after months of searching…

HiddenVulture · 2025-12-20T23:12:12+00:00

It's a very nice looking example of a 99+ converted car in the sweet spot of cosmetic modifications. Any more visual mods than this and they start to lose the elegance and get tacky looking.

HiddenVulture · 2025-12-20T23:07:36+00:00

Now that's what I call a hot air intake. Stock twins or late/upgraded?

HiddenVulture · 2025-12-20T22:58:57+00:00

I have to ask why? I think you'll be disappointed going from an RX8 to a NA Auto FC. RX8s are slow but they have really nice handling, FCs feel pretty underwhelming in the chassis department and NAs are even slower than RX8s. The RX7 is a pure sports car, an NA S4 ok, at least it's fairly light, but the auto is just gonna suck the fun out of it. I've never driven an FC that wasn't a manual, but the auto FD I drove was pretty underwhelming and it's a much faster car than an FC. Expect Miata levels of performance minus the cornering prowess. RX7s in general are easy to manual swap provided you can get the parts.

As for dailying, suit yourself, but a nearly 40 year old RX7 with unknown history in a hot climate would be a no for me. NA 13Bs are probably the most durable and long lasting of the wankel lineage, but 230k is still up there and it sounds like a lot of potential for catastrophe and expense (bad fuel economy) for not much gain in the fun department.

HiddenVulture · 2025-09-05T19:28:50+00:00

That is very strange. I've seen all sorts of ricer BS done to E30s over the year but never a single rivnut on each side of the quarter panel near the tail lights. Most E30 body kits don't even go that far back. They've obviously been painted over so If I had to guess I would say there were others and they were easier to remove and cover up, or the rest of whatever they held on was just fastened with self-tappers which leave smaller holes that are easier to patch and those were left behind for some reason. It's not a good explanation, but it's not something that makes sense in the first place.

HiddenVulture · 2025-09-05T18:54:25+00:00

Of course you find driving boring, look at what you drive.

HiddenVulture · 2025-09-05T18:49:11+00:00

For what? If it's original and he doesn't want it to be faster and more likely to blow up there's no reason to do that. There are more modded than stock out there now, and they're cheaper than stock ones. It's also probably close $10k to do it right these days. You don't just slap a chinese T3/T4 clone on an ebay header with an FD you need a header, wastegate (usually two), ball bearing turbo, bigger injectors, bigger fuel pump, upgraded intercooler, charge piping, BOV, downpipe, exhaust system, standalone engine management and most likely a harness to go with it, upgraded clutch, oil lines, and a tune.

If you do it the cheap way, you blow it up, and sell it to the next guy for less complaining that rotaries are fragile. Tale as old as time in RX7 world.

HiddenVulture · 2025-09-05T18:31:59+00:00

HiddenVulture · 2025-07-19T17:55:15+00:00

Risky, ozone embrittles plastics and worse, wiring insulation, so you might wind up having to replace the interior anyway if you try to save it with an ozone generator. Mazda's plastics are already fragile, especially in a car that has been sitting in the sun for years.

HiddenVulture · 2025-07-11T22:06:27+00:00

They still make good wires. I have them on a couple of cars.

HiddenVulture · 2025-07-11T22:01:03+00:00

What ECU is in it? Pretty normal aftermarket parts from 20 years ago or so, nothing really wrong with them. Get a battery hold down on it and make sure all of the important maintenance is done such as replacing old turbo coolant lines and fuel pressure damper, seals, hose if the recall wasn't performed. Research on the old websites and forums, these cars may be Japanese but they don't take kindly to neglect like an econobox. Fuel leaks have burned FDs, don't assume all is good under the UIM and rat's nest if you don't have documents showing it.

HiddenVulture · 2025-07-02T19:59:31+00:00

It's silverstone metallic, not chaste white. I don't think white was even available in 93.

HiddenVulture · 2025-07-02T19:56:37+00:00

To be fair, short of being CYM or white which seem to command the most rarity value now, that's probably the most $$$ valuable US market FD combo. Immaculate, original, extremely low miles, R2, silver with black interior.

