In terms of reliability, performance, etc and do you regret it? Everyone I ask who owns one says its a nightmare but none of them regret it which is odd. Just trying to figure out why.
fun to drive shit to maintain, why would it be hard to understand?
Jordan Bell
Oil changes every 3k are ezpz I daily drove for three years, only hassle was the cabin heat in summer traffic and shit tier mpg but whatever it's a fun car not a civic No reliability issues in that time until I decided to limiter bash first gear and bang
Jordan Reyes
I own one, '94 R1 package.
Don't regret it, just make certain to go in knowing what you're getting yourself into. Oil changes every 3k miles really aren't that bad, pre-mixing not 100% necessary but recommended as it'll keep everything in better shape.
Apex seals aren't as much of an issue, just put in one of the newer ones (not OEM) that are designed to just bend a little when they go bad instead of shattering all over the fuckin' place. These have been around for the last decade or so, not precisely hard to find, just gotta' put the order in online.
It's a nightmare compared to most other cars, sure, but nothing that isn't manageable and really not that bad once you've established those good habits. Once you get used to it you don't feel like you're doing that much unless you're DDing the fucker. For most rotary owners, those 3k miles come up as often as oil changes in conventional ICEs (or less), because most people don't daily drive them.
The other user is right. The FD, especially, is bad about cabin heat. Drive with windows down during the summer. Turns out the engine designed by a nazi does a good job of roasting the vehicle's occupants. Who knew?
Colton Turner
I regret buying my RX-8. Not because it's a bad car (although you can do better with a Euro model in the same size with a larger engine), but it's snowflake characteristics get to me.
First off: reliability. I have never had the engine fail on me. That said, all the electronics have. Currently, my car is stalling at idle for what I can guess is a MAF sensor gone bad? Theres a list of things electrically that could be causing it, and by this point I'm just throwing money at it hoping to get lucky.
Performance wise, you will *not* win a race against anyone stock. My car makes 230 hp with aftermarket tuning on stock parts N/A, and it still will loose to a stock C4 Corvette. Hell, it will loose to a modified Civic. If you want to modify it, you will be met with enormous aftermarket part prices that will scare you away unless your wallet is deeper than mine.
In terms of liveability, my #1 complaint is the gas milage. I get about 10-15 MPG city. I put $30 a week in gas, and I live on a college campus and have little need to drive anywhere. If you live in an area with a lot of stoplights, you will pay a lot for gas. The rear seats are nice for storing stuff, but the trunk is useless if you opt for the spare tire option.
For the amount of hassle and money I put in the car, and the gas I pay for, I can do wayyyy better in terms of performance. That alone is why I tell people off of rotary engines. It's fun to drive, don't get me wrong, but it's not worth the money I put in.
Isaiah Cruz
Damn dude.
I can manage all that, but its the rebuilds or a blown seal I am worried about.
Noah Sanchez
I had an RX8. It was fine. Had an alternator go out thats it. Just premixed, changed the oil often, kept fresh plugs in it, and upgraded the ignition coils bc the stock ones die from heat. Never shut it off cold, and redline it maybe once a day to blow the carbon out. It's kind of like a 2 stroke. I never minded any of that. If you're the type of person who drag races people on the street and wants a fast car then it's not the car for you. If you drive alot of twisty roads you will love it. Learn to drive it well and you can stick with most cars, and the punch in second coming off a corner accompanied by the 9000rpm wail is fun. Typical vape subaru mouth breathers love to hate, but they are actually good cars.
Michael Turner
Lucky for you, just doing compression testing is a really easy way to gauge how long you have until a rebuild is necessary.
There's no excuse for "spontaneous" apex seal detonation anymore. You can totally predict when it's going to happen. Just get a compression test done when you buy it to see how long you have, after your rebuild you should have a good 100k with proper maintenance until the next rebuild.
Matthew Lewis
Also; should mention:
The rebuild I had done immediately after I bought mine six years ago only wound up costing me like $1500. Your mileage may vary, but generally less than 2 grand.
