no way rich, i dont believe you.... you must have the pixy dust too then or something. 2 of us?? thats unheard of. lol

 

You are all over the place. First the you compare the Rx-7 to Ferraris, then you mention NSX’s (which out of the box is everything an FD was). I know that you remembered the slogan so of course it’s not worth addressing… Rather it’s better for you that you claim that they are different cars when in fact it was you that started comparing automobiles.

Here let me remind you on what you wrote:

So is the rx-7 an everyday sports car of what? I mean that's what the NSX was marketed as? and you did state that mazda tried to give the consumer 90% of what we get from an NSX...

http://www.nsxprime.com/Gallery/press/tidh/tidh10.jpg

here let me quote it for you: "The Acura NSX would not be a car just for sunday afternoons"


^^Sorry if I got under your skin. Apparently you can’t have a discussion. Bro get over it you aren’t driving an exotic.


Ferraris are over 150K, last time a checked new FD’s where at 36K… not really in the same ballpark is it? So why are you comparing a Ferrari to an Rx-7? Especially since they are two completely different cars. Your words not mine.

Let me see I live in southern California… I think there a few owners that may I may know. Oh wait there’s one on the parking lot here at work! What are the odds of that?

Anyway all this bickering is lame. I will agree with you, mazda did go out and made an all ***** out sportscar for the average joe. But to led yourself to believe that a disposable engine comes with the territory of owning a sports car is ridiculous.

 

Ohhhh no...this is trouble

Looks like I have to join the side of the rotary guys just so I can separate myself from tard-o here.

I love rotary engines!

 

Of all those cars Ptrhahn is comparing it to, none of them came with an automatic at the time. NSX, Ferrari, Porsche, Lotus...none of them... The newer manual shifting sequential autos came about later.

Mazda had varying trim levels, and offered a slush box, which to me is a nod toward daily drivability. It had to compete with the Corvette auto, Supra auto, and 300zTT auto. All were competing for the same market share customer base. None of the others had disposable engines.

A non-turbo RX8 was step in the right direction.

 

I don't know why this is such a big discussion, MY Car -> My Decision. If someone wants to buy out all the FD owners, and make them all rotary for sake of purity, do so! I'll sell mine for the right price. But until that happens, nobody is going to tell me what color to paint my car, or what oil / gas to put in it.

I don't understand what business it is what other people do with their cars. Do you go to Hot Import Nights, and tell them to take the stickers / spoiler off, because it's tacky ? The guy will most likely tell you to "F" off; or sponser him, and he'll change it. For most of us on the forum, this is still America...

 

LS1 > rotary, all there is to it..

turbo tommy, please post a video of you killing a v8 rx-7.. love to see it, if you dont have any proof, dont bring it up.

 

i dont need to post a video... get your car done buddy. ill run you for how ever much you want.

 

You need a reading comprehension class.

I did not state that the NSX and RX7 design philosophies were the same. What I said was that Mazda tried to give customers world class performance in all aspects... acceleration, handling, and braking. World class performance at the time was represented by the cars I listed, including the NSX. That in no way means that if "not just a car for sundays" was specifically an NSX design goal that it was a de facto RX7 design goal as well.

Not all cars in the same segment, even at the same price, are the SAME CAR built to the same standards. All sportscar enthusiasts don't have unlimited funds, otherwise we'd all buy Porsches and Ferrari's and be done with it. As such, anyone who was buying a $40-$50k sportscar in 1993 was someone that had some money, but still had some limitations. The car one picks at that pricepoint is likely to be one that emulates the qualities and dynamics of the high-end car you wish you could buy.

A Porsche and a Ferrari, despite being similarly-priced and competing for the same buyers from a socio-economic perspective, are VERY different cars in philosophy and qualities. The guy that digs Ferraris is a different buyer from a guy who buys a Porsche or a Viper. Can you not grasp that? They appeal to different sensibilities.

It's the same with the $40-50k cars. An RX7 buyer might have been the guy who wanted a Lotus or Ferrari. They might appreciate the light weight, or the road-racing focus of the design, and the high-tech, high-strung, high-reving motor. I'm always surprised that so many FD's are drag raced. That's not what it was designed for... just like a Ferrari or Lotus, it was designed to be a track car. You don't see too many of the latter two at the strip. I do see em at the track though. That correlates directly to the owners tastes. It was those same tastes that the FD was designed for. Not the guy who wants to make 500 hp at the wheels, quote his quarter mile times on the internet, and use it to pick up college chicks (though you can do that too). Guys with higher end exotics accept—even APPRECIATE—that their cars are more work, for what they deliver.

