l4nc3r

To tell you the truth, replacing the stock exhaust on my vert opened up some horsepower/tq. I have the racing beat street exhaust. I'm uploading a pic of the RB exhaust on my car atm.

Here's my old car: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWqeS24ABTo

That's my 87.

Shield

iTrader: (2)

That's too loud for me. It's my old age speaking of course.

LI FC Greg

Congratulations on the new car. It look great and the interior appears to be very clean. One thing, I would make finding the BBS wheels a priority. Those wheels are super cheap low quality wheels that the tirerack usually sells for snow tires. The BBS are something like 12lbs forged wheels. Can you imagine losing 8+ lbs of rotating weight per corner? The performance increase alone will be more than just about anything else you can reasonably do to the car.

Rob XX 7

iTrader: (8)

Im going to disagree on the original wheels, 15" just dont cut it these days, 17" wheel is perfect on the car, 18" look really good too in the right combo

I have heard so many different things about verts over the years, but the only thing that has remained consistant is that they came with everything, the only 2 things that might be different are cloth seats and panels, and no AC, however port or dealer installed AC was really common.

Cloth seats are super rate- those appear to be in excellent condition- car looks great for the price.

Shield

iTrader: (2)

Well I'm back. The car was a real POS to be honest with you. It had, at some point, overheated as there was white residue all over the block near where the thermostat was. My other two had the same thing. The stereo only had one speaker working, driver's side left. There were large 14 ga speaker wire all over the passenger floor. The radio bezel was makeshift and basically hanging at the bottom outside the console. The pipes were pretty annoying "ricer" loud, and the car really had very little power. Only once it hit about 5k RPM did it have the slightest amount of punch - the black 88 I drove yesterday wasn't like that. Sure it was slow too, but not as slow as the car I wasted $400 in multiple flights and unfortunately BUS rides to O'Hare airport. Yes, I was about 100 miles from O'Hare, and if I had gone back to the original airport the cheapest flight back tonight was $380 bucks.

So I sucked it up and rode a BUS for 2.5 hours, but kept my $3200 in my wallet.

Back to the car. Whomever said the paint was "tired" was spot-on. It was beyond tired - the mirrors were completely some shade of faded orange, and the stratches and fading were 10 times worse in real life. The vehicle did not have tilt, but the cruise worked. The cheap Autozone pedals were awful; because the gas pedal was now twice as wide I kept barely hitting it when I had the clutch engaged and was braking. Did I mention the car was slow? I was showing the salesman how crappy the stereo was when this chick in a Mercury Cougar pulled up beside us and her radio "out blasted" us. Then she got on it at the light and I couldn't even dream of keeping up with her. I did try though. How embarrassing. Somewhere in Ohio my 4.3 liter V8 Lex was laughing at me, as she'd have easily dusted the Cougar. I mean hell, we weren't even "racing" - she just punched her car a little bit and I couldn't keep up.

But the car was idling very rough, even after warming up and running for a while. The mirrors shook so bad at a light that I told the salesman 'You had me fly out here for this POS?"

Did I mention I rode a bus from Michigan City Indiana to Chicago's O'Hare airport?

Also, I hated the fact that it didn't have tilt wheel. Also, the cluster seemed like something was shady, like it had been replaced at some point. Considering the fact that the carfax showed "mileage not reported" the last few times due to the vehicle's age / state of registration, I am starting to strongly think it had way more than 58k miles. Can't prove it though.

Under the hood where it met the firewall there was lots of dead leaves - this car had spent some major time being parked NOT in a garage. The paint sucked.





So tomorrow I'm going to go test drive two hardtop non turbo RX-7's. Here's the first one, with 63,000 original miles:

jake1191

iTrader: (1)

Why not pick up something local or at least from some one with a good Reputation here on the forum

gear_grinder

iTrader: (4)

getta turbo FC3S!!!, not as *cool* as a vert or as fast as an FD, but alot cheaper then both lol.

arghx

iTrader: (3)

it sounds like he doesn't care that much about the speed or modding, and the extra maintenance of a turbo car would just be a burden. Plus finding a good condition turbo car is pretty hard. a stock T2 is still slower than his Lexus anyway.

mazdaverx713b

iTrader: (91)

sorry to hear that the convertable didnt work out. i like that GXL though. keep us posted on what you decide to do!

87 t-66

iTrader: (133)

another soon-to-be fc owner in columbus...awesome!

stylEmon

iTrader: (2)

glad to see your taking your time and thoroughly inspecting each car.
Not sure why your so set on a NA tho, I can understand the vert thing, but a coupe...! lame!
I've owned 3 T2s and would never buy a coupe. There are plenty of nice T2s for sale here on any given day. Even 10AEs.
Sorry for the ranting.
Good luck finding the car for you.

