The original portion of this text was written sometime in early 1996. Since then, I've taken to adding a new section every so often, so I've anchored the new additions for easy access.
A brief history...
To make a potentially long story somewhat shorter, shortly thereafter, I realized what a really different car the RX-7 was, and how small details really contributed to making this car a true driver's car.
Used to driving an economy car, I was amazed at the differences in driving an enthusiast's car. The short-throw shift mechanism, the tachometer being front and center, the unique characteristics of the rotary engine and the accessibility of all of the controls all combined to make a completely different experience.
Somewhat later, another friend of mine lent me his '90 Turbo II while he was away. I tried it out on a nice twisty road out near where I lived, and I was hooked. What a cool car. Had to have one.
Eventually, I ended up getting a "Tornado grey" RX-7 (1987 base model). The
previous owner had taken pretty good care of the car mechanically (aside from the standard
RX-7 electrical gremlins), but the body was dinged pretty significantly. After driving
this car around for a while, I discovered that the car had much more to give than the
tires it came with could handle. Shortly thereafter, I upgraded the tires from the
4" 185/70's to 205/55x16's Pirelli P-Zeros (by the way, this is the largest tire
I could get under the front fenders without running into problems with contact with
the wheelwell. I still get some minor rubbing under hard cornering,
i.e. cut the wheel all the way in one direction under heavy throttle.) What a transformation!
The car sticks to the road now. Of course, with these upgraded and wider tires, it brought
up the issue of what to do in the winter. (Anyone well versed in tire physics will tell you
that the last thing you want on a light car is wide tires in the snow). I kept the old rims
around, and mounted Pirelli Winter performance tires on them. These are pretty decent, and
(for the most part) kept me out of snowbanks in 1996.
The announcement that Mazda was no longer going to be importing RX-7s into the U.S. prompted
me to pursue getting a third generation while they were still (relatively) plentiful, and in
decent shape. So, I ended up getting a "Montego blue" RX-7 (1994, Popular Equipment Package).
This is in like-new condition, and has been the source of many hours of amusement.
As a (slightly sad) footnote, both of the cars which I'd driven in my conversion to being a
rotorhead have since disappeared. John's car was totalled when he spun it on I-75 in the snow.
(He tells me that he spun around many many times, and hit the wall three times.
The car was still running when he stopped, though!) Sean's car, the Turbo II was stolen and
joyrided, and eventually grenaded its engine.
During the winter months, though, the '94 goes into hiding for a few months. Since I accidentally turned the car sideways under moderate throttle on a slightly damp day, I've been somewhat reluctant to drive it on days where the weather even hints at being inclement. Of course, this just makes the car more interesting to drive when it's nice out, though!
August 1, 1997
It's been a while since I added to this page, so I thought I'd take some time to bring this
material up to date. I've done a couple of things to the cars since the original writing
of this document in 1995, of course, since the lure of increased features has obviously
proven too much for me to effectively resist.
I've also created an account of my harrowing drive on March 31, 1997, when Massachusetts was slammed by an unbelievable snowfall (approximately 2 feet of heavy snow). Subsequently known as the April Fool's Day Blizzard, this effectively halted all activity in the Boston Metro area for a day or two. And of course, I drove my RX-7 over 150 miles in this. You can read the complete account if you're interested, but the short of it is, an RX-7 equipped with snowtires is actually quite a competent winter vehicle...as long as you don't bottom out on the snow!
After the April Fool's Day blizzard, my car came through with a broken power steering belt.
A car equipped with power steering is absolutely no fun at all to drive with the power steering
belt busted, so I bought a belt and replaced this in about 10 minutes in the parking lot at work.
(This is a really easy task. The only problem I ran across is that a socket from my socket wrench
fell into the engine bay, landing atop the splash shield underneath the car. This was retrieved
by my getting back in the car, and accelerating hard, and braking hard. The socket fell out of the
tray onto the ground for my easy retrieval. 
