How did you first get into rotaries & where has it taken you?

[Dan Norton]

I remember being at a national motor show (i think it was) when i was 13 or 14 with my dad!

2 cars struck me more than the others, one was on toyota\'s stand (the mr2), and thought what a gorgeous car.

The second one was on the mazda stand and of course it was a fd3 rx7!

Me and my dad stood there in a amazement...... ........we were both, "what the hell is that.....its amazing"

I vowed from that day on that i will own one, one day.
10 years later, i have one!:D

After mucking about with a fair few honda crx\'s, i was in the middle of building a turbochrged, kitted, iced up blah blah honda crx.........then while ordering bits of ebay usa for the crx, i accidently put in rx in the search bar, and of course, rx7 parts came up......i thought god thats good, and good this is good at all the parts available at rx7\'s.
So i added up how much this crx project was going to cost....and realised.....my god, i could actually get an rx7 for that money .

The rest is history, sold everything to do with the crx, got all my cash together and set about finding an rx7 from japan.......i was lucky at the time becuase i knew a japanese guy who could sort me a car out from anywhere in japan, from auction houses, dealers, anywhere.....so he sorted it all out for me for a small fee!

I\'ll never forget the day i picked it up from southampton docks (after a 6 month wait !!!!!!!!!:reallymad ), i fell in love as soon as i see it, then the drive home........WOAHHHHHH!!!!!!!:eek:

How fast!?!?! i thought!....this is amazing.....and it did scare me.

Anyway, 12months later....and its .....errr......changed abit:rolleyes:

Will be a sad day when i have to sell!:(

Will deffinatly have another tho after this one!

Heres a pic what it was like when i got it, then one how it is now........its changed somewhat!:rollin

[zevans]

At first, like most people - I was afraid of the rotary engine. I didn\'t understand how it worked and I believed the stories I\'d heard about unreliability, etc.

How strange... just answered a "why did you buy a Z" thread over there...

Anyway, yes, exactly, I believed the myths too, and I thought Supras were right ugly, so in terms of cars around 5k, that left the Z, basically. So I bought one. And then another one. And then another engine for the second one. And so on. You see where this is going.

So after a year of such grief I knew a lot more about my performance driving style and a lot more about big Jap metal generally - and I was so hacked off with fixing things that I decided a brand spanker was the way forward. I also knew I didn\'t like torquey boosty cars because where\'s the challenge in that?

So I drove a 350 and I just didn\'t connect with it, although to be fair they are good cars - and I sat in an S2000 and I didn\'t feel like I could ruin it over a B-road at all. Dunno why, but somehow the cockpit felt wrong, so I didn\'t even test drive it. Then I drove an 8 and that was it, yes please, and five months later :o the Banana of Doom was parked on my drive.

The 350 might be NA but it drives like a turbo, so I just wasn\'t interested in the end...

And now I\'ve got the rotary bug and I\'m unlikely to own a boinger again, because how can you ever go back?

[zevans]

Originally posted by MikeLMR
then during my training I ended up writing a few thermodynamics projects around the rotary as it was far more interesting than a piston engine

I\'ve noticed this - a lot of people that have dun sum fizzicks [tm] like rotaries - cos they\'re just elegant, and much clevererer than boingers. That\'s a lot of the reason I like em (and I dimly remember a 2am conversation along these lines the other weekend )

Just realised I didn\'t answer the second half of the question just now either... it\'s taken me a LOT further than I would have otherwise of gone in terms of advanced driving. (Because you have to drive mine on the gears, and because it\'s so stiff and well set-up)

[RobbieRX-7]

ive got a high octane dvd where they compared the 350z and rx8..the rx8 got off the line quicker but the z caught up..when it came to the twistys the rx8 caught up and in the end out of the 2 drivers, 1 chose the 8 and the other was undecided..they both agreed that the 8 was more of a drivers car:cool

[andrewrx7]

A friend of mine many years ago bought a 1st Gen 7, certainly different to the other cars around at the time. Started to take notice of the rotary and then out came the FD…..thought yes! I want one, but also thought I’d never actually have one.

