You don't need an LS1 swap to have a reliable rotary... unless your idea of "reliable" is that you can treat the thing like a cast-iron block Toyota Camry.

Most of the "horror" maintenence/reliability stories come from people who don't have the money, or DON'T WANT to spend the money they do have wisely.

There are alot of cars on this board with thousands of dollars in body kits, paint, single turbo kits, and all manner of other "glory" mods that haven't had the proper care and setup that it takes for them to run reliably. They're half falling apart, but they've got the "bling" on.

How many "can I get away with X without an ECU upgrade", or "How come I've gotta spend $1.5k on an intercooler with proper ducting, when I can grab a $150 ductless cooler from china off Ebay" threads are there in here? This is not a car to try and "get away" with stuff on.

How many single turbo installs have you seen blowing through a stock intercooler, or some cooky unducted POS. Can't imagine why your motor blew.

How 'bout all the cheapskates who won't pay a few bucks for a qualified rotary tech to build/tune crucial things in the car? Or chintz out and have one part done by a buddy, then another with some deal off ebay, then a tuner gets ahold of it and it breaks, and there's a "so and so tuner fucked me" thread up within 2 hours. No he didn't, you fucked yourself.

I have NO PROBLEM with LS1 converted cars... it's your car... but I find it funny that so many people feel they'll have the energy and money to essentially redo the powertrain, wiring, ECU, fuel, etc. it takes to do a proper engine conversion, but they don't have the wherewithal to simply maintain what was in there in the first place.

That's not to say that a turbo rotary won't always require more effort, care, and time than a pushrod V8 and be ore susceptable to failure. It always will no matter what you do. But so will virtually EVERY OTHER MOTOR ON THE PLANET. You think the guys over at the M3, Ferrari, Viper, Maserati, Porsche, STi, etc. forums are getting all bitter about the fact that their more highly-strung overhead cam, or turbo charged morors cost more money, take more time, and more effort to maintain than a pushrod V8? No, I don't suspect they do.

 

No, I don't think so. Many people can maintain and drive 400+ but they're not like the original question that started this thread. See the reply from hondasr4kids. However, in the ~325 range you can still take it to drag/autocross/etc. and not worry about it's basic reliability.. ..assuming you've done the smart things already listed.

I ditto the "old car" perspective. My pristine 1995 started to suffer from brittle hoses and now is all silicon. I've replaced some exceedingly brittle plastic pieces like the overflow tank, the windshield washer cap, etc. Wiring and ground points also were never designed to live so long through heat and humidity. There are some pretty common places for the wiring harnesses to get brittle and damaged due to age also.

Overall, you've got some good advise already in the replies.. ..keep it <350hp, <15psi, do the reliability things, replaced cracked plastic and protect old wires, fix pour grounds, and don't let odd behaviors go long before fixing them.

Oh, and don't take it to Mazda to get anything fixed. Unless you have a specific recommendation from an RX-7 person you trust. You need to know who knows how to work on the car, you don't have to be a mechanic, but you need to know the language. Run away from anyone suggesting you need a new timing chain, for example.

 

+1

 

Learn to wrench real quick or watch your bank account go dry. Many mechanics are intimidated by our cars. They will not understand the turbo system. This car takes TLC. It's like getting a virgin in the sack. It takes know how and patience. Most men don't have that.

 

Um... I may be crazy RX-7_From_Heaven.. but isnt this a thread on difficulty in maintaining an RX-7... not the "WTB your modded overpriced 7 with a warranty" thread?? You've made four posts and each one has been you pushing your 30k car's on this guy who's completely green.. are you a used car salesman by chance??

 

pretty much everything that everyone has been saying was previously posted by me on my first post on this thread. ALL the questions that the guy asked were answered by me if not by the first post i put, by the second post, and i figured that since the questions were answered i'd take a crack at the opportunity and see if a fellow rx-7 fan would want a car that he's looking for. as for overpriced, someone with only 32 posts can't really say that the car i'm selling is overpriced, especially since goodfellas (a very respected forum member who knows his stuff) stated in the thread i made that my car was very reasonably priced. i'm not a used car salesman either, haha. i'm a student as usc who needs to get rid of two rx-7s that he has and i'm sure that if you had two 30k rx-7s on your hand and a 120k school loan, you'd do whatever you could to sell them fast in order to make money. everyone keeps repeating each other's sayings on this thread. an rx-7 isn't hard to maintain if you're not some regular dumbass. i must agree with ptrhahn by like 2303409% on what he said about these cars. people have "horror" stories because they're idiots and do stupid stuff and think they can get away. or they take their car to some guy who has never seen a rotary and then their engines blow and they get surprised and blame the motor. or my favorite thing of all is "damn the rotary engines are so unreliable. i 'only' boosted 30 psi on my regular 2mm apex seals without even porting the engine and my motor blew". they're the dumbasses for not doing the previous precautions on their cars, and for boosting so damn high on regular motors that aren't meant to be boosted so high without other mods done to the engine. maybe if you went back to 1993 and got a brand new one and boosted it that high it wouldn't blow, but not when the cars are at least 12 years old. anywho: as i said before, good luck with your search for a clean rx-7....
-erik

 

Back to the original subject...

