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Thread: Mazda Roadpacer

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    Default Mazda Roadpacer

    Thought I might post this up just as a bit of a general interest post. GMH sold the HJ Holden to Mazda back in the 70's and came up with this. I read about it a while ago and it came up in conversation recently and out of the people in the discussion , no one had ever heard of it and some probably thought I was full of shit Text and photo compliments of Wikipedia.com






    The Mazda Roadpacer AP was a full-size sedan sold by Mazda Motor Corp. of Japan between 1975 and 1977. It was based on the Australian Holden HJ Premier. Premiers were shipped to Japan without engines, and Mazda fitted a 1.3 L 13B Wankel engine into the bay. Although the engine produced 135 hp (100 kW) and 101 ft·lbf (138 Nm) of torque, the Roadpacer weighed 3,500 lb (1,575 kg).

    While the 13B produced more power than the 6 cylinder engine fitted to the car as a Holden, the lack of torque meant performance was restrained with a 103 mph (166 km/h) top speed, poor acceleration and terrible fuel consumption. Contemporary reports suggest 9 mpg (26 L per 100 km).

    While the Holden HJ Premier itself was well endowed with items, Mazda decided to add many more, including some people had likely never heard of. Gadgets of note include a central locking system that activated when the car hit 10 km/h (6 mph), a chime system that activated at 90 km/h (56 mph), a dictation system and a stereo able to be controlled from both front and back seats.

    The price was also not a bargain at 3.8 million yen (US$10,000) in 1975. This was about twice the price of a contemporary Mazda Cosmo. Originally intended as transport for high-ranking government officials, the car was sold in the wake of the first fuel crisis and was not a commercial success. Production ceased in 1977 with only 800 units sold.

    The Roadpacer has the sole distinction of a General Motors product being fitted for production with a rotary engine.

    Most were sold to government departments and were later crushed, meaning Roadpacers are rare nowadays; their counterpart model, the Holden Premier is considered a classic car in Australia; but the Roadpacer remains largely unheard of, or is believed to be a rumour.



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    Yep i know all about that one, its still a common topic around auto forums when it comes to bagging Holdens and Rotaries.

    Apparently people speak of how smooth the Holden was with the wankel engine but fuel consumption and power without screaming the little rotary was a joke.

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    Rotaries use a lot of fuel when they are in Mazda's let alone in HJ's I used to have an RX4 , it used to scream but it was as thirsty as a V8. It also used to shit on V8's so thats fair enough I suppose

    The lack of torque would be funny though , can you imagine one of them crammed full of japanese government officials leaving the traffic lights very slowly ?

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    Wow, now i've seen everything. Thats just nuts... i real Power to Weight Ratio problem there.

    Funny thing about Rotarys though, my good friend had a couple of them, an RX2 Coupe with a 13B with some slight port work, then after that ended up on its roof, the motor went into a RX7.
    I used to always bag my mate that the rotary had no torque (although i had never driven one)... One quite afternoon in Altona he took me for a drive, then let me drive..
    I was really surprised with the torque it had, it could be driven in the toque band all day with out revving.. In fact, the thing started peeling the tires as i left a round about in 3rd doing 50k's, all i was trying to do was drive off.
    Granted the RX7 body was lightish i guess... But since that day i stand corrected on saying rotarys have no torque.
    Last edited by ol' boy; 09-02-10 at 09:22 AM.

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    It sort of reminds me of the 4cly VC Commodore and fast forward to tomorrow, the 4cly Falcon although that has a better power to weight ratio.

    We all know the Rotary Holden was a failure, as was the VC Commie, so you could imagine what my view of the 4 cly Falcon is.

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    I've had an older friend drop a Rotary into a VW Kombi... he used to love it, 90k's in second gear, but the dodgy air intakes either side of the engine bay looked horrible.

    Then again, what else are you going to do with Hitlers Curse

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    Once Rotaries are turbo chargered there is plenty of torque available...or even go 3 Rotor 20B....or 4 Rotor 26B (Mazda 787B Awesome Lemans winning car of the 90s).

    Yes, the Roadpacer and the Starfire Commodore were failures...not enough engine torque for the large bodies - so the engine works hard and goes nowhere. But the Falcon 4cyl Turbo will be different - I think it will drive fine for the average Falcon driver putting around...I just think it won't offer substantial fuel savings over the 4.0 litre six...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mgoldbe1 View Post
    .I just think it won't offer substantial fuel savings over the 4.0 litre six...
    That was the whole point, yeah?