)
Shortly after the winter weather ended, my mufflers became disconnected from the Y-pipe. Although this is somewhat cool-sounding, the car droned horribly on the freeway. Curiously enough, the droning happened primarily between 2500 and 3500 RPMs. Once you got out of this range, the droning went away.
Unfortunately, over 3500 RPMs in fifth gear on my car is well over 90 mph. Clearly, just driving
at these speeds is not a viable long term solution (in addition, it would cost quite a lot in
gas money, I'd imagine).
I lived with this situation for several weeks, until one of the 'arms' of the Y-pipe fell off, making a lovely dragging noise as it made contact with the Massachusetts concrete. In addition, the lack of an exhaust system behind the catalytic converter allowed the car to make this horrible droning sound at freeway speeds. At this point, I began my quest for a new cat-back system. I figured that if I was going to replace the muffler, I was definitely going to go for something better than stock.
I ended up selecting the Borla cat-back system, for a number of reasons:
As a slight downside, while my car was up on the lift to my Borla system, the
mechanic noticed that my pre-cat was, in fact cracked, and leaking slightly.
To remedy this, I purchased a Bönez pre-cat replacement and high-flow cat system.
This system allows you to dump the heavy pre-cats (which are used only to clean-up
startup emissions), and replaces the main catalytic converter with a high-flow device.
The downside of this system is that the car smells slightly of sulfur upon
startup, and again, it's louder. The upside, of course, is that it makes
more power, and the system's much lighter than stock. (Side note: The Bönez
system is made out of aluminized mild steel. I couldn't find a complete stainless
system for this purpose. I purchased the system from Rotary
Performance, to insure that I got a system that wouldn't die right away from
the hot rotary dragon's breath. )
At first, I had some concerns about the volume of the new exhaust system. In addition,
it droned slightly at city speeds, under certain conditions, so I was concerned that
my droning highway problem would return. It turns out all of my friends thought
that the volume was quite acceptable (and driving by a few police officers confirmed
this.) Taking the car out on the highway revealed that the only the car droned
was at around 3K RPM at about 3/4 throttle...fairly unusual conditions. (I don't mind
droning for 1/2 second or so...it's when the car drones while cruising that it's
a problem.
I also had to chase down a few more problems in the 2nd generation car. Most notably, the intermittent settings of the wiper started working 'intermittently.' (Heh). They'd stop anywhere they felt like it on the windshield, a situation which I found quite annoying. I fixed this problem, and this will be documented on my RX-7 main page.
For the longest time, I had the sinking feeling that my third generation car was not developing the
power that it should have been. For purposes of diagnosing this, I took the car to a dynamometer shop
to have the power output measured. Turns out that I was correct in my fears, as the car was only
developing 193 hp to the rear wheels (peak horsepower).
I took the car to a dealer to have it checked out. They couldn't really find anything 'wrong' with the car, but found that the plugs were toast. This is probably a combination of the fact that I don't drive the car that much, and the car did have 20,000 miles on a single set of plugs.
Net wisdom has since informed me that 10K plug changes are not unusual, and recommended for 'maximum' performance. This would be fine, if the plugs were a bit easier to get at!
This seemed to improved the problem slightly, but still didn't make me feel much better. I needed a boost gauge to properly diagnose what was going on under the hood. I ended up buying an Autometer 3301 gauge, and a A-pillar mounting pod from Diamond Star Specialties. This looks and works well, but has confirmed my fears. More on this later.
The A-pillar mounting pod follows the countours of the A-pillar quite nicely, however I cut off a small triangle of material at the base of the pod to make it sit lower (closer to the dash). This also made it easier to hide the wiring and tubing.
I selected the Autometer 3301 gauge because:
I've also recently acquired a set of Eibach Prokit springs for the [2], and a Turbo Timer and a Borla Exhaust for the [3]. Details on the Turbo Timer are below, details on the Borla systems for both cars are here.
