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#1
07-21-2003, 12:59 PM
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16 year old Responsibility?
Alright I have my Eye on a few RX-7s, and I am 16, this will be my first car but my dad is confident in his familiy history of cars (working in a garage, hot rodding etc) My dad has a few tricksup his sleeve however he only knows so much about imports. My dad however was impressed on the rotary engine back in his day and now it brings me to this question? For a trustworthy 16 year old., would an RX-7 be too much of a hassle? and too much money? My max for a car is $8000. If not an RX-7 what else would be a good car to look at?
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#2
07-22-2003, 01:31 AM
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If you do engine work yourself, and don't mind doing it, then go for it. Be prepared to be doing quite a bit of work though. It's a fun car, but you have to love it to keep it, otherwise all the problems will drive you up the wall and you'll probably end up pushing it over a cliff or something
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#4
07-22-2003, 09:00 PM
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I am sixteen and I own two 86 rx7s, I bring my car to 7k every day and its still going strong, I find the best thing to do is change the oil often, I change mine every 2500 km but every 3000 like a normal car would do I hope this helps your decision. Sadly I will be selling my car in a couple of months but I have another rx7 being made v8 here we come lol.
.......chad
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#5
07-24-2003, 10:16 AM
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just sell it, and don't get that boat anchor V8 near the RX-7... Save the time for the swap, have someone port the Rotary and go chew up Zo6's.... how much $$ will it take to chew up Zo6's with a v8 in the RX-7 chassis???? <3k to do it with the rotary.... If he does do this swap we should: 
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#6
07-24-2003, 11:16 AM
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When my '86 RX7 Sport died, it was going to be $2500 just to get it back to stock, 145 hp form. Porting is nearly free, but the car becomes very unstreetable when you try to get it to hp levels over 200 without a turbo. Putting a turbo VASTLY overreaches your $3k limit and to get it over 300 hp you get back into unreliable territory AND adds cost onto the swap to a turbo to start with. A V8 conversion can be done for under $3k, and if using an SBC, can start out at 300+ hp in STOCK, reliable form. ANd more importantly, since an engine accellerates according to it's torque curve, the V8 starts with over 3 times teh torque of teh same hp turbo rotary, and 4+ times teh torque of a ported N/A rotary! The V8 will also NOT, repeat NOT upset the balance of the car, as it edoens't sit ahead of the front axle, but behind it, retaining the front mid-engine placement. In fact. my nearly 400 hp Ford V8 ended up with a 49/51 F/R weight balance and was perfectly balanced for autocross and track days. And the total conversion cost me less than $2500 (true, I did buy the engine from a friend of mine, out of his race car, but it had low miles and he let me make payments on it). Quote:
  
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I've owned over a hundred cars in the last 40 years. What was I thinking?  2013 MINI JCW Roadster 2023 Chevy Bolt
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#7
07-24-2003, 11:42 AM
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...get me in contact with the people you crewed with... Judging from your racing history, if you still opt for the V8 there is something terribly wrong with how the rotaries were built... Also, a ported (street through J-bridge) Rotary is still streetible. Some people will say even a D-port, and P-port are streetible, i still disagree, but then again i've not tried either one on the street. Why would adding a turbo take you over the 3K mark... you can buy complete stock turbo units, manifold etc for less than $500. on top of a your very liberal $2500 for rebuild on your 86 you are still at $3000... Moreover, maybe at the time your 86 sport rebuild would have cost ~$25oo, it wouldn't be nearly that now... 1/2 that would be more like it... I am not arguing, i am doing what you are... interpolating data based on my experience.
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#8
07-25-2003, 03:43 PM
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Can't get you in contact with the people I crewed with. One is dead, and the other guys disbanded back in the '80s. I haven't seen any of them since '94 (and in '99 , I moved from Seattle to Baltimore...).