Then back in ’99, a nice cheque landed on the floor from a savings policy that had just finished, and we thought that we’d spend it on updating one of our older cars. I jokingly suggested lets just spend it on something flash…..the missus said what would we have……I, of course, jokingly suggested an FD. I showed her a picture, and surprisingly she said…OK, lets go and have a look at one!

So with a big grin, we set out to have a look at these mythical beasts. This was back when importing was gaining ground, but was not big business, so not too many around. The first one we saw was in a large showroom, which was reserved for the expensive and fast cars. We walked in, and couldn’t see an FD. Bugger….must have been sold. But then, after walking around, we came across this black, sleek car, hiding at the far end of the room. Wow! The adrenalin of seeing one put a big grin on our faces! Is this it, asked my wife! Yep! So we get the salesman to fire it up…only he couldn’t, the battery was dead. So out comes the charger, and he gets it going…..along with a large cloud of smoke, that has nowhere to go, so lingers in the showroom! Being at the back of the showroom, means it takes 15mins to get it out, but finally, with other people watching, we clamber unceremoniously in and go for the drive. My wife is in a seat behind the salesman…..who had to have his seat right forward, that his knees we literally touching his chin!! Very funny! A short drive later, and no petrol….we actually run out as we turn into the garage, so we coast up the road, and stop. We pop the bonnet, only to see green coolant dribbling copiously from the AST. Luckily I had done quite a bit of reading on FDs, and knew this to be a rather bad sign! Salesman was very pushy .. “nothing wrong” and all that, but we eventually walked.

So with one bad experience under our belts, but certainly not deterred, we saw another 6 (yes 6!!) FDs, each with their own stories to tell (all bad), until we came across a high miler (102k) in Kent. Something just clicked with this one, and we bought it on the spot, and drove home with it! Never regretted it…….completely std, and utterly reliable for the next 5 years. 5 years!! We had only planned on buying one, keeping for a year, then selling it! 1 year ownership is better than none!
So to ’04 â€" and I decide that it is time to upgrade. I make the decision to go for a post 99 revision model, but then find you can’t import the later models anymore due to the change in the law. So would have to look for one already in the UK. Found one that was advertised as a 2002 model â€" went to look. Only problem was, the chassis number was FD3S5***** - er this isn’t a 2002 car! No paperwork either….quickly walked on that one! Then saw a few on autotrader, but were up in Scotland â€" a little too far, shall we say. Then finally came across the SpiritR for sale on MRC. I’d heard of these, but had to look up exactly what it was. Wow! There was actually a SpiritR in the UK? And it was a TypeA to! So went along, had a look, and, well a handshake later and the Spirit had a new owner!

So that’s the story to date, and the Spirit is certainly a tremendous car! OK, so it might not be as quick as even some of the mildly modded cars around, but there are only 3 known in the UK â€" a little bit of exclusivity and history sitting on the drive. Love it!:D

[Donato]

I studied the rotary engine at college many moons ago when i was training to be a mechanic, i remember getting the brochure for the FD when they were introduced in 92 as part of my course. Forgot all about them then two years ago i decided i was sick of company land rover discoverys, was going to buy myself a Lancia delta evo as i used to have the HF turbo version, my brother in law was getting a car at the same time, he said why dont you get an Rx7, i took a look at some on the net, feel in love and the rest is history and an empty bank account! My brother in law decided on an M5, he isnt happier that im faster than him now! :rollin

[Wav]

Well when I was about 12 or 13 my mates mum had a green first gen. rx7. She used to pick us up from school and i was always scrunched up in the back with the exhaust scraping on all the speed bumps going out of the school exit. I loved it and always liked the theory behind the rotary engine, there is something special about being different and I like it:D

I was considering buying a first gen. after selling my 5 gtt, then I realised that for me at the time the third gen. was the way to go, looks, power, handling, the fabulous rotary, it has them all. I\'m now on my 3rd rotary, need I say more..............