I found a semi-local gigantic bulldyke that used to work in the Mazda dealership shop through the 90s. She's good people.
If you're feeling confident and have all the tools and ample work space it's possibly simple enough to rebuild on your own. Whole fucking engine's only like 3 moving parts when undressed.
Tyler Walker
I should mention to people I want an RX7 not an RX8.
More or so a 2001-2002 Type R Bathurst. I live in Aus so there is alot of them around.
Brody Nguyen
and the mods I'll do is just decent tyres, Apexi Power FC, boost controller (good idea?) and redo the cooling system. New rad, hoses etc.
John Clark
Those are decent ideas, but first to make sure to add in boost gauge, water temp, and an oil temp gauge, as the engines like to run hot as fuck and the included gauges on the dash for the latter two aren't really informative at all.
Henry Turner
With the stock twins you don't need a boost controller, you can do that with the power fc.
Nathan Gutierrez
This, but if you plan to swap out to a single turbo system, the boost controller's probably still a good idea.
Dunno why you'd want to do that, though. Having next to no turbo lag with the stock twin configuration is decent.
Jack White
Maybe he wants his engine to not be a ticking time bomb?
All jokes aside, the twins can be pushed to make 350 RWHP which is no small amount. And AFAIK with AI overheating is a non issue.
Nathan Harris
Modern boost controllers are more sophisticated in terms of tuning the lean, gain etc. AFAIK the pfc boost controller option only lets you ramp up the PSI.
Good thing about the PFC the controller shows watertemp, knock etc
Jaxon Nelson
Rip apex seals
Asher Adams
I used to drive an FB RX-7, I definitely enjoyed it. Not the fastest car objectively, but everything is paper thin on the car so you don't fully notice. loved the sound of that NA rotary, and the carbed 12a was pretty reliable. Cold starts were an issue, flooded the engine one winter when it hit about -15 F; although this was fixed with new plugs and a cup of ATF down the carb >dat 1980's vacuum operated cruise control that still worked perfectly
Carson Edwards
just get ceramic seals at $700 a pop. easy.
Carter Miller
DD'd an NA FC for 7 years. Only had to change a starter in all that time. Best car i ever owned.
Eli Rogers
I owned one, apex seals went out and I LS swapped it
Caleb Davis
how does that change the weight distribution? will I still be able to pull hektic skidz?
Aaron Morris
LS motor sits really far back, hektic skidz still achievable
Oliver Morris
They're fine until they need a rebuild, pretty much.
And how long until you need a rebuild can be anything between the next mile, and 100k+ miles. Just depends whether it's properly tuned and oil changes are done, or not.
Jose Carter
An EFR 7163 actually has far better boost response than the stock twins.
Hell, even an EFR 7670 does.
The stock twins may be tiny, but they're still old materials and aerodynamics.
New radiator, hoses, and vacuum lines are the 3 big things that need to be changed out if they weren't already.
Other than that, the car is fine for 75k miles or so.
If you want it to last 100k+ on a rebuild, you need to keep exhaust manifold pressure and heat down better than stock. You need to make sure the seals are lubricated (sometimes the OMP doesn't do the best job) and premixing can help. Alcohol injection helps with reliability as well.
An aftermarket ECU doesn't change much except to better tune for your various mods. The stock ECU will handle a catback and mild port on stock twins fine, for example.
Xavier Roberts
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Benjamin Cooper
witnessed
Easton Turner
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Luke Cox
It would be this picture too
Jack Anderson
WITNESSED GT-R fags BTFO!
Asher Sanders
Mods ban nissan fangirls. Quints will it.
Charles Brown
>THE shitpost image get Veeky Forums is dead
Jonathan Murphy
trolling outside of b is aginst the rules
Brayden Morales
>Turns out the engine designed by a nazi does a good job of roasting the vehicle's occupants.