There are alot of guys doing the V8 swap into dead RX7s because they are cheap to do. The fact that dead RX7s are almost worthless on the open market says something, doesn't it? That other than the engine, rotary purists think the cars are worthless. V8 swaps are in kit form, now, which makes it even easier for the non-fabricator to accomplish, and the cars are reliably faster than built up turbo conversions to the N/A cars (many of them are starting with SEs, though a few have been built from Turbo cars, and a couple of the nicest have been built from the very heavy convertible model...) True, I built mine in '93, and it was DAMNED expensive just to buy the parts to rebuild the stock N/A 13B (which was a shock from a decade before when I could rebuild a 12A for $300...). And I won't use used parts in a rotary, just a problem waiting to happen (too easy to get warped housings used, and a complete used engine has the same issues as the stock one. Namely it could go at any moment...) I didn't have a great company like Pineapple to build a good solid engine, either. Adding a turbo and intercooler might be able to be done for $500 with used parts, but you're still only talking about building a basically stock engine, and a stock turbo II isn't anywhere near 300-400 hp, is it? I can guarantee you that building a reliable 300-400 hp Turbo II from an N/A car is going to run you more than an extra $500. Nothing wrong with how the rotaries were built. They were damn fast. Loud, but fast. They did their jobs and were capable of winning their classes. They simply have limitations, partly from being small engines trying to put out way more power than they were designed to. And unless you spend big dollars on the latest trick Apex seals, still hard to get to last at hp levels approaching double the stock rating, much less triple. And there STILL is no low end torque. Sure, the rpms get stratosphereic, but the total useable powerband actually gets narrower. In a street car/autocross car, the lack of lower end torque is noticeable, especially if you do things like run a lightened flywheel. Taking off from a light was a spin the tires or stall sort of an affair with a heavily ported car. Add to that the known fuel issues with the early FC's (that in the couple years since I sold mine have actually been bandaided so they aren't as much of an issue). My FC flooded a few times during the year I was autocrossing it and daily driving it as a rotary car. And it also ran lean once or twice, the last time being the reason it blew up: rotaries cannot stand detonation. I've been watching on the RX7club forums, and high power rotaries are stil plagued with the issues I talked about (which is why I brought them up: they seem to be as relevant today as when I built my car. Unfortunately, there are also people over there like Iron Donut who has a V8 converted FD, and is constantly stirring up trouble, making the whole V8 RX7 community look bad. My main points are that doing a V8 conversion doesn't ruin the car, either in value or in balance, adds cheap power to an outstanding chassis, and is an inexpensive and reliable alternative to a high power rotary. And sorry, but a 300-400 hp rotary is not going to be cheap OR a daily driver. And a heavily ported N/A rotary is a great choice for an SA RX7 or an RX3, or a formula car, or an MG Midget (they ROCK in a little car like that!) But as the base of the powerband moves up, they cease to be good street choices for heavier cars like the FC. And so far none of the ported ones I've driven since building my V8 car have convinced me otherwise. When you experience the wonderful chassis of the FC being propelled by the effortless torque of a small block V8, you realize just why cars like the Cobras and Tigers were legends... Which is also why, judging from my racing history, I went with the V8. This car was similar in concept to the original Cobra Daytona Coupe, but vastly more civilized. The FC is an excellent chassis, with beautiful styling, and good build quality/ergonomics. What I did was a historically proven method of building a strong dual purpose car, with large amounts of cheap power. And I probably wouldn't have done it if the car hadn't died. I would do it again, but only to an already dead car (and I'd only want to start with a convertible... they are so piggy they NEED the torque... But they are so beautiful I can't resist the body..  )http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cvetters3/rex1.MPG As my sig says, I've owned over a hundred cars in the last 25 years, from around the world, and from just about every genre. I'm not loyal to any one brand, and I like 'em all, because you can do anything you want with any type of car. Cars don't care what brand in on the badge, or what name is on the engine. I can appreciate a V8 RX7, as well as I could appreciate a 20B turbo in a '66 Mustang fastback (with FC suspension underneath it.. that would be soooo cool!) I build what I like and I encourage others to build what THEY like. And I defend cars like this against purists who would have all cars built the way they would like, but aren't willing to cough up the dough to ensure someone builds 'em that way.
__________________
I've owned over a hundred cars in the last 40 years. What was I thinking? 2013 MINI JCW Roadster 2023 Chevy Bolt
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#9
07-29-2003, 07:10 PM
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the kit will cost about 800 and I'm doing all the wiring and instalation myself.
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#10
08-02-2003, 02:04 PM
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this is a great part of your life where you get to choose whether or not you're going to be brand loyal or if you're doing this to get all you can out of it... either way you're going to take alot of criticism and sometimes you're gonna wish you went the other way. man i'm 17 and apart of a minor car club and we went through this as a group and overcame it.. some of us didn't like the idea of brand swapping while the others thought it was stupid to restrict ourselves to a specific brand or two. if you enjoy doing auto mechanics for fun like i do, the RX-7 is a great car for you. trust me i know. sometimes the work is gonna stack up so high you're gonna wonder if it's worth it
 but in the end you're gonna see your end product and you're gonna know that it's what you did and you're gonna love it whether it's the fastest thing in the world or not cuz it's your angel.  the only thing you have to know is that nobody can tell you what car to buy if you're really in it for yourself and you want to work. only you can decide young grasshopper and that's my 
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#11
08-02-2003, 04:56 PM
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#12
08-02-2003, 10:32 PM
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wow steel you're everywhere i seem to be lol
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#13
08-03-2003, 12:02 AM
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'90 RX-7 Turbo $3000 buying and fixing = 13.75 @ 104.8 mph & outhandles most cars on the road. Not bad for $3000.
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#14
08-03-2003, 12:20 AM
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#15
08-05-2003, 12:44 PM
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You don't have much of a clue, do you? Nor, I take it, did you READ or understand anything I typed, did you? But then again, easy to point it out when you aren't willing to put your money to making a dead, and VGFERY common car, live again. You see a car there that weghs less than a stock RX7 turbo, has BETTER weight distribution, pulls over 1.02G laterally, is an autocross champion that also was capable of running low 12s in teh quarter (with autocross suspension and autocross tires, decidedly not optimal for drag racing), done on a budget when the freaking rotary died. I've HAD multiple rotary cars, and I love them. I've put rotaries into non rotary cars. But if your'e too stuck up, narrowminded and IGNORANT to figure out what this car is about, you're the one with the problem. Fecking dickhead. Make you feel like a winner to be so insultingly closed minded about someone else's car? Get bent, moron.
__________________
I've owned over a hundred cars in the last 40 years. What was I thinking? 2013 MINI JCW Roadster 2023 Chevy Bolt
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