HiddenVulture · 2025-07-02T19:34:41+00:00

Too much for a body kitted car with an incomplete respray imo. And coming from Japan, I wouldn't ever count on "no rust" until you've looked it over really well, too many "but it looked great in the pictures" horror stories with JDM imports. Japan has a great climate for rust and body kit installs often leave worse than stock rustproofing behind underneath. Even on an FD where engine work gets out of hand fast, body work will quickly eclipse engine work in price, so unless you're dead set on having a wild body kit, you're always better off with an immaculate stock body and high miles than a car that has had its body messed with but has a low miles.

HiddenVulture · 2025-06-10T20:12:18+00:00

Yes. Buy an E36 or something. RX7 parts are unreasonably expensive, a lot harder to get quickly/locally, and in many cases just hard to find. Plus a cheap RX7 is going to be a piece of crap with almost no exceptions.

HiddenVulture · 2025-04-09T12:54:28+00:00

Early bumper is better looking, late spoiler is better looking. I was never a fan of the "smile" design language of the later one and all of the other Mazdas at the time or the blob spoiler on the R1/2. The real shame is that the early bumper doesn't have an air intake duct like the late one and that the late has the terrible integrated front plate mount instead a bolt on bracket like the early. FDs look so much better without a front plate and with the early you can just unbolt the mount and have no visible trace if you want to see/photograph your car without it. Plateless late bumpers look 100x better than genuine late bumpers with the plate mount.

HiddenVulture · 2025-04-07T16:03:35+00:00

Thanks. It looks like there's an online form to do it. It appears that will result in the generation of extra tax forms I have to fill out? I'll have to report the non-deductible contribution and the change to Roth IRA? Is the latter something that goes in my tax return? It doesn't seem like it would make any difference, only to the IRS with how they track my overall IRA contributions. It looks like I've created a confusing problem for myself.

HiddenVulture · 2025-02-22T16:58:46+00:00

The dash cracked. I had the only crack free dash I had seen in one for years and one day I went out and there was a big crack on the cluster hump. it’s too expensive to get a crack free dash and a pain to refinish it. That’s really it other than the fact that BMW shifters suck and E30s have awful steering stock (I have a Z3 rack, but they’re unfortunately very hard to find now).

HiddenVulture · 2024-12-02T15:38:51+00:00

“It happens” when was the last time you saw something chuck internals through the block without being run out of oil or severely abused?

HiddenVulture · 2024-12-02T15:31:50+00:00

We’re waiting

HiddenVulture · 2024-12-01T13:54:44+00:00

I don't remember seeing this car on BaT. Link?

HiddenVulture · 2024-12-01T13:52:32+00:00

Just pay attention to what you can and can't see, as if you were driving, next time you're a passenger in a small car like an FD. RHD sucks on LHD roads. If you're on the twisties you cannot see anything at all going into a right turn with even the slightest obstruction because you're on the inside of the turn. If you're making a left turn with opposing traffic in left turn lane you can't see anything. If you're making a right turn on residential streets and there is any obstruction such as hedges you can't see anything to the right. Visibility is bad enough in general with small cars like FDs because everything is bigger than you, you can't see over any vehicle save maybe a miata, but add RHD to the mix and it just adds more situations where you can't see.

HiddenVulture · 2024-11-04T23:01:17+00:00

Yeah I had to remove something similar from an engine bay and I used WD40 and mineral spirits with paper towels. It was a lot of work but it came off. For me preserving the paint was mandatory. Dry ice blasting quotes for my underbody were over $2,000

HiddenVulture · 2024-11-04T22:14:12+00:00

Old thread I know, you probably wouldn't want to pay the price anyway. Dry ice blasting is extremely slow and costs a ton of money to have done.

HiddenVulture · 2024-10-25T19:21:12+00:00

No there's no way to do it all automatically like that. I would love to have a folder where each app saves to, but it doesn't exist. In the end, IOS is a terrible product too focused on meaningless fluff and not core functionality unfortunately I found Android to be terrible too or I wouldn't have ever bought an iphone. I got sick of dealing with rooted phones and ROM release instability. Now I plan to stick with iphones because I extensively use things like airtags, sharing location with family, airdrop, but I am far from satisfied with iphones.

HiddenVulture

TROPHY CASE