What is the Reliability of the 1st gen rx7?
What is the most you have had wrong?

 

As long as its not turbo, you got nothing to worry about except normal bullshit, battery, altenator, starter, clutch.

 

VERY reliable...unless you are like most of us and f*** with it all the time. My engine is on 167,000 miles and I drive the **** out of it.

 

come on there must be more rx7 drivers that can give me a answer

 

no really dude, i covered everything. beyond that nothing is wrong with a 1st gen, except rust. Rust is the enemy. beware of its presence.

 

I agree but the eventual blowing an apex can happen. These motors are very reliable, 3 moving parts, as long as you take care of it, it goes hard...

 

it could but then it might not, i think there are some people on this board who have a first gen at 250k+. And if you are on a car website I would hope they have the intelligence to take care of it. This isnt a Z car motor where you can run it forever and not do a damn thing to it.

 

ok well if thers any more tell me now

 

The Gen 1 RX-7 is totally reliable. Like all cars they should be serviced, and like all 20-25 year old cars they will need normal replacement parts such as the battery which has a 2 year design life.

The 12A turbo efi engined cars are just as reliable as the US imported 12A carby cars. The 13B is just as reliable inspite of more complex electronics.

If you modify cars to gain higher performance then they will wear out quicker regardless of whether it's a Ford, Honda or Mazda. However, the manufacturers build in a level of redundancy[over engineering] so minor modifications do not effect reliability. Its only if you add an after market turbo with high boost or go bigport and drive with a heavy foot that any make oif car becomes unreliable as you excede the designer's specifications.

The Gen1 RX-7 is well over engineered, and will take abuse better than most recent cars which are built to a price in a competitive market.

 

Hi,

I have an August '78 model '79 RX-7, I have over 500,000 miles on the odometer going from duty station to duty station in the Navy and taking it over seas with me. I just absolutly love this car. I change the oil every 2,000 miles put '91 octane pump gas in it and just do routine maintenance on it such as oil, replacing hoses, sparks and wires, other routine things. It is still running on OEM equipment. I also had the oil lines replaced every 6 years and have had all the exhaust redone to a header->custome made straight threw Stainless Steal pipe 3.5" to a RB Power Pulse Muffler. of course she has Eibach Pro Springs and Eibach Struts that is about it. She is mechanicaly sound and all electronics have never been replaced. No cracked Dash or plastics. I can't say the same for my second Gen though which was cheapend up on plastics. But I would trust my '78 RX-7 GS to take me from NC to California any day of the week. In fact it would be my first choice of cars out all my RX-7's and any car for that fact. Just seems to me the '78 & '79 were the true RX-7's built to last in every way possible. Not that I am downing any other year of RX-7 becouse I own multipals and would take any one of them over a piston any day.

But yes I am satisfied with my honies especially the Good 'ol August of '78 model '79 RX-7

 

so far the only major prob i had was my intake manifold gasket was shot and was leaking coolant everywhere and over heating. i bought my car off some dude and god knows how he drove it, but seals are starting to go cuz it starting to smoke, but i replaced the normal stuff, battery altinator, masterclutch just cuz they were all original(except battery). it's an 85 gs with 197,000 miles but is a trooper, goes through anything i put it through. payed only 800$ and from what i can tell, its lasted a year so i already got my moneys worth.

 

I bought the car (85 gs) last week it has 153,000 miles, sat for 5 years and it runs very well except for a very small fueling problem. Its a great car so far, oh and it only failed emissions by 3 points lol.

