Hi,
I have been lurking here for a while and have decided to sign up.

I have recently retired and getting a life outside work back. Along with a lot of other things, I am considering a car project. I have a soft spot for rotaries having had RX3 & 4 road cars, and an RX3 rally car in the distant past and always thought that a Series 3 RX7 would be a nice road / occasional track day car. I am thinking a sleeper with about 350 kW (~470HP at the flywheel) from a modern quick spooling turbo with an active exhaust will fit the bill. But I am torn; clean RX7s are hard to find and becoming collector's items with a price to match. An RX8 is a more modern platform, much cheaper to get into and will accept an REW with relative ease. Heart says RX7, brain says RX8 conversion. Which will win?

 

Welcome to the forum! Why not both? Have a clean original RX-7 to cruiser around in and buy an RX-8 to mod and make into what you want it to be. There are a few REW powered RX-8's and an FD engine in an RX-8 would be amazing. There's not a lot you can do to a Renesis engine to make it as fast as it would be with an REW under the hood. Just something to consider. Have your cake and eat it to. You're retired and deserve to have what you want. A reward for your years of work.

 

One other thing to consider is the handling of an RX-8. You would be hard pressed to modify any generation of RX-7 that could keep up with the handling of a stock RX-8.

 

Well, it took me a year to decide and act and about as long again to report here. The prompt – I have to reach 10 posts in order to PM someone.

I am now the proud owner of a JDM 1999 RS RX7 that had been in the country, Australia, with one owner since 2007. 86,000 probably genuine km - 15,000 of them since import in 2007.

Clean, unmolested ones are getting very rare and priced accordingly. This one is not too badly buggered up, with the boy racer kiddy mods limited to the LOUD, that is close to pain LOUD, no cat, straight through exhaust and race spec coilover shocks.

Interesting factoid: the roof is the same height as the external mirrors on Jennifer's Mazda 3. I'll admit to getting old when I can no longer get in or out.

Black was not my preferred colour. In fact, it is probably bottom of the list but I bought a car, not a colour.

 

Pretty original inside.

 

Still Twin Turbo but the 280hp final version

 

And sits well in the scenery up here

 

Welcome to forum from another Aussie. I own 2 first gen rx7s and just finished a FD turbo engine in a RX8 is wicked

 

25 year old car, first time on track, 10 year old Kumhos, 65 year old driver. What could possibly go wrong?
I took the RX7 for its first track outing after a few months of ownership. It started going wrong pretty quick.
First up - confirmation that the Japanese domestic market 180 kph speed limiter was still active. Touch 180 and the car just went dead for what seemed like a couple of seconds.
The 10 year old Kumho tyres that came with the car weren’t as bad as expected - it was a hot dry day. They slid about a bit but it all seemed quite predictable with no bities in the RX7’s the handling.
Coming back into the pits, the brakes were smoking. I had checked them out before the event and they looked like the original pads. If this was the first time they had seen a bit of serious heat it meant that my ride had not been flogged in its previous life.
It went downhill from there.
Somewhere along the line the turbos stopped boosting. I was never near 180 kph again. That turned out to be the main hose from the intake manifold to the solenoid box not being clamped and blowing off.
A clunk started to occasionally appear in the front end when changing from left to right corners. Turns out that the RH camber eccentric cam was in upside down and not restrained in the slot. None of the adjustors, front or back were fully torqued. The upside down one loosened up leading to big shifts toe in to toe out. I had a little spin trail braking into a corner - I'm blaming the toe out!
By the time I had driven back home, the catch can had filled up and sprayed the oil everywhere.
So lessons and fixes:
180kph limit - that was always on the cards - Disable
Don't trust the wheel alignment guy - I'll do it myself next time.
Make sure that your pressure lines are all clamped.
The oil issue was part my fault. Searching around this site it is a known issue with a stock setup. Oil was near max whereas I should have run at minimum and emptied out the catch can after each run. Longer term, a baffle plate in the sump and tee another oil breather line into the rear turbo oil drain.
You never know about these things until you try.

 

Whoa, congrats on the purchase and making it through a track event.

 

Have you "run codes" and done a compression test?

Looks like the car is a '99. Do you know when it was manufactured.

 

Beautiful FD! Congrats on the purchase and on retirement, and welcome to the forum!

 

Yes, it’s a 99. The vehicle history report gives the manufacture date 1999-12. If I am decoding the VIN correctly there were only 8 more down the line that year. First registration was 2000-09, so it looks like they weren't exactly being snaffled up as soon as they hit the showroom floor.


No Codes but I made a newbie error when purchasing. I assumed that the fact that there was no CEL light showing on the dash meant that there were no codes. Dumbo. The JDM cars don't have a CEL. You have to look for codes at the diagnostic port.


I haven't tested compression. The seller had recent photos on his phone showing 110psi+ on all 6 chambers and I took him at his word. I have no reason to doubt it, hot and cold starts are immediate and down low torque is solid. It had no cat when I bought it and even then there was no smoke starting, idling or under load.


There is still one potential problem that I overlooked. On initial inspection the coolant level was down about an inch. When I drained and renewed the coolant, I could never quite get rid of the air bubbles, and it keeps needing to be topped up. Not a lot, just a bit every now and again. I suspect that a housing seal is on the way out. It is 25 years old and you never know the full maintenance history.



I've bought a hydrocarbon test kit and will see how that goes when I'm back up and running.

 

FD are notorious for difficulty getting the air out. There is a special funnel for that. I'd been concerned about driving it hard until you figure out the air bubble thing.

There is a someone on Buyee/ YAJ selling a neat little code testor that seems to have a 3D printed case. Better than using the jump wire and LED light trick.

I have not tried the new unit out yet. We need to find a car that still has the stock ecu.

Something also to be aware of, after 1995, the Version 4~6 cars had the order of the coils changed. If a mechanic is unaware of that they could hook up the plugs and/or short coil harness incorrectly, possible causing pre-ignition (and motor death).

Australian mechanics are likely more aware of this.

 

Please post up more of your exploits here:

https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-gen-gene...148527/page18/