>Worried about rebuilds/seal failure >Thinking about a boost controller/tuning before he even gets the car You will go too high into boost and blow or shorten the engine's lifespan if you do get the right boost level and tune.
Take this as gospel if you must: METH INJECTION SAVES APEX SEALS.
Joseph Cooper
I was considering the rx8 but the fuel consumption is what holds me back. Question is, can it run on autogas? Theoretically it should, right?
Jackson Clark
I wonder if it would need forced induction to do so.
Angel Jones
ZOMG
Chase Perez
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Kevin Gomez
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Adam Moore
>why did the mods delete the- oh
Julian Brown
>dropping American engine in a Japanese car.
Faggot detected.
You just ruined the weight ratio in the car to put a ton of power in to a light frame. Now the front end weighs a hell of a lot more than it originally did.
The 13B rotary was fine and dandy but now you just fucked your weight ratio to oblivion so now the front is loaded down and drifting will be shittier.
Why the fuck did you do that? Who in their right mind destroys an FC by dumping LS1 in there?
fuck off, and I'm not kidding with your shitty FC, fuck off
Blake Evans
> caring this much about the objectively shittiest RX7
Juan Ramirez
>knowing nothing about rx7s
Christopher Gutierrez
>implying FC's are worst RX7's
FC is still a good car. However, when he attempts to sell it later, the value of it will reduce drastically due to not being the original motor, and all they will pay for is the LS1 motor and nothing else.
It will be worthless once he tries to sell "mazda RX7 ls1 v8" and some punk kid thinking he's hot shit will wreck it x days/months/weeks after buying it.
Its now a pile of junk without the original motor.
Its not about resale value, it is about originality and car collectors would rather have an original 13B in it than some LS1 because you can't handle the Rotary
There's no excuse for replacing a japanese rotary with american piston.
fuck off
Christian Stewart
Why?
William Campbell
Bruh it's that guy who was working on the FC. I got it to run okay by filing the contacts on the TPS sensor connectors kind of clean, but now, while it'll idle okay and start and run, after some driving and it gets warmer, (20m?) it'll begin to buck on full throttle like it's cutting on and off sharply, and the longer it's on like that and driving, the lower amount of throttle is required to cause it.
TPS calibrated wrong when warm, maybe? No vacuum leaks.
Tyler Barnes
Did you check that the tps in i spec? That screw on the throttle linkage is the adjustment. There is a green 3 blade female plug on the front of the passenger strut tower. Attached a test light. Negative on bottom and positive in one or other of the two running parallel. One should light up. The other shouldnt.
Google it for pictures. If none of this works, you have a bad tps.
Oliver Edwards
I haven't gotten to hook the TPS up to an ohmmeter yet. I'm on my weekend so I'll go out and buy one when somewhere is open. Do you think my guess at it being the TPS is right? Part of the reason I think that is because during the bucking, there's no backfire or pop when the power comes back, so I think it's fuel cutting. I'll try the test light here in a minute, though.
Isaac Morgan
Hows the idle? Hows the part throttle cruise? Like very low input on throttle.
Brayden Morales
Idle seems okay, even when it's warm. Even with very low throttle input, after a long enough time driving it'll buck. I haven't done much scientific testing because I'm afraid it might strand me, but after about 20m of driving I parked it, gave it a couple minutes, and it started and idled fine warm, and seemed to rev fine without any load on it.
Andrew Gray
To be specific it seemed like the longer it went on, the less throttle was required to make it start bucking.
Gabriel Sanchez
Yeah start with the tps. Ohm meter is annoying but more accurate. Test light is easy but less accurate.
Jason Allen
this, the rotary engine was selected for a purpose. Lightness.
Adding in a bigger, heavier, engine just throws off the balance of the whole car and ruins its fucking legendary (for the time, at least) agility.
