Chicks Dig Miatas

Ok so my freind is getting a 93 FD. And it has 26k on it. We test drove the car for the day and we had a little trouble out of it. First of all it seemed quite down on power. The boost gauge in it said 9-10 psi, is that about right? It went up went down then went back up, is that the twin turbos being sequential? We raced it in my 95 miata and all i have is intake headers and a tune and i pulled it a little, i run about 15.7 in the quarter. Anyway that had me worried. Another thing that worried me was that it had irratic idling, mostly between 1000-1300 rpm. Also it had a slight hesitation and miss down low. So after flogging it a bit it seemed ok but we parked it to show some freinds and then got back out and we heard the coolant boiling, so we turned the ignition on so the fans would blow and coolant would cool off. IT cooled off and we didnt have any more problem out of it cooling wise. We were sure to warm it up before using it, well thats just what i heard your supposed to do, figured it wouldnt hurt. Also the person had some after market gauges installed and they were being a bit quirky, and jumping around alot, the speed gauge got stuck alot. We were also told that the car had a leaky exhaust manifold. I figured that could be acting as a wastegate and venting off exhaust gases to cause some low boost. MY experience on these is to my freinds FC that isnt turbo. I dont know about the boost control soleniods and stuff i should check. But im going to end up working on it, so any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

dgeesaman

iTrader: (7)

You can read details about the boost pattern in the FAQ Sticky thread.

The erratic idle is a something to be concerned with - could be as simple as a hose popped off the manifold, or something bad like a leak in the LIM gasket.

Exh manifold leaks usually don't cause a loss of boost, but is a problem that needs fixed. If you're getting 10psi of boost and not normal power, the problem is not the boost. Does this car have a stock cat? (It should!).

The bouncy gauges would really frighten me, and so would the boiling coolant. The problem could be as simple as a loose connector and a bad radiator cap, but they could be much worse too.

Have your friend read the FAQ here. Buying one of these without some firsthand education is a bad idea IMO.

Dave

bajaman

Even a poorly running FD should run circles around a Miata, no offense. There is a LOT about that car that suggests it is questionable. First of all, a '93 with only 26K miles on it? And a lot of aftermarket gauges and stuff? I question that it hasn't had its odometer replaced and is in actuality a high-mileage car. You never said what the asking price was, but a '93 with that low of miles should be bringing at least $15K - $18K depending on the area. So if it is bargain basement price, that is another suspicious factor.

As Dave suggested, have your friend log on to the Forum and search around for a few hours, learn a bit more and make some educated decisions done with the head, not the heart.

GoodfellaFD3S

iTrader: (213)

Based on your post, you are in way way over your head, I don't recommend you try working on it, you'll just get frustrated as hell and want to push the car off a cliff . That car also sounds like it's getting no boost on the second turbo if it's running a 16 sec 1/4 mile. If he has a boost gauge, see how many inches of mercury the gauge shows at idle. The motor could be blown.

JTurtonRX_7

you have 2 options if you want the car:
Read the shop manual nightly and learn all the things that took me 2 years to learn off of the forum and be prepared to spend many a weekend hunched over the engine making it run right.
OR
Have some money to pay someone to make it run right.

http://www.fd3s.net/boost_problems.html


http://www.rotaryresurrection.com/ <-- VERY good mechanic in TN

Chicks Dig Miatas

They want 10k for the car bargain basement indeed. And no offence taken, i know that thing should run circles around me. My car is slow anyway LOL. Well i relayed this message and he is as stubborn as a mule. So i read over that boost faq and it looks complicated but nothing i cant handle, thanks for everything, judging by my bull heading freind you'll be hearing from me in the future. The boost gauge did seem like it moved at the right times. However, my freinds fc hada blown apex seal and it had kind of a miss, all the time and it ran really rich, he runs fine accept for being down on power.

'87 turbo II

iTrader: (1)

it's a trick. NOT a 26k mile car. Far from it. I've seen stock FDs with 30k miles bring in $25k

seanbrowning

Yah, that cars a scam of some sorts, or at the very least a misrepresented product. Run away.

