Pretty good video, they got most things right for a change.

Dale

 

Someone posted it in one of the value threads. I actually liked this one a lot. Mentioned a lot of the history bits that I actually didn't know about, did their research and accurately described a few of the issues we have (not so sure about the synthetic oil point, but I digress), but most importantly explained why we, as rotary enthusiast, are absolutely crazy about these cars. The driving bit at the end of the video put a HUGE smile on my face, and I cannot wait to get off work and go drive my car!

 

Really enjoyed that. After watching that video, I had to crack open my Jack Yamaguch book again. Really good reminder of just how incredibly ground-braking these oil leaking, gas drinking, money stealing little beauties were and still are.

 

That was such a great watch, he definitely nailed it and did the FD justice. Everyone seems to miss the mark, and he covered the history and the faults/pros really well.

Can't wait to hit similar roads they filmed in the end very soon.

 

Well I still like the FC over the 944 despite it looking close to one lol.

 

It was entertaining and I like how they took one of the FDs biggest features and implied it was its greatest fault. As I will always say: non sequential is superior. A "working" sequential system may be great but the things required AT THIS POINT IN TIME to get it "working"....... nonsense. A tremendous amount of effort and complexity for what? Boost bellow 3500 rpm? Ohhhh boyyyy lollolollolol

Simplify the system, make the power linear, make the car as a whole more reliable. The sequential system is well past its expiration date.

 

Yep…agreed.
Not for many of us. Especially if you have no emissions. Simplified sequential with a PFC. (See sig.) Mine’s been pretty trouble free for about 20 years. Even original turbos with about 135k miles.

Yes.

Done. See above.

 

Yeah, Jason is one of the few YouTube presenters I can tolerate.
it’s a great vid. Hats off to them for accurate information.

 

Historically the FD does deserve some hate for reliability. We're insulated from some of it, Mazda fixed a LOT of stuff after the initial run of 93's. Improved coolant hoses, water pumps, etc. Don't get me started on the stupid *** idea of having a PAPER LOWER INTAKE MANIFOLD GASKET. The stupidest part about that gasket is the FC had METAL LIM gaskets, they knew how to do it. I think some bean counter figured they could save $5 a car or something.

The other big thing historically that I think caused so many problems was the fuel line recall. You have to damn near pull the whole rat's nest to do it and you have dealer techs that end up getting vacuum lines wrong, breaking check valves in half, etc. They didn't train the techs well enough for this job and a lot of cars got put back together wrong or had parts damaged in the process that the techs couldn't troubleshoot.

If you want a history lesson go find some of the archives of the old RX-7 mailing list and read up from back when these cars were new and still under factory warranty.

Of course the pre-cat is a lot of the causes of problems in US cars, but there was no way around that. If they didn't have the pre-cat we wouldn't have had an FD in the US. That and the crazy high stock coolant temps just BAKED everything. Pop the hood of a bone stock FD on a warm day after it came in from a drive and feel the wave of heat hit you like the oven door, it's insane how hot these cars were.

Also, I really wish people would stop saying the FC was a 944 knock-off. It was a 928 knock-off. I still love the hell out of an FC but it's damn near embarrassing to see a 928.

928 -




87 turbo -




The shape of the door, window, door handle, even the wheels. They also had phone dial rims that Mazda copied on the base model FC's.

Dale

 

One of the things I love about the FD is seeing the fender arches from the driver's seat. I'm glad it was brought up in this video!

 

I thought the same thing about being able to see the fender bulges. That was pretty novel since I’m only 5’8”. I’m also old, and remember when they almost owned the IMSA series. So the heritage part was pretty cool too.

 

Non sequential was never superior, and I would wager I have probably converted more FDs to non-sequential than likely anyone in the US. It is consistent and convenient, nothing else. Since the inception of the EFR line it is also completely unnecessary and outdated. I drove one of my FDs on stock/pettit ecu for about 250 miles last month with an EFR7670 at 10-12lbs and, while not quite as responsive as sequential, it is leap years better than non-sequential. If you want to truly experience FD greatness you have to stay sequential, if you want simplicity, just go with an EFR7670 as power output is near identical to stock non-sequential yet the power band is massively wider.