Jack Kelly
just not balance or weight. its the characteristics of the rotary that really make the experience, slow revving ohv engines dont provide that muh v8fags only care about mashing the throttle and shredding rubber. thats not what the car is about
Alexander Parker
As the link says, it's heavier. And it's not taking into account replacing some heavy stock accessories like the radiator with a lighter aluminum one. Very mild weight reduction RX7s (still having power steering, ABS, AC) are around 2700lb-2740lb while his is 2950lb? So 210-250lb heavier.
There are rotary SM2 RX7s that are 2000-2400lb.
William Wright
>shit to maintain Clearly you've never owned one.
They are easy to maintain if you take care of it like a performance car. You don't drive it all day long at 2k rpm. You don't wait till the oil reaches 9000 miles before you change it. You don't redline the engine when the meter is below "C". It really isn't hard people.
Nicholas Powell
How many miles on your engine? My stalls occurred when my coils went out. Bought BHR coils and problem wasn't just fixed, but the car performs much better and gets slightly better mpg.
Julian Reyes
Check carbon build up on spark plugs. Also want to check your coils. If you aren't warming the car up each time you drive, and redlining it to 9k at least once each time you drive it, then you could be having carbon issues. That, or your coils are dead. Your MAF is likely to be fine.
>loose to a stock C4 Corvette Well, there's your problem. You are drag racing. I beat subies, vets, and SS's all the time going up and down mountain roads. The track is a bit harder since there are occasional straights, but my times are almost the same and I'm all stock except my coils.
Don't buy the car for fuel economy. I get the same as my friends in their WRX's and STI's. It is a performance car. Not an econobox.
The only better handling car out there would be a miata. If by "performance" you mean straight line numbers, then yes, you have the wrong car.
Sounds to me like another case of the owner not using it correctly, though.
David Howard
heavier to the tune of one passenger spread equally over each wheel, torque wins races etc
Andrew James
Fastest rx7s in the world are rotary. Low Center of gravity is a thing too.
Joshua Young
only because no one want to was a good engine like the ls1 into a wet noodle like the FD. no one competent that is..
Hudson Scott
SM2 rules do allow for swapping in a 3.5L Ford Cyclone V6 into FDs.
If that made for a faster car, they'd be used.
Instead you have 13b RX7s beating 500hp+ 911s and Corvettes.
I'll contend that LS RX7s aren't legal in SM/SM2, but there are larger displacement piston engine options as mentioned. I'd presume the Ford Cyclone V6 could be increased to at least 4L as well, and rules would allow for turbo or supercharging, too.
The FD has over 50% the torsional rigidity of the C5 Corvette. Like wow, you actually have no clue what you're talking about. The FD had the most rigid chassis of its day. And I'm comparing it to the C5 that came out many years later, here. On top of that, it has the bracing through the drivetrain and ridiculously overbuilt crossmembers.
Chase Taylor
Bouht FD Bathurst RS in November, and it shoud arrive in few days from Japan
Gavin Clark
*waste a good engine plus the fd is probably only faster on some goofy ass nipshit conefag track. You need torque to hang with the big boys
>muh rules Kek, there's no rules on the street pussy bitch. keep making excuses for rotaries and their obsolescence/irrelevance in 2017. Mazda isn't even standing behind it anymore. >of its day trash by today's standards.
Jayden Carter
my condolences
Jacob Taylor
Rotaries are garbage unless you're going pure race mode and are okay with working on it every month. Even then they're still garbage but theyre fast garbage.
Street car? Fucking forget about it. The juice is not worth the squeeze.
Grayson Jenkins
Pretty good b8. Someone will be triggered
Brayden Hall
Thank you.
John Gutierrez
Not really. Pretty weak bait.
Whose going to take imaginary street race results over the objective results of races?
Josiah Brooks
Can you explain why the chassis of that car is 40% flimsier than the FD that came out 5 years earlier?
Noah Gonzalez
Say I wanted one for getting to and from school (like 3~4 miles each way), how much of a pain would this car be? (Considering that I really don't do much outside of cars)
Connor Nguyen
People who don't have to adhere to stringent criteria set forth by racing regulatory bodies, probably. So, p much everyone aside from retarded torqlets.