Paul:bandit

[Spotlamp]

Nice thread, been really interesting reading.

I got my RX 3 years ago based on 2 things.  Gran Turismo 3 was my first proper experience of an RX7 and the banks new found confidence in my financial stability.  At the ripe age of 25 I met a guy who imported MX5s and said he reckoned he could get me an RX7 no problem.  After 3 months of waiting and endless phone calls nothing was delivered.  I decided to start looking myself and spotted a fairly stock 92 exmple in Auto Trader straight away.  I took the trip to Southampton to see the car which had been in the country 6 months and fell in love absolutely immediately.  Two weeks, one less than convincing RAC inspection and an £8.5k lighter wallet later and I took the keys and set off home.  To be fair she was a bit of a bag of crap to start with, but with all my money tied up in my house and mrs I had nothing left to fix the niggling issues with.

After 1.5 years of ownership I was under ever increasing financial strain from the car, my house and my mrs.  Something had to give.  I moved out, split up with the mrs and took the car, I haven\'t looked back since.  From being stock, she\'s now far from it.  Got most of the mechanicals sorted, engine\'s being rebuilt (2nd time now) and ported as we speak, single turbo, FMIC etc etc etc...

Next phase is the externals and get the old girl looking as pretty as some of you boys on here.  Watch this space, this time next year

Just a point to note, I went through all the receipts I\'ve had for the car since ownership, and in the past 2.5 years she\'s cost me just over £30,000 including purchase cost.  Not for one second do I ever think it\'s not been worth it, the right foot makes sure of that...

One very very happy rotary owner
H

[Miguel]

Sure is becoming an interesting thread guys, keep posting your stories, I think we\'re all enjoying the read!

I haven\'t ever dared spend any time counting up what I\'ve spent on mine, but frankly it doesn\'t matter....I\'ll never sell it anyways.
Hope to grow old and pass it onto my kids, who will be car nuts for sure......someday

Would be great to hear from the likes of Clive, Glenn Butcher and such on this thread....Still so many people to hear from :wave

[flectron]

Originally posted by Miguel
Thought this would make an interesting thread...!...So I\'ll start off - So share, how did you get into RX-7\'s then?
 

hmmm. interested in non-rx7 stories?

hope so.

i was happily oblivious to the existence of the rotary engine for most of my life. always an automobile fanatic, just never realised a top marque was doing anything so radically different under the bonnet to every other.

then i went to australia...

first time i think i was aware of rotaries was at summernats 2000 in canberra, the mother of all car meets, which i was lucky enough to work at

shortly afterwards i moved to adelaide to stay with my best aussie mate.
now it turned out one of his best friends had an rx3 coupe which his dad and he had built to a stunning standard. scooby blue with gold rims. i was instantly in love. head over heels. (then he wrote it off and bought a scooby and a wee cagiva racing bike :rolleyes: )

but it was too late. i was hooked. started picking up any mags i could find with rotary pics.
funny thing is, none of the mags i bought in aus have an fd in them. they\'re aaaaall about the old-skool over there.

i can remember the first fd i saw (well, the first i saw knowing it was a rotary) outside a pub in adelaide. boy did a big half-donut burnout off up the road and i had to pick my jaw up off the road.

so cut to ---> back home in the uk
and i\'m busy typing mazda rx3 into google uk and getting nowhere.

so where did my love take me? shopping on google.com.au and the ausrotary forum for a car on the other side of the world and all the associated logistics involved in checking/ purchasing/ shipping/ importing/ registering etc etc
trust me that took a lot of love. but, i got one. and it was worth every last bit of drama/ worry cause now i own my dream car


o yeah.

[efiniste]

I remember when the FD first came out over here. I\'d not long since passed my test when it cropped up in the various car magazines of the time. I fell in love pretty much immediately. The rotary engine was a bonus, I love to drive something "different". I even went down to the local Mazda dealer and saw the black one they had in the showroom. fvck me if it didn\'t look even better in the flesh! Only trouble was it was 36 grand or so!

