I got a free rx7 and i want to know if it's worth keeping.
 

Ok first off the is my first time posting on this form so i dont really know where i should post this but this is what it is...

Ok i got a free 1988 rx7 none turbo convertible. It has good compresiton on the frot rotor but the back one doesn't have it good. I found some turbo eingins on ebay From like 1,300 To 2,000 dollars. I wanted to know if it's worth putting that much into this car.

The car has good pain but the front driver side fender needs a bit of tlc. It Needs a new top too.

Tell me what you guysd think, I really dont know what the car is worth or anything so let me know thanks!


Richard

you have about a 50/50 chance of one of those ebay jdm motors being delivered dead just like yours. i honestly think you might be better off just parting it out and making a few bucks.

It's work keeping if you like it. If you dont like rx-7 then just sell it.

Get a rebuild from Kevin Landers at http://www.rotaryresurrection.com/

His base price is $1000.00 (more if you need parts not normally included/replaced). You'll have to istall it yourself. Get a fender from a parts car of the same color and replace the top. If the rest of the car is in good shape you may have a car worth more than 3k. People will pay for a nice vert.

yup...plus verts are fun to drive....

keep it you already just just saved 2000 bucks in not buying the car.

There is more to just doing a motor swap

Your going to need the wire harness for the turbo upper and lower intake mani exhaust mani turbo complete turbo block turbo computer

any poics of the 7 you got??

The Engins i found on ebay had the engin wiring harness and the ecu with it.

I dont really know but its still the same motor it's just turboed. Its the 13b engin.

dont bother with an ebay engine, keep the car... you just saved money.

Keep it and do not part it. I bought my T2 for $500 out of a guys field with a locked up motor. Bought a JDM engine and it has been running strong for over 3 years now. You can have your engine rebuilt though for just as much or cheaper than some JDM ones.

I agree though that you just saved the cost of the car so might as well keep it.

Mike

def don't bother with EBAY. Keep that car it just saved you money. I got mine free (87 na GXL) havn't even done a compression test yet (it only has 65k on it) and the thing runs like a champ. Just keep it well maintained.

agreed - DONT bother with an ebay motor i have heard nothing but horror stories
understand that installing a jdm motor and transmission would be somewhat more complicated than installing a usdm t2 engine but the upside is they are infinantly easier to find. check out these sites

http://www.jspecauto.com/catalog_pro...px?prod_id=168
https://www.tigerjapanese.com/index.php

i have a vert right now that needs body work that i had to pay for, fixing the convertible top is a little difficult but come on man you have a free 7 so just go with it there is a thread in the 2nd gen archives that details how you go about fixing your convertible top. im too lazy to link it as i have to run to the DMV to get my drivers license back right now

anyway good luck with your new 7 they are awsome cars especially the convertible you wont see many of them on the road

Get an ebay engine, get an o-ring and gasket kit for the engine, take it apart and clean and spec everything out, if everything is within spec, put it back together with the oring and gasket kit. Drop it in your car.

Make sure you get a Series 4 86-88 engine though, if you don't want to change out the differential, you can buy a driveshaft adapter that will connect the turbo transmission to the non turbo rear end.

I am dealing with the same situation.. Free S4 N/A beautiful paint blown engine. except mine is a 88 coupe 2+2. Can you not use the S5 engine/tranny? What will be difficult with that instead of using the S4. I found a cheap S5.

There's a writeup on rotary resurrection's website on how to do it, it's just simpler to do it on the same year car.

like said before. do you like it? if you like it keep and and put the money into it. iif you do keep it do the TII swap into it. :)

i also got my FC for free

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...frontangle.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...7/rx7front.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../RX-7/int1.jpg

now i love it. it's fun to drive and i guess it's pretty powerful
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...8/DSCF0076.jpg
it's not really THAT clean... it's just the picture haha
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...9/DSC00116.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...9/DSC00123.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...9/DSC00119.jpg

nothing beats a free FC. with a little work (or a lot like mine) you'll have lots of friggin fun

I got my 88vert for 500 and have a t2 in it now not totally still na drive train but its probably only costed me about 1500 for the entire top 400 motor 100 hood 500 on some misc. im still not done but you started at not spending anything on your so if you like rx7 def keep it. If theres any shops around your area that do rotary perfomance you can probably get a decent na motor for cheap my brother picked one up for 200 with tranny and engine harness, and ecu. so i would say keep it if your interested in rotaries.

The wiring and i believe the drivetrain might be different people say to stick with s4 to s4 and s5 to s5

what front lip is that there wil87?

Didn't see this point answered, so here it goes...the 13B non-turbo and turbo short blocks are different, so you can't just swap the turbo and electronics over onto the NA short block. This is because a few things are different, incl. Rotors are low compression, intake has 4 instead of 6 ports, front housing has place for turbo lubrification, rotor housings have cooling passages for turbo, etc. People have done it, but it's not worth the hassle IMHO.

Swapping from NA to turbo would involve putting in the turbo engine (long block), engine and chassis harnesses (4), ECU, cluster (if you wanna do it right), trannie, driveshaft, + whatever I may be forgetting.

find out how much it will take to get it where you want it. then add a grand if you can live with that number go for it.

If you get the ebay motor ur gonna have buy a Turbo tranny plus a bunch of other shiit. Expect to pay out almost 4 grand for the swap. Just get the motor it has rebuilt, with the gas prices right now your gonna spend a fortune on gas for that turbo(gotta put 91/92 octane in). Ive had my NA since 2001, mazda rotaries are not gas user friendly. Thats my 2 cents!! Good luck

Chris

CorkSport "Odura" Front Lip Spoiler

its off the car now because of an incident with a dog -_-