i know the reliability issue of fd's has been beaten to death, but my question is a little different. If I perform all the reliability mods to a low mileage fd(60k miles or less) and keep the car basically stock after that, how reliable will the car be? thanks for the help!!!

 

how much wood can a wood chuch chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood??

 

Not to mention how you drive it, maintain it and feed it.

maintain it: http://www.scuderiaciriani.com/rx7/maintenance.html
http://www.rx7.com/tech/fd-maintenance.html

feed it: https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...ight=premixing

 

150,000 + miles..?? that car would be one of the million Fd ever made..( assuming that there is a million out there

 

Its seems to be luck of the draw with these cars. My car was running absolutely great, until one day. Dum duh dum dum dum!!! The water seals broke down and it was all over. The original motors mazda put in these cars didn't have the best quality water seals in them. When i was at KDR in December deciding on whether or not i wanted dave to do the work, nearly 16 out of the 20 FD's that were at his shop, were there for engine rebuilds due to water seal failure. Thats saying alot. You can't do much to prevent it. Yeah don't let your car overheat, thats a no brainer. But you've got to remember a car that 9 years old (if its a 93) even if it has only 30k miles on the original motor, you most likely will run into a water seal problem. You'll most likely run into an Apex seal failure if your running a lot of performance mods on your car and your running lean. What I'm getting at is, you could buy a low mileage fd and it could last you for years to come. Or it could be running great the day you buy it and the next day you could have a problem. Most people will say find the car in the best condition for your price limit and buy that. Try to leave yourself some reserve cash to have the motor rebuilt. If I could do it over i would buy a car in great, near perfect condition with a blown motor and have it rebuilt by a reputable shop with all the goodies I wanted done to it. Dave a KDR @ customer request put silicon water seals in. Much more heat resistant than OEM. These are just a few of my opinions.

 

I pretty much agree with Ivan. The coolant seals are the only real design flaw of the engine, and there's not much you can do about it.

On the other hand, there was a thread not too long ago in which a number of owners reported they were close to, or over, 100,000 miles on their original engine.

If your engine is in good shape now, and you keep it stock, and keep up with the maintenance, then you'll have greatly reduced your chances of running into serious problems.

 

I majorly depends on how well it was kept before you got it. All the reliability mods in the world won't help if the oil was only changed every 15,000 miles.

Once the engine is replaced, it can be made to be very reliable.

 

what I find funny is that you have a VW, which tend to have numerous problems from the factory and you ask about the FD being reliable

it will be reliable

 

thanks for all the help guys, i've always loved the FD, the styling, lightweight concept, and overall balance of the car, it's just the rotary engine that scares me. I had a '87 RX7 GXL as my first car and I had nothing but headaches, I must've dumped 7 grand into a car worth 2 grand, and in the end, it blew another motor, so i just junked it. but i still want an FD, i guess i'll just have to shop for one VERY carefully.

i just sold the vw, you're right on reliability problems of the vw, electronic gremlins galore!!!