GettinOnIt

New to the forum...

I'm looking for a little friendly advice. About the purchase of a Red 93' 3rd Gen RX-7 R-1.

Tommorrow morning I am going to look at this car, and would like to know what I should be looking for. The car is supposedly a one owner car with 78k miles on it. I ran the carfax report and the guy's info checks out as far as that goes, and it also appears it has never failed inspection. He also told me it is completley stock.

Thanks in Advance for any advice.

DK

iTrader: (5)

Do a search on the forum and the web, but this will get you started. You really should have someone with you who knows what they're doing.

http://www.rx7turboturbo.com/robrobinette/buyaused.htm

GettinOnIt

Thanks for the link.

A few years back I had a couple of 84' GSL-SE's that I did tons of work on.

But never any experience with the 3rd Gens. I know it's powerplant is a modified 13B with seq-turbos.

I will be reading and searching this forum all night.

BTW the guy is asking 16k, how does this sound for a price. I did the kbb.com and carpoint look ups and this seems high. But I know this is a car with a lot of history and becoming harder and harder to find. 16k didn't seem bad to me, as long as the car is as mint as he says it is.

Snook

iTrader: (12)

I have seen many 3g gens in good shape but totally stock sell for 16k with about 80k miles on them over this past summer.
You know you are looking at a rebuild on the engine and turbos probably soon it could be the day you buy it or in another 50k

Around 60k on the stock motor and people start to get worried and they know it is coming soon. He has done very well already getting 78k on it. It's too bad that he doesn't have a downpipe on it that would have helped out a lot if he got that on there 50k miles ago or at any time even.
I would tell him that the motor is probably going to go soon as you have done your research and know and check out the turbos and transmission too. Did he have the 5th gear synchro fixed yet are the turbos leaking oil?
Ask him when he chages the oil. Don't ask him if he changes it every 2k see what he says himself. Check for rusting on the car.

The thing is that this car is probably just about to start having all these problems so it is very good that he is selling it before it happens. If you don't buy it for 16k even though it has all these questionable things someone else will buy it for that eventually and especially up there I know cars sell for more in New York and Jersey than down here. I would offer him 12k and have 4k left for a rebuid on the motor and turbos.
good luck

Snook

rxshun7

Bring it to a mechanic and get a compression test done and hook up a boost gauge to check the turbos.

r0t0r-rooter

This site helped me out a lot...
http://www.rx7turboturbo.com/robrobinette/buyaused.htm

GettinOnIt

Excuse my ignorance...

But what is a downpipe, where does it go and what does it do???

Snook

iTrader: (12)

downpipe replaces the pre cat - the first part of the exhaust

this gets clogged and very hot and doesn't allow hot air to flow away from the engine. It's the first mod for reliability and it also adds a nice hp gain.

GettinOnIt

Can you still pass a jersey emissions inspection???

dubulup

probably

Fd3BOOST

iTrader: (7)

Start the car and watch to see if the car has a rough idle or smokes at all. If so it is likely the coolant seals are already gone. Either way you are going to be replacing/overhauling the engine soon. I would give him no more than $15000. It's worth at least that if the rest of the car is clean.

NSANY

Any reason to be shy about a car that was in a small accident? The guy said no engine damage, just the hood and the front bumper.

Looking for advice, from those who know a lot more than me...

GettinOnIt

The car's exterior is very tight. The guy said it had been hit and the hood and front fasica where replaced with Mazda original parts. The body was also repainted. All the Mazda recall stuff was completed as well

The car ran very strong and idled fine, the temperature gauge moved slightly past the middle when driving and left at idle returned to slightly before middle.

During startup I had my buddy stand behind the car and look for any kind of smoke white or black and he said there was none.

I noticed a small coolant leak coming from the passenger side front of the car, kind of right below the right headlight it wasn't leaking on the ground but the coolant was collecting on a plastic piece under the body.

What do you think this is???

Should I make the guy and offer, and if so how much??

Thank you all for your help, I just don't want to make a mistake...