 

Vaccum leaks are the only thing i've really seen wrong in a significant number of these cars. You know you have that when you shoot flames everytime you deccelerate Gaskets and hoses crack from the age is all. Or from a previous owner being less than meticulous in their work putting things back together.
Honestly these things are hard to kill. Drive it often (of course taking the time to warm up the engine to operating temp before turning it off.) Change the fluids/filters/spark plugs. Wash it when it's dirty (we don't like rust.) Common car sense stuff. Anyone who kills an engine if they do all of these things are probably messing with perfection, err....modding Poor maintanece by a previous owner probably causes the most number of problems depending on how much/little they tried to do.
I've got an '84 that I just drove out to Indy to race (so 1000+ miles plus racing in one weekend) and all I really did to prep was change the oil. It makes long road trips with no complaints.
My 2nd gen had an owner who drove in everything and was lazy with his fixes, but since it was run regularly and got the very basics, like oil, it's still fine with 220k on it (original engine with turbo) but it's a pain cuz half the electronics are now shot. No direct experience with 3rd gens but I figure it's the same story unless someone took care of it and left it stock.
1st gens don't have all that baggage. I'm fixing up an '82 and '85. The '85 hadn't been started in 5yrs cuz the owners were too dumb to check the fundamentals. I had it running that weekend. The 1st gens are very straightforward cars.

 

You can always tell which 1st gens were maintained properly and which ones weren't. My current 1st gen ('85 GSL 12A) has 152,000 miles on it. (approx. 243,000 km).

But some of these cars only made it to around 100,000 miles (160,000 km). These cars were owned by mechanically-challenged yuppie types who:

a) didn't bother to check the oil or even add any as necessary.

b) checked and added oil occasionally, but figured that since they added oil from time to time it was not necessary to change the oil.

c) blew a coolant hose, overheated and then drive the 1/2 hour or so to the next service station rather than pull over and call a towtruck.

d) Started the car and then drove away shifting at 7000 rpm with the engine still cold--- every day.

e) Not only installed the wrong (ie: el cheapo) spark plugs, but also got the plug wires on the trailing plugs mixed up between rotors and ignored that pinging sound under the hood.

f) At around 100,000 miles the "Overheat Exhaust System" warning light came on, but was ignored. This allowed the clogged pre-cats to restrict exhaust flow sufficiently to cause local overheating of the engine and breach of the coolant o-rings.

g) If and when they occasionally did have the oil changed they used crappy oil filters, ie: Fram.

Many of these same Einsteins have previously owned boingers that didn't last much past the expiration of the warranty, but you never hear about those engines being bad, only the owner's abysmal maintenance habits. It's time to lay the blame where it belongs: at the feet of these morons, not on the engines. Otherwise how can we explain the high mileage on the cars that are properly maintained.

 

Lets just say that in my first year of ownership I put 27K hard miles on my car, and never had a major problem. Until my seat broke...

 

Mine is running 200K on the chassis, and about 80-100K (not sure) on the motor. Still runs strong, despite what the compression numbers say (low on one rotor)

 

I suggest that you change the oil and filter everyother month.

My engine made it to 220 K miles. And I bought it used in 1990 with 80K miles on it. Recently I changed the oil at three months (Atkins warranty). With the two month oil change , the oil almost looked new. At three months it was totally opaque (or black from deposits). Also check the engine oiler lines.

As far as everything else (2 front right idler arm bushings, 2 alternators, 3 batteries, 2 brake master cylinders, 3 clutch master/slave cylinder, 2 rear brake cylinders, change brake clutch fluid about every 2 years, countless brake pads, lubed front wheel bearings, replace windshield, carburator coaster valve, driver's side window regulator, dashboard lights, radio speakers, 2 radiators, 3 water pumps, 4 thermostats, heater fan brushes, gas cap cover solenoid, 1 fuse link, 3 windshield wiper bushings, 1 fuel pump, countless fan belts, 2 head lamp turn signal combi switches, 1 airconditioning switch, 1 set of rear shocks, under coated wheel wells, 2 drive shafts, new vacuum line hoses, 2 sets of rear hatch struts, 1 rear wheel bearing, 1 three way emission's valve, 1 water pump housing...and one motor......did I leave anything out?), all over the past 15 years and 140 K miles.....or 47 things divided by 15 years is about 3 things a year

I know how to fix everything on the car because I've done it several times.