepared as well (their newer C291s and XJR-14s under the new 3.5L formula that year failed to qualify; their final entries were obselete Group C cars) were sidetracked by unreliability of their cars, while the new Mazda 787B took home the victory, its sister car finishing sixth.

Again, that's only how I interpret it...[/QUOTE]

I am not trying too argue with you or anything just going too ask you a question you think that if their C291's an XJR-14s would have entered that they would have won the 787Bs I honestly do not believe so. And if they would have won then bygoly the 787Bs would of won if the race was 48 hours because of their reliability maybe.
 
If I can understand this statement correctly, they were sidetracked. By poor engineering. Much like the 1952(?) F1 race at Rheims, when Jean Behra's French Gordini beat the Ferraris, whom were poorly prepared for the race. So, all in all, the C11s and XJR-12s, being ill-prepared as well (their newer C291s and XJR-14s under the new 3.5L formula that year failed to qualify; their final entries were obselete Group C cars) were sidetracked by unreliability of their cars, while the new Mazda 787B took home the victory, its sister car finishing sixth.

Again, that's only how I interpret it...

I am not trying too argue with you or anything just going too ask you a question you think that if their C291's an XJR-14s would have entered that they would have won the 787Bs I honestly do not believe so. And if they would have won then bygoly the 787Bs would of won if the race was 48 hours because of their reliability maybe.

Actually, I am sorry to say that I am not trying to convey that point at all. Perhaps I should be more specific... What I was actually saying was that there would have been a chance for a Mercedes or Jaguar victory, but these cars intended to race did not qualify, forcing them to race obsolete cars pulled off the shelf at the last minute. Furthermore, the 48-hour fact was another statement entirely, and then just a fact that intrigued me. The fact that the cars were taken out at the last hour was to show the possible cause for the mechanical disasters that ensued, and to reinforce my initial objective to promote that the British and German cars were indeed sidetracked, but by mechanical mishaps. So, I was reworking your point of before slightly.
 
Actually, I am sorry to say that I am not trying to convey that point at all. Perhaps I should be more specific... What I was actually saying was that there would have been a chance for a Mercedes or Jaguar victory, but these cars intended to race did not qualify, forcing them to race obsolete cars pulled off the shelf at the last minute. Furthermore, the 48-hour fact was another statement entirely, and then just a fact that intrigued me. The fact that the cars were taken out at the last hour was to show the possible cause for the mechanical disasters that ensued, and to reinforce my initial objective to promote that the British and German cars were indeed sidetracked, but by mechanical mishaps. So, I was reworking your point of before slightly.

Oh I see what your saying now thanks for clearing that up, on second thought the 48 hour statment of mine is a little out there. It would be a great reliabilty test that is certain, I wonder if they will ever hold another 84 hour Marathon de la Route ultraendurance race again in 1968 Two of the three Mazda Cosmos made 4th and 5th.
 
the 4.7 L engine was detuned to 335 bhp,

Yes this is the 289ci.

Mercedes and Jag were quite unprepared for the '91 Le Mans. They had intended to use the new 3.5l formula cars but decided against it at the last minute before qualifying, switcing back to the old C11 and XJR-12s. Peugeot were given the top spots because they were the only team left running the new formula. But they didn't finish greatly.

The Mazda victory was made a bit sweeter when the fact that a couple of the drivers had food poisoning is considered.
 
No problem. I should know this I took one out of a Lotus Type 30 (now theres an interesting car for anyone!).
 
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