This was a great video btw. Thanks for sharing Dale.

 

+1 One of the joys behind the wheel when I get in. Great vid touching on everything, including the last ditch effort on adding side sill reinforcement to help plant the rear. The NSX handling comparison is pretty sweet too, if you think for a sec !

 

Good video, and finally, someone who did their homework! This is where my excessive premiums go. Try insuring a modified FD in the greater New Orleans area with Hagerty and see what I mean.

 

To follow-up on Dale’s comment about the fuel line recall creating problems, I was a victim of that situation. Following the work I had a strange boost issue/stumble at higher rpm’s that no one could diagnose and fix. Had the car to 3 different dealerships over the course of several years with no luck.

I finally discovered KD Rotary (I believe on this forum) in ’98 or ’99. Dave’s shop was in Allentown, Pa at the time, not too far from me. I pulled the car into his shop and explained the issue. Dave took a look under the hood for maybe 5 or 10 minutes, grabbed a pair of long, bent needle-nose pliers and reached into or under the rats nest on the drivers-side. I recall a spark (engine was running) that startled him. Apparently one of the connectors (not recalling exactly what) was not fully seated and snapped in place. Solved the problem that I had been dealing with for years in less than 10 minutes. Needless to say, Dave was THE MAN when it came to diagnosing FD issues and he did all of the work on my car subsequently.

 

Please explain to me why non sequential is better.

 

That's a debate without end--non-sequential guys are always going to laud its pluses, the sequential guys are going to laud its pluses. Sports cars that people love always come with eccentricities, things that could have been done differently, or things that could have been done better. Sports cars are usually at the fringe of the technological curve when they are produced by manufacturers. Some things work, some things don't and that is almost always going to be true unless you buy a $300,000.00 McLaren (or whatever uber-dream car of your choice). Even then someone will disagree with an engineer's choices (otherwise you wouldn't have Top Gear).

 

I just don't see what part of non sequential is better. For the record my car is non sequential. You get almost no power increase, you get a ton more lag, and you lose the bottom end power. On tight courses where these cars truly shine you're out of the powerband thanks to wide gearing. Seems like the only reason people do it is to make maintenance troubleshooting easier, but it makes driving the car fundamentally worse

 

Running the omp vs deleting it

Single vs twins

Fpd delete vs not

Synthetic vs conventional

Sequential vs non sequential

It all boils down to preference. In reality, an fd on stock twins full non sequential is better than a sequential one. Driving, maintenance and troubleshooting, appearance, overall experience... pick a category. If sequential was really that great then going single would be a huge drawback since most turbos aren't hitting full boost below 3k anyway, which is the ONLY advantage a sequential set up has. There are ~5000 more rpms in the rev range before you have to shift and even when you do shift, you're post transition anyway.

This is one of those things that either side will defend to death and cannot be swayed to change their preference. Whatever side you stand on, just know that non sequential is better 😀😀😀

There are valid points for both set ups but after using the oxygen on earth, the laws of the universe will side with non sequential twin, fpd and omp delete, synthetic oil running fd on a power fc. These are the facts 😎😎

 

Think DJSeven's post pretty much wrapped it up well imo. Rather than going non-sequential should go with an EFR if reliability and simplicity is what you want. BNR's seems are even more appealing if you have water/meth and a v-mount. I am still new to the platform so my opinions won't hold much weight, but just generally speaking going simplified sequential, with a custom solenoid rack (got one from azeknight) seems like the best option if it's within your means. What I'm currently doing.

I think before going with the EFR, I may go with BNR's, especially now that I have the azeknight solenoid kit. V-Mount + water/meth injection gets rid of a lot of the heat that the twins produce. Personally have no thirst for crazy power, more so controllable power that is fun to drive on the street and the 99 spec twins I'm going to use should def deliver that.

Priority is getting a well tuned engine and suspension to be safe, reliable and fun to drive and incrementally go from there.

 

Comparing going efr and non sequential isn't an even comparison solely due to cost. Its like saying "JUST go efr" as if its JUST something to do. The cost of the turbo alone is astronomical vs a non sequential conversion. Apples and pumpkins

 

I agree. Going non sequential is usually a cost cutting measure, less to maintain. EFR is less to maintain over the long run but a whole lot more up front

 

As getgone stated plus and minuses between both setups. I'm sure you know all this but I'll say it anyway...

