Hello, I'm currently in the market to buy an my first RX-7 FD. Of course I really don't know much about RX-7's so I'm hoping I can get some advice on here so I won't shoot myself in the foot with buying a car like I have before. I have already seen a couple of FD's so I wanted to ask what your opinions are. From the ones i've seen that are in my price range i'm most interested in a white RX-7, that's for sale for $10.5 which i'm sure I can talk to the guy to lower the price even further. The reason for the low price is because it's damaged on the front right fender and also that the car is an automatic. The damage is really no big deal at all to get fixed. The car has been garaged all it's life. It's had 2 owners, The car itself has 53k miles, and the engine was rebuilt as soon as the current owner purchased it last year, which now has 7k miles on the engine. My situation is that i'm going to use the car as my street car, I have an M3 currently that's a dedicated race car so i'm not interested in racing the RX-7 anyways, but I'm a sports car guy that likes to have a real sports car feeling. And auto's really kill that. My First question is whether you guys know if the difference between the manual and auto are big in terms of performance? Either way I plan on doing a manual tranny swap later on after I mod the car to what I want it to be. My second question is whether you guys think the price of the car and in the conditions it's in, if it's low enough to make up the difference in later on doing the tranny swap? My last question is if you guys can let me know what kinda things maintenance wise and reliability things that I have to look out for, or anythings that are important to replace in the car and all that good stuff. Mostly so I won't buy a car with a big problem that I won't find out about until after I bought it. So i'd appreciate any help from you guys and hopefully i'll be in the RX-7 club soon. Thanks in advance

 

sounds like a decent price... i heard many things about the autos... but i love the manual... it all depends on the driver

 

If you want a manual car, then just buy a manual car.

Read the FAQ thread stickied at the top and please use the search function before starting a new thread. Thanks and welcome to the forum.

 

First, read the FAQ thread that is stickied at the top of this forum. It answers several of your questions.

Second, an FD with body damage will probably require a grand to get you a painted/matched fender, but I have to ask if there is any possibility that it was curb-checked or the frame needs work. Just a front lower control arm is $550.

I'd budget $2k for a manual swap assuming you work it yourself and you get good parts. It can be done for less, and it can be done for more.

So after all that, I see $13500. If everything else on the car is immaculate, I suppose that might be worthwhile, since a similar 5 speed might run $15000.

Dave