Farkel Jr.

iTrader: (10)

Sorry if this is a noob question, but how reliable/how much life is left in a 13B motor with 60k miles?

I don't know much about RX7s, but people keep telling me the stereotypical poor reliability of Rotories and apex seals being blown...

Should I be worried with a 60k motor? If I change the oil, maybe a few belts, and keep the boost down, should I be worried about anything breaking down in the near future?

Thanks !

dhays

iTrader: (1)

Read through all the information in this thread

It will give you lots of good information. In general, the answer to your questions come down to:

Not necessarily, and it depends.

What you do to the engine now may not be as important as what was done to the engine in the past. I don't know much yet about the FD engines myself. However, two things that I have learned are:
1) Keep it cool, and
2) keep it clean (the oil that is)

Busted7

Yep its a gonner!

Theres no one that can tell you how many mile you will get but hedge your bet and do maintance often!

adam c

iTrader: (2)

My motor lost the coolant seals at 62K. That means a rebuild, which means several thousand $$$$

Farkel Jr.

iTrader: (10)

I know there's no real way of determining how long an engine will last, but are there any stock Rotaries with more than 120k and still going good?

I really want a FD, but I'm not going to lie, I am a little scared of something like a coolant seal going out right after I get the car... Is it easy to change the seals before hand to prevent a blown engine?

jpandes

My FD had a little over 120k miles on the chassis...during that time it also had three different motors All went bad due to coolant seal failure

theorie

iTrader: (31)

my neighbor's FD has 80k+ miles on it, original motor, original seals, never cracked open.

runs very strong and has great compression.

he over heats it all the time too. what a crazy ***.

Farkel Jr.

iTrader: (10)

uuuhh......... now I'm pretty scared

mdude

if its 60k on the original motor, those coolant seals might be getting old alittle old.

Azcamel

iTrader: (1)

gotta remember its not only the mileage but the age also..
most people look for low mileage, but i personally look for the care and maintance, a fresh built motor if i can,..

Montego

iTrader: (1)

my first engine died at 108K (engine seized), my second at 50K (due to detonation) upon teardown my seals (coolant and non blown apex) looked really good.

I'm from the school of thought (from my experience) that if you keep the boost near stock levels and water temps low the engine will last a long time. In your case who knows how your FD was treated prior to your ownership.

jpandes

A 93-95 RX7 is probably not the best car for your ONLY mode of transportation. The car needs TLC and you have to be on top of all the maintenance issue that will crop up. And they will come up. Like Azcamel said, it's the age of the car. Stuff gets old worn-out and brittle and breaks.

First motor: I bought the car with 15m miles on it. The motor was replace under warranty at 63k miles. I admit that I didn't know crap about the car and I could have overheated the car with out knowing it.

Second Motor: Mazda installed a Remanufactured motor that didn't last more than 30k miles. That coul have been due to poor quality parts or workmanship during the rebuild. Reman motors from Mazda are a crap shoot for reliability. You can search this...

Third Motor: I had to pay out of pocket for this one. So, I wanted to do it right. I researched the hell out of it...I ordered a "reman" from Mazda and had it shipped to Pineapple Racing who tor it down and had them port it and install upgraded seals. They said that the internals were shitty and many housings had to be replaced.

I also installed a Koyo radiator, Aluminum AST, after market temp gauge, set the fans to come on at a cooler temp & used Evans Coolant. I still lost my motor. I think it was due to a coolant leak where the water pump meets the block and it caused me to overheat So the moral of this story is that you can try to do every thing right...but **** still happens.

bajaman

I bought my car 7 years old with 60K on the odometer.
By 67K I was having coolant seal problems.
Did the 'block seal in a can' fix and drove for 26K miles more before I blew the engine due to overboosting/leaning out.

katit

iTrader: (1)

Not to be picky, but what are the "internals" and how many exactly housings were bad? I understand that if "many" housings bad and internals shitty then it's better to just rebuild existing motor with all new housings..

jpandes

Forgive me, it's been a few years. I just know that they had to replace some parts before they reassembled the motor. Can't rememebr if it was housing or a rotor...I agree it would have been better to just rebuild my motor with new parts. But, I needed to minimized downtime. So, when I knew my seals were going out I ordered the reman and had it shipped to pineapple. And then had it shipped to a local shop for RNR. The new motor was installed in a 2-3 weeks. Should have been faster.

GoodfellaFD3S

iTrader: (213)

I think one of the often-overlooked maintenance items on the FD (which will help coolant o-ring life) is to flush the coolant annually, and never run anything but a mix of green coolant and distilled water. There is also these suckers to consider:

http://www.pineappleracing.com/index...PROD&ProdID=99