Dream car acquisition; my FD RX-7 adventure

[varg]

The chassis for me feels comparable to Nissan R/S chassis, and even E9x BMW (except a lot lighter) so that's probably why I didn't find it hugely noteworthy. Not that its bad, by any means, but on par with the others in its class from that time. Comparing it to a E30 isn't really fair and a FD is leagues ahead because it wasn't designed in the 70s.

Yeah, E30s are old and had a long development compared to the FD but they're what this forum is dedicated to so it I'm bringing it around with my experiences between the two, not scientifically comparing them. Plus as an E30 guy, you kind of have to get the feeling that E30s, as much as I love mine, are kind of overhyped. As for the S chassis, I'm curious how they've drive as I've only ever ridden in one, but they've been trashed or expensive for at least the last decade. One place the E30 has an advantage over my FD is supposedly interior parts quality (nothing in my FD is broken, yet), but S13 and 14s always struck me as crappy inside, commensurate with the original price.

[econti]

Yeah, E30s are old and had a long development compared to the FD but they're what this forum is dedicated to so it I'm bringing it around with my experiences between the two, not scientifically comparing them. Plus as an E30 guy, you kind of have to get the feeling that E30s, as much as I love mine, are kind of overhyped. As for the S chassis, I'm curious how they've drive as I've only ever ridden in one, but they've been trashed or expensive for at least the last decade. One place the E30 has an advantage over my FD is supposedly interior parts quality (nothing in my FD is broken, yet), but S13 and 14s always struck me as crappy inside, commensurate with the original price.

I've driven 13s, 14s, 15s, and I had a R32, so while not entirely qualified I've a pretty good idea. Take your FD except make it feel cheaper and more fragile, and make it sound like absolute ass if its got a SR20. Chassis wise they drive fairly similar, FD slightly better, but in the early R/S chassis you get the distinct feeling that in a slight crash you will die

[e30davie]

haha yer the s13s are sketchy as in that regard, but that's their appeal too. I had an s15 for a while, felt a bit more grown up than the s13/14 but still, very chuckable. and not much around you in the event of an incident. which is probably why so many of them wrapped around a tree. The R32 and FD with their double wishbone front suspension puts them in a more grown up class.

[zwill23]

You know we like NON-E30 threads here.

I wonder what happened with rjmcdermott81 project? ...

The swap has been finished for a while now, he recently pulled the wrap and is repainting. Very cool car, I got to drive it a few months back and it was equally eerie how quiet yet fast it was. With no nannies its a machine that demands respect...

Congrats Varg, that's my favorite color for an FD.

[2mAn]

The swap has been finished for a while now, he recently pulled the wrap and is repainting. Very cool car, I got to drive it a few months back and it was equally eerie how quiet yet fast it was. With no nannies its a machine that demands respect...
.

Tell him he needs to update his thread !

I like those that are brave (red: stupid) enough to keep the rotary in there

[Simple_Smith]

Tell him he needs to update his thread !

I like those that are brave (red: stupid) enough to keep the rotary in there

its only stupid if you can't afford it and/or are unwilling to sacrifice your quality of life to keeping a hobby car maintained. Joining Mazda Motorsports will allow you access to dealer cost on OEM and some aftermarket parts, I just recently learned about it and is definitely a cheat code when it comes to buying parts if you qualify. Check it out and see if that works for you https://www.mazdamotorsports.com/get...am-membership/

[rjmcdermott81]

The swap has been finished for a while now, he recently pulled the wrap and is repainting. Very cool car, I got to drive it a few months back and it was equally eerie how quiet yet fast it was. With no nannies its a machine that demands respect...

Congrats Varg, that's my favorite color for an FD.

Wow... I've been called out! zwill23 sent this over on our Lemons thread and now I better step it up.

varg - you found an unbelievable example. I love those cloth seats and the montego blue. So rare to see one in such great condition all around.

As for the rotary. Oddly, since I have one sitting here (not in the car) I've gotten really interested in rebuilding it. RAD Potential has made me believe it's actually very easy. His content is awesome and it's making me think I want to get an RX-8 for my son to work on for his first car.

2mAn - I'll update my thread. I'm in the last stages of prepping it for BaT. Getting it ready for paint...

[Simple_Smith]

As for the rotary. Oddly, since I have one sitting here (not in the car) I've gotten really interested in rebuilding it. RAD Potential has made me believe it's actually very easy.

I've been following that as well and I'm curious to see how his "junkyard" rebuild goes.

Also recently listened to a podcast with Jonathan Izaguirre, the owner of Goopy Performance on Faction After-Hours and he engineered apex seals that don't grenade the engine when they inevitably fail. Very interesting listen, dude is an old head and had some really cool stories from the early days of street racing FBs and rotary swapped corollas etc.

[varg]

I like those that are brave (red: stupid) enough to keep the rotary in there

Hey, I resemble that remark.

its only stupid if you can't afford it and/or are unwilling to sacrifice your quality of life to keeping a hobby car maintained. Joining Mazda Motorsports will allow you access to dealer cost on OEM and some aftermarket parts, I just recently learned about it and is definitely a cheat code when it comes to buying parts if you qualify. Check it out and see if that works for you https://www.mazdamotorsports.com/get...am-membership/

I had heard about this, I unfortunately have no plan to compete in any way with such a nice car nor do I have access to a local track anymore. I need to find a friend who has access to Mazda Motorsports. I suppose I could autocross it a few times, I would enjoy that, but autocrosses are few and far between and I have a decent list of stuff to do to my car before I would anyway. After the below mentioned maintenance it hopefully won't need anything for years, especially considering its status as a car I own solely to enjoy it and therefore don't put DD miles on it.

varg - you found an unbelievable example. I love those cloth seats and the montego blue. So rare to see one in such great condition all around.

