saving up for another car... fd rx7 or nsx?
I've owned an RX-7 and I must say its a unreliable POS. What a pain in the *** with that car. The rotary engine maybe small but its a sensitive little *****. One problem and the engine goes.
I personally would pick up the NSX in a heartbeat.
I personally would pick up the NSX in a heartbeat.
Originally Posted by mathgeek
You know, I've never understood why the NSX has an MSRP of close to 90K. The top end model only has 290 HP. Yeah, it has a nice interior and all that, but 90K? Am I missing something about this car, or is it just preposterously overpriced? I've always wondered about it.
For the RX7 you probably have to get an engine rebuilt, respray, and 99+ bumpers steering wheel and etc to make it look like the way it's suppose to.
I know nothing about the NSX, however I do know quite a bit about the 93 RX-7. I would not buy one for anything more than 13K and even then you should be able to talk your way down some. My friend purchased his with 50K miles for $12,500 and that was after we talked him down from the orignal 15K he was asking.
You should be aware the paint on these cars is pretty crappy on the rearview mirrors and the back bumper. This was mainly a problem on the 93's and I think they fixed it for the 94's or 95's. But to the least unless the car you find has been in a garage its whole life its prolly gonna need a paint job.
What are emission tests like in your area? If you dont have them then this is your car however if you do then be prepared for hell. It can be done by putting on the stock downpipe and cats however the stock downpipe is a good 4 hour job and I recommend some really small hands and alot of patience.
Next, the stock twin turbo setup is a joke you have about 50 feet of little rubber hosing that will get bridle, crack, and cause all kinds of boost problems. Not to mention I think 8 little actuators that can effect the boost. This is a huge PITA and if you are serious about an RX-7 I recommend you start looking into going a big single or get real serious about non-sequential. This will cost you alot of headaches and with an engine that runs as hot as an RX-7 nothing sucks more than waiting an hour and half everytime you wanna do a little work under the hood because your affraid you'll melt the skin off your bones.
If you dont like working with the tightest corners and nooks and crannies known to man then this is deff not your car.
If you are tall above 6'2" you are probably gonna have height issues. And if you are overweight then the seats will be an issue as well.
Next comes the 75,000 mile mark where you should be a little conerned this is the point where most of the apex seals will crack causing fluid to rush your rotors and seize them. If you are not into rebuilding an engine then be prepared to shell out about 8K to have them ported and repalced correctly with in my opinion should get 2" seals. This will allow you to rev higher and should get you down the road for 75K more miles.
Now with all of this said, my friend has owned his for 1 year now and its been a year of ups and downs for myself, my friends and him. we have poured countless hundreds of hours into fixing and researching all the problems oursevles and trust me there will be some.
However in my opinion there is no car that is more sexy than a 93 FD that has just been washed and waxed setting on 99 spirit r rims which my friend has. And there is no car that I would rather line up to than in an RX-7. You get instant intimidation from anyone who knows anything about cars and with the power to weight ratio, not to mention it has really long gears you are guaranteed to walk alot of cars.
With just an intake, downpipe, and powerfc my friends 93 will give my EVO pushing 333WHP a run for its money at any roll and will win on the interstate. However from a stop its still no contest
I love the 93 RX-7 and if I could afford one I would already own one. If you need any more information I recommend you do some research on
www.nopistons.com
www.rx7club.com
http://www.autosportracetech.com/RX-7/rx7stuff.htm
http://www.rx7city.com/ecucodes.htm
http://www.scuderiaciriani.com/rx7/how-to.html
http://robrobinette.com/index.htm
but beware they are not nearly as helpful as EVOM because most questions have already been asked and all they do is ask you to read.
When you go for a test drive use the informatin from this link
http://robrobinette.com/buyaused.htm
and go over it with a fine tooth comb this will save you time and money in the future.
Enjoy if you have more questions please feel free to ask I'll help as much as I can Everything I said is my opinion and just the things I've gathered from a year of working on one quite a bit.
Staton
You should be aware the paint on these cars is pretty crappy on the rearview mirrors and the back bumper. This was mainly a problem on the 93's and I think they fixed it for the 94's or 95's. But to the least unless the car you find has been in a garage its whole life its prolly gonna need a paint job.
What are emission tests like in your area? If you dont have them then this is your car however if you do then be prepared for hell. It can be done by putting on the stock downpipe and cats however the stock downpipe is a good 4 hour job and I recommend some really small hands and alot of patience.