November 11, 1997
Well, after having the Turbo Timer sit around in my living room for a while, I finally installed
it into my 3rd generation car sometime in August. I have the GReddy unit, and the installation details (and brief
operating instructions in English) are located
here for your reference.
Overall, it seems to be a really good idea, with only three problems:
I lived with the wacky 'low boost' problem on my 2nd turbo for a pretty long time, taking it to the dealer every once in a while. (By the way, because of Mazda's current financial state, they seem to be closing down dealers all over the place. I now drive more than 20 miles each way to visit my dealer, (Ira Mazda, who has one of the best service departments of any car dealership, as far as I can tell.)) Ira was very helpful in trying to diagnose my problem, but were unable to completely fix the problem.
Anyway. Since I don't drive the car all that often (on weekends, generally), my oversight of leaving the door slightly ajar one weekend, left me with a very, very, dead battery, since I didn't discover my error until the following weekend. Luckily, I had my stalwart second generation car from which to draw a nice, strong charge. Unluckily, when I hooked up the jumper cables, I got a spark of truly prodigious proportions, which took out several fuses (more on this later). In a nutshell, after I replaced all the fuses which had died, and took the car out for a spin, my 2nd turbo was developing 7 lbs. of boost again, as it should! (The large spark took out the main (120 amp!) fuse, the 'room' fuse, and one other one which I can't remember off the top of my head. After replacing these, I still had two problems, though, the ABS light stayed on, and the HVAC controls within the car stopped working, causing me to take the car to the dealer AGAIN. The dealer then informed me that the problem was that the REAR WIPER fuse had also blown. Silly me, for not having checked the rear wiper fuse, since I DON'T HAVE A REAR WIPER!)
As for the second generation car, a few people have written me asking about the 'windshield wiper switch fix' mentioned in my previous entry. The short version of what's happened is that after many hours of screwing around with the damned things, I fixed two of them, but they both failed within a year of 'fixing.' It seems that when they fail for the first time, the relays within them are near the end of their useful service life. I'm currently investigating replacement relays, and will report on this (and do the complete writeup) when I have more information.
I also added a pair of driving lights to my second generation car, and added the original equipment Cruise Control system. Both of these mods were not that difficult, although adding the lights was a very time-consuming process, since I had to create my own mounting system and route lots more wires. The Cruise Control system was pretty much a drop-in system, since all of the wires were already there and waiting. (Although collecting the parts to this was a lot more hassle than I imagined it would be!) I'll probably write both of these up at some point, as well.
As a side note, I've included a writeup of my encounter with a Lamborghini Diablo on the freeway, whilst driving my 3rd generation car here for your amusement. In addition, Tony Chen's Boston portion of his East Coast tour is also chronicled in word and in pictures here for your viewing pleasure.
May 28, 1998
It's been a while since my last entry, so I thought I'd write a bit and update everybody
on what was going on.
I still have the box of Eibach Pro-kit springs (for the 2nd generation car), and the
downpipe (for the 3rd generation car) sitting around in the basement (I've since moved
from an apartment into larger living quarters). I haven't installed the Eibachs yet,
as I'm waiting to get some nice dampers to go with the nice springs. I'm sure the
shocks that are on the car are a bit tired after 80,000 or so miles, and besides, I'll
have to have the car realigned when the new springs go on, so I may as well do both
shocks and springs, have the car realigned, and really notice a big difference.
Also, I've received much conflicting information on the internet about how far one can push modifications on the 3rd generation car without adding additional fuel, before one starts running into problems with detonation. Some people say that you can do anything to the exhaust, as long as you keep the mainpipe, and nothing else (no intake.) Some people say you can only do a cat-back without running lean. Other people say that you can do downpipe, cat-back, and intake without running lean. With all this conflicting information, I've decided to walk the extremely conservative route, and only do the cat-back until I get my hands on an air-fuel meter, so I can see what the engine's doing, and how lean it's running.
Thus, I have two boxes of nice performance add-ons sitting in the basement, waiting for me to acquire the additional funds necessary to integrate them into the car.
