I would like to know what problems you have come across with respect to the engine? How many miles you guys are pushing on your RX-7? and how reliable they are when the horsepower is bumped up to 300+?



I know about the cooling problem and how the engine runs hot but I have been reading the forums and most people said that RX-7 engines are sensitive and destroy easily even though it has a 8000 red line rpm.



Thank you

 

it all depends on how the engine is treated. if the engine is taken care of, and routine maintenence is done theres no problem with reliability. if you do the mods correctly and make sure you cover all the bases, fuel, cooling, etc, you will still have a reliable car if you do your routine maintence. but if you get a used car and dont do a rebuild at first you have no idea what that engine has been through, overheating, oil starvation, etc, so you wont know how reliable it will be in the long run, but generally they are reliable. not saying that you have to do a rebuild right off the bat, or even at all, but that is the only way you can start fresh and know everything the engine has been through.

 

[quote name='Shane.Trammell' date='May 13 2005, 05:50 PM']it all depends on how the engine is treated. if the engine is taken care of, and routine maintenence is done theres no problem with reliability. if you do the mods correctly and make sure you cover all the bases, fuel, cooling, etc, you will still have a reliable car if you do your routine maintence. but if you get a used car and dont do a rebuild at first you have no idea what that engine has been through, overheating, oil starvation, etc, so you wont know how reliable it will be in the long run, but generally they are reliable. not saying that you have to do a rebuild right off the bat, or even at all, but that is the only way you can start fresh and know everything the engine has been through.


[/quote]



205,000 kms, original engine, original turbo, original diff, tranny, rad the works. She flood a bit after I removed the rats nest. Also she burns oil whenever the car is parked on a grade and allowed to idle.

 

any time someone mods or tunes on any car the life expectancy will go down some what , that doesnt matter what car. however i have seen 250000 miles on first gens and some second gens all on the original engine.

 

[quote name='fc3sboy1' date='May 13 2005, 04:01 PM']any time someone mods or tunes on any car the life expectancy will go down some what , that doesnt matter what car. however i have seen 250000 miles on first gens and some second gens all on the original engine.


[/quote]





i vouch. My boy had a rx-3 wih over 200k miles he says the car ran much better when it was broken into then when it was under 100k. The only prob was thAT IT ate mad oil





and smoked like a bitch but hp wise it was stronger and better acceleration

 

I found



Turbo engines has a life span of 60K-110K median 90K

N/A engines 130K-180K median 150K

 

What are some things to look for when buying a RX-7? With piston engines you can tell if the pistons are hitting the valves, do to the squeeling noise. I also read that synthetic oil cannot be used on RX-7's because it doesn't burn as well as regular motor oil. Any help on buying a used RX-7 will be greatly appreciated. Any specific areas where common problems occur?



Thank you for your help

 

My engine lasted 169,xxx miles. Not sure of the last 3 digits. It blew an apex seal do to oil cooler line coming loose and oil starvation. Not bad for starving the engine of oil though.



Oh, and drewtyson, there are TONS of write ups in the 2nd Gen FAQ section. Many many write ups I wished I looked into.



Good luck.

 

I have always been opposed to ppl downtalking the Rx-7's in reference to reliability, they were reliable...when they were new. The focus of adding near double or more horsepower to an already dated, and more than likely, roached out sports car from the late 80's isn't going to help the reliability issue what so ever.



Depending on which 2nd gen you buy, the chassis could be 13 to 19 years old, more than enough time for more engine rebuilds than you can count on two hands, the less than average electrical system to fail, essentially every rubber piece on the chassis to rot, along with countless other details which most ppl seem to overlook, but I digress... economically practical, no, made to be reliable again, yes.



My advice would be to hold out for a creampuff, find one that someone has babied the hell out of, you will still have to throw some cash at it, but not near as much as you would for some roached out piece of **** that has been abused for one to two decades.

 

mileage is a poor way to measure this kind of thing. a friend of mine from high school has his gsl-se still, its got 250k on the motor, runs like a top. my gsl-se has 238k on it, its on motor #3. mines been abused by a really really long list of people. he's the second owner