Whatever dude, my car is faster than most FDs.

clokker

iTrader: (2)

NA coupes=lame?

Snob.

Rob XX 7

iTrader: (8)

sadly a stock vert is very , very slow. I would get dusted at lights by old ladies in thier buicks and thier camrys. The open road is where the vert shines, you can wind out 3rd gear the whole time on the highway, from about 40mph to about 90mph, really have some fun with it and never even have to look at the gauges because the car will be so reliable.

Once again it shows that pictures dont mean everything, if a forum member was selling that car and you got it home without going to see it you would go bat-****. People have different opinions of what is "mint" and acceptable.

The mileage was probably fugazi and the crappy pedals were probably there because the originals had worn out.

Shield

iTrader: (2)

You guys have my head spinning with all your abbreviations. Vert I get, but NA? FC?
I'm sure all of these cars are slower than my main ride without major mods anyway. It's ok - it's no big deal if it's not super fast or anything, but to not even be able to keep up with a Mercury Cougar from the 90's that really wasn't even racing? Unacceptable!

Well guys, I have $4k to spend. I'm going to look at two cars today - the one above with the pics and another one. Both coupe's. I'm in the Columbus area and obviously would drive quite a ways to find a good car. I like the red ones.

clokker

iTrader: (2)

NA= naturally aspirated= non-turbo.
FC is just the series designation...FBs are the original, early RXs, FCs are the second generation and FDs are the 3rd gens.

Shield

iTrader: (2)

I have changed my avatar based on yesterday's $400 airplane travels/waste.......

Shield

iTrader: (2)

Ah makes sense. I see things like "FBC4, FC5" - what does the 3rd number mean, just year? Ie FC5 = 1990? etc.?

clokker

iTrader: (2)

Not quite.

2nd gen RXs- i.e., the FC- are divided into two series.
S4 is 1986-88 and S5 is 89-91.

sharingan 19

iTrader: (16)

Get the best of both worlds and find (or commision) a turbo vert.

Lets face it, N/A's are laughably slow, and a vert.... TII's are speed demons but at least they can get out of their own way (and beat mecury cougars lol) There is no "mint" non-turbo thats going to feel like anything other than a brick pulling away from lights. ...sorry.

You say that performance isn't what you're after, but if that were really true, why worry about teeny boppers and their cougars (cars, not mothers lol) ?

Just open up your search to include TII's and you might find a clean example that will surprise you

daviddeep

iTrader: (4)

That's really not true. If you can get an NA back to OEM performance levels, these cars did 0-60 in just under 8 seconds in their day. Granted very slow by modern performance car standards, but the '99 Cougar did it in 9.6 (according to specs I found on the Internet). For that matter, a stock S4 TII is only about 1.5 seconds faster to 60, so you're not talking about a huge difference. In other words, a stock S4 TII is still going to be much slower than a 350Z, S2000... even slower than this guy's Lexus. Now once you start modifying the TII, the gap widens considerably, but I think this guy seems more interested in a reliable cruiser/weekend car than an all-out maximum performance project. Nothing wrong with that.

stylEmon

iTrader: (2)

It's true. I am a T2 snob. I can't even explain to you my dislike for NAs... They are good for V8 swaps and that's about it! (ducks for cover)

Seriously tho, to each their own. If someone digs coupes, that's cool with me. You can't argue with a clean car. It's just not for me.

Even with all the specs and stats that daviddeep found, there is no NA that stands a chance against an equally stock (or mod'd) T2 in any gear. There are few better feelings than a turbo charger spooling up and shooting your car around the road!

Hypertek

iTrader: (3)

good luck with the search. Hopefully you get one from a rotary enthusiest. Thats where a good rx7 will cost alot because the owner has no reason to get rid of it, where as a cheap rx7 the owner is trying to dump it lol

Go48

iTrader: (7)

Sorry to hear that the vert was a POS. Like I said in my other post, been there, done that. At least you were smart enough to pass on the car. I'm sure you will find a suitable car.

Ignore the Turbo snobs. I've owned both in the past 5 years, and although the Turbo car has considerably greater performance, the NA, with a few simple mods can be a decent car. Check out what RacingBeat.com has to say about the significant performance gains with their replacement exhaust and intake systems.

arghx

iTrader: (3)

the best part about the NA is that driving it is stress-free compared to a turbo car. if the motor has decent compression and all the hoses etc are good you never worry about blowing it up or overheating it

I enjoyed my old modded 172rwhp nonturbo as much as I enjoy my 400ish rwhp turbo car, just for different reasons.

daviddeep

iTrader: (4)

I never said an NA could equal the performance of a TII, just that stock vs. stock, the difference is not earth-shattering. For some, cheap, reliable, simplicity is more of a priority than all-out performance, so the sacrifice is worth it.