TRX
Member
didn't connect backfire with "SHOTS FIRED."
Back in '82 my wife bought a user '79 Mazda RX7. It had originally been a Hawaii-spec car, which meant it not only had all the California-spec emission controls, but some that didn't even show up on the dealer's fiche. Something had gone wonky in one of its electronic or vacuum doodads, and the local Mazda dealer lightened our checking account considerably trying to troubleshoot it without any luck.
It had an air pump, a catalyst, *and* a "thermal reactor". Apparently excess fuel would accumulate in the reactor. You'd park, shut the car off, get out, and be about twenty feet away before there's be a *BANG!* that would rattle windows. We're talking .44 Magnum level noise here. Car alarms would go off nearby... sometimes you'd get an extra bang, though not nearly as loud.
My wife would keep walking, entirely unpreturbed, while people were ducking for cover, preparing to return fire, or looking around for the explosion... the car, of course, sat there innocently, not even a wisp of smoke coming from the tailpipe.
After the second replacement rotary began to fail, she bought another car and I yanked the wanker motor out, dropped a 302 Ford in, and drove it for another fifteen years, including doing some track days and "high speed driving events" with it. Which is there my screen name comes from, "Tyrannosaurus RX."