Next, the stock twin turbo setup is a joke you have about 50 feet of little rubber hosing that will get bridle, crack, and cause all kinds of boost problems. Not to mention I think 8 little actuators that can effect the boost. This is a huge PITA and if you are serious about an RX-7 I recommend you start looking into going a big single or get real serious about non-sequential. This will cost you alot of headaches and with an engine that runs as hot as an RX-7 nothing sucks more than waiting an hour and half everytime you wanna do a little work under the hood because your affraid you'll melt the skin off your bones.
If you dont like working with the tightest corners and nooks and crannies known to man then this is deff not your car.
If you are tall above 6'2" you are probably gonna have height issues. And if you are overweight then the seats will be an issue as well.
Next comes the 75,000 mile mark where you should be a little conerned this is the point where most of the apex seals will crack causing fluid to rush your rotors and seize them. If you are not into rebuilding an engine then be prepared to shell out about 8K to have them ported and repalced correctly with in my opinion should get 2" seals. This will allow you to rev higher and should get you down the road for 75K more miles.
Now with all of this said, my friend has owned his for 1 year now and its been a year of ups and downs for myself, my friends and him. we have poured countless hundreds of hours into fixing and researching all the problems oursevles and trust me there will be some.
However in my opinion there is no car that is more sexy than a 93 FD that has just been washed and waxed setting on 99 spirit r rims which my friend has. And there is no car that I would rather line up to than in an RX-7. You get instant intimidation from anyone who knows anything about cars and with the power to weight ratio, not to mention it has really long gears you are guaranteed to walk alot of cars.
With just an intake, downpipe, and powerfc my friends 93 will give my EVO pushing 333WHP a run for its money at any roll and will win on the interstate. However from a stop its still no contest
I love the 93 RX-7 and if I could afford one I would already own one. If you need any more information I recommend you do some research on
www.nopistons.com
www.rx7club.com
http://www.autosportracetech.com/RX-7/rx7stuff.htm
http://www.rx7city.com/ecucodes.htm
http://www.scuderiaciriani.com/rx7/how-to.html
http://robrobinette.com/index.htm
but beware they are not nearly as helpful as EVOM because most questions have already been asked and all they do is ask you to read.
When you go for a test drive use the informatin from this link
http://robrobinette.com/buyaused.htm
and go over it with a fine tooth comb this will save you time and money in the future.
Enjoy if you have more questions please feel free to ask I'll help as much as I can
Everything I said is my opinion and just the things I've gathered from a year of working on one quite a bit.Staton
Last edited by thestaton; Apr 9, 2005 at 11:07 AM.
Originally Posted by thestaton
I know nothing about the NSX, however I do know quite a bit about the 93 RX-7. I would not buy one for anything more than 13K and even then you should be able to talk your way down some. My friend purchased his with 50K miles for $12,500 and that was after we talked him down from the orignal 15K he was asking.
You should be aware the paint on these cars is pretty crappy on the rearview mirrors and the back bumper. This was mainly a problem on the 93's and I think they fixed it for the 94's or 95's. But to the least unless the car you find has been in a garage its whole life its prolly gonna need a paint job.
What are emission tests like in your area? If you dont have them then this is your car however if you do then be prepared for hell. It can be done by putting on the stock downpipe and cats however the stock downpipe is a good 4 hour job and I recommend some really small hands and alot of patience.
Next, the stock twin turbo setup is a joke you have about 50 feet of little rubber hosing that will get bridle, crack, and cause all kinds of boost problems. Not to mention I think 8 little actuators that can effect the boost. This is a huge PITA and if you are serious about an RX-7 I recommend you start looking into going a big single or get real serious about non-sequential. This will cost you alot of headaches and with an engine that runs as hot as an RX-7 nothing sucks more than waiting an hour and half everytime you wanna do a little work under the hood because your affraid you'll melt the skin off your bones.
If you dont like working with the tightest corners and nooks and crannies known to man then this is deff not your car.
If you are tall above 6'2" you are probably gonna have height issues. And if you are overweight then the seats will be an issue as well.
Next comes the 75,000 mile mark where you should be a little conerned this is the point where most of the apex seals will crack causing fluid to rush your rotors and seize them. If you are not into rebuilding an engine then be prepared to shell out about 8K to have them ported and repalced correctly with in my opinion should get 2" seals. This will allow you to rev higher and should get you down the road for 75K more miles.
Now with all of this said, my friend has owned his for 1 year now and its been a year of ups and downs for myself, my friends and him. we have poured countless hundreds of hours into fixing and researching all the problems oursevles and trust me there will be some.
