I recently test drove a series 5 non-turbo FC for a friend. It was my first time driving an RX-7, and I was particularily surprised by the car's handling, so I thought I'd share my opinions. I should mention that I have a 1991 BMW 318is, pics attached.

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Disclaimer: These are my personal opinions however I will still keep them unbiased as much as possible and simply report on the overall feel of the car much like you'd hear from the Fifth Gear guy.
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- The car had an adjustable coil over suspension, which the owner claims was set on the softest setting. I'd like to believe him because the ride was anything but taught.

- The controls that had no 'feel': clutch, throttle, brakes, shifter. By feel I mean tightness, ease of control, ergonomics, response, smoothness. Clutch engagement seemed to be all over the place, the throttle spring and hence feedback was very soft (almost like on an e-throttle vehicle). Brakes had worse feel than my dads Acura, I mean they had an immense amount of travel and with all that leg motion the car did not appear to be slowing down at an acceptable rate.

- The steering may be direct, but unfortunately the rest of the car responds to those inputs in a delayed manner.

- The owner had floored it upto almost third gear and from the passenger seat I was not impressed, the car simply didn’t pull...to be taken with a dash of salt because I was in the passenger seat and did not floor it myself when I was driving

- The shifter requires copious amounts of arm travel and the awkward seating position hinders this motion with the location of the centre/shift console...again I was not impressed.

- No LSD, and from what I gathered they were rare.

- It had a typical top hinged skinny throttle and distant pedals, heel-toeing however is not impossible and I was able to reach.

- And now to break your heart: the car feels heavy, most likely because of the poor input tightness, terrible low end torque (and I mean ridiculously bad, very very weak down low, like I cant even explain how bad it is below 3 / 4k rpm). I have no idea how much it weighs but I would estimate over 1200kg strictly by the driving experience. And most importantly, I took one very sharp low speed bend with the clutch disengaged quickly and the effect was "full of sound and fury signifying nothing." There was tire screeching and the owner was like "yeah!! That’s how you drive it" but to me, the cornering was pathetic. The tires were screaming at me but I was not feeling like I had been going all that quick at all, certainly almost at the limit but still, simply put, slow. Needless to say, after the meeting I returned to the same corner with my own car and ripped through it much much faster with a much tighter feeling of control and pure speed. To tell you the truth, I was really hoping this car would rock my world and I was super excited to drive an RX-7, I thought through a corner it would blow the shorts off my wee e30. My expectations were obliterated, and I was severely disappointed, I mean really disappointed by the overall experience: the drive, the exhaust note, the controls… it had been a wasted trip in my books. In conclusion, this car stands no chance against an e30 like mine and would get raped straight up. Werd.

 

sounds the owner didnt take of that car...

 

you drove a beat to hell poorly maintained FC, i build them for a living so i am sorry you experienced one that was poorly maintained and i hope you drive one that is better setup in the future to get a real feel for the car.

yes the shifter is one of the main things i don't like stock, the bushings wear giving it a sloppy feel and the throw is like a semi truck. i have a writeup for installing a short throw shifter because i feel this is one of the first things people should do to make the car feel more responsive.

the clutch? well all i can say is it must have air in the system, same with the brakes. every FC i have driven the clutch and brakes seemed fine but most n/a's have a 4 lug 2 pot calipers and a non LSD. the turbo and GXL models have a LSD, 4 pots and 5 lugs so there is a big difference between the 2 models.

heavy feel? all i can say is the suspension was likely the cause for this feel. my car is light on it's feet and has no weight savings but the suspension being old and worn made it feel heavy and tend to sway more causing it to feel big and bulky.

 

Pretty dumb reveiw... nothing about year, or submodel, and obvousily a tweaked car.

I do not see the point of this thread.

can anyone come up with any reason it should still be open???

 

No.

 

it does give an outside point of view on our cars but really it still does seem biased given the last paragraph...

hell i might have even let this guy drive my car to give him a real perspective on how a 7 should drive but that won't happen.


raped? pffft... maybe by some drift kid wannabes car that was in lack of repair!

 

fail.

 

I think he's proud of his Bimmer.

I've read about this sort of thing--I think it has something to do with having a small *****, or something like that.

 

and probably a silly GX or some other base model with coil overs cranked up.

I mean someone too lame to even fix the $25 shift bushings... why would you even consider a car in that disrepair to be an example of anything???

This thread is done.