Hi All,

I've been lurking here for several months while searching the perfect RX7 to buy. FDs are just too rare and that makes it difficult to find one you're hapy with.

I just drove my recently acquired 93 silver base RX7 home to Oklahoma from Tennessee. It was a nice drive and I'm really excited about the car.

Some of you purists will hate me for it, but I bought the car with an LS1 swap in mind. I love the LS1/T56 but can't stand the look of the camaros, firebirds, and corvettes. I've already owned an 87 Buick Grand National, 87 Buick Regal T-Type, 90 Mitsu Eclipse, and a 94 turbocharged Mustang Cobra and now it's time for something a little different.

Anyway, my "new" car is a 93 base, silver with black leather, no sunroof, and an automatic. I hate the automatic, but it's not permanent. The car has 135k on the chassis but had the engine and turbos replaced about 50k ago at a cost of over $12k by a Mazda dealership (My god, who would pay that?). I had the compression checked before I bought the car and all 6 numbers were between 7.0 and 7.6.

The major pieces are solid, but there are a few small issues left to fix since the previous owner didn't know anything about cars and would just take it to the dealership when there was a problem. I'll be working out those issues over the next few weeks.

 

Happy to hear you picked up a FD. Any reason why your going to put a LS1 in what sounds to be a perfectly good running rotary?? Really breaks my heart.

 

how much did ya get it for? i cant imagine too much auto, kinda high miles..., so maybe this is actually a good car for an ls1! just make sure it has a 6 speed behind it!

 

Reliability and power. The rotary is really cool as a novelty, but just doesn't have the reliablilty of a piston engine. Perhaps Mazda will get this ironed out in future versions.

 

I paid $7500 for it. It was listed on ebay with a minimum bid of 8500 and went through without a bid. I called the guy a few weeks later and he said he'd do 7500.

I think this is the perfect car for an LS1. 135k on the driveline, base, auto with a great looking body and interior. And hell yes, there will be a T56 in it!

 

If you have the money to do the LS1 conversion, and reliability is your only problem, then throw in the LS1 when the rotary fails or gives you serious problems. You should add a blow off valve and drive the summer w/ the rotary and turbos, cuz there's no greater feeling when you pass a coorvette or firebird and they hear "pssssssssssssshhhhhhhhh" and they are like "what the F*ck is that thing!"

 

yeah get that auto out of there, do whatever you like, dont listen to all the haters, if its what you want to do, then do it!...just make sure a loving owner comes into possesion of your short block =p

 

Hey Oskar7, I'm doing the same thing, except I'm also putting an STS turbo behind the LS1/6speed. This is an easy 600hp car that gets 30mpg on the hiway and has a factory pcm that is tuneable, damn I love Chevy. I'm also putting an LS1 in my 80' Cherokee Chief WT & have a 2500HD 4X4 with an STS Turbo. I've wanted a 3rd gen since 93 but now that I have one I really don't want to fuss with it. I want to drive the it.

mike

 

congrats on the new care...take care of her and be careful