Well just got back from a little road trip drove from Dallas, Tx to Miami, Fl pretty much non-stop there and back. 3000 miles total 9 tanks of gas. 1qt of oil and no major problems. Averaged 20mpg on the highway, and my car is not stock btw street ported and turbos. Anyway here are a few pictures thought someone might be interested.

The only problem on the trip was i lost a cover on the turnpike..

South Beach


Biscane Bay

Pensacola

Driving through the tropical storm

Will post some others later.

 

Only on an Rx-7 forum does someone post when they drive their car somewhere and it actually makes it back

 

I would think other forums are where you would need to point this out, lol. With something like 10,000 miles on my car since last year when my brother finished putting it all back together, I haven't had any problems other than what I've brought on myself. By this I mean, rebuilt stock twins not holding up (afterwards I found they had sat around for years unused), exhaust leaks from a generic inexpensive single turbo kit (has since been addressed and fixed, without spending tons of extra money), and most recently my clutch slipping on the dyno (I chose this clutch with much lower power goals at the time).

I'm glad to hear of a successful long distance venture in your FD but it shouldn't be unexpected. Any car is only as good as you build, tune, and maintain it. My brother and I had no prior experience with rotaries and through my researching how to reliably build one and his mechanical competency I have a great running powerful street car.

 

Only on rx7 forum.

 

To answer your question- Pretty much every non-RX7 owner does, but since they likely don't know what they're talking about.... Who cares?

 

When I bought my (first) rx7 3 weeks ago, I flew out to richmond, VA and drove it back the next 2 days home to Kansas City, KS. It was 1100 miles. The only problem I had was the AC was only blowing cold on lvl 1, but that was because of the typical powerFC problem, which I've already fixed.



I love my FD. I've been wanting one for 15 years.

 

Bad ownership = Bad experience

 

I gotta agree, bad ownership= bad experience, i got mine from North Carolina, and drove it here to Arizona, it made it, but the next day i found a crack coolant line haha. Since then i drive it maybe 3-4 times a week, or when the wife takes the other car and im forced to drive it :P

 

About a month ago I drop from Colorado Springs down to Phoenix (about 1000 miles) to pick up an FD. Drove it back to Co Springs, including rough mountain passes, rubbing rear tires, inclement weather and the like, without issue.

Best part is, we managed 26mpg. I know, I didn't believe myself either.

I strongly believe if you take care of the car, have the right reliability mods, then you shouldn't have any issues driving it wherever you want to go...

 

1) OMP that lubricates the engine by shooting dirty oil into the chambers
2) Vacuum lines that make a simple rotary engine into the most complicated thing on the road
3) Pulleys that pull up on the front end of the e-shaft so you get uneven wear on engine internals
4) LIM that feeds different volumes of air to each rotor
5) Rotors that leave the factory with different weights (Mazda should've taken a lesson from Lexus and their balanced engines.)
6) Heat-soaking pre-cat in the engine bay
7) Undersized radiator with plastic end caps positioned at a steep angle coupled with a small bumper hole
8) Plastic AST
9) Undersized intercooler, again with plastic end caps
10) Under-engineered suspension bushings
11) Motor mounts made of marshmallows that don't control engine rotation, resulting in axle hop (which is great for the bushings and transmission) and...
12) The inevitable broken PPF
13) Bad 5th gear synchros
14) Potential engine flooding
15) Gauge clusters that fail (not to mention the fun in getting the cluster hood off without breaking anything)
16) Engine wiring harness routed inside the right side fender well inches away from a spinning tire
17) The mere existence of an "exhaust overheat" light in the console should tell you something.

I've corrected the majority of these reliability issues on my car. I like the car, but there's a lot of things Mazda should have done differently.

 

Don't forget the oil pan doesn't seal because of the stacked housings and poor enigne mount placement, the cheap interior pieces and the terrible ECU along with overall grounding/electrical issues...........etc........which is the reason we have problems with the clusters, starter switches and solenoids etc...etc....

Then top all this off with a list of updates and improvements from 93 to 94 that are longer than your list but here's a few:
paint
glove box
wheels
rear sub (to help with wheel hop)
plastic interior improved to prevent melting and peeling
gas tank baffles
door insulation
etc....

