mkIII supra vs. FC Rx-7
 

I was looking at buying either a mkIII supra or a 2nd gen RX-7 and was wondering what you guys think about both of these cars:
looks, stock performance, modability(if that's a word), price,reliability etc. (if you can think of any other fields put your opinions in on thoose too) Thanks.

I think you need to ask yourself, would I rather fix a blown headgasket, or blown apex seals?

x2, you see that a lot with the older models now that they have some mileage on them and some years under their belt.

series five turbo second gen rx imho...

Well, as said, it's a choice between a blown head gasket or blown apex seals. I don't know much about the 2nd gen rx-7s, but I do know they're much lighter and more nimble than a supra (weighs in around 3700lbs stock).

Are you looking at one of each, or are you just questioning. Are you looking at the turbo models, or the n/a?

Mods are readily available for each car, as they're both still fairly popular, and somewhat iconic looks in their classes. The supra is a GT car, made for a speed/comfort compromise, while the rx-7 is a full blown lightweight sports car, so they're hard to compare

with the supra i was planning on eventually doing a 1jz swap and then doing light modifications (intake, exhaust, boost controller) maybe down the road i'll throw a garett in there and then beef up the internals, but while i am waiting to do the swap i would be driving it stock it wouldn't matter to me if it was a factory turbo or not because it's going to have a new motor anyway

the rx-7 i haven't looked into as much but i'd probably get a turbo2 and eventually bridge port it or street port it. i'd also do exhaust, intake, etc.

I think they are pretty comparible, the RX-7 obviously weighs less but has less power while the supra is on the heavier side but the 7mgte makes 230ish hp and the 1jz is 280hp so it's basiclly weight vs. power

i don't know that much about rx-7's yet how big of a problem is a blown apex seal

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...arch&plindex=1
i'm suprised with the outcome of this race (with the rx-7 and the supra, not the other cars) i was sure the 7 would kill the supra in a road coarse and that's the top of the line rx-7 and not top of the line supra (for japan anyway)

they are directly comparable for every con on the supra there is con with the rx-7 same with pros
cons>>(BHG=blown apex seals)
so i guess what i'm asking is what is the best bang for the buck with mods (which will go faster cheaper and still be able to be a daily driver)

lol, cheap mods and reliable 80's turbo car... well, reliable enough for a DD...

Get the FC and then put an LT1 or LS1 in there.

You can get a good NA FC that still runs for under $2000. For another 6K you will have an awesome car that is a reliable daily driver and has monster power and torque.

HAHAHHAHAHAHA um kind of a big one....think if it has having a piston engine with no rings....same idea.


dont get within 30 feet of a rotary...please....if its runnin good now ull be sure to kill it when u own it....

get the supra and do all that piston connecting rod valve junk u mentioned......

sad but probably true. If you don't know rotarys, either learn about them in depth prior to buying one, or don't.

Either car has a good bit of maintenance that goes into keeping them in prime condition. Any 15-20 year old car is going to require work to keep running. Just make sure you know what you're getting into.

Supra head gaskets blow often due to overheating, poor maintenance, etc. Their usually replaced by metal gaskets AFTER MACHINING THE HEAD AND BLOCK flat. These last much better, but can still be prone to blowing if the proper conditions exist. (20 year old hoses aren't your friend by the way), coolant leaks, oil burning, etc.

Either issue, apex vs bhg are conditions which will have your car down for some time. In other words, 18 year old engines aren't the best idea for a daily driver. If you've got a daily, keep it, and use either an rx7 or a supra as a project/weekend car. Leave it home in the rain/snow, and be prepared to either put tons of cash into them, or learn how to properly maintain them.

Both cars have their pros and cons. The rx7 is lighter by a lot, the upper end NA and all turbo models have 4 piston calipers up front, turbo's have stock lsd. The S4's (Series 4 86-88) are clutch type lsd's and are the ones to get , they are easy to rebuild and well are pretty much indestructable and have taken people well into the 10s.