However in my opinion there is no car that is more sexy than a 93 FD that has just been washed and waxed setting on 99 spirit r rims which my friend has. And there is no car that I would rather line up to than in an RX-7. You get instant intimidation from anyone who knows anything about cars and with the power to weight ratio, not to mention it has really long gears you are guaranteed to walk alot of cars.
With just an intake, downpipe, and powerfc my friends 93 will give my EVO pushing 333WHP a run for its money at any roll and will win on the interstate. However from a stop its still no contest
I love the 93 RX-7 and if I could afford one I would already own one. If you need any more information I recommend you do some research on
www.nopistons.com
www.rx7club.com
http://www.autosportracetech.com/RX-7/rx7stuff.htm
http://www.rx7city.com/ecucodes.htm
http://www.scuderiaciriani.com/rx7/how-to.html
http://robrobinette.com/index.htm
but beware they are not nearly as helpful as EVOM because most questions have already been asked and all they do is ask you to read.
When you go for a test drive use the informatin from this link
http://robrobinette.com/buyaused.htm
and go over it with a fine tooth comb this will save you time and money in the future.
Enjoy if you have more questions please feel free to ask I'll help as much as I can Everything I said is my opinion and just the things I've gathered from a year of working on one quite a bit.
Staton
You should be aware the paint on these cars is pretty crappy on the rearview mirrors and the back bumper. This was mainly a problem on the 93's and I think they fixed it for the 94's or 95's. But to the least unless the car you find has been in a garage its whole life its prolly gonna need a paint job.
What are emission tests like in your area? If you dont have them then this is your car however if you do then be prepared for hell. It can be done by putting on the stock downpipe and cats however the stock downpipe is a good 4 hour job and I recommend some really small hands and alot of patience.
Next, the stock twin turbo setup is a joke you have about 50 feet of little rubber hosing that will get bridle, crack, and cause all kinds of boost problems. Not to mention I think 8 little actuators that can effect the boost. This is a huge PITA and if you are serious about an RX-7 I recommend you start looking into going a big single or get real serious about non-sequential. This will cost you alot of headaches and with an engine that runs as hot as an RX-7 nothing sucks more than waiting an hour and half everytime you wanna do a little work under the hood because your affraid you'll melt the skin off your bones.
If you dont like working with the tightest corners and nooks and crannies known to man then this is deff not your car.
If you are tall above 6'2" you are probably gonna have height issues. And if you are overweight then the seats will be an issue as well.
Next comes the 75,000 mile mark where you should be a little conerned this is the point where most of the apex seals will crack causing fluid to rush your rotors and seize them. If you are not into rebuilding an engine then be prepared to shell out about 8K to have them ported and repalced correctly with in my opinion should get 2" seals. This will allow you to rev higher and should get you down the road for 75K more miles.
Now with all of this said, my friend has owned his for 1 year now and its been a year of ups and downs for myself, my friends and him. we have poured countless hundreds of hours into fixing and researching all the problems oursevles and trust me there will be some.
However in my opinion there is no car that is more sexy than a 93 FD that has just been washed and waxed setting on 99 spirit r rims which my friend has. And there is no car that I would rather line up to than in an RX-7. You get instant intimidation from anyone who knows anything about cars and with the power to weight ratio, not to mention it has really long gears you are guaranteed to walk alot of cars.
With just an intake, downpipe, and powerfc my friends 93 will give my EVO pushing 333WHP a run for its money at any roll and will win on the interstate. However from a stop its still no contest
I love the 93 RX-7 and if I could afford one I would already own one. If you need any more information I recommend you do some research on
www.nopistons.com
www.rx7club.com
http://www.autosportracetech.com/RX-7/rx7stuff.htm
http://www.rx7city.com/ecucodes.htm
http://www.scuderiaciriani.com/rx7/how-to.html
http://robrobinette.com/index.htm
but beware they are not nearly as helpful as EVOM because most questions have already been asked and all they do is ask you to read.
When you go for a test drive use the informatin from this link
http://robrobinette.com/buyaused.htm
and go over it with a fine tooth comb this will save you time and money in the future.