Anyway, moving on 9 years, I\'d just got my first steady and guaranteed wage after being self employed for 9 years, and, as with all true petrol heads, I decided to get a big loan and buy a fast car!

My first thoughts were to get an Impreza (no spitting at the back there please!) but as every drug dealer in Manchester had one at the time I was going off them. I bought "Revs" magazine one month and there, on the cover was a head on shot of a red FD, completely sideways, whilst the passenger had a "I\'m scared ****less but still loving it" face on. A little bit of my memory sparked back into life, "mmm, an RX-7, I\'d love one of those. They must still be pretty expensive though."
Reading through the article, although it got a slating for being unable to start at times and "flimsy", I was hooked again, but, I found you could pick a decent one up for 10 grand! I had 13 grand burning a hole in my bank account! Game on!

And so began a search that went the length and breadth of the country. I looked up north as far as Newcastle, down south as far as Watford (below there doesn\'t count as England;) ). I even ventured into Wales. Could I find a nice example? Could I hell. They\'d either be dog rough or dodgily modified. I\'d all but given up when I was looking back through the few I\'d found on the AutoTrader site. There was one in Sheffield, not too far away and an entertaining drive over the Snake Pass. The picture was a bit crap, hence I\'d overlooked it before but it sounded ok. Black (I had been looking at red ones and had my heart set on that colour), but I could live with that, 27000 miles, jap import, 2 years in the country, £11,500. Worth a look at least.

One phone call later and we were off over the Snake, meeting the guy in the car park of the pub next to ladybower. We got there, pulled up outside the pub and I looked over to the car park. BANG! flashback to being 18 again and looking through the Mazda dealers window. Black RX-7, absolutely spotless and looking brand new. We drove over to it and I knew it was the one almost straight away. No strange noises under the bonnet, just a silky smooth purr. No modifications of any kind, the car was perfect in every way. After persuading the guy I was serious (I was driving an old XR4i at the time.) I told him I wanted the car. Only trouble was I hadn\'t brought any sort of deposit with me. I\'d seen that many dogs that I\'d pretty much given up on getting one and had basically just "gone for a look".
The guy was decent enough about it and I promised him I\'d put a cheque in the post that night.
Cue a weeks agonising wait while the cheque cleared. Eventually it did and we sorted out a day to pick it up.
Insurance time next, phoned a few places, no-one would touch it as it was an import (these weren\'t such enlightened times as we live in now!). The only place that would quote wanted 3 grand!

oh Jesus, what have I done! group 20, GROUP 20! Am I mad!

Eventually after 3 solid days on the phone to various companies I managed to get it down to £1600. Just about bearable.

Now it\'s the middle of the petrol pickets/crisis and there\'s a queue at every petrol station. and what am I doing? Well I\'m heading over to Sheffield to pick up the most spectacularly uneconomical car I could find.
The drive back made it all worthwhile though. Driving over a slightly damp Snake Pass on Jap rubber in my first turbo\'d car. It was all going strangely well until I came up behind a couple of pensioners in a mk1 Fiesta. 20mph was the order of the day as far as he was concerned but I\'ll bide my time here for now, there\'s a straight bit up ahead, I\'ll overtake there.
Straight bit comes up, I put my foot down, the rear tyres light up and suddenly Mr Pensioner is looking at the side of an RX-7 in his rear view mirror. He can also see a very shocked looking big bald guy staring at the back of his fiesta through the passenger side window. whoa! I managed to straighten it up thankfully and spent the next couple of weeks redefining my definition of "fast car". I managed to put 2000 miles on it in the space of 3 weeks. I just couldn\'t stop driving it. I\'d park up at night after a blast over the moors (surely I shouldn\'t be able to take corners at that sort of speed!)and go back in to the house. Five minutes later I\'d be back out on the moors, I just couldn\'t get enough of it.

