Well I went back home for the xmas weekend and met up with a buddy of mine yesterday who also came home from TX. He had ordered a full racing beat exhaust for his N/A a few weeks ago as well as a new driveshaft and was planning to put it on over the weekend. When he got home, one of his xmas gifts is that his old man actually installed everything already. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. His dad doesn't know much about the rx7s, but did a great job during the install. One exhaust hanger was a little worn out so the drive muffler hung a little low, but other than that it looked great. I swung out by their hangar(where the car was being worked on) to see the car and catch up with him. Well while I was there he flushed out the tranny fluid, put some nice redline fluids in, had new spark plugs, and did a quick oil change. He was gearing the car up to be driving back from VA to TX. Started it up...had really bad idle, wouldn't hold the idle at all when cold...backed it from the hangar and started to let it warm up...still ran rough and wouldn't idle. We went to drive it to get it warmed up and check everything out. The racing beat exhaust sounded really quiet, but had an awesome tone to it. Anyways, while driving the car had NO power, I mean NONE..it decelled on the uphills...i started making jokes that his compression was low from the car sitting for last few years (it was driving a few months ago, but for the most part it just sits). Drove around, went back to the house....started checking the obvious..no vac leaks, TB secondaries were working properly... the aux ports though were stuck, but the car never went above 4K during our drive, so it wasn't like we needed those to really work anyways.. to sum this long story up...we pulled the spark plugs from the front rotor...cranked it...three really good puffs of air..best i've heard in a while! ...pulled the rear plugs... nada, zip, no compression... 1986 Base N/A Rx7 w/ 183K original miles finally gave up the ghost. he's going to try MMO thinking that maybe the seals are just stuck from sitting...but we're both pretty sure it's done. The car is in great shape, paint is only a few years old, interior is spotless for it's age... and he already has another motor, but now he has to tow it to TX..



I've got pics/vids/etc that I'll try and get up. It's just nice to see a rotary w/ 183K still crank up and run, even if it is one rotor...

keep at it, if its been siting for a while that happens, hell it happens when it hasnt been siting for too long sometimes as well.



my n/a ran great, sat for two days, and then the rear rotor lost compression. luckily i decided to try to go get gas for it and all of a sudden it backfired on the way there and bam it ran perfectly.



it was weird, but i dont mind it since it came back to working condition fine https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.png.



kevin.

Yea, I mean..we are pretty good with these engines by now..and we know there is a chance it'll come around w/ some MMO thats why he's giving it a shot..but w/ 183K miles on the ticker...it'll just be borrowed time anyways... He just wants to be able to drive it back to TX instead of paying a tow bill...

Oh, but the funnier thing is his luck has been bad all month. He has a '91 T2 also that he just built the motor for after going through two junk atkins motors...ran it on the dyno, put down crap numbers..so now he has to dig around the haltech and find that missing power.. just not going good for him this month...

Sorry to hear about it. But the life you got outta that motor, you cant complain too much!

yeah, 180k out of any car is alot

210,000 on my odometer... https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.png but maybe thats why my car wont start anymore.... https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub..._DIR#>/sad.png

Pull a DR. HO on it!

my gsl-se did that, the corner seal springs were literally pounded into the rotors. everyone thinks just cause the tach stops at 8k that its got some kinda rev limiter....

Lol... the best I ever saw was an '88AE w/ 220K miles on it.. it didn't run at the time, but still...it must have had at least 200K on it when it still ran..no way they put 20K miles on a blown motor.





I'm gonna check on the car later this week to see if he got it running or not..

my n/a 88 has 214k on the tach and thats when it worked almost 2 years ago... but not sure how long it will last from here on still saving for a new engine hopefull can reuse some parts but i dont think i'll be able too.



havent but only but 20k miles on it in the 2 yrs...



always change oil,sparks every 2-3 months just to have it running clean + friend works at a auto shop https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...#>/biggrin.png dis-counts are awsome.

***UPDATE***



I just talked to my buddy and it's confirmed. He pulled the header off the engine, ran his finger on the back rotor...missing two of the three seals. Which is really odd because he can't pinpoint when that must have happened,lol.



Now he has to tow it from VA to TX w/ his Jimmy that has a messed up auto tranny (only has 1st and 3rd). He's going to try and get his Jimmy fixed now before the trip back...so if anybody sees a GMC Jimmy SUV pulling a red '86 Base Rx7 next week between VA and TX...just give him a shout,lol...

i know of an 87 t2, with 210+k miles on it, it still runs, orginal owner, its got 1 ding in it, its for sale too

My daily driver honda has 236,000 miles on it and it still runs like a champ! bought it for 700 bucks! lol

honda = not rotary



one of my friends from high school has an 84 gsl-se with 250+k on the original engine, it still doesnt smoke at all!

It is stil impressive for any car to get to that point. Car makers only design cars to go 100K. Thats why there are warrenties. They expect the car car to go x number of miles, so they warrenty that.



On another note. Had an old Mazda 626 (1985) and it had 240K when it popped. Was on its second clutch too. Never had to replace anything on that car. Go Mazda!!

i had over 200 on my 83 gsl

Lol, glad to see this has turned into somewhat of a praise on high mileage mazdas!

Wow, I need to buy a 1st gen or 2nd gen N/A as a daily........



or not, but still, its good to hear all these people having good luck with these old cars.

ok, so my honda comment wasnt appreciated! lol... well I had a gsl-se that had 185k original miles on it before I sold it. It was running when I sold it... so I dunno after that. And I wasnt exactly super nice on it ... it was my first car. Saw lots of burn outs and red lines...

We put a motor in an 85 GSL that had 189K on the clock...motor popped around 188ish...



Come on, nobody getting 250K on their original rotary?



I'd like to see some FD guys comment on this,lol... most FDs go out around 75K ...i see a few for sale w/ 110K+ but most at the mileage have a replaced engine. There was an FD in NJ for sale w/ 230K on it and it was only on it's second engine..I thought that was pretty good.

I had 249,9XX on my 88 GXL, Ran fine blew a lot of smoke the last 10K. Drove to work one day, went to start and CLUNK! No more APEX. I miss my stock car

i have 284,000 on a 91 suburban, stock 350 (never replaced, nothing) and the stock auto trans w/ OD (again stock, never replaced, rebuilt etc)



and it starts right up everytime and i just recently picked up and towed my n/a from a total of about 12 hours of straight driving...didnt even hiccup once.



kevin.