I'm under no illusion that my car is an Aston Martin or Ferrari. What I've stated is that the RX7 gives you many of the QUALITIES and DYNAMICS of an exotic that you simply will not find in a C4, 300Z, or 3000 GT. Those qualities are both in how it performs and drives, and logically correlates to how it must be treated.

Why do you continue to make purchase price comparisons? Do you make assessments on the qualities of something based solely on the price, or do you actually examine the thing itself?

I live in Washington DC, and know people who are techs at Ferrari of Washington. They work on other exotics as well. I've got a friend with a modded '93 911 Turbo & a Diablo. These cars are not bullet proof, I assure you, nor are they simple cars you can just put gas in and go run errands with without a care in the world. They are thoroughbreds, and they require extra care and feeding, especially the older ones.

The whole "disposable engine", as well as "can't be daily-driven" or "I'm afraid to go WOT" stuff in this thread is ridiculous. I've owned an FD since '96. I daily drove 'em until '00. My current car has 8 years and 40k on the motor, is the veteran of over 35 track days (that I drove it to and from, pulling a trailer, without fail), and still layed down 365 at the wheels last year with sequential twin turbos, it's first time on the dyno.

 

Well, this thread has been totally hijacked...

Still waiting to see dyno sheets for rotary FDs posted.

 

Just because a car is built for the same buyers from a socio-economic perspective, DOESN'T mean that it was built to offer the exact same physical qualities.

The RX7, while similar in price, was built to offer a different, indeed CONTRASTING experience to that of a C4 or 300Z. It's states as such in all of the literature. The fact that they offered a few with automatics doesn't change that. You'll note that the 300Z, Supra, 300GT were all offered as non-turbo models, and several as convertables. So was the FC. The FD wasn't. All had limited slips and the same brakes, no option.

The "varying trim levels" are largely minor window dressing. A sunroof, leather seats, and a bigger stereo. Hardly the difference between a 300Z and a 300ZTT, or even a C5 and a C5 Zo6. You basically got "pure" and "purer"

 

Why, is that going to prove something?

 

When this car came out, the people looking at it (the socio-economic demographic) you speak of did not know what they were getting into then. Mazda was marketing to the wrong audience, and subsequently you end up with owners over their head on a car that continually calls for more money to be thrown at it, just to get it to do what you bought it to do. Hence the dramatic sales reduction as 'rumors' of its reliability surfaced. Change the engine...money problem solved. Now you have your daily driveable exotic, with limited maintenance concerns. The engine is the weak link in this chain...there is no arguing that.

I wish I had your experience with the rotary. And the thing is, I daily drove it when it ran because I wanted to drive it, not because I had to. I have another car that I DD on a regular basis. So I pretty much fit your demographic perfectly. I can afford the car (within reason), I can afford to rebuild the car, I can afford a second car...I kept up to date with maintenance and I am an educated owner.

Still I had a bad experience, you can blame me if you want....but I will disagree with you, and I will always think the turbo rotary is a pretty fragile, maintenance headache.


It seems like you have two sides of the fence here. Those who have good experience with the engine and those who dont, there doesn't seem to be much middle. I would be the first to say that I dont think it is maintenance or knowledge that separates some of these people, some people with bad experience really took care of the car. I think it is quality control. The engines factory tollerances are pretty funky, and Mazda did a pretty poor job of standardizing weights and measures of key components. Especially the rotors. My rotating assembly was 45grams out of balance, and that is within factory tollerance. I had it dynamically balanced to 2grams but that was something that most people don't do...most piston engine cars have a factory tollerance of 5grams within balance. With this poor quality control from Mazda, there is a lot of variation in the engine life seen by owners. I wouldn't be so quick to blame the owners for the disparity of engine life.

That is just one example, others can be seen in many of the factory systems in the car that Mazda UNDER-engineered. We know these as making the reliability mods necessary...including replacing the ECU (3000rpm hesitation anyone?)...that is pretty strange for a car needing an aftermarket stand alone to function properly, even in stock form.

I will say it one more time... I REALLY think this car should have come from the factory NA 3 rotor. I bet they would still be selling it.

Heck even their race engines aren't turbo rotary. The RX8 that won in Daytona was a na 3 rotor p-port. The 787 was a 4 rotor. Mazda, themselves, know that the turbo rotary won't last under harsh conditions and normally aspirated power is the way to go in those situations. Maybe the next RX7 will have a high output NA rotary. I would definately be intrigued.