That was 5 years ago in September, an early change to SO-2s transformed the handling, 9 points came and went on my licence, and I\'ve also had to rebuild the engine (obviously with a few tweaks). But, after nearly 5 years I\'m still in love with it. It\'s the only car that I\'ve never got bored of (my previous longest auto-relationship was 18 months) and I honestly can\'t see me ever tiring of it.

I love the fact that people still don\'t know what it is
I love the fact that, aside from shows and trips to WGT I\'ve only ever seen 1 other on the road whilst I\'ve been in mine
I love the fact that it can stay on the back bumper of a 360 Modena up to indecent speeds
I love the fact that a 15 year old design is still used in magazine adverts

To be honest, if circumstances permit, I don\'t think I\'ll ever get rid.


that went on a bit longer than I expected, thank you for listening!

Steve

[PETE SMITH]

Quite simple and my wife gave me the idea!!
It was 7years ago this July that i privately purchased my current FD from my homeland of Wales!
I suppose i was a very early example of the current MaxyP crowd..i was the first person to get the K&N induction kit for my Renault Clio!!-sad,..but true...1996??:p
A garage down the road from me had a silver FD for sale..my wife saw it and said "Isn\'t that the car you said you loved the look of", in a car mag i had.
I had a sat in it...this and the obvious looks and engine individuality won me over.

People always say "When are you going to stop spending on it?!"
There are lots of nice cars out there, but i cannot let my FD go..i will continue spending as getting a car with similar pedigree all round, will mean a chunky loan....which ain\'t much different to progressive spending on your loved one...the car that is!!.

I think the FD..as well as the earlier marks...will become icons
Pete

[Gerry M]

2 years I was left an inheritance, so decided to get myself a new car, something different to the norm which isnt that hard up here, impreza\'s & evo\'s were everywhere & didnt appeal. I\'d always fancied a delta intergrale, I started looking at prices etc but couldnt find just what i wanted. Every day at work i was asked well what you getting then. Then I saw i could pick up a early NSX for 18K but deemed it unpractical, I didnt know what i should treat myself to, until one day I was going to see a mate that restores classics, down the road from his house had been a metallic green gen 1 RX7, slowly returning to the earth, it had vanished it was like a landmark & now it had gone where too  I\'ll never know but the seed was sown. I didnt really want a classic one as I\'ve got hillman imps cluttering the drive for that. So I had a look round the net & came across newera. They didnt really have anything in stock that i fancied but you could specify what you wanted on the order form. So an order was placed, a few days later there\'s a email with this low wide black FD, miguel had done an excellent job but it was a buyers market & the buyer was to  be me!!!.

The drive from motormall all the way to north scotland, I\'ll never forget. Camera phones being pointed left right & centre on the motorway, a 911 driver asking me what it was in the traffic jam & then saying it looked better than anything he\'d seen. To this day I\'ve never seen another FD on the road apart from at meets & shows.  

People still stare, point & ask what it is even up here & I live in a tiny town. No-one ever believes it a 1300 but say its a rotary after and a few smile & nod as if to say you\'ve made the right choice.

Where will the FD take me who knows but I can bet it\'ll be fun getting there

[Martiny]

Right. Looong post!
My brother had this friend who turned up in an RX-2 one day, a yellow coupe, and off we go for a drive, I was about 15 at the time. F*ck me, what a car!!!

Sometimes he would stop the car on a smooth piece of tar and do a burnout or 2. Then when I was 17, a friend of mine\'s mom was selling her RX-2, a green sedan, and they would let me pay it off. I bought it and drove it about 5 years, till I crashed it one night, some stupid bitch in an Alfa doing a u-turn in front of me. I still kept it, hoping to repair it one day. Got a mitsubishi colt company car, crashed RX-2 still on hold in the yard. Had been to some races and the RX-2\'s were just thrashing everything in the race for standard cars. (group N) and I thought "Id like to try that!"), so started looking for an RX2 to race.

