If you've got 10-12K lying around, buy a nice chassis without a motor and then go buy a 20B block and rebuild it with Non-turbo high compression rotors and have a bad *** 300+hp nonturbo 7. SHould be right around 10 to 12K.

Just my $.02.

J

 

I've got 185,000 on mine and still runs strong, knock on wood. Its non turbo. I don't baby it but I don't beat on it either. I drive it like a sportscar it is. I've made three 2000 mile trips on it and not one problem. On those trips I was going 75+ plus. At one time I was doing well over a hundred for like a hour with a bunch of other cars. I change the oil every 2000 miles. I flush the radiator alot.

 

6 rotor FTW

 

Why would anyone claim that a "domestic built" American made car/engine is less or more reliable? I've owned several cars over the years including a 93 jeep GC V8 4x4 with 267K miles (no major problems and run pretty damn hard.) - domestic built, have the sticker still too boot. The 318 engine in my jeep has been in production since the 50's and is touted by many mechanics to be one of the most reliable engines ever made. A car's reliability depends much more upon the owner than the vehicle itself in many cases.

 

i have an n/a with 177k miles on it. its still strong.

 

I picked up a brand new pretty nice Compression tester for 24 bucks at autozone. A lot of the auto part stores will rent out things like this for a reasonable fee.

 

my 100% stock N/A blew an ampex seal at 101k miles, it it a 1991. I daily drove it and only occasionally took it to redline, usually did'nt get on it at all. It never overheated and I changed the oil regularly. This thing was stock right down to the mazda airbox

 

^ A prime example of an "easy/typical driver". I am truly starting to believe the old addage of "Don't buy a car built on a Friday" - it really seems like you get lucky or not when it comes to your particular vehicle.
Besides my long lasting Jeep, my "best" car ever was a 75 Datsun 710 I bought for $1, yes $1. Over 290K miles (replaced the oil whenever I though about it - usually every 20K or so, though it leaked about a quart a week.) And I just sold it for scrap for a blow head not 2 weeks ago - gasket finally let go and ate a pen size gap between the cylinders (about 200-250 to fix + gasket set and time.) I'd say I got my money from that one

 

theres no denying that turbos wont last at long as n/as but with maintenance, tuning and general good care, and wankel will last you a long time.

Excepting a few mods that increase reliability (i.e. dumping hte pre-cat for a downpipe on FD's, and maybe 3mm apex seals) changing the vehicle from stock will make it less reliable.

 

Off topic:
Did you get a title on that for $1? I bought a subaru justy for $10 with no title and mobbed the **** out of that thing like no other. I took it down horse trails in a forest around my folks place, went like 50+ down a big *** grassy hill, ran over entire scotch broom bushes at high speed and the ****** did not break. I finally ran it out of gas (the gas gage didnt work) in some farmers field or something and left it overnight. Next morning i came back and someone had like shot it with a shotgun several times, including once in the gascap, and like beat the **** out of it with baseball bats! I put some gas in the tank (literally) It started right up and i just pulled it over to the side of the road, got out... never saw it again.

 

stock motor from a 79 firebird with the 301 made it up to around 120k miles till it blew due to detonation.
my dad had a 70's fiesta/festiva that had around 160k miles on it.
think my friends dads truck has something like 800,000 miles on it but I'm sure that is another story
I know of many others though also

 

most all of the SBC I have seen never replaced the head gasket unless they screwed something up. and oil pumps failing? that's not too common unless you have something wrong where you didn't take care of something on car usually

 

Quite literally the same story. Yes, I did have title and paid a whopping $36 annualy for registration in the grand state of CA, ha. My wagon, aka "the bitch getter" is a local legend, I have played the car up so much my 9 and 12 year old nieces cryed when I scrapped the car because they wanted it. Long live the Bitch Getter

 

you guys with the beaters are reminding me of a few of the old beaters I have had and the one I currently own

my favorite was the 78 celica. man that thng was a tank. over 200k miles on the ticker. oil had more lumps in it them good homecooked gravy and was never changed just added to the oil when the rods started to knock. heater went out one time for a month never thought about fixing it even though it was middle of winter. come to find out I blew the bottom radiator hose. never added coolant or anything. car ran a little rough, but didn't sieze up. sure it was middle of winter but you know doing city driving even during winter should overheat the motor right. sieze something, blow a gasket. not on this car. fixed the rad hose filled it with 2 gallons of coolant drove like normal during the next summer did a compression test and had 150psi on all 4 cylinders. didn't seem to mess anything up. reved it up past the redline all the time. 5000rpms clutch dumps. only repair I have ever done other then the coolant hose was a drive line repair. out of the four joints on the u-join only one was holding the driveshaft in place. yes boys that's it one little piece holding the whole thing together. drove it many freeway miles like that, did many clutch dumps like that. hell prolly put 3000miles on the driveshaft being held up so skimpy like till I was able to get another driveshaft.


my current beater is a 76 accord. woot woot talk about speed demon. 1.6L CVCC engine with 68hp and 76lbs/ft of torque. yes a honda that makes more torque then horsepower at a decent peak of 3000rpms. thing is slow as **** though. hope the turbo will help that out though. figure it's a beater and what better car to try to put a turbo on. it breaks oh well. just gotta get the weber on there and rebuilt first then comes the turbo. 8:1 compression should help out for this as well since that is what the car comes with stock. that and the 2000lb weight of the car before I start stripping some **** out it should help a little. talk about a sleeper. again that is if it works