As for the rotary. Oddly, since I have one sitting here (not in the car) I've gotten really interested in rebuilding it. RAD Potential has made me believe it's actually very easy. His content is awesome and it's making me think I want to get an RX-8 for my son to work on for his first car.

Thanks, it is a nice car and I love how nice it is, but the traffic and boring roads here have made it harder for me to enjoy my car because I'm worried about something happening to it. Too many years of owning cheap common cars and getting parking lot damage and such. As for rebuilding, I have been in a 13B before and it isn't hard but RAD makes it look easy because he has that huge pile of spare parts and a full shop at home . Despite my rotary owner status I am unlikely to trust one of these, or an RX8, as a daily. I revile RX8s though, one of the biggest downgrades in automotive history going from the gorgeous and relatively fast FD to the slower, weird looking, 4 door RX8. I suppose over a long enough period of time I will wind up rebuilding this engine, it will either blow a coolant seal or lose compression eventually, regardless of how well I treat it, they all do.


Update time. I bought a big pile of parts mostly every cooling hose on the car but with a few additional items from Japan, which was a huge cost savings. RX7 parts are way worse than BMW parts, expensive, hard to get, and full of NLAs. The stupid downpipe gasket alone is worth ordering from Japan because US prices are totally unreasonable. Exotic car owners aren't spending $250+ on exhaust gaskets, Mazda owners will though lol. The list of to-do items expands to include a complete replacement of all cooling hoses because I saw that one turbo cooling hose had some small leak evidence.


This was kind of unscheduled but I got a good deal on a PowerFC and OLED commander. It's a cool retro setup and I'm only on the base map for now while I sort my wideband and tuning software needs out but it did completely cure the all too common FD mid-range hesitation I was experiencing and the car feels a lot more powerful because of it. It did reveal that I need to rebuild my throttle body though, because it can't get the idle low enough even with all relevant adjustments closed. I have confirmed through a smoke test that a decent amount leaks around the primary throttle shaft. I really would have much preferred to build a MS3 PNP for my FD, but as I added up what that entailed I decided the time commitment was too much. I'd need a MS3 with modified firmware for the sequential turbo system, plus the OMP controller, which I would have to scratch build and either have a separate CAN networked driver or more additions to MS3 firmware. Not fun. Haltech isn't happening because it's $2,500 to run a PNP that will drive the sequential turbos.




And I 3D printed a strut retaining nut cap because one of mine was missing.


More to come, I'm also unsatisfied with how expensive a RB cat back is (~$850) so I'm going to build my own 3" stainless twin tip cat back exhaust.

[rjmcdermott81]

Depending on your timing for the Racing Beat catback... I have a good condition RB catback from my car. My plan is to offer the entire ICE setup (engine/5 speed/electronics/fuel/exhaust/etc.) to whoever buy my FD. Thinking probably $6k just to make it easy and give them an easy conversion step later on. If they don't buy it I'll definitely be happy to sell you the RB stuff at a good price.

If you want the exhaust in the next couple months though, I dig your custom idea.

[Northern]

Honestly the 13b and rotaries in general are such a cool fucking concept. I see zero problems here. Love the 'vintage' Apexi setup, it really looks the part.

I also agree that RX8s are gross. Awkward shape, awkward design language. Not a worthy successor to the RX7, which I guess is why they didn't call it the RX7.

Still love this build and RX7s. I was always a fan of the FD as I suppose everyone is. Gran Turismo was really my introduction to these and I always liked how they looked but I let the internet reliability experts get to me and turn me off of the idea of ever owning one. Nowadays I basically only own the most anecdotally unreliable cars anyway, and I realize it's almost entirely bullshit.
If I could go back, I probably still couldn't have afforded one when they were 'cheap', but I'd absolutely be looking for one.

[varg]

Thanks to rjmcdermott81 I now have a Racing Beat cat back on my FD. Saved me a weekend at least of fabrication and a lot of crawling around fitting pipes up, and it looks and sounds better.

Making sure the new exhaust isn't going to warp my plastics:


Still enjoying this car, hoping some day soon I can take it somewhere that has enjoyable roads. There's little fun to be had down here anymore, it's extremely crowded and people are idiotic on the roads.

Honestly the 13b and rotaries in general are such a cool fucking concept. I see zero problems here. Love the 'vintage' Apexi setup, it really looks the part.

I also agree that RX8s are gross. Awkward shape, awkward design language. Not a worthy successor to the RX7, which I guess is why they didn't call it the RX7.

Still love this build and RX7s. I was always a fan of the FD as I suppose everyone is. Gran Turismo was really my introduction to these and I always liked how they looked but I let the internet reliability experts get to me and turn me off of the idea of ever owning one. Nowadays I basically only own the most anecdotally unreliable cars anyway, and I realize it's almost entirely bullshit.
If I could go back, I probably still couldn't have afforded one when they were 'cheap', but I'd absolutely be looking for one.

I'm neutral on the matter, I know these cars are problematic and I built in the expectation of having some problems going into it. So far it has all been down to the dozens of vacuum hoses and the weird mid RPM hesitation issue that is cured when you install a Power FC, but my car was treated nicely, completely original, and has fairly low miles, so it was a good find. Parts are a lot harder to come by and more expensive than our BMWs, and the systems that support it make up in complexity for the relative simplicity of the little 13B itself. Weird stuff, tons of solenoids and check valves, a strange resistive low fuel pump speed system, an oiling system that is prone to leaks and complicated by the OMP, and a fuel system that is prone to dangerous leaks as well. All that crammed with two turbos into a small engine bay, with a catalytic converter nestled in with it. I think tuning and abuse has a lot to do with the bad reputation, for instance a catless exhaust or a boost controller without a tuned ECU is dangerous ground, but some of this reputation is deserved.