Does This Sound Accurate?
 

I'm looking at this guys RX-7 for sale and this is what he says...

'93 Red RX-7 R-1 model, 81K miles, manual transmission. I rebuilt the engine, turbos, & transmission in '06. After completing the rebuild, I noticed the engine has slightly low pressure. I've been advised it's most likely the oil control ring between front rotor housing and front cover needs to be replaced (estimated $1K repair).

Does this sound accurate to everyone? I know it's drivable with the low pressure, but it's something I definitely want to deal with before something else goes wrong. Any advice would be helpful.

"I rebuilt" sounds fishy in this case. Even for a pro mechanic, there aren't many out there who are the capabilities and tools to rebuild the engine, tranny, AND turbos. Rebuilding the stock turbos is a very touchy thing.

Unless it meant to say "I had the turbos, tranny, and motor rebuilt". In which case the slightly low pressure should have been taken care of by the rebuilder.

"Slightly low pressure" again is a scary vague thing. $1000 is a very low number for any substantial engine work, and solving compression problems is always substantial work. I would only buy this car after I myself took the car to the rotary shop of my choosing for evaluation, and base the buy on their assessment and cost estimates.

Low oil pressure readings on the factory gauge are very common, the sending unit fails all the time. The best thing to do is install a mechanical gauge to see what the real pressure is and base your decision from there. Unless the front cover o-ring was installed incorrectly at rebuild, it should not have failed inside of a year.

ah, oil pressure, I would make sure the problem is oil pressure and not compression pressure. Low compression is a problem to worry about.

I might be completely off base, but that is the only oil o-ring I could think of between the front cover. An oil control o-ring failure requires a rebuild to remedy and will be more than a $1000, however it would not cause the compression to be low.

I see, thanks.

Dave