Titan

Hello, my name is Peter and I am considering purchasing an 86 N/A RX-7.

My friend, just recently, told me he is selling such a car.

I actually went to go see it today and it looks quite nice. The body is in mint condition except for two spots of rust on the rear wheel well and the roof. I didn't get a chance to check the underbody. The interior is also in perfect shape, no rips, cracks, or anything. The car only has 139,000 km on it.

The man that is selling it to me is a middle-aged friend of mine that I work with and will be working with part time in the fall. He got the car from his son because he just got married and couldn't keep it any longer.

It wasn't started since last fall when he garaged it in the apartments underground, so we needed to jump it. Well after only the 2nd attempt, it started, but ALOT of smoke came out. At first the idle was erratic, but after revving for about 5 minutes it settled relatively nicely. Whenever I reved it past 1500 it was really smooth.

The thing is it still smoked quite a bit, but the smoke wasn't blue, it was a whitish/gray. It wasn't really thick smoke so I'm hoping it's not coolant being burned. Could that possibly be the 8 month old gas? Also, the exhast tips vibrated quite a bit, loose clips maybe? The engine also vibrated a generous amount. Furthermore, the gas pedal seemed like it wasn't springing back well enough, as if it was loose or something?

I couldn't take it for a test drive because the two passenger tires were flat. The only other problem is that someone broke the tip of the antenna off.

My friend wants $1000 Canadian for it, so I'm guessing that’s a pretty good deal as long as its not burning coolant. I'm willing to put in another $1500 - $2000 to get her running well enough to certify, etc.

Any advice on whether I could actually get her running good for an extra $1500-$2000 CDN would be great.

Thanks.

Titan

bump. Can someone atleast please tell me what that smoke could be caused by?

emagdnim

Even if it needs a new engine 1000 CDN is a good price, or maybe it's not, I think so, but I don't know CDN very well, how much is that in USD?

Titan

1 Canadian dollar = about 64 cents US.

So $1000 = $641.48 US.

Do you think I can still get it repaired for $1500-$2000 CDN?

What does burning coolant look like exactly? I know it's white, but how thick?

jeff88

The price looks pretty good, but you should drive it. Make sure it is full of oil. Those rust spots are the usual places for these cars to start rusting. Take care of them right away if you buy it. These cars have a small amount of oil injected into the rotors, so they do use a but of oil, sometimes as much as 1 quart per 1000 miles.
If properly maintained a Non Turbo motor can last for 200,000 miles. The 5 speed trannys can start to get a little clunky and get some grinding between gears, especially 1-2 and 3-4. Ask if the engine has ever overheated, these engines don't like to be overheated at all. Things tend to warp. The uneven idle could be several things, bad gas, bad spark plugs, vacuum system leaks are very common, throttle position sensor may be bad or out of adjustment, bad BAC valve.
For the money it looks like a good deal though and if you put $1500-$2000 into it you chould have a real nice RX-7 and mabey a couple modifications (intake and exhaust is the place to start).