 

I agree that Mazda was partly to blame for not marketing the car well—though I maintain that the buying public was at least partly to blame for not realizing what they were buying. I bought my current car from a retired MP who used it to go to the golf club on the weekends, and he didn't like having to wrap all his clubs in a towel because the bag didn't fit in. Duh, he should've bought a Corvette.

it IS fragile, and a headache, there's no doubt... more so than most other motors, but not all motors need to be pushrod American V8's to be viable. Also, if my motor blew tommorow, i'd be pissed, but I'd think relatively. My friend drives a E55 AMG Mercedes. The cost of my whole motor would be less than some of the basic repairs he's needed on his supercharger, etc.. Compared to the costs of things on cars that deliver similar performance, like E46 M3's, or Porsches, etc. $5k is chump change.

Absolutely agree. Mazda should've either gone N/A, or built in MUCH better control systems for the turbo. Think about it: If the stock FD had come with a Fluidyne, upgraded oil coolers, a real intake/IC, Saxyman's solonoids & silicon hoses, a power FC, and a proper temp guage/warning system, we'd be having a different conversation. It would've cost $5k more, and would've been worth it.

I've got nothing against V8's... I can see the value, but to me it's just not in character with the car. If it couldn't have overhead valves, I'd at least want to build the chevy smallblock as all-alluminum, high-reving, flat-crank, w/ gear drive so that it has a more european, racing qualty that is in keeping with the qualities of the rest of the car that mazda tried to build in.

 

You guys havent mentioned two of the most important factors. The first being torque. My dad has a 03 zo6, and we both went to a dyno jet last year. My car has a ported motor, rx6 single, asp large ic....anyways, his car is stock. My car made 362whp and 300 lb/ft torque at 14.5 psi. His zo6 made 358whp but 356 lb/ft torque. Not only did he make more torque, he was well above 300 lb/ft from like 2000 rpm's on if i remember correctly.

My second point is, it is pointless to measure hp/liter. What you should measure is hp/ lb of engine. An lsx compared to a 13b is not that far off. I wish I had the thread off hand but I cant find it. Hp per liter is moot if the two engines differering in liters are almost the same weight.

 

So the LSX makes more torque. That was utterly predictable. So what?

 

I feel measuring torque alone is a meaningless value also. Remember, all HP is, is a calculation of torque/time. Sure a lower displacement engine doesnt make as much torque, but HP is all that really matters when racing anyway, as long as you have the gearing to keep the engine in its optimal RPM range.

 

Well at least now we are getting somewhere... I can conceed all of your points there.

The LS1 can be high revving enough...with the light weight and low gearing of the FD you can go with a larger cam that sacrifices some power down low, add in a valve train that can handle the rpm and the LS1 is a 7000rpm engine. Not too bad for OHV (not that I would discriminate against an engine because of valve arrangment )

I like high revving, light weight vehicles. I have owned an Integra Type R (a real one), an E36 M3, two E30s and this FD. The BMWs were the best cars, the ITR was the most raw...the FD I never got on the track with the rotary (wish i did). I will see how the LS2 FD feels in all situations and start a thread of my own. But I can say with pretty high confidence, I am done posting in this thread (good ridence, I know...)

 

Why yes it is. Before you hijacked this thread with all your ego-stroking posts about the "pure" FD design, the rest of us were discussing 13B-REW to LS1 Perspective.

To jog your ADD-afflicted memory back to the original thread topic:

I still haven't seen any of the rotary-powered FD owners posting any dyno sheets to show how much area is under their TQ & HP curves. Either post or STFU.

You also posted:

Then let's see a dyno sheet to back up your claim. Oh, and if the FD was so perfect from Mazda why did you need to boost the rotary HP 50% to run with a heavier "stock" Z06?

So what? That is pretty much the essence of this thread.

Until you hijacked it.

 

What I responded to was the notion among LSX proponents was that the rotary was somehow "flawed" because it makes less torque or power under the curve, is less reliable, or more expensive. Compared to an LSX, that would be true of virtually everything else on the market, including M3's, Ferraris, et al. Those flawed too? Some people care about more with their motor/car than internet dick-measuring contests, and picking up chicks at the Tasty-Freeze® at minimal maintenance costs. Note that the discussion was about "perspective", not the end to an unsolvable dilemma. There's no right answer.

Back up my "claim"?? My claim is 343@ 12 psi, and 365@ 15 psi. Those aren't unusual numbers, why do you doubt them? I concede that they won't show as much area under the curve as an LSX motor. So what? Neither will virtually anything else. So if I'm a M3 or Ferrari owner, should I go out and slit my wrists or attempt a transplant because I don't make as much power under the curve as an LSX? So what?