Non sequential:

• Predictable boost response even at higher boost levels (12+psi)
• Only 6 vacuum hoses and therefore very easy to trouble shoot

*But*

• Has a boost threshold of around 3800 RPMS (boost threshold is different from lag, boost threshold is the RPM where the turbos see enough exhaust gas to become "alive")
• Laggy setup (This is the time it takes for the turbos to hit full boost after they become "alive")
• Might as well go single turbo as dj said, these days singles have a much better boost threshold, spool faster, and provide more power.

Sequential:

• Primary turbo boost threshold of 2800 RPMS, dual turbo threshold of 4500RPMS.
• Fast spool boost (10psi in an instant anytime after 2800RPMS)
• Perfect for street cars

*but*

• Has 72 vacuum hoses which are known to cause a lot of issues when they get old
• Complex. When something becomes compromised it can be a daunting task to find the issue (people have been known to just give up on fixing it)
• Involves having a not so seamless secondary turbo transition at 4500RPMS where as you saw that it can cause spinouts. Not only that, it also gets tricky to control boost response at higher levels (12+psi). What I mean by tricky is that at the transition, you can see boost spikes of several psi before it settles to whatever your boost is set at.

IMO non-sequential is superior when it comes to reliability but inferior when it comes to performance.

I completely understand your point of view. I purchased my 100% stock FD with a perfectly working sequential but after a while I stared having boost issues here and there (they would get fixed although quite annoying). So knowing that my vacuum lines were old and brittle, I decided to replace all of them. It fixed the reoccurring issues for about three years which was great but after that, I started seeing signs that they were getting brittle again. Back then (2004ish time) there were quite a few debates here because "some" people swore that their non-seq setup would get "identical" boost threshold as the sequential system, you just had to have all the right mods (CAI, DP, MP, catback & an upgraded SMIC (short piping)). So not wanting to deal with the vacuum hose replacement again and since I had supposedly had all the right mods, I decided to give non-sequential a try. My finding was that those non-sequential people were full of it. My boost threshold was at 3800RPMS and laggy to boot. Exactly what many said it should be.

The real life test came when I raced my childhood friend who had a porsche boxster. We used to race each other all the time and prior to going non-sequential I would leave him in the dust the minute I smashed the gas pedal. After going non-seq, he would leave me behind by 1 1/2 cars before my turbos would hit full boost. So I was left playing catch where I would reel him in and pass him eventually. I remember my friend asking "So why did you do that to your car?" lol. The reality was that although my car was at the same boost level and had a larger DUAL turbo power band increase (non seq 3800-8000RPM vs seq 4500 - 8000RPM), the car's performance was actually hindered. It's too laggy and it lacks the primary turbo power band (2800-4450RPM) that really helps in getting the car moving. But on the upside I never had a boost issue again. Now my car is single turbo, has a much better boost threshold 3300RPMS (GT35R), it has more power, and it is a lot more responsive when compared to when it was non-sequential.

In terms of reliability the only reason go non-sequential is if there is a lack of funds to go single and/or smog issues. It just doesn't make sense otherwise because the fun factor of non-seq kinda sucks in comparison to a nice single or a properly working sequential system.

 

Ding ding ding, you just nailed it. Going single IS a huge drawback to the experience. 90% of FDs on the road run and drive like ****. A mildly modified sequential setup is the best fd experience there is and it’s not close. I’ve tried to replicate it with every small frame turbo on the market over the years in hopes for a little more ripe end power, it can’t be done to Mazda’s perfection. Chasing numbers combined with a failing sequential setup is why most go single. Rarely is the car ever as enjoyable ever again. If you have never extensively driven a properly working 300 rwhp sequential FD you have never experienced a FD. In today’s world though, 300rwhp just isn’t enough to compete.

 

Its roughly $3500 to go with a full 7670 setup and you can run stock fuel and Same ecu setups as non-sequential. Engine bay heat is drastically reduced and the setup is very simple. $3500 is pennies in current day FD costs unfortunately.