Im a new owner and I dont know what might be happening to my car but anytime im WOT on the car and Im really cruisin at or over 100 mph and I try to shift into fifth gear it always grinds the gears and I have tried to do it slowly by cramming the clutch to the pedal and easing into fifth but anytime im going that fast it always grinds. There is not a problem when Im just daily driving it normally and it shifts into fifth without a problem but whenever im put the hammer down it goes funky on me. Anyone know what might be going on?

 

It's the 5th gear synchro problem man. Just replace the trans fluid with Redline oil or something.

 

I believe there was a recall for that awhile ago... you can fix the synchro...

 

This is excerpted from the Mystery Chapters of "The RX-7 Performance Handbook."

The Grind

If grinding occurs when shifting to fifth gear, a damaged fifth gear synchronizer ring is the cause in most cases. Although Mazda tried blaming the driver for this one, enough occurrences have been reported to provoke them to redesign the shift select spindle to increase the accuracy of the shift pattern. It’s also been said they raised the spring force from 6.7kg to 8.9kg on the shift select spindle. This is TSB #00194, Category J issued in January of ’94 and pertains to those FD’s with VIN ending in 210508 and earlier. The new part number for the shift select spindle is R503-17-550 and the synchronizer ring is part number W501-17-725B.

 

and I went strait to my car to match the VIN, but it doesn't match. I think they did the VIN # thing so they wouldn't have to do a recall.

How is the performance handbook? I keep forgetting to get a copy.

 

i got the tranny rebuilt because of the grinding, cost ~ $500, for all new syncros bearings and labor

 

welcome to the club

 

I bought the book, and I like it. But it's more of an overview to modifications rather than a specific 'how-to' guide. You can read some chapters which were left out of the book online. There are three pages worth, and pages 2 and 3 are the best, so don't forget to click on the link at the bottom of each page.

http://www.speednation.com/mystery.htm

 

if its a recall shouldnt mazda pay for it? or is 10 years a bit to long?Thats what happened with the steering on my eclipse. they fixed it with no problem. marc