    Its sad that marketing works on a smaller engine must be more economical and the public's lack of understanding.

    My money is on the engine will not even live 1/3 of the life of a standard 6 due to the loads and revs needed.

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    Many years ago, I guess it was the mid seventies I worked for the Dept of Foreign Affairs & Trade and made a trip with the then minister (and dozens of other people) to Japan.
    We were picked up at the airport by a fleet of these, and although at the time I was so young and stupid that I didn't realise that they were the Mazda variant, I was convinced they were just an upmarket variant of our own Premier exported to Asia. Honestly I didn't pick the power / torque limitations - traffic, even in the 70's was atrocious, so you never accelerated or moved quickly enough to notice it.

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    Yes, that's my point aswell Godzilla....why do it? It has been proven in the past to be unsuccessful..alot of it is about marketing, environmental and publicity reasons - as you said the public don't know too much.

    The average Falcon 6 cylinder driver hardly revs the engine over 2 grand..I'd imagine the 4 Cyl gearing to be a little shorter, but still not overly 'revvy'...So I reckon duarbility will be ok...but not as good as the 50 year old straight six (!)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mgoldbe1 View Post

    The average Falcon 6 cylinder driver hardly revs the engine over 2 grand..)
    Exactly.

    I was talking to my boy the other day about our Eseries Ford and why its still building good oil pressure, does not smoke and holds good compression at over 400,000Km.

    We both agreed due to the low rpm speeds, the thing rarely ever goes over 2000 rpm cruzing, 2500 on gear changes and we always keep it out of the power mode and its higher RPM shift points.

    The newer Barra 6 engines are known amongst taxi owners as capable of doing 1,000,000Km without needing internal engine work. Sure everything bolted to the engine externally fails but the engine keeps going.
    Last edited by Godzilla; 09-02-10 at 02:42 PM. Reason: spelling nazi

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    funnily enough,

    my new fg xr8 ute(manual) gets 10.1 km/l on the highway with the cruise set at 114 km/h. that's better than my 6 cylinder auto bf ute used to get.....

    same thing with small trucks, my 6 cylinder hino truck with 260 horse motor averages 5.5 km/l whereas a mates with 220 horse motor averages 5 km/l.....
    Last edited by hoe; 09-02-10 at 03:15 PM.

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    Yes, as mentioned many time before, how you drive is the biggest influence you can have on your fuel consumption (and engine life as Godzilla pointed out)...So a 6 cylinder (or even hoe's 5.4 litre) can get relatively good fuel consumption if driven sensibly - and can easily do better than the official (dyno run cycle) fuel consumption figures.

    My BA Turbo gets 15 L/100km around town (I drive round trip of 26km per day), and I regulary rev it past 5 grand.....but that's my choice. I have only done 57k but I reckon with Godzilla's theory it may be the equivalent of 570,000km on a normally driven Falcon!!

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    Turbo boost + rpm = some serious engine wear and stress.

    As RPM increases the wear and loads produced are logarithmic in scale.

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    I think if ford were serious about using a 4cyl for economy then they should put in a new turbo diesel, it should still have enough torque to tow most things aswell.

    If they wanted to get really innovative they could also use one of the new fan-dangled lpg injection systems for diesels. More power, better emmisions and slightly cheaper to run over straight diesel.

    It would be an interesting car at the least.

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    wonder what the roadpacers sell for these days ?

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    Historic collectors items i think.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Godzilla View Post
    Turbo boost + rpm = some serious engine wear and stress.

    As RPM increases the wear and loads produced are logarithmic in scale.

    But it feels so good....

    You should know this Godzilla...hehe

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    J-Spec imports had one for sale about 2 years ago, $30k + I think they where asking

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gerbertron View Post
    I think if ford were serious about using a 4cyl for economy then they should put in a new turbo diesel, it should still have enough torque to tow most things aswell.

    If they wanted to get really innovative they could also use one of the new fan-dangled lpg injection systems for diesels. More power, better emmisions and slightly cheaper to run over straight diesel.

    It would be an interesting car at the least.
    Turbo Diesel is old..I would think seriously of Electric Hybrid like the other car company are doing..Or Hydrogen which BMW is developing @ moment.

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