[Kaneto]

Originally posted by Chris V
If you make a mass produced compromise of a car a religious shrine, you have a problem. And if you start denigrating people who are building personalized versions of that car to better fit THEIR desires, then you have a SERIOUS problem, and need to step back.

It's called a figure of speech.

And in no way am I denigrating anyone else's decisions on what they do to their cars.

You can make it handle better. My car, with no other suspension mods, handled better after the conversion than before. Do you understand that? That isn't "about the same." I've been autocrossing for a couple decades, and was an SCCA and BSCC driving instructor. I've driven everything from huge sedans to formula cars on the track, and built national championship winning autocross cars. I know what handling is about.

You'll have to explain how a car with roughly the same weight distribution, as you've pointed out, and no changes to the suspension, handles better. Are you sure it isn't in your head?

No, to a rotary purist, the rotary is theonly part of the car that matters: without it, the car is crap. They completely ignore every other good quality of the car. It is not a complete package. It is a home for the rotary, and the rotary, to them, is what imbues the rest of the car with goodness, as though the ONLY reason it works the way it does in every other area is that engine. This is demonstrably untrue! The rotary is ONE internal combustion engine design. It's a fabulous design. But it's only one part of the whole car.

Then I don't know what rotary purist you've been talking to. For myself, and every other rotary fan I know, it's about the total car package. It's about the car as a whole, and the rotary is part of that car. I doubt your "rotary purists" would be so adamant about a rotary engine in a Mustang. Sure, it would be a neat conversion, but they would still recognize the fact that the Mustang wasn't built with a rotary in mind, just as an RX-7 wasn't built with a piston engine in mind.

I don't refuse to accept it. I refuse to allow those narowminded fools to denigrate people who are NOT narrowminded, who are NOT mentally challenged by being religiously blinded by a goddamn bit of mass produced, manmade mechanical invention!

Telling people that they have irrational "love" for a mechanical device is not being ignorant. What is ignorant is the statements of "fact" they make about the cars in stock and modified form, most of which are demonstrably untrue. Spouting non-facts to a quasi-religious bent is ignorant.

Well then good for you. Just understand that not all "rotary purists" are like the ones you've talked to. Just because I would never put anything but a rotary engine in a RX-7, doesn't mean I think a 7 with a piston engine will be any less of a car performance-wise.