What do you want, my lap times? The car routinely runs w/ Z06's on 12 psi. I accidentally ran 15 psi at Summit Point last fall and ran down a Viper on the straight. It makes plenty of power if your goal is something other than quoting dyno numbers on the internet.

I boosted the rotary to 50% over a STOCK rotary. The Z06 motor makes MORE to the wheels, to push a slightly heavier car. I didn't need 50% more horsepower than the Z06 to run with it. I needed slightly less.

Also, where did I claim that rotaries were "perfect" right from Mazda, or at all? I made no such claim, in fact I stated the opposite. They are what they are.

Only if you think there's something to be "solved" with a dyno sheet.

 

Apparently it works wonders for you especially in the back peddling department.


Because it set’s who is the intended customer is. Exactly as you put it from a socio-economic perspective? Who was mazda targeting? Given their economic status what was the expectation of the vehicle closer to? That of a Ferrari or a C4? There’s no gray area it’s either one or the other. Rich guy with real disposable income, meaning his got a house(s), boat, and multiple luxury cars, 7 figure bank account, who gets the ferrari to be part of the exclusive club and with that club comes a high price tag in both purchase and maintenace. Or a well to do individual who has “some disposable income” meaning that he has the ability to buy himself a toy, but yet he still has a mortgage, car payments, credit card bills to worry about, and who obviously doen’t have the time nor the money to be part of an exclusive club. So which is it?

Why did you daily drive yours for 4 years? What happened there? I thought this car was supposed to be treated like an exotic and only driven on weekends?

 

To all:
Sorry for ******* up the thread. I will say that my FD has been good to me in comparison to many on here. Keyword in comparison, because outside the FD world it’s a lemon.

Guys don’t get me wrong I love my FD and I’ve had it for 10 years. I do love the rotary, the way it sounds, the high revs, the 1.3L, and I even love how it looks in the engine bay. To me it’s rare to see an engine bay that looks better than a rotary. But I’m just being real with myself about how $$ I’ve put into it, and certainly I refuse to fool myself that I bought an exotic for Ľ the price so all of the problems of owning one are justified.

 

But the thing is knowing the relationship between peak torque rpm and peak hp rpm describes how wide the powerband is.

 

I've not back peddled on anything.

So all people with similar levels of income have the same values, desires, and tastes?

Dude, you can spend $80k on an SUV, a Corvette, or a European sports sedan. All will have decidedly different characters, and would presumably be bought by people with the same amount of money to spend, but VASTLY different tastes and purposes in mind.

That's a broad difference. Within the "Sportscar" segment, you'll see narrower, but still clear differences in taste and values. Not all "30k sportscars" are intended for the same people. Quite the contrary. If so, there would only be one sportscar for sale at any given pricepoint.

I understand that many high performance cars & exotics are purchased by people simply concerned with the image and status associated with them, and thus the cost and brand name are justifying (even selling) factors because they are simply trinkets of status just like their boat and thier house, etc.

However, marques like Porsche and Ferrari, and Lotus were built on racing heritage, largely on the road-racing circuits of Europe... and thus their characteristics and designs are legacies of that type of activity. The original enthusiasts of such cars weren't douchebag yuppie show-offs, they were people who appreciated the character of the cars, and their lineage to racing... perhaps even to be used for club racing or other amateur motorsport. That's a true enthuiast who understood and accepted the many trade-offs those cars came with.

For those folks who can't afford such cars, but have the same appreciation, you'll naturaly look for a reasonably-priced facsimile. Something that has the characteristics you appreciate, at a lesser price. If you're a guy who would buy a Lotus or a Ferrari with unlimited funds, a C4 corvette might not satisfy you. The former two aren't about drag racing, cruising the boulevard, or torque numbers... they are lightweight, trim, highly-precise cars built on a European road-racing heritage. That ain't a C4. It IS an FD RX7, to a much larger extent. They simply have different characters, and thus do different things well. Just like their higher-end counterparts do. That's why you'll see lots of Porsches, Ferraris, and BMWs at the track, and fewer Astons, Maseratis, Lamborginis, and Mercedes.

Same reason half the people on this thread probably do—because I was young and that was all I could afford. However, what I recognized was that that was MY shortcoming, not the car's... I knew what I bought, and what it required, so I sucked it up, didn't mod the **** out of it, and took care of it until I could get a second car and a garage.

 

Wow you guys write novels just to make one or two points.

Umm, I love both motors. I need more seat time in a Corvette to see if I'd want the 8 boingy's in my future FD though.

 

quit the rambling... again quick and dirty

So you bought an FD back in 06 and drove it daily for four years. What in the world made you think you could drive everyday?