Guys, This may sound outrageous but I am planning to drive my 85 GSL-SE through the MN winter this coming winter. Winter starts here in October and stays till March/April. Here is what the current condition of the car is:

123K miles
5Spd with new gear oil + diff oil
Tires need replacement

HVAC fan seems to blow just fine and heats up quickly - ofcourse its summer here.
All the lights work - car does not leak anything in a high pressure car wash. Wipers work/rear defogger work.

Basically, I am thinking about using POR 15 on the areas that have rust on them - so its does not spread like cancer. Give the car a tune-up. Check the brakes and put new tires. Any other suggestions? I know these things have an issue with flooding. But does the 13b have any issue with winter cold starting?

Any inputs will be appreciated. Happy 4th to you all.

 

make sure all your sensors and stuff work, especially temp sensor and tps are adjusted, so the car dont run too rich or idle rough in the colder temps. One day when it was like 10 below the engine wouldn't start unless the throttle was wide open, but that was only once, every other time it started up just like summer. Also make sure that your wires are all in good condition so the road chemicals dont eat em out like what happened to my lights. Also, without snow tires, and with an lsd, you wont move from a stop. When you are driving on snow or ice and when you downshift at too high rpms the rear tires will lock up a bit and you will slide sideways. I live in Montana, and I did one winter in an 84 gslse.

my $0.02

 

Aha, I meant new snow tires. I know exactly what you mean when you say I won't be able to move from a stop sign. All the cars I own are rear wheel drive.

Temp sensor seems to work fine. I will check the TPS. LSD does not seem to be working in my RX7 - I did a little agreesive start today in rain and only the rear right wheel was spinning. Too bad I can't put sand bags in the car - can't risk getting killed by a flying sandbag..

Thanks for your inputs..

 

Time to end the RWD cars and get a beater civic or something. A GSL-SE shouldnt see the wintertime, especially up north with all the salt. Just my 2 cents as well, but I am biased towards 7's

 

Believe me if my GSL-SE had no rust in it, I wouldn't be driving it in winter. I will post some pictures soon..

 

i wouldnt drive a 7 in the snow. i did for two years and have since moved on to better winter vehicles and have saved the wear on my 7's and the frustration of knowing that the road salt is eating my car away. if you're an inexperianced driver, i highly reccomend you find another mode of transportation for the winter months. the 7 can be a handful if you have not driven one in the winter.

 

not only is it difficult to drive in winter, there's not much in the way of side impact protection for when Jane Soccermom slides through an intersection and broadsides you.

 

Both of you guys have good point. RX7 crossed off the list. I will however have to drive my Q45 then. at least better side protection.

Thanks guys.

 

I drove my very rusty 85 GSL for one winter, never had any real issues with it, but we had little snow that year. The only thing I see as a problem is the underneath clearance. Over that winter the car and I covered 40,000 miles, I do pharmacy deliveries for nursing homes.

As for RWD, I have been here 7 years (never saw snow prior to moving here) and have only owned RWD vehicles (RX7(Lots), Isuzu Impulse, Crown Vic, Lincoln Town car and Chevrolet Caprice), I drive about 100,000 per year and have never been stuck, lost control or in a ditch. RWD seems to work for 95% of cops also.

Every year, on the first real downfall I go to a large parking lot late at night and practice my car control (read as have a blast), I also use snow tires on the rear.

Steve

 

My region is as flat as a pool table though, hills definately make a difference

 

don't do it! our cars are hard to drive in the rain, let alone snow and ice!

 

greenwar, you get good advise and bad on any forum. Some people know how to drive drive, some don't. Because someone has a high performance car set up with all the fancy stuff, doesn't mean they know how to drive. Getting everything in good working condition is a good start. As for tires, I have 3 sets of 4 tires, one set of hi performance wide rims and tires for events or special mountain runs, 1 set of stock rims with regular road tires and another set of 4 mounted with studded radials. The studded radials go on at first snowfall. I personally wouldn't have anything but a front engine rear drive car. Always put the best tires on the front, all your steering and 70% of the braking is done with the front tires.

As a guest driving instructor for Dick Turners High Performance Driving School held in Denver each year for the RX-7 club, it is apparent that some on this forum do not know how to drive. aussiesmg had good advise. PRACTICE. Having driven over 1.3 million miles, 600,000 miles in Colorado, 400,000 in rotaries and for 10 years I drove 170 miles a day over the highest mountain pass in the US every day all winter long, always covered with snow and never got stuck once. Why do it, I was a professional ski instructor, and it was my commute, and I drove over Loveland Pass, look it up on the map. 2 lane and few guardrails and someplaces 1000' drops if you go off the road wrong. Nothing beats practice.