The FD is NOT impossible to work on. The frequency of how many times you are wrenching does go up significantly compared to a normal commuter car.

If you have a good head on your shoulders and patience you can work on this car. Aside from changing oil... I learned everything else I know about cars from the FD. You have to read, and be willing to listen to others. Heck, the knowledge I gained about cars (NOT JUST ROTARIES) from my time with an FD essentially got me the job I have today w/ a car manufacturer.

Do not listen to responses like "if you have to ask... bla bla" that's just someone trying to be a smart *** about the subject. There are lots of informative posts on this forum (takes some digging since there is tons of utter crap here as well - I guess if you really want to learn you'll search and search until you find your answers... it's what I did) if you take the initiative and learn about the car before purchasing it you should be fine... If you are really intimidated by what you find, then you may want to rethink whether you really want this car or not (unless you have deep pockets - that can fix anything).

 

um.....amen to that

 

Great post Peter, I agree 100%.

 

So, Dr. Frankenstein's monster, who was he?

Was he the guy from whom they got the brain?

Or was it the heart?

The ***** maybe?

Dr. Frankenstein got parts from all different dead dudes. This conglomeration of parts was stitched together to make a monster. He, it, was no longer who he had been. The real tragedy of this creature was that he had been cast into a monsterous situation and he had lost his human identity.

It's the same with an RX-7 with an alien engine implant. You've created a freak and I'm not sure what it is.

Happy Halloween Rotorheads.

 

^hahaha! RX-7s with non-rotaries aren't RX-7s (Rotary eXperiment 7), they're PX-7s (Piston eXcuse 7), haha....

 

Ignoring everything that's already been said:

I think the FD takes extra attention. Either from you or a good rotary mechanic. When an issue comes up, or it starts behaving funny, you can come online or consult a pro and get some useful answers. Will free advice guarantee you keep it running 100%? Hell no. But if you take a proactive approach and preventive maintenance approach your near-stock FD can run with very few unplanned outages.

It's no Camry, or Maxima, but that's why it's fast and agile. Yeah, they stripped a little bit of reliability out with all that weight, but if you want a bulletproof daily driver, you have the wrong car. If you want a car you can dump oil and gas into until something breaks, then fix it and go on ignoring it, you have the wrong car. But if you make a reasonably responsible effort and are realistic about your finances things will work out just fine.

Dave

 

Well I have an Evo now, and you have to make sure that everything is running fine.
Guessing not nearly as much as a Rx7, but its not eco sedan car.
Like I said before, I would prob get a moded one, with hopefully atleast a fresh motor in, possibly already built motor. And iam guessing it will have over 80% of the "required precaution"mods, and the ones it is missing, I will add myself.
If everything goes to plan, I would like to run atleast 350whp daily, 1000-1500miles a month.
I realize I need to change oil more often, but besides that, how much different in reliability is it compared to, say an Evo?
What is all this talk of wrenching as well? Lol... Alot of you seem to work on the cars yourself, I have basic knowledge of cars, and for the most part id try to do the mods myself, but certain stuff that requires wrenching (guessing engine and tranny), not sure Id wanna touch.
Are these rotors easy to work on?

 

This is a Rx7 I have been interested in, the only downfall is the owner does not know what mods are on the car.. he said he bought it from somebody, and he doesnt know jack about the car...
Of course I would fly out inspect and drive it before I bought it, but he said the old owner but a new "engine, tranny, clutch, turbos replaced"
Besides some obvious stuff like the HKS bov, greddy e01, what else is on? Can anyone make some stuff out? Custom radiator? Intercooler a greddy?
Here is the links, has ALOT of pics, engine pics are more towards last pages.
http://groups.msn.com/1993RX7/shoebox.msnw

 

wow... you are obviously far more knowledgable than I am, or could ever hope to be (for that matter).. please forgive me for ever questioning your ethics

I'm not sure if this is even worth responding too..

but hey! if nothing else, atleast you've retained some humility..

 

dude, i'm not even gonna try to respond to the things that you're saying anymore. notice how no one else seems to care about everything that i'm saying and is just taking the information that i'm giving and deciding for themself if it's worthy information or not. this thread has definitely filled it's purpose and there's no point of it to go further....
-erik

 

Ehm response to my question would be nice :P.

 

Without the knowledge, rotarys are hard to work on...

 

Is that radiator stock? Who does a FMIC before upgrading radiator?

cloudy, you mentioned a few times about what you had seen on ebay. This info isn't FD specific. But it could help you. If you get a car off ebay, the ebay insurance doesn't cover very many situations. Here are a few that are NOT covered:
pictures shown are of the car years before it was listed for sale (despite seller claims otherwise)
seller says car has never been in wreck, it was in a wreck (carfax didn't show it because vin was faked)
seller forgot to mention car was repainted 12 years ago with a crappy maco job that faded over 10years

Things that ARE covered:
vin# doesn't match what the seller claimed (as in the case of a faked vin)

There is a longer story to go along with my post, but just have a mechanic and/or yourself check out the car. Verify that the VIN on the firewall is present and that it matches the door sticker and dash plate. Look for paint overspray (esp on front plastics) if owner hasn't said anything about a new paint job.

 

No idea on whats stock or not, I do not know huge differences in stock engine bay vs moded, which is why I asked some of you guys.