After not having a FC- or a convertible- for several years and missing both the whine of a rotary and the feel of the breeze in my hair on the road, I'm looking at picking up another FC3C.

The top candidate is kind of interesting though as it is being claimed that it has been modified to add an extra 75+ HP to the engine- without having made any internal (i.e. porting) mods to the engine- purely from 'polishing the intake & exhaust ports', more free-flowing exhaust and manifold, cold air intake, and ECU map changes. Frankly from what I remember from all the reading and investigating I did back when I had my previous FC, that sounds pretty much impossible- if it were THAT simple to get over 230HP on a normally-aspirated 13B why would Mazda have needed a turbo to get that much power themselves?

(worth noting: frankly this doesn't enter much into my decision whether or not to buy the car- I'd be perfectly happy with a stock engine- I'm just curious if my assessment & memory is correct about what you can and can't actually make power-wise with minimal mods...)

 

The seller is ignorant or lying. Porting and polishing are internal modifications made to the irons and rotor housings. If the car is a nice, buy it. Just don't expect more power than stock.

 

caveat emptor. porting and polishing are the same thing. so you would be wise to make sure the claims in the ad match reality. it is possible with an NA, that is ported and stuff to do about 180rwhp, which is over 200 at the flywheel, so 75hp is high, but 50 has been done

 

porting and polishing is a piston term, guys would do it to heads.
You can think of it as porting is just a crude/unfinished form of polishing but porting generally means to remove material where polishing means to smooth and polish it out with minimal material being removed- its just being polished.

 

The description the seller gives is just 'polishing', so in theory they could be talking about polishing the intake manifold. You're right though- I'm not expecting much if any more power than stock. I should be able to tell pretty easily when driving it since I remember pretty well what driving my previous one was like.

Just got a bit more info from the seller- and honestly it's pretty funny. The seller doesn't seem to know a whole lot directly and is just passing on info from what they have from when they got the car. The meat of it:

'Aftermarket improvements: KHS exhaust system & K&N filter, stainless header, O2 sensor, performance plugs & wires, complete chip change, hood scoop (looks like it uses a T2 hood), racing bucket seats, Momo steering wheel, leather shift **** & boot, racing lights (huh?) and x-rated tires (must...not...make...joke... )'

What really makes me chuckle is that included in the 'mods/options' info are the following:

Roll bar- since the pictures clearly show that there is NOT an aftermarket roll bar, I'm going to have to assume they mean the one that's part of the top. Not inaccurate I suppose- but also not at all what is normally meant by that.

4-wheel steering- Since I've NEVER heard of a true 4-wheel steering mod (and frankly engineering that on these cars would likely cost 10x what the car would be worth anyway...) I'm going to have to assume that they mean the ability of the rear end to shift slightly under load (I've forgotten what this is technically called... been too long since I've been talking FC...). Not an outright lie, but also WAY far from what the term '4-wheel steering' means to most people.

 

If I'm not mistaken the FC had passive rear wheel steering. Like the Haicus steering on the 240s.

 

you mean something about rubbers and a slutty car? come on ... make a joke. you shouldn't let the kid's ad get all the laughs.

probably the DTSS.

actually, the first time i'd ever heard of 4 wheel steering was from Mazda. if i recall, they had a 4WS version of the 626 circa 1988-ish. i think the Honda Prelude followed suit shortly after that.

 

DTSS- that's what I couldn't remember. And it's not that it's a Mazda that had me shaking my head about the '4-Wheel Steering', it's that the term to me (and I imagine most) evokes an imagine of all 4 wheels being linked and turning with the steering wheel vs. a passive setup like the DTSS.

 

Didn't GM make a truck like that for like 1 year? I vivdly remember the commercial

 

yeah, Mazda and honda were 1988, and the GM was 2003 or so, my friend has one. the GM system isn't very exciting, it can make a U turn.

 

Figured, my first thought was more expensive **** to fix

 

Sounds like another guy that has no idea what he's talking about. Easy way to find out, ask what cams it's got in it... see what he says.

 

In fairness, the actual seller doesn't make much in the way of claiming to know much about the specifics but just has the info they were given along with the car which is what they're going by- so I'd not be surprised if not only did they not know that it doesn't have a cam but also not really know what a cam is in the first place...

 

For the most part, what the seller claims and his knowledge of rotaries is irrelevant.
Unless he's charging a premium for the "extra 75hp", what you can see and feel are all that matters.

I'm guessing the "cold air intake" is a cone filter (probably a Spectre Type R from Autozone) and no telling what ECU mapping changes are even possible with the stock ECU (AFAIK, none really)...so all the cool features he brags about are at best neutral and at worst, detrimental.

Just make a decision based on your knowledge and ignore him.

 

I am with clokker on this one. You can't really just "chip" and rx7 ecu.

Just look under the hood and make sure everything is intact and not butchered, drive it and see how it feels and go from there...

...although I don't think you have it in kentucky, if the car needs to be smogged, request the seller either smog it for you before you buy it or request the seller let you smog it before you buy the car. We have smog tailpipe inspection here in Texas and the guy I bought my car from let me have the car, without giving him money, to make sure the car passed under the understanding that I was bringing it right straight back to him if it didnt pass. I came back in the car 3 days later and handed him his money.

 

in Ca it is the law that the seller needs to smog the car. or is legally responsible for said, anyone can smog it. so huge discount if the car isn't smogged

 

In theory, this is also true in CO.
In practice, I've never seen/heard of this happening.

 

It actually had a decent cold-air setup using what looked to be a T-2 hood to pull in air through a semi-gasketed intake from the hood scoop. As to emissions- I'm in KY, where we have absolutely none to worry about.

Unfortunately, it looks like it doesn't matter- the car appears to have been sold (listing is no longer up) and the potential buyer for the car I needed to sell before I could buy it changed their mind, so it's now a moot point. :|

 

Ah, now you have your own personal "One That Got Away".

 

The golden rule: If someone is selling a car, almost everything they tell you is bullshit.

 

I know I'm late to the game, but back in my day, "roll bar" was interchangeable with "sway bar."

 

I'd disagree with that. I consider polishing cleaning up the casting bits without changin port timing, which I've done for IT cars, and porting actually changing port timing.