The key is throttle control, and drive holding the wheel as if you had blisters on your fingers and a raw egg under your throttle and brake.

Also go to your local coin op car wash and hose off the underside and fender wells good, once a week, to remove salt and other deposits.

 

Man, you young guys are SO SPOILED!

I bought my RX7 new in 1980. No power steering, factory tires. I drove it in Northwest Iowa for the next ten years. It was my only transportation. The only time I had trouble was when the snow on the road became so deep that it hit the frame.

If you put Blizzaks on it you will be fine, until the snow gets really deep. And at that point why be on the road anyway?

 

BTW, we didn't know what FWD was back then.

 

FWD sucks. in snow it understeers horribly. personally id rather oversteer than understeer. a good cheap winter beater would be an old AWD subaru. i wouldnt drive a rx7 i loved in the snow up north, due to rust. if it was just a beater 7 then yeah, you shouldnt worry about it. we had a "bad" snow storm here last winter. i left work during the worst of it, 3rd shift. it was pretty deap fast. i only had two problems, on the main road i accidential did a 180 in front of mcdonalds. i just dropped and a gear and let into her and finished out the 360 and kept going. mind you, theres was no one on the roads but me and my friend following me. we didnt stop at any redlights. when i got home i had trouble getting up my really steep driveway, but i managed to burn through the snow to the road and went up it sideways

RWD will just make snow more fun

 

Lots of great response from pros - Thank You!!

Wow - some of you guys are great drivers - driving an RX7 in hilly areas in winter.. or in N IA.

I drove rear wheel drive cars all winter last winter but they were 4200lbs v8 sedans. I know how to control the throttle so may be just having good winter tires will be good enough. I live in a flat area and my commute to work is 3 mins.

Now where do i find snow tires for my 85 GSL-SE ? it seems tirerack doesn't have anything available!

 

This may sound retarded but what would you guys say 185/65/R14 be for snow tires on a GSL-SE? To me it seems perfect as it will be narrow and taller sidewall - perfect for snow. Or am I smoking something? It seems .9% shorter than stock 205/60 14s.

 

My bro's GSL-SE did ok in the snow over in Fort Collins, CO. Nice and flat. He got it in December. It was either sunny or snowy there. He had no clue how it did in rain until some months later.

Oh and his car had taller narrower tires than stock.

 

Grenwar, 185/70 would probably be even better yet. Taller and skinny is better in snow and don't forget the studs. Some states regulate studs to be used only in certain months, so therefore check local laws and be prepared for tire swaps. A set of inexpensive rims for winter is a good investment, and you will not have the dismount and remount hassles.

 

DOC-Watt, thanks for your response. Minnesota I think completely bans use of studs - I will check the regulations. I did see great price on 185/70 snow tires - so I will get those and put'em on the 7. Should be a fun winter.

 

Good advice.

Sadly, practice still won't increase the car's side impact protection against SUVs driven by those who don't practice but assume AWD means "immune to laws of physics"

 

^^ +50

I've never owned anything but FRWD or RRWD and had no problem driving any of them in the snow the 7 really isn't that bad over steers sometimes but is better then RRWD cars. They want to rotate much quicker then anything else kind of scary but if you are good at counter steering you can put on quite a display.

 

I didnt have a problem from my daily driver . as long as your tires are in good shape and you keep the snow from building up in the wheel wells it isnt a big deal . even in belly deep snow i didnt have a problem . just make sure you have a dead body in the back . if none availible then you can easilly throw a couple full size spairs in there like i did !

 

Manntis you are correct. In all the years in Colo winter driving, the most vehicles in the ditch in the winter were 4WD and AWD. The drivers think they can defy the laws of physics, they can get up and go but forget they also have to stop. As to accidents in general, in the cities the problem is worse, SUV's driven by soccer moms, as well as text messaging and cell phone use while driving now make up the single greatest cause of auto accidents in the country. They now exceed drunk driving and speeding causes. Just this past week, 5 teenage girls were killed, with investigation showing the most likely cause was cell phone use while driving. I say, those that use cell phones without a hands free, voice activated device need to stick it where the sun doesn't shine while in a car.

 

ah, but the teen girl driving was typing a text. Worst of both worlds