Possible FC purchase but I want RX7club's input and suggestions.
 

Hello everyone, I know I'm still a n00b here, made thisaccount a while back so if I do get an RX I'd have a place to go to. Well anyways, the time is now. The car is an 88 Na GX model, has 289km on it but approximately 55km's on the rebuilt engine. Sadly the current seller doesn't have documentation of this but I trust the seller, he seems legit. The car is in great condition, interior is mint besides a rip in the driver's seat. The frame of the car looks to be in great condition, no rust underneath. Body wise the car has stock paint which is in great condition besides a tiny liitle spec of rust above the driver's side door on the roof, nothing big. The front bumper was wetsanded down due scratches and the hood is in primer black because the previous owner sanded the hood down due to rust. The car was running a week ago in geat condition, but a couple days ago he moved the car up the driveway about 2ft and shut the car off without letting the car get into optimum operating temperature and therefore flooded the engine. He was asking $1500 for the car, but since he flooded it he only wants $1000 for it. Now although this will be my first RX-7 purchase I'm no n00b to the rotary engine, me and a buddy are going to start deflooding her as soon as I get the car but I want you guys to give me tips on what I should ask the owner about the car before I buy it, I thought I had all the questions asked, but I want to check with other FC owners here and what I should look for on the car any general tips would be great. Thanks guys!

If You Can You Should Ask Him Where He Got His Rebuild Done And Do A Follow Up

If there was rust on the hood where else is there rust?

Make him agree, on paper, that he'll sell it to you for $1000 as-is when you first go to look at it.

Hold the gas pedal to the floor, crank the car. Should start to sputter after a couple seconds like it wants to start. Pump the gas, should start.

Then, compression test.

Numbers come out good, give him your $1000 and drive away.

pics

Thanks for the current suggestions. As for pics here is the ad for the car with the pics. http://guelph.kijiji.ca/c-cars-vehic...QAdIdZ20450189

Boo for the rattle can black spray job on the hood.

It was sanded down because of rust so and is now in black primer, I was planning on buying a TII hood down the road anyways so the hood is the least of my concerns.

Well a t2 hood necessitates a t2 engine. I want to see your turbo swap thread in three months or I'm voting you off! :lol: Get it! Love it! Get another one!

Haha, you know it man! Although eventually I want my collection to include all three RX-7 gens. Hehe.

Beautiful! Welcome to the club!

i guarantee you will like the FC best BTW.....

i would not touch that

What I would do is ask him if you can de-flood it before the purchase that way you know thats what is wrong with the car. Sounds pretty fishy to me he would go down 500 bucks just because its flooded, I mean how lazy can you get? Its easily worth 1700 in fact more because of the low mileage on the motor. Although everything like I said sounds fishy, I kinda doubt the motor is rebuilt. If it truly is rebuilt then he is desperate to sell.

Ive never seen rust on the hood of an fc before except in small chips.

Clear coat failure and pealing paint leads to bare metal, which rusts?

It seems decent to me, however I'd never buy a GX. As somebody said above get the engine un-flooded and get a compression check before buying.

Well, reason for the sell according to him is that he needs a winter beater as he is either buying a TII in the spring or a motorcycle and he already uses the GX as a summer car, so having a motorcycle and the 7 wouldn't make sense. He's quite the honest guy, we were about to leave and he started to remember more stuff the car needed and what not. Either way I'm liking all the suggestions currently listed, I believe I'm going try and unflood the thing in his driveway if not then get it towed to the local mazda dealer, and let them get a look. I know they have a technician specializing to rotaries there so it should all work out hopefully.

You had me worried about Mazda until you said they had a technician that specialized in rotaries.:rlaugh:
Best of luck with your decision!

I love how every RX-7 ever for sale anywhere in the world has an engine with 50,000kms on it after being rebuilt :rofl:

Go look at it. Look at the front of the rear wheel wells, inside the front wheel wells under the rubber flaps at the back of the control arms, and inspect the rad/oil cooler well. Looks to be a decent FC for the money.

Only thing that bothers me is an 88 will always need an e-test. Unless of course, you're into that sort of thing :)

Flooding won't damage anything. Btw, my car has never flooded from shutting it off before it warms up. It happens if you shut off during the initial ~3000rpm high idle, which is very short (but so is 2 feet of driving). Do a forum search to find an unflooding procedure. It's not too hard. You pull the right fuse, crank, replace the fuse, try to start, then repeat until it starts, allowing the starter motor time to cool down between attempts.

Check FAQ for buyer's guides. And here's another one on top of those: http://rx7.voodoobox.net/infofaq/bguide/bguide.html. We can't help you much without trying out the car; you need to examine it in person. I'll just say that fixing a bad car usually costs much more than buying a good one.

