I swear I hope I can get that lucky when I'm ready to buy one.

was it a katrina car? i wish i would've had more money after katrina. there were so many flooded cars for sale that you'd never see up for sale again. flooding isn't too big of a deal if you know what you're doing with the car.

have you owned a rotary car before? im curious. if it was an fd i would say you better get a loan for alot more than the purchase price of the car..

never owned a rotary. interested in getting to know the car tho.

ok because you worried me when you sad you would "swapping another motor in to have better reliability". your comparing a boosted motor with an aftermarket tuned ecu, bigger turbos, to a bone stock motor. of course there are more things to fail. but this whole notion of rotaries being unreliable.... dont perpetuate this falsehood, having not owned a rotary before. do some work on the car and own one before forming such an opinion, and im not trying to berate you by any means im just saying. it gets very annoying to hear people say this day in and day out, from people who have no first hand experience under the hood of one.

now that thats over i wouldn't simply take a loan out to fund a "project car". and if you do you better get 10k and have some left over. so your not like the other two guys who owned the car before you and end up selling it after its 98% done and stuck at some Aholes shop getting a lien put on it. FD means by all definition Financial Disaster

but that is a great deal, ive seen rolling shells go for around 6-7k so even if it doesnt run, its worth a gamble. ive bought rx7's not running before, but they haven't been FD's so maybe im not qualified to answer that question. most i spent on any of the rx's i own is a grand. youd be better off posting pics and moving this thread tot the 3rd gen section. cause FD's are and entirely different animal all together.

but good luck and as always "pics or it didnt happen":egrin:

thanks for the laugh. it think he meant the engine was flooded and as a result lost compression which would prevent it from starting or running.

i don't believe he means it was a flood "water" damaged car.

so these cars are reliable? when i first starting reading up on the car i started with a link to rob robinettes page and one of the first things it mentions is poor reliability. hearing that statement is false is great news actually. makes me even more happy to get the car.

i just mentioned the engine swap because that was my plan for the car if the engine did go caput. i was even telling a friend i wanted to get to know the rotary before swapping in anything else.

tomorrow i'm gonna go ahead and get the car towed to my house and start sorting out all the parts that are in the car and also begin cleaning it up. i guess i'll begin a build thread as well. don't expect it to move too fast. do expect to answer alotta questions and view alotta low quality pics. i actually thought of going to get a nikon to document my progress. below are some pics i took while looking over the car again today. just iphone pics. don't get too excited.

yea...that's what i meant too...maybe, soooo....i'm a big dumb animal. sorry. when i hear "flood" that's the first thing that comes to mind. believe me, if you would've seen the shit i did that'd be the first thing you'd think of too. i got shit that still hasn't dried out.

here's the pics. sorry for the quality. just wanted to snap a few while visiting the car again

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...photo-1146.jpg
here's a shot of the rear filled with various parts. the pass side is the same way.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18.../photo-200.jpg
missing this little vent piece on the fender. anyone have a red one they'd like to donate?

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18.../photo-199.jpg
the incompleteness

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18.../photo-198.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18.../photo-197.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18.../photo-196.jpgok

as always, comments welcome.

reliability comes down to knowledge preemptive maintenance and build quality. nothing is fool proof, but you wouldn't believe how many people after i tell them i own multiple rx7's. and they say " oh that must suck having to rebuild it every 50K miles..." :banghead: but i know what you mean lol.

good luck with the car it looks to be in pretty good shape. considering what you paid. sometimes its just easier to buy them blown, or in parts you save money in the long run instead of finding out a year later the motor has been leaking coolant after you paid top dollar for it. and there always the gamble that everything is fine and the owner forgot to connect a ground wire...

and your a step ahead of most people because you found this forum and there a vast array of knowledge, to be had from other owners.

yea when i began reading up on these cars i read a good bit about how unreliable they are. the sites and post were probably a good bit old tho. i'm sure there have been some advances in the rotary market.

i definitely agree with you when you say it's all about build quality and maintenance. that's with any car really. i think maybe the rotary gets a bad rep because there aren't many people that really know them and they tend to give up on them instead of learning and forking out the money for reliable builds.