However even with all these issues and problems it's still one of the best automobiles ever built and I've been daily driving one for 11 years with no problems. Never has one left me stranded anywhere. I've had to scramble for water and push start a few times but it always brought me home. Even when I was tracking these cars I had good luck until I started trailering it to the track and driving a little harder then everything started breaking

If you want a solid daily driver purchase a proven track FD it will be the most reliable car you've ever driven and you could pass it on to your grandchildren........JK

 

16) should be "engine harness rounted inside the LEFT side fender well".

 

The engine harness isn't routed along either fender liner it's the body/main harness that's routed along the front frame under both L and R fender liners. If you're tracking your car or like you like your car low enough to rub the liners then remove the liners and use some big fat industrial type zip ties to pull the harness up and secure it.

 

They should of put the 20b turbo in this bish .

 

Not as big an issue IMO that people make of it. Especially if you change oil regularly like you should and added AI.
I suspect the number of people still with stock rubber hoses are nearly zero. Not a contributor these days to a car that isn't reliable.
No an issue if properly tensioned. It's an issue if you just had to have those blingy underdrive pulleys and then had to overtighten to avoid belts slipping.
Not sure, but I don't think this is much of an issue if your at stock boost levels.
See #2. Pre-cats weren't unique to the RX7. and anyone who's owned this car beyond warranty has removed it by now. If they haven't there's no hope for them. Again it's not a source of break-down these days as related to the OP's thread.
The stock radiator is efficient and IMO not necessarily undersized for a stock FD. I think there are some threads that would back me up on that too. It does have plastic end-tanks that fail...with time and heat. But that isn't unique to the RX7 or Mazda. As for the front opening...been fine on my car. I barely ran over 84C today cruisikng when it was ~ 97 F.
See #7
Packaging was tight. Plastic end-tanks aren't an issue at 10 psi.
Pretty much corrected 94+
Never be a problem for me in 8 years of ownership. But I agree it is a characteristic of rotarys. Not something MAZDA short-cutted though.
Yes, it reminds me that any rotary exhaust is much hotter than a piston engine.
Me too. And I used to blame MAZDA for the rest as well. But it was a mass-produced car, not a low volumn semi-super- car. They could have corrected some of the things, but that raises costs and it would've been even bigger market bust in it's day.

Like Flynn, I've never been left on the side of the road by my car in all the years I've owned it. Could happen tomorrow of course, but that's not a bad record for a car nearly 20 years old now.

 

i've made the drive btwn FL & NY (1200mi straight) 3 times now.

 

When I bought my 94 back in Sept of '08, I daily drove her for 6 months.

I work out of my car for business and on a busy day I can put 100 miles in one day but on avg it was about 65 miles per day in the FL heat with NO issue at all.
I put 6,000 miles on her in the first 8 months of ownership then I garaged her and have put on about 1,000 since..

I trust my FD to make it any where I need to go....

 

The plastics used everywhere on this car leave MUCH to be desired. My headlight cover is held together by all kinds of VooDoo magic, with 3 broken tabs. Much like your missing headlight cover, I cringe because that could be me soon if I wash it too hard right there.

But like it has already been said, they made a semi super car, and tryed like hell to sell it as cheap as possible. If this car has been released around this time where the standard sports car is inching twords the 40K price tag it would have been a simply amazing fit and finished car.

The love is looking past all the nit picky stuff and enjoy this beautiful machine for what it is. Fun!

I also trust the old girl to get me around. Do I still have my Honda Accord for the rainy days? Yes. But it does also snow like a B here, and makes these cars worthless for 6 months.

I think that it is great that I am not the only one that has issues, but loves the hell out of their investment. Cheers

 

Gotta agree with that

I bought mine in Oct of 09. It was very well cared for and we drove it straight from Menome Falls Wisconsin to San Antonio, TX. 2000 miles and we also got around 26mpg. It was completely original with only the recalls done. I have all the service records and according to those it has only had a few minor issues, none of which were on that list. I'm sure it helped that it was only driven during good warm/cool weather, allowed to cool with the hood up and always garaged.

I have been active on two other auto forums in the past. MBWorld and Swedespeed. Both had a few people that touted the reliability while everybody else pointed out their problems or general faults they felt were common across the board. Many people that join forums are enthusiasts and also vocal. You will find a lot more people talking about problems than mentioning when things are working well. People usually tell everybody when they get food poisoning or terrible service from a restaurant. It's just the way it is.

It is nice to have so many people out there "keeping it real" for RX-7 owners though, especially new owners who need to be aware. Without all the expertise from the knowledgeable forum members I know a lot of us would be in the dark about possible problems, good maintenance practices, reliability modifications.