Enjoy if you have more questions please feel free to ask I'll help as much as I can
Everything I said is my opinion and just the things I've gathered from a year of working on one quite a bit.Staton
first off i think on the topic of buying an rx7... it's very hard if not impossible to find a good conditioned one... and for those you will pay your fast and furious heart out. but for all the rest that require a SUBSTANTIAL amount of work... you can get those at a fair price.
depending on your application of the rx7 you may consider buying a low miles rolling chassis and doing an lt1 swap. (the lt1 is the smallest v8 that chevy makes and it is the same as the camaro engine... with revised head it is called the lt4. i say you want the smallest one because it's more than enough AND it's reliable AND you'll have to move the steering rack, which is bad... the ls1 will require you to move it and space the steering rack connectors and this will affect all the suspension geometry. there is a wealth of information on this swap (if you go to one of the links above you'll see there's an ls1 lt1 rx7 section. and even a dedicated shop www.hinsonsupercars.com although if you go the hinson way expect to wait forever for everything.
also... i said depending on your application because any motor swap in an rx7 (because everyone hates how unreliable the 13b is) requries the moving of the steering rack (yes even the 20b motor requires moving the steering rack) and this will introduce some bump steer and some other problems. actually staton's post sounds a lot like my friend's love fo rthe rx7 (aesthetically).
about the nsx... this car is overweight for what it is... you dont' get a whole lotta car for it being 3000 pounds... but i guess 3000 pounds is pretty light. you can make it lighter so that's not a big issue.
the big issue is that this car is underpowered... the powerband is pretty smooth but it's just not enough... i mean it's a honda :\. so the viable options are supercharging and turbocharging. i believe supercharging is best and with a blown nsx it's not hard to get 400 hp.
the big but comes in however. there is no way in hell that you are gonna do well in anything but track racing... the nsx is not gonna get you dyno queen numbers, it's not gonna get you record breaking drag times (not for the price or for less than a tube frame nutty gm v8 drag car), it's not gonna do a lotta things... but for some reason... in the hands of the right japanese drivers these things beast on any track. i don't know why... cuz the science of speed folks certainly can't pull it off :\. btw if you've ever read any of scc's compettions you'll see that science of speed nsxs are in them a lot but they don't seem to put down teh way japanese drivers put them down... dunno why.
Last edited by trinydex; Apr 9, 2005 at 11:25 AM.
thanks to everyone for the informative posts. i still have a long ways to go before i can actually make the purchase. hopefully by the end of this year or early next year ill have enough money for a used fd or a used nsx. i really like the fd but i know that theres going to be alot of work involved and alot of money thats going to be spent on that car. haha its kind of funny because we know all this yet we still want the rx-7. we'll see what happens though.
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It's preposterously overpriced, in my opinion. It's an "engineer's plaything" according to Fifth Gear, and I must say Tiff is quite right. The FD, if you're going to mod it, is a much better platform. There is a bunch of stuff I can say about the NSX, but I won't. All I will say is this: the NSX is a pretty awesome car, but it is expensive. Want to turbo an NSX? I wouldn't even consider it, it's just so damn expensive. Want to race it? Guess what, the gears are pretty long, and you'll want to replace them with shorter ones. It's not the best car for modification. The FD is a pretty good car for modification, but it is less reliable. I think, however, the cost of the RX-7 is on it's side, and that it would be the best choice. If you want to consider a Supra, then I would pick that. The numbers are close for all of the cars, so I'm going on modability and reliability. The Supra is good on both.
This is true.
I believe the bulk of the cost is because it is hand built and all aluminum.
Last edited by mike69; Apr 9, 2005 at 01:08 PM.
one number that is not close for the supra is the weight... so it becomes important for the buyer to pick a car based on what he wants to do with it.
nsx can be obtained used for 20k...
nsx can be obtained used for 20k...
Definitely the FD..The engine will go forever believe it or not as long as you keep everything in check..It's not that hard to find a good example to build from, at least around here..Just get a true compression check readout by the mazda compression checker,look for one that has all silicone vacum lines installed right, another good sign is an aftermarket radiator, the stock one is lacking..This is one car I would rather buy somewhat modded rather then stock..Rotary engined cars just have a huge fun factor that no other car can come close to..50/50 weight distribution is an awesome thing, and nothing can compare to the sound of a t88 @ 25psi on a 13b at full wail, unless of course its a triplerotor or more!
NSX if you want something for the streets, RX7 if you want a track car, ive pretty much owned an FD, it was my friends but i drove it so much i know it like the back of my hand. As ive told him many times, the evo feels like an AWD version of the FD, its very similar. The NSX is very refined, but its a car that protects the driver in terms of handling, quite a bit of understeer, traction control, no wild power like the FD, and quite a bit heavier than the FD by 2-300 lbs. Either way, theyre great cars, but if you want something without headaches, get the NSX, if you want a car to scare your friends, get an RX7.
