we’ll worry about the rules later.’
“That’s basically how it always was. We
stretched the limit with that little car in lots of
areas, from suspension to the engine.
“We sort of followed the book initially, but
we changed lots of things. We didn’t use the
Japanese fuel bladder, we went to an ACL
bladder, which Allan always had in the Mustang.
Most of the engineering stuff was American – the
axles, limited slip, tailshaft, other titanium parts
like front and rear hubs, wheel nuts, anything to
reduce the unsprung weight...
“I got Ron Harrop to do a fully oating axle,
and Allan said, ‘Oh, I’ve only ever used Summers
Brothers, their axles have been in the Mustang
since day one and I’ve only ever had two axles –
a left and a right – we should be using them.’
“But Ron was a mate of mine so we put a
Harrop rear end in it, and at Sandown it broke
an axle going into the old Peters Corner, where it
was always bumpy.
“After that, Allan told me to get onto Summers
Brothers. I sent them a sample of the diff spline
and the outside hub, with the exact dimension
we wanted. We had three different complete rear
ends so I said I wanted three sets of axles, but
the guy said, ‘No, you only need one pair of our
axles.’ So we only bought two axles, and the only
way they’d sell us another pair was when we built
a second car. They were just bulletproof.”
Webb reckons a dozen race-ready 12A
rotary engines arrived from Japan, along with
four or ve gearboxes, all with different ratios
that had been homologated. The 1146cc twin-
rotor engines were tted with Weber 48IDA
downdraught carburetors, and the ve-speed
gearboxes were externally cooled.
The front suspension was conventional, with
independent struts, coil springs and anti-roll
bar, while the rear featured longitudinal four-link
control arms, coil springs, anti-roll bar and a
Watts linkage to control it laterally.
Tokico adjustable shock absorbers were used
allround,andthe16-inchthree-pieceBBSalloy
wheelswere 10 incheswide,runningnine-inch
Goodyears,of course,at thefrontand10-inch
onesat therear.
SydneyengineerWallyStoreylaterproduced
a fancyWattslinkageforsomeprivateers,
whichtheythoughtwasanadvantage,butthe
Moffatboyswerealreadyaheadof thegame.
Knowingthatanadjustableset-upwasillegal,
butprovidedtheabilityto changethecriticalrear
rollcentre,theysimplyhaddifferentdiffhousings
manufacturedwithvariousmountingpointsfor
thepinionto suitdifferentcircuits.
SecrecywasalwaysanAllanMoffatRacing
hallmark,andtheMazdaprogramtookthat
to anotherlevel.It startedwiththebuildand
thenextendedto thecircuits,wheretheMazda
compoundwaslikeFortKnox.It wouldbreed
suspicionanddistrust.Top:AMR-001comestolifeatToorakin1981.
Above,right:Laminatedracemeetingchecklists
fortheMoffatRX7teamis anexampleofthehighly
professionalapproachMoffatalwaystooktohisracing.Geoff Wood