Im just curious how reliable is the rx7 with a new motor and appropriate reliability mods?

 

With a new motor, reliability mods, and all the other things you can think of like belts, hoses etc. it will be as reliable as a third gen ever can be: fairly reliable. i.e. nothing even close to a civic or corolla, but you will probably experience great lengths of time where nothing goes wrong. you just wont be able to count on when and where those times come to an end..

If it breaks you deal with it, like any old car.

At this point they should never be bought for a daily driver in my opinion. but neither should old first gens have been when I was younger and I did it anyway. You assume risk if you want to daily any old car, and a bit more so with a turbo RX-7. it's either worth it for you or it isn't. If it is, have at it, and if it isn't wait until you can afford to have one as a second car.

 

even hondas and corolla's break. Maintenance is a bigger issue with FD's then alot of other car's but they are also alot faster and funner then those other said cars . LOL

 

In all the years since 2011 I've daily driven mine and no problems whatsoever.

**I will add that you guys in the US seem to be buying/selling/swapping from one used-high mileage FD to another, and the owner turnover rate of the same cars again and again looks to be very very high. Your US FDs have probably been through more owners and flogging and hack work than anywhere else on Earth .

I am the second owner of mine, and I got it at 79,000km from Japan, and it is still like new, hence it does not give any reliability problems. Nobody has hacked at the car before me, or dodged anything up badly to it. Thats probably why I have such a good run with it)

 

...you're forgetting that they were only in production for 3 years in the US which plays a huge role in your claim. Also importing a RHD car is expensive and a ton of paperwork with US Customs. You have model years 92-02 to choose from while we have 93-95 LHD. Knowledge is power my friend...go read a book.

 

This. The car will only be as reliable as the person maintaining it. Oil changes every 2k-2.5k miles, plugs, fuel filters etc. etc.

My motor is being rebuilt as we speak and I have every intention of driving it 500 miles a month (half daily). I figured the motor should be reliable with a proper tune and only an occasional flogging. If it lasts 50k miles at 500 miles a month it should take me 100 months to reach that point. That's 8.3 years. Hopefully I'll have enough saved up by then to buy and build another 0 mile motor and do it all over again.

 

Part of the trick to replacing a motor in one of these cars is tracking down the exact reason it broke. FD's in Particular don't wear out so much as break due to some system in the line failing which always seem to lead to catastrophic failure of the motor.

Sometimes its an obvious cause like a Cracked AST/ Rad end tank and the motor overheated. Sometimes its not so obvious and things like issues with fuel delivery can get bolted right back up to the new motor only to lead you into a perpetual cycle.

I know there are good engine builders out there, thing is you never know if its the builder or the car with an underlying problem.

You are almost always going to hear an engine builder say "Not my fault" so then you go replacing entire fuel systems, engine wiring harnesses and spending god awful amounts of money and then it turns out the motor was junk to begin with.

It seems to cut both ways. I have been told the last several years it has improved but I have only my experiences with a rotary from 99-2004/2005.
I did see a lot of cars Saturday driving long distances to the Carlisi event and even tracking the cars with no failures.
There were a lot of IRP stickers/motors in those cars so maybe that place has the corner on doing it right I dunno.

It ALMOST makes it tempting to give the 13B another shot some day lol

 

Ive read all the books. Ive been importing FDs to Australia since 2004. I have access to cars from 1991 to 2002. No need to read a book when I can go tear a 1999 car apart.

 

You FD is an automatic, It's as reliable as they can get.

 

this is true.

when the FD showed up in the USA, for sale nobody in the world knew how to fix it, even the japanese. this turned out to be important.

 

SA3R is correct on the previous owner abuse comments and doesn't need to read anything. Yes the series 7-8 are better quality but, the previous owners still have to properly maintain the vehicle. My car was adult owned. I was the 3rd owner of my 94 and it had only 60k when I bought it back in Jan 03. Car was 100% bone stock and garaged its whole life. Still had that new smell. After I tightned down my Y pipe coupling to fix my secondary boost leak, my fd ran flawlessly for 3 1/2 years reliably until I blew the engine at 108k because of my manuel boost controller and me running 87 octane for over a year. I was testing the limits and found it. My only major repair previous to this was replacing my clutch. Hell I've had nothing but problems with my 2000 M5 in my 4 years of ownership and it had 65k when I bought it and was a 75k when it was brand new. Go figure!

 

It tends not to break down unless something goes wrong.

Not real specific but that's life with questions of this nature.

David

 

the engine is the easy part. it's the interior electrical problems, the interior rattles, the power antenna, the door handles. Basically, old car stuff that eventually happens one after another. The best you'll ever do is make it as reliable as most other 20 year old cars. It's not like buying say a WRX that just came off warranty.

 

Very generally speaking, major problems with the engine are:

1.) Apex or side seal failures, once again GENERALLY from running lean and 'pinging' (many underlying causal factors)
2.) Overheating issues, most often coolant 'O' ring seals in the engine failing

The engine is a marvel of simplicity, there are like what...THREE moving parts? So if you've got a good new engine/good rebuild and do the reliability mods and are basically stock ECU, injectors, turbos, etc...you'll have a good long life, easily 75,000 miles or more.

When I put in my new (Mazda reman) engine, I took the time to replace...everything...in the engine bay that I thought could give me future problems. New alternator, new belts, every single hose was replaced, new radiator, new radiator fans, new engine wiring harness...everything but the a/c compressor and the power steering pump was renewed. New exhaust system from the turbos back. I fully expect that engine will last over 100,000 miles easily, not that it will likely ever get there as it only gets driven about 2,000 miles a year now, if that.

As others have noted, non-engine related failures will have to be dealt with, things like brakes and shocks/struts, interior electronics/fans/etc, exhaust system If original, belts, hoses, batteries...all that sort of stuff can be expected to have to be replaced at some point or another.

I don't do this as much these days as I did when I was younger, but I used to purchase old cars pretty often and flip them for a profit. I'd find cars that had some simple mechanical issue that I was able to fix for little money and drive for a while then often double my paid price. Doing this you get a good perspective of the items most likely to fail and can plan for it.