super laubo

hey everybody,

this is my first time on this forum and i need some advice, options, and thoughts.

a friend of mine is selling a 1988 manual, non-turbo RX-7 for $500 without A/C. it has 120,000 miles on it and i'm wondering if this car is worth it?

**what are the pro's and con's of this car?

**is the factory motor and transmission strong and dependable?

**is this car very difficult to work with?

**does this car have lots of potential with autocrossing and drag racing?

**are repairs very costly?

** what different models are there and its power outputs.

i'm very interested in getting into rotary engines since i believe this is a cheap price for a frame.

i've been into Hondas (yes, yes go ahead and smirk at us rice boys cause i do it too ) and i've swapped, built motors before and i'd like to seek out another horizon.

thanks for all the advice and i look forward to talking and learning from you peeps!!!

Project84

Hi, and welcome to the RX-7 forum. I will attempt answer all your questions in order.

1. Pros and Cons: Well, the Pros first. Very unique car, stylish, Mazda broke many molds with this car. Car has rear wheel steer so that the rear wheels automatically steer into turns at high speeds. Mazda put 10 patents on the rear suspension alone. Car handles remarkably well due to it near perfect weight distribution. 50.2 front/49.8rear (or vice versa, but those are the numbers). There are plenty of companies who make OEM and aftermarket parts for these car. Yes they are great for Drifting, autocross, and drag racing, though it does have a check in the Cons column for producing lower then pereferred torque. Factory Service Manual is available online free of charge, and Haynes manuals are available for all years and models.

Cons: If you don't know how to work on rotary engines, it may cost more to pay a shop to do repairs. Some places don't have shops with people willing or qualified to work on them. I live in a city where the local Mazda dealer doesn't work on Rotary engines because there aren't too many around here. It isn't too difficult to learn how they work or to fix them. Its a rather simple engine on the inside. Different, but simple. The outside stuff is the same. The alternator water pump, power steering and all that stuff works the same as a piston engine car. I guess thats a plus and not a CON.

Factory motor and tranny are dependable. It depends on how the car is maintained and driven, but its not unheard of for a car to go over 160,000 miles.

As stated, the car is not difficult to work with. Mazda kept in mind that the car will need to be maintain, and they made parts as easily accessable as possible, and most of the work can be done with basic hand tools. If you have metric sockets ranging from 8mm-17mm, you can do 99% of the work involved in pulling a motor, rebuilding it and putting it back in. You will need a few larger sockets like a 23mm socket, and either a 52 or 54mm socket, but other then that, its really easy to work on.

Lots of potential for all sorts of racing. Mazda Rotary division won many 24 Hours of Le Mans, and Racing Beat has a few Land Speed Records in different classes, all with RX-7s. People on here drag race, ralley race, autocross, drift and anything else you can think of. Lots of aftermarket support makes it easy to find upgrade parts for the car.

Repairs can be costly if you can't do the work yourself. If you can do the work yourself, then the most expensive thing would be to rebuild the motor. It can cost just as much, or more for the seals and gaskets and replacement parts to rebuild a motor, as it could for a new motor. Different companies make rotary engines in different configurations and sell them at different prices. Stock replacement motors that are professionally rebuild and come with a warranty can usually be found for $1300, depending on if nonturbo. Then you start going up in price to about $1700-$2000 for a turbo motor. It goes up another from there for racing modified motors. Different places have different prices though. Depending on the condition of the motor and the purpose you want to use it for, it could be cheaper to get another motor, or it could be cheaper to rebuild it. I just rebuilt mine because its not heavily modified and I will use it for pretty much daily driving and some autocross.

Different models and outputs. Lots of different models. You will here the terms S4 or series 4, and S5 or series 5. This pertains to the year of the car, because some changes were made in '89. Here is how it breaks down.

The 1st Generation is all RX-7s from '78-85. Not sure how the series break down for those.
2nd generation is 86-92. 86-88 is series 4, and 89-92 is series 5.

3rd generation is 93 and up. They stopped bringing them to the US in 96, so usually you will only hear about '95s unless someone imported one from Japan. I see this from time to time cause I'm in the military and have been overseas a lot.

As for more specific info on the models and outputs, see the chart I attached. You will need to download it and blow it up to see it. It was too big to attach it so I had to shrink it down. Also, go to the 2nd gen forum on this site. The car you are looking at buying is a 2nd gen. They have a FAQ section at the top that will answer a lot of these same questions, and more. Also, that is the section where you asked questions specifically related to the 2nd Gen.

Project84

if you can't zoom in or focus on that picture, go here
http://www.aaroncake.net/RX-7/brochure/brochure.asp

This is an online version of the 30 page sale brochure will all sorts of great info on the RX-7. The page belongs to and is hosted by Aaron Cake, one of our well respected and very knowledgable members here. Good site to save under your favorites. Has a lot of good tech info and stuff to help people who are new to RX-7s

kyle@insight

mmmm NA FCs, lotsa fun those cars are

while project 84 did a great job of answering whatever questions you had, I'll try and give you a second opinion simply to reinforce his...


Pro's? A lot. Fun to drive, relativly reliable, rear-wheel drive, the list goes on.

Con's? Ya kinda have to stay on top of them w/ maintenance. You can't let it go 6k miles on an oil change like you can a honda. Just take care of it and it will take care of you. Oh, and NA rotaries aren't known for their torque, but being a honda boy you're used to that

Not too difficult to work with. It's no honda which any monkey with a wrench can work on, but it's easy to learn along the way. The wealth of knowledge on this forum will guide you.

They make bad *** auto-x cars, they handle great and there are tons and tons of suspension upgrades. If you want to cut nice times at the drag strip tho you're gonna need a turbo model or just swap the TII motor in. People have done it and had good results, there's several links to it in the 2nd gen forum. However, a turbo rotary is a whole new can of worms I assure you.

Only costly repair i can forsee is if the motor let go, which if the car was properly cared for shouldn't happen all that soon.

Power output on an 88 NA is 146 HP. The 86-88 Turbo model had 182. 89+ NAs had 160hp and the turbo model had 200.

It's a fun car, enjoy it.