In this case a compression test might be a good idea too.

Debating whether or not to sig this.

As previously stated.

Get him to agree to his lower price, signed, dated, etc ON PAPER. And that, if YOUR inspection turns out to be favorable, you will purchase the car.

Then, pop the hood, pull the EGI fuse (Closest to the engine), get in, put your foot down and crank it for a good 20 seconds. Pop the fuse back in, get in, start her up. If she starts and runs well, then give him the grand and drive away leaving him with a pissy look on his face because he just got owned.

get all the paperwork ready and have him sign everything. If you're a jerk you can drive off emmediately. I'd look under the hood for a while before unflooding it so he doesn't feel ripped off.:dunno: 1K for that car is good.

i live in colorado where the weather can be kind of harsh and the only rust on the hood of the fc i just got is because there is a dent and the paint got scratched down to the metal. paint oxidization yes, rust no

Well I do live in Ontario Canada, weather also gets harsh.

I also just got back from the mazda dealer, they do have a technician that specializes in rotaries and a compression test will cost about 85-120$ CAD depending how long it will take. Does that seem fair? As for the lowering of the price, since it's an undocumented rebuilt 13b that doesn't start because it might be flooded and the car itself has almost 300 000km's on it I should offer him $750 or the original $1500 if he gets it fixed an inspected by a reputable shop, hell R.P.M motorsports is a town away from me.

:rlaugh: I'd never go to the dealership except to pick up parts.

I'm going to go look and talk to the owner again tomorrow I'm going to ask him If I can try to get her started. Also, can someone here post a good pic of where the EGM fuse is, I think I know where it is, but I just want to double check here.

The EGI fuse is in the engine bay, driverside. Fuse all the way to the drivers side, I believe. There *should* be a cap on the fuses.

It could be labeled EFI as well. big 30A fuse.... should be pink

Err oops I mean EGI....
Thanks.:)

Err sorry for the double post but I now need some help. I did buy the car for the hell of it, when I first got it all the accessories worked stereo, lights, pop ups and what not. I had some friends over and one of them decided to see what would happen if we changed the battery , so he did and the battery happened to be slightly more powerful then what was needed and he also happened to put on the negative first and it started sparking from the negative, then blew the main fuse. We were all "WTF are you doing!?" Since then I've put back the original battery and replaced all the fuses and still nothing works now, no radio or lights or anything. Now I ask you fellow members, did the FC come with a slow blow fuse and did he just fry the car with that stupid move? Some tips with fixing this could also help lots, thanks...

just buy mine and save all the trouble...
https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.php?t=687397

Battery being more powerful than needed won't hurt anything AFAIK :/ especially if you're planning to run a stereo either now or in the future, might hurt the alternator though :P

First and foremost: Your friend is a moron and deserves to be slapped :/ I had a friend do the same thing to my old car and I got lucky, after replacing every (and I mean every) fuse in the car, including some that were a bitch to get to, everything worked again.

Do you get anything at all from the car? Does it start? Idiot cluster? If it is the lights/stereo etc. it might be a grounding problem, a wire may have come lose from the gigantic surge through it, it has happened to me on an amp before. Check your grounds first then get into the fuse box underneath the dash and check all fuses there as well as engine bay (better yet, make your 'friend' do it, if you're still talking to him.) also try another battery anyway (a moot point I know, but try anyway, you'd be amazed)

If all else fails, your 'friend' owes you a grand. Keep the car anyway, fix it, and tell your friend it's the new one you bought :P it'll prolly cost you less than a grand to have an auto sparky have a look and see if it can be fixed. If it can't, you're not out of pocket any.

Nice, thanks when it's not raining I'll replace every fuse and what not. And no I get nothing out of the car.

If you get nothing out of the car, try fuses and see how you go

Heh, I remember when mine did it, I replaced all the fuses but the cluster still had a bad fuse for some reason, so my car started, but I had no dash, that was fun seeing as I had to pull out the cluster to get to the damn fuses.

If you get nothing out of it, I think it'll be one of the big main fuses rather than little ones, since the biggies would've blown to stop the littlies frying with any luck afaik :/ check engine/EGI/main electrical fuses and see how you go.

-Sean

Thanks for the help I'll get right onto that as soon as I get home from work tomorrow afternoon. I'm hoping it's nothing big.

Wow .... Thats all I can say about your friend. :dunce: LOL Hope you get it figured out :icon_tup:

So did these cars come with a slow blow fuse to protect from things like this or no? Got a new battery today, going to replace all the fuses and what not aswell. Wish me luck guys. If not he's going to pay for the repairs, when I get a hold of him.....