i am willing to admit that mine needed a new motor at 9K miles
i have to agree with jim. saying MANY is very misleading. now if we were talking n/a 13b's....

 

Even the bone stock cars had problems, one of which was the catalyst in the pre-cats disintegrating from the heat and blocking up the main cat. This in turn led to a lot of premature turbo assembly replacements on the part of Mazda dealerships, who hadn't yet figured out that the catalytic converters were often the culprits. Of course the heat killed a lot of components before downpipes were so common, and was one of the leading causes of premature turbo failure even without the excessive backpressure of a blocked cat. And then, of course, there was the ever popular apex seal through the turbine mod...

While it's well known now that the incredible heat is part of the problem with these cars, it certainly wasn't well known 6-7 years ago. In a recent thread, Gordon Monsen and I agreed that the pain paid for several years ago is one of the key reasons that we're seeing longer-lived FD engines today. The "learning curve" is very shallow, because the bleeding edge experimentation (in most cases) was done a long time ago.

 

interesting thread to say the least!

i can only comment this much all of my friends FD's *ALOT* with mileage between 60k- 87k (mine was 87k i think i had the highest of the group LOL) have had their engines rebuilt within the past year or two mainly due to coolant seal failure. anyway just an interesting tidbit! i just realized

 

89k miles on my 93' FD. It was owned by an older man and nicely taken care of. Original motor and 2nd turbos. He replaced the turbos due to a slight leak even though they were still operating at full boost. I got a bag full of reciepts with service info, tires, etc....... The car still runs excellent with great performance except for a slight case of the 3k hesitation which I'll get around to.

 

i replaced an engine and set of turbos on one of my custumers 93 fd at 136k. he loves the car.

 

Trying DESPERATELY to catch all the failure mode elements before they activate. You guys have been THE BEST resource for what may go wrong, and what probably already has (like my pre cats that I pulled this afternoon and found "shifted" Didn't make it into the main cat though... and the studs came out with my FINGERS!! Something's gotta be about to REALLy wrong here..)

KEEP IT UP!!

 

Any engine can blow up if it's pushed too hard and not reinforced. The 13B just needs a little more reinforcement than others. I've got just under 75K on my '93, and I've only got two problems, one of which was caused by a tiny fender bender. Obviously, people have made it past the 100K mark. Now ask the people that didn't make it far, what mods do, or did you have? And how hard did you drive it? This will shed some light.

 

Barkeep, since you've passed the 4 year part of the 4 year/50,000 mile warranty on your RX-7, don't expect anything for free from Mazda. And I'd say, do the downpipe, then buff up your cooling system. Better radiator, aluminum ast, higher pressure rad cap, etc. Look around, and you'll find what you need.

 

Well responding to your post ask for one I'd say yes...

Originally posted by the_glass_man
There are plenty of forum members with 100,000 + miles on the original engine and turbos.

Really? Name one.

I named four...you only asked for one....(These four cars I know were purchased new and that's why I used them as an example.)
Basically you have been shown to be ignorant again but thanks for playing...

 

The question was asked of the_glass_man, not "Mr rx-7 tt", and was meant in a joking manner, hence the smiley face that you deleted.

Is "ignorant" simply your favorite word, or just the only one you know?

You said you knew of at least four. Great. You do realize that four 100k+ mile cars is about 0.03% of the original production volume, right? Does that mean "plenty" to you? Or in your ignorance, are you not aware that 4, 40, or even 400 is absolutely pathetic compared to how many cars of other models and brands normally last for 100k+ miles??

I was joking with glass_man because even though there are 100k+ mile FDs on original turbos and engine, their numbers are absolutely appalling. But thanks for your major contribution to the discussion anyway. I'm sure that everyone will sleep better at night knowing that you know of at least four 100k+ mile FDs out of 13,500+ cars...

 

I think the cars are lasting MUCH longer now than they did when new. Sort of a strange paradox brought about by the revelation of the prime causal factors of all those early troubles.

Look what you had in '93, '94, and '95. These cars were puchased by people that were, for the most part, affluent. So any little hiccup and the car was off to the dealer (a place of premature death for MANY FDs!) for "service". Most of the original owners were the type of people that once the car had been to the shop a few times said "**** it, I'm getting rid of that P.O.S.!"

After that a lot of these cars went thru several different owners, and it was still in a time period when not a lot was known about the 13BREW. Everyone was scratching their heads, 'cuz the 13B was bulletproof, stories abounded of multi-hundred thousand mile engine life. With the TT 13BREW people were like, what the HELL is wrong?

Gradually the awareness of the issues and remedies associated with the "problematic" FD spread and fixes came out and reliability became greatly enhanced. Of course by this time the FD was dead in the states.
But keep in mind, the car was manufactured for what....7 more years after its U.S. demise? And was extremely popular in Australia and Japan, and the same problems that plagued the U.S. vehicles weren't really there for those cars.

ANY rotary engine is likely to experience fewer problems IN GENERAL due to the greatly reduced number of components and the lack of any reciprocating mass.
The few things that can (and do) afflict it are usually fatal, though......overheating and horked up apex seals for the most part. And the catch-22 of modding these engines is that almost ALL of the performance mods greatly enhance 1.) heat and 2.) lean condition possibility.

Sure there are likely hundreds if not a couple of thousand FDs that, like mine, have been only one or two owner cars that received the best maintenance, weren't modded to the extreme edge, and basically just take advantage of the odds of there are always a few cars that are just made better than others.
I would hazard a guess that a large number of automatic equipped cars (like mine) have been and will continue to be the high mileage "winners". For the most part, these cars were "babied".


The 13BREW is NOT the bulletproof techno-tour-de-force that the 13B N/A was/is. But I truly feel that with modern awareness and information available in Forums like this, that we will see more and more FDs putting more and more miles on.

Okay, off my soap box, and off to make a sacrifice to the Rotary Gods.......

 

Jim, you're a funny man indeed Jim->:<-muppets

 

Spinner: You got a list of your mods someplace? My mod goals is to put down about 400-450 to the wheels. Which is exactly where you are sitting.

Are you on a stock motor? What motor you have now?