i'm actually sitting at home now waiting on the car to be delivered. the owner is a tech for vw and one of the pluses was that he could tow the car up to 100 miles for me. he also has a tech friend at mazda that helped him rebuild the engine. he said he was gonna give me the guys info incase i need any parts so hopefully i can get a discount on oem parts.

i'm excited about this car guys. gonna need alot of info so please be patient. i'm most likely gonna return the car to stock before modding it. gonna try and do some reliability mods and also a tune up. hope there are alotta diy's on here. i'm ready to dive in.

ok guys i've taken the plunge.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...photo-1498.jpg

this is the car being delivered yesterday just before the rain came in. i guess i'll go ahead and begin a build thread in the appropriate section. i just wanna say Thank You to everyone that has helped me in the decision to get the car. i appreciate all your responses and wanna again say Thank You to all the members for not being assholes and helping a new guy out.

be sure to check out my build thread as i'll be posting pics, questions, and my findings of the car. Thanks again everyone.

Good luck it looks good. And for a steal lol

i think its a fair price

evil aviator said it best. go for the rx7 :)

thanks man.

you guys have any links for info on going single turbo? i've got a big ass pile of oem parts that were removed from the car previously and it looks like going single is going to be better for me.

Good Luck !!!!!!!

sweet deal

If it's a clean title then a shell is worth that, definitely. Grab it. But yeah if you can't afford it with cash- this is not the project to be getting in to...

Honestly $5500 doesnt sound to bad from what ive seen. most rollers depending on condition are from 4-6k. I think it might be a good steal if your planning on doing a swap, you can part it out to fund the transplant. If your going to keep it rotary might want to keep shopping.

Before buying any rotary, do a compression test. You don't need to hear it run to get an idea of what's going on inside. If you have to rebuild the engine, expect to spend at least a couple of thousand. Keep in mind an FD can be great fun, but pulls money out of your pocket faster than a greedy wife. *sorry ladies*

Consider a good condition TII as a project as well. You can find great deals on TII modified cars. I have a GXL Turbo car with mega-mods throughout for $4500 in NC. I would keep looking if I were you. Good luck.

a rolling shell you can aquire at a fraction of the cost of a driving car, you just gotta put it all togeter which for some people may or may not be worth it.. for me, its really not.. i want a ready to drive car.

I am in a similar situation about to pick up a non working fd tomorrow and hoping for the best

Congrats btw! I like you am taking the plunge because the price is right

I bought my 1983 RX-7 with faith; not running (since 1998 mind you) for $1000. Everything was in great condition, it had all right things done to it with spare parts, and best of all was garaged for 75% of that time with a car cover.

Faith brought me here, and faith allowed me to fix it using $0.

-Taking the old oil from my DD (Integra oil filters fit!)
-Loosening and spraying down the throttle linkage nut with PB blaster/Silicone (stuck throttle)
-Blowing out the fuel lines with compressed air
-Emptying the gas tank and filling it with my lawn mower's gas
-Desulfating/Trickle charging a battery from 1997 for two weeks = new battery
-Inflating tires with NEW air (get the moisture out)
-SAE 30wt directly into the carb for 5 mins with (10x) 30 second starting intervals and letting the car sit for two days to restore compression
-Changing a set of spare plugs back in

***First start was priceless.***



So in short, YES. Rotaries will go on forever, they just need a bit of coaxing every once in a while. Buy one that doesn't run and save yourself the cash.

Congrats! and good luck. Seems you got a sweet deal.

Yeah, gotta live a little (Yes, I'm the "devilish" angel on your left shoulder telling you to splurge!)

As long as you have a good savings, why not?

I would say though, taking a loan as opposed to dipping in savings amount to about the same thing = You are spending $$. The only difference with taking a loan when you have the amount in savings is that you are borrowing money you already have, so technically, you are still in the "green" from a net worth perspective.

$5K doesn't seem bad at all, if best case it turns out that finishing up his non completed project is all you gotta do to get it running.

Worst case, you end up with a roller in which case $5K is steep but even with $2-$3K to rebulid, $8K is not a bad price for entry into a FD car. I'm no expert on the value of these cars but when I was looking for one (about a week ago, $11-$12K for good condition is what I saw).

Do you have the time, effort and extra $$ to put into it soon?