As Purchased

The car. A 1987 Mazda RX-7 Turbo II.

I bought the car sometime between May 18 and June 21, 1997. I'm horrible with dates so I just base this on race results found on the MCO Results web page.

I bought the car with less than 90,000kms on it's odometer. Even with the low mileage the car had been fitted with a new motor. The motor core in the car is in fact a 13bt from a 1990 vehicle. It was imported from Japan. Unfortunately the previous owner had also told me that the turbo and manifold were from a 1990, too.

This turned out not to be accurate. I didn't find this out until I had to rebuild the turbo. Of course, I'd ordered the kit from the wrong turbo, but we managed to make it work. Unfortunately the engine-manifold gasket I had wouldn't fit; so this meant that we'd have to pull it all apart again in the near future to replace that gasket.

So, anyway, back to the car as it was first purchased. The brakes were unbelievably bad. Rebuilt front calipers were fitted and life got much better -- although to this day I'm fighting with a right front brake that locks up prematurely.

The car suffered from most of the typical early-second generation electrical problems. The Logicon needed resoldering, the idiot lights and clock needed resoldering, the ECU needed resoldering, the antennea didn't function and the rear speakers crackle a lot.

There was a tiny rust spot by the left rear tail lights. It's still there and it's still tiny. It doesn't overly concern me.

Now for the good parts. The car had been fitted with a Racing Beat 3 inch downpipe off the turbo and the emissions equipment had been modified. The car also sported a crush-bent 3 inch custom exhaust system with two mufflers in-line to try to quiet the thing down. It also had a Racing Beat Fuel Cut Defenser (FCD) since the boost pressures could reach about 10psi with the exhaust mods.

Overall the car ran well. I got a good deal on it, I was happy.