Recentlyconverted

uh, isn't it also illegal to drive a car with a different odometer than the one it came with. I thought I remember reading something about a car having to display the actual mileage on the odometer.

'87 turbo II

iTrader: (1)

yep you can't even rollback with a new engine, it has to reflect chassis mileage on all the parts of the car.

Taikutsu

i think you just need to state that its not the original miles on the title

bajaman

Yes, something that seems to kind of get overlooked every now and then....lol!

If this car has only 26K miles on it for real it is a great deal at $10K. If someone has swapped in a different odometer (and how many times have we seen threads about someone who is basically doing that, because the orginal "quit working"?)
And quite frankly, I know people that can put ANY mileage reading they want on ANY car, these guys are expert ECU hackers and whatever else it takes to make a leased car stay under the mileage allowance. A guy I work with leases a new Honda or Acura every other year with a 12,000 mile per year limit, yet he puts about 40,000 miles on the car in that time period. But all he does is take the car to.....a place...., drop them 2 bills and come back an hour or two later and pick it up.

bajaman

I certainly am not bashing on Miatas, I freaking LOVE those cars. All I meant is that an FD is a VERY fast car, a whole different animal and category of speed. But then they should be with a 100+ hp advantage, for goodness sake!

seanbrowning

Understand that you could easily invest half of what you pay for it in parts within the first few months if this is a lemon. You're playing with gasoline and a blow torch. I'd avoid it at all costs.

Chicks Dig Miatas

There is a sticker i found on the door that says the cluster was replaced by the 0 mile odometer at 49k miles so 49k plus 26 k eqwuals 75 k which sounds more realistic huh? Thats a conniving old bitch were buying the car from i guess. I dont know ive told him if he is gonna buy it to only pay about 7 k or so. Yeah my car isnt slow for what it is and whats invested but it should be destroyed by an fd. He has a check for 14k for wrecking his old miata (01 special edition) HA HA. But all us little miata doods want an FD incase you didnt know that. So i think he wants to take it to the mazda dealership and let them run loose. I told him to talk to kevin landers, because he helped out my freind with his FC. So do you think 4-5k is enough to fix it?

Juan

iTrader: (28)

The dealership will rape you guys. Most people on the forum avoid them like the plague. Kevin Landers is the person you need to visit. Have him look over the car to give you guys a real idea of what needs to be done and how much it will cost. The dealer doesnt work on rotaries every single day. Did you guys do a CarFax report on it?

cozmo kraemer

My odometer "quit working" and needed to be replaced. I had Mazda do it, I have the prior mileage documented and Mazda issues a sticker in the driver's door indicating the mileage at replacement. Obviously I have the recipt should I ever intend to sell the car.

I realize this probably brings down the value of my car, but I would really hope my attention to detail would make it very minimal. I would hate to pay for the mistake that Mazda made when it installed unreliable odometer LCD displays.

seanbrowning

I really don't see why if you had a Mazda dealership install it. If a buyer tried to talk me down a significant amount due to that, I'd tell him to take a hike.

LizardFC

iTrader: (1)

My friend and I drove that car yesterday, and it was definitely lacking in power on the low end. The secondary turbo was working though, and it pulled pretty hard after 4500. Still not what I would expect from an FD. I think the exhaust leak was coming from the turbo manifold... I'm surprised it was boosting well at all. The guage read 11, 8, 11 through the powerband so the turbos weren't the problem.

Anyway, it seems the car has been bought already which sucks because my friend got approved for the loan this morning. Was your friend the guy who put down the deposit? Oh well, there's still a few nice FD's out there for sale, I'm sure.

Efini_7

iTrader: (1)

My opinion is that it all worked out for the best. Buying this car on a loan is not adviseable. Too many people scrape up the money to buy them and then have to sell because they can't afford to keep it running right. The one i bought was in very good condition all over and i still wound up dropping a few thousand to get those "little kinks" worked out. That one sounded like it needed a lot more work than that...