Bought a red coupe, but on discovering the chassis cracked where the steering box mounts, I decided this was not a good car to go down Kyalami straight at 120mph plus in!  So I sold that, then I found another green 4 door for sale cheap, and this become my spare car/race car, with my other one for spares. Raced this car for about 8 years, and drove it on the road, till the engine got tired. Sold both cars together.

Meantime I had bought a Crimson Capella (74 and later RX-2), had just rebuilt the engine when my friend aprubtly stopped his bike in front of me, and I swerved to miss him and crashed over a few pavements, badly damaging chassis and cross-member.

Another friend was selling a race prepped RX-2 (white)with a bad engine, and I bought that, swapped the engines and raced that for about 15 years. (Drove Mitsubishis on the road, bit thats another long story!).

While I had the Racing RX-2, I bought a BMW road car, which the indegenous population of South Africa decied I didnt need anymore, so it disappeared one night ( another long story, 1 of 3 !).

The BeeEm was boring, I wanted a "hooligan\'s" car again, and with the insurance cash, I bought a 1st Gen with 13b, bridge port and IDA. Road car for about 3 years, while still racing the RX-2.

Emigrated to UK, sold 1st Gen for £2k, and gave RX-2 back to original owner - gone to good home, and is now being restored!

In Uk now, bought red EGI for £1k, then Turbo II, then sold Egi, then 3rd Gen.

Henning and I found an RX-2 MOT failure for £150, (with ford engine in). I am slowly restoring, fixed up a lot of chassis and body rust, its back on the road, and I have 12A 1st gen engine waiting to go in.

We also have 323 and MX-5, but I think I would sell the RX-2 last! Baby has arrived, so probably next step is sell the FD and get RX-8. (Unless Mazda make another Rotary powered RWD car).

To summarise, I am on my 6th RX-2, and my 4th RX-7!!

There, is that long enough??

[Jake]

I remember seeing a car show on TV and they were talking about how much of a great second hand buy the Supra was.  I remember going to the internet and looking them up and the first thing that cam up was a 700bhp Supra on suprastore.com.  I was blown away by how much power it had as I hadn\'t really had any contact with modified cars before this.

This got me really interested so I started looking around and came to the conclusion that I really wanted a Supra, or maybe an RX-7.  As seems to be normal I read all of the horror stories about how unreliable FD\'s are so it complately put me off.  I started looking for a Supra but found anything decent was out of my price range, plus most insurance companies wanted a small fortune to insure them.  I then started looking around and got interested in the Integra Type-R and ended up buying a mint UK model to use as a stop gap until I could get a Supra.  This stop gap turned into permanent ownership as I just fell in love with the Type-R.  This car was my daily driver and after 3 years of creaping along in rush hour and not using the car how it was meant to be used (apart from at weekends) I decided that I needed a runabout for the daily commute and something for weekends and tracks.  Also something that I could keep mint as it wouldn\'t be batted by the daily commute and salt filled winter roads.  My initial thought was about getting a JDM Type-R as I no longer wanted to get a Supra as something that heavy just didn\'t appeal after such a drivers car as the Type-R.

I contacted Miguel from Newera about getting me a JDM Type-R and I bet you can guess where this conversation went.  After much discussion about the pros and cons of various cars and Miguel dispelling some of those rotary myths I decided given the amount of money I was going to spend on the JDM Type-R I wanted that an RX-7 was the way to go instead.  Especially after seeing recent photo\'s of his FD I just couldn\'t resist.  I bought a red 1996 RS model from Miguel with very low mileage and a few mods.

The car arrived about 3 months ago so right now I\'m just planning what to mod and when.  First up is a new downpipe, mid-section and exhaust with a power FC.  It already has an RE-Amemiya filter on so that can stay.  In the future I\'m looking for a Knight Sports V-Mount and pretty much trying to follow a similar route as Miguel as he just has the BEST FD I\'ve ever seen