Talk me out of buying a FD RX7

Dominic-Toretto

Dominic-Toretto

Dominic-Toretto

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27 Apr 2018
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1,395
Hi,

I have had my eye on an FD RX7 for the longest time but never quite pulled the trigger. I have seen that prices are on the up now, but would like to get in before these reach ridiculous prices. I am not looking for a "unmodified collectors car", or a "garage queen". Ideally I want a car with the Veilside Fortune kit that has a single turbo conversion (get's rid of the complexity of the stock twins setup with it's 50 odd vacuum lines, and a lot of the heat that can cause issues for these cars), plus the relevant supporting mods. Not looking for something to crazy power wise as the car is pretty light at 1280kg, Looking for somewhere around 550bhp ideally. Also a car that has had it's apex seals upgraded and with recent compression tests obviously.

Now these cars are getting on a bit in age, so aside from the rotary engine rebuilds, are there any major cons that I should be aware of?

I am thinking of importing one from Japan from one of the import companies in the UK.

Few pics of Veilside RX7 below:
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The more work you can do on the car yourself the better. If you haven't run a modified car before they aren't really that much fun to drive in modern traffic. Highly modified rotaries will trade driveability for that power. I had an RX7 up to a year a go and that was V8 converted. That actually made it nice to drive most of the time and could see 30mpg with near 500 BHP. You won't be getting that from a 500 HP rotary.

I would have kept it for the looks and converted it to BEV but it was just cheaper to buy a fast EV :)

So that's my advise get a V8 conversion if your not bothered about originality or a low mileage near standard to keep for appreciation. Drive the latter to shows and keep up on the maintenance.
 
Amazing cars, I love rotary engines. Definitely wouldn't change it to a V8 just seems absolutely pointless removing the whole reason for getting one. Don't want the rotary get something else like Supra.

Some nice mods are, single turbo conversion and change the oil metering pump amount and run it from a separate oil tank rather than the engine oil, you then fill that with 2 stroke. No need to keep topping up your engine oil then.
 
The ONLY thing I have against the RX7, it's the most claustrophic car I've ever sat in... just too small for anyone over 6ft for me... I couldn't handle it, but yeah, fantastic car, they dont' rot, engines are solid... it is what it is, a sports car that will be worth more and more and more. Make it happen!NEVER ever change the engine from a rotary though, or just buy another car. The people who switcehd out RX8 engines... idiots, don't buy an RX8 then, as you're ripping the soul out.

RX7 is a classic, it's as simple as that!!! If you need anything engine wise, Silver Fern Performance and Dwayne ;-)
 
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Veilside kit does nothing for me personally but love the FD RX7's.

I had one c. 12-13 years ago, awesome cars albeit if you ever get an engine rebuild you definitely want it to be from someone well known / respected and likewise on the tuning.

I had mine streetported on non-seq twins and to date one of the most fun cars I've owned, flames if you took it up to high rpm's on an extended run out (hot exhaust) were hilarious.

Crazy to think they were 5-7k back in the day and what they're fetching now

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I like these cars but aren't you very speed oriented? I can't imagine that these would be as fast as your Mercedes.

On the flip side rx7 is about 500000x cooler than your Mercedes, so do it:cool:
 
each to their own but that Veilside ruins the car, the RX7 is one of the prettiest cars of its era why would anyone want to stick that on! :)

Rotary engine aside, these are now all getting on a bit, aged rubber is going to be knocking at the door so i'd plan to be looking at replacing the bushes etc other than the engine shortcomings, irc they were pretty solid cars. Though availability of parts on these things must be getting scarce as well if its anything like the gto!
 
If you cab afford it then yes.

I was offered one years ago and wish I had have taken it as realistically they’re out of my price range these days so probably will never own one now.
 
Just had a look at the prices, had no idea they'd gone up so much.

I'd probably go down the RX8 with rebuild and turbo/supercharger conversion route these days.
 
pugheaven said:
The ONLY thing I have against the RX7, it's the most claustrophic car I've ever sat in... just too small for anyone over 6ft for me... I couldn't handle it, but yeah, fantastic car, they dont' rot, engines are solid...
Click to expand...

I literally couldn't drive mine due to the limited seat adjustment when I bought it but as it was low on compression it was trailered home anyway. First mod was to the seat rails to allow some more adjustment. The rear seats are pretty useless anyway so try to find one with the rear bins instead as they are very sought after.
 
pugheaven said:
The ONLY thing I have against the RX7, it's the most claustrophic car I've ever sat in... just too small for anyone over 6ft for me... I couldn't handle it
Click to expand...

True that, a mate of mine had a couple of RX7s as projects for a long time. I'm 6'2" and in the passenger seat my head was pressed sideways....so cramped. Did make it more of an event going out in it, but I couldn't handle it as a daily driver!
 
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