Video: Andrew Zada’s “PAC275” Mazda Smashes Into The Sevens!

Breaking into the single-digit zone at the drag strip is impressive, doing it with a street car adds some cool points, doing it with a small displacement motor takes it to a whole new level. Australian Andrew Zada did all of these things and more with his rotary-powered 1971 Mazda RX3 Sedan known as “PAC275”.  Zada’s car may look small but it packs a massive 1,000 horsepower punch that launches it into the seven-second zone.

For Zada, this project started out as a quest for just a really nice street car with some mild power, but that changed quickly. The rotary engine wizards at PAC Performance upgraded the engine to one of their Pac-Speck 20B mills that features a billet center plate and crank. Boost comes from a custom turbo kit that uses a Precision Pro Mod turbo as the power-adder and Turbosmart wastegate to keep things in check. Giving the orders to the motor is a Microtech LT16c ECU, while fuel comes from a PAC Performance E85 fuel tank and triple fuel pump combo.

Behind the motor is a TH400 transmission that sends the power to a Mark Williams 9-inch rearend with billet 35 spline axles. The power is put down to the track via a custom two-link rear suspension and custom leaf spring setup.

In this footage from Fast Performance Videos, you can see Zada and his RX3 dance so close to the sevens on a couple of passes. Finally, the little rotary smashes into the seven-second zone with a 7.97 at 175 mph, and then becomes a bracket car ripping off several more passes with the same elapsed time. As you can see from the crew’s reaction it meant a lot to become the world’s fastest street-driven rotary!