I see quite a few rx7s in junkyards around here. The first gens that are there now seem to have an average mean engine life of 150-165k. Not sure about the 2nd gens, but the one I had went to 210k before it went.
The complaints you hear about rotary engines usually are from a guy who knows a guy whose cousin knows something about rotaries, and he says they're unreliable. These claims are not totally unsubstantiated, I think, given the problems people had with the early 3rd gens, and the learning curve piston guys have to deal with when they try and take a rotary apart that somebody broke.
It's funny to talk to guys that know piston engines well, and try to explain rotaries to them. It's like they just don't want to understand. You know something well, you expect to see similarities in design, but when they're not there, you get frustrated.
Although, I can't blame them, I feel the same way about MACs.
:P

 

my motor had 185,000 before it blew, and it only blew because the throttle cable got stuck and kept reving the motor, and boom

 

Actually, it was a transaction between IBM and M$FT that gave what became MS-DOS to Microsoft. Apple never sold an OS to M$FT.

 

True. These were two different episodes, and a little more complicated. To summarize some key points:

Bill Gates, through the guise of another party, stole DOS from Gary Kildall and then sold it to IBM. This is has been proven in court.

When Micro$oft originally began writing application software it was for the Apple Macintosh. As part of that agreement, Apple licensed some of the Mac User Interface for MS-Applications on the PC. This Application suite later grew into Windows 1.0 and Office.

However, in the course of doing that development work, Micro$oft went way beyond what they had licensed and stole not only many ideas but actual API's, data structures, and routines. If you look at the old code it is chilling how much was stolen and how blatant the ripoff was.

 

i have an 83 gsl and it has 160k on it and it still runs strong. im only 17 and i love proven the guys wrong about rotary power. this on kid i know has a 5.0 mustang and i raced him with my rx-7 and handed his *** to him with my 1.2 liter. go figure.

 

When I got my 85 the odometer said 109,000 miles. The owner had it sitting in the front yard for five years and all I did was hook up a set of jumper cables to it and she started right up. That was in sept of 2002 I have 120,000 miles now and I still walk over most of the cars that used to mess with me. Its funny when I imagine what their thinking when they realize that while they shift up into another gear I'm still pulling in whatever gear I would currently be in.

I've talked to a narrow minded mechanic that tried to tell me that a RX-7 is a four banger is because it has four spark plugs. I tried to explain that one pair is leading and the other pair is for trailing, but he just kept rambling on about how he could take me in his dakota pick up so I just gave up and tuned him out completely