Help for a newbie

[Dank]

Hi,
 
I was just wondering if anyone could offer me some advice. I am completely new to the forum but have been reading it over the past few weeks whilst trying to decide whether to get an rx7. I think they are amazing cars and can\'t wait to find my first one. I have read as much on the forum as possible to get some buying tips, etc. I have found one that i quite like the look of and its within my prize range (up to £4500) but I was wondering if this sounds normal??? It has got 90,000 miles on the clock but the guy at the garage said the engine has not been rebuilt but it had a compression test done recently and it came out with: frt 6.4, 6.6, 6.7 and bck 6.6, 6.4, 6.3
Firstly does this sound possible given that he said it hasn\'t had a rebuild or is there a chance it has had a rebuild and they are slightly unaware?!? Also, sorry to sound like such a newbie but are these figures good?! I read on another popst that if it\'s in the 6\'s then its a healthy engine with a good life left. Obviously the whole engine rebuild brings me a few nerves but the RX7 seems totally worth it!
 
Thank you in advance for any advice.
 
Dan

[Aubec]

90,000 miles without a rebuild...  You don\'t mention service history, age or apparant condition.
 
With the best will in the world, if you buy it make sure you\'ve got another £3k spare to cover a rebuild and all the other ancilleries that\'ll be near end-of life if they haven\'t been replaced already (assuming you\'d be paying a garage rather than doing it yourself)
 
Radiator
AST
Vaccuum tubes
suspension bushings
plugs & leads
fuel filter
etc.
etc.
 
Is it modified at all?  Do you intend to modify it?
 
Overall, be careful - if the engine gives up on you then you\'ll be massively out of pocket if you have to sell it on because you can\'t afford a rebuild.  I personally (and this is just talking about spending my own money) would not pay more than £2k for a 90k car with no rebuild - and it would have to be pretty mint for me to even buy it at that.

[ad4m1]

find out who done the compression test and if theres any evidence in or around engine bay that engine may have been out? also 90000 miles is a lot on an fd and other areas of the car may have been subject to wear

[trotter]

From those figures posted you\'ll be looking at a rebuild in the relatively near future I would imagine.

Good thing is that all three readings on each rotor are close to each other which suggests that all 6 tips (3 + 3) are at least intact. If you had something like 6.5 6.5 5.5 it would suggest that the third tip is rubber ducked.

General rule of thumb for compression readings is this:

>8.0 - new or newly rebuilt engine
7.0 > 8.0 - no problems here
6.5 > 7.0 - no real issues either
6.0 - 6.5 - will be starting to show signs of apex seal failure, hard to start, etc
<6.0 - rebuild time

Also, bear in mind that the compression test isn\'t the be all and end all of checks on Rexy\'s health. I put a quick list together somewhere on here, i\'ll try find it for you.

EDIT: here it is:

agreed,

however, OMP failure would lunch an engine not running premix in about a minute I would imagine.

Now although I admit pre-mix would eliminate this, not all owners know, or even want, to run with it. If you ain\'t running a PFC with the failure indication activated for the HEAT light the first you would know of the failure would be engine death. Thats\' not down to abuse, just bad luck.

Sometimes (rare admittedly, but my point stands) engine failure can seem to \'just happen\' out of the blue on prefectly good compression, low mileage engines.

If potentially buying a Rex, at the very LEAST I would:

1) Compression test
2) Champagne test if feeling paranoid
3) Check oil to make sure its been changed regularly (ie: not thick, black rubbish) - an indicator that the owner at least know\'s his arse from his elbow
4) Starts hot and cold
5) Good thrash to confirm twins were getting on with each other

just my two pence worth!

graeme

HTH

graeme

[ro284]

Dan are you talking about an FD? if so what year? because it\'s not just the compression that\'s important, and in the 6.s is as low as you want to go IMO if your hoping to get lots of miles out of it, the next risk is from water seal failure on early ones, which also means a rebuild! whats your email addy?

[Dank]

Thank you everyone for the advice. Basically it is a J-reg with the only real mod being an exhaust system. It does sound a bit weird and thats why I thought I\'d ask the people on here with the knowledge. I thought there might be other things to worry about but I\'ve heard the compression check is v.important. I have also seen another one on Piston Heads that looks pretty good but has 40000 on an engine that hasn\'t had a rebuild - that\'s up for 4495 and is quite heavily modded. Any advice appreciated? Is it better to heavily modded or not?
 
Thanks

[ad4m1]

if you can up your budget a touch ,then i know of a couple of low mileage cars with excellent compression for sale? drop me an email if you like adamdavidsongtr@hotmail.com and ill shoot u some details

[trotter]

Thank you everyone for the advice. Basically it is a J-reg with the only real mod being an exhaust system. It does sound a bit weird and thats why I thought I\'d ask the people on here with the knowledge. I thought there might be other things to worry about but I\'ve heard the compression check is v.important. I have also seen another one on Piston Heads that looks pretty good but has 40000 on an engine that hasn\'t had a rebuild - that\'s up for 4495 and is quite heavily modded. Any advice appreciated? Is it better to heavily modded or not?
 
Thanks

Difficult question, if the owner knows what he\'s been doing and has modded it properly then there\'s no reason not to get a modded one. Problems start when people try to do things half-arsed, or concentrate on one area whilst ignoring the rest. For example, stock turbos are only really good for ~350bhp, re-maps are a must when modifying - especially taking cat\'s out, etc etc.

Also, bear in mind that the moment you start modding these girls, the life expectancy of a standard engine goes out the window. You may be lucky, you may not, but it\'s something to bear in mind that a rebuild MAY not be that far away from 40000. As an example, mildly modded, (307bhp) apex seals went on mine at 48000 km, thats only 30k miles.

graeme

[Dank]

Thanks everyone for your advice. It is greatly appreciated as i\'m going out all to get one of these awesome cars so am trying my best to get it right. I agree about the heavily modded one - thats slightly what puts me off but then like you say, if the owner knows what they are doing then it could be good...Well I shall keep searching. Thanks again and please contact me if anyone knows of some good rx7s for sale.