As an added bonus, in April, 1998, some #&(@ing *$$holes vandalized my car (the third generation). I've written up the entire account here for you to see, if you're interested. The damage isn't terrible, but it was still estimated at $2800 to completely repair it (stripping it down, repainting the 4(?) step process, blending it into the surrounding metal.
Needless to say, this put me in a really good mood.
As far as I can tell, I can't think of a reason why someone would have it in for me, so
it was probably just a 'random' act. Great, huh? People today, man, I tellya.
Well, now that it's summer, I'm considering going to visit an Autocross this weekend.
(An autocross is an event where the organizers lay out a course in a big parking lot
with cones, and the object is to drive the course as quickly as possible.) These
may be baby-steps towards what I hope eventually will become a new hobby of mine, that
of racing around a track .
Since this tends to be a fairly expensive proposition, though, I think I'll have to wait
until funds free up a bit for me to invest in things like a brain bucket (aka helmet) and
more yummies for the car (ULTRA sticky tires!!)
Gasoline - I use only Mobil 93 octane. The cars seem to run great on this,
and the mileage seems to be a bit better, as well (although this may be the placebo effect). There
are some individuals who may tell you that normally aspirated rotary engines do not benefit from
the higher octane ratings, however I feel that the added detergents can't hurt (rotaries build
up a lot of crud in their ports, and it seems that a lot of problems with lost compression are
actually results of crud building up underneath or near the seal springs).
Oil - I have recently switched to using Mobil HP. This is their standard grade
of motor oil (dino juice). Since most net wisdom states that synthetic is bad for the rotary
(and this is reinforced by the owner's manual), I stick to the standard stuff. In addition, I'm
fanatic about changing the oil every 2500 miles, so I don't think the cars would benefit much from
using synthetic, anyway, certainly not enough to justify the huge added cost. As a side note, it
should be noted that all rotary engines burn oil. This is by design. There's a small oil metering
pump which injects oil into the combustion chambers to cool the apex seals and aid the seals. If your
oil level doesn't go down, you're probably getting some gasoline blow-by and it's mixing
into your oil.
Spark plugs - I use the NGK plugs. Do not use the standard single-electrode plugs
(such as those offered by Autolite), as these will not last long, and in addition, people on the RX-7
mailing list have reported that they have a habit of breaking up in the engine. For both cars,
I use NGK BUR7EQP and BUR9EQPs. You can use the non platinum equivalents (like BUR7EQ and BUR9EQs),
but they won't last very long (< 5000 miles, typically, before performance falls off). If you've
modified your car, net wisdom recommends putting BUR9EQPs in all four slots, to help stave off
detonation, as these are 'colder' plugs. Some people even go as far as running BUR10.5EQ's.
Wax/Finish cleaning - I use Zymol
(the stuff in the light-blue bottle). Goes on fairly easily, leaves a beautiful finish. I'm currently
investigating a two-step waxing process, and also looking at getting something to clean up some of the
buildup on the '87. Meguiars Quik Detailer does an
excellent job of removing dust and junk which accumulates on the car between washings. I try to wash
each car once a month or so, weather and schedule permitting. (If you live in the Boston area, this
is the reason why it rains regularly on Mondays).
Interior - I use the Black Magic Protectant on the inside. I used Armor All for a long
time, until I discovered that it was leaving an irritating film on the inside of the windshield after
the car sat in the sun for a while. Switching to Black Magic has had a number of benefits, as it seems
to be thicker than the Armor All, making it easier to apply, and the marketing copy claims that it
contains plasticizers, hopefully helping to keep the plastic flexible so it doesn't crack.
Car cover - The '94 has an Evolution car cover. This does an excellent job of keeping
'junk' off the car, however when it rains, it has a habit of leaving a whitish powder all over the car.
Still not as bad as getting wet leaves stuck all over the car, though (its parked under a tree).
There's a lot of net wisdom regarding the care and feeding of these cars. I've sorted through a
lot of it, and have come up with my own regimen.
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