Before you consider an rx7, go to howstuffworks.com and look at how a rotary engine works, be sure you are ready to deal with little stupid **** the car will do, you have to do pre-emptitive maintenance before you start to mod. Especially on the turbo models, you cant just do intake and exhaust without doing all the supporting mods first. Since the stock wastegate on the turbo is the size of a penny. Last fall when it dropped down to 50's, my car with a 3in turboback and a 3in cone filter on the intake was pegging 15psi as early as 4k , on stock ecu and fueling that wont last long.

I've yet to play with MKIII Supras or any Supra for that matter but the rx7 is a very good and easy car to learn on. Before I got my vert the only thing I did was oil changes, I've learned a lot working on that car. But the good thing is everything is very easy to get to, the engine bay is huge and becomes even bigger when you remove the emissions systems and a/c and ps if you wish.

A good condition NA FC can be had for about 2,000, running decent condition turbos are hovering around 4k now. Nicely modded or really low mileage stock turbo's hover in the 5k to 10k range.

Take some time to make your decision and start to read up on both cars. Supraforums.com has lots of good resources, I'm sure the MKIII owners will point you to better things when they chime in. As far as 7lemons go, start with www.teamfc3s.org, lots of good info and its a somewhat friendly. Theres also rx7club.com which has a buttload more members but 75%of it is filled with a bunch of jerk off rotary zealots. That are all houlier than thou and think thier sh1t dont stink and make you think that owning a toaster oven with spinning dorito's is an entrance to a specifc ultra sekret mad tyte jdm club and all the people that dont know are not invited into their apex powered circle jerk.

And most of them drive rusted NA doo-doo stains that are 3 colors, and are slower than dirt but are still oh so cool since they are :omg: rotary powered. But there still a lot of information over there and a bunch of good guys among the bad that actually do know what they are talking about and actually have nice, fast FC's. Oh and the for sale sections is filled with the worst low-balling jewbagels I've ever seen on a forum. I remember I tried to sell my brand new KYB AGX's and Tanabe GF210's for 400 bucks , they had 50 miles on them, and I bought them for 500+ , the first offer I got was 250 shipped. How the fluck are you going to try to jew a jew, some people have no decency. /end rant

But yeah Rx7's are cool, if you plan to get into them make sure you do a lot of reading and if you plan to mod for straight line speed stay away from anything NA rotary becuase they are dead slow in anything bigger than an FB unless you plan to crack it open and go Chuck Norris on it.

Or just buy a cheap turbo FC shell and throw an ls1 in it as mentioned. For about 10k total you will have a car that excels in basically everything while being dead reliable and getting awesome gas mileage with all the handling prowess of the rx7 chassis.

like i said i do not know that much about rotaries yet and i was just asking a serious question obviously if i were to buy an rx-7 i would do more research on them ,but it's not like just because i don't know that much about them it will blow up it'll just be harder for me to fix but that's why there's resources out there like this site...
my friend had a S5 FC that he just recently sold that was his first car and before he bought it knew nothing about rotaries and by the time he sold it knew almost everything there was...
so if your going to post serious advice on this thread than i would really appreciate it cuz i've seen ur posts and u probably no more about rotaries than anyone else on here but if ur just gonna talk shjt than don't bother

i realize that but that's the case with almost any car that is modded and driven hard, obviously with an older car this is very true but i'm willing to accept that to own a car that i'm going to race, mod, etc. it is going to have to be fixed every now and then

didnt wanna come off harsh im sorry bro, but, i see a lot of rotaries at my work that run like **** and its only bc the owner doesnt kno/ care about keeping the engine in check. there are a few but crucial things to keep an eye on (oil level, engine temp, etc etc) and no one cares so they engines are dying and i take it personally so its hard for me to see someone who knows nothing want to go out and get a rotary bc i cringe for the future aftermath.

dont take it persoanlly, im sure ull do ur reasearch its just that im so used to the other 99% of ppl who buy rotaries and dont give two ****s what an oil metering pump is and two months later the engine wont start.

ALL rotaries arent bad, they become bad by the owners, i have 30k on my rx8 and it runs better now than new. but just to tell u my own advice would be not to bother with one, the supra is the safer choice....

Get that ignition problem sorted then. :wink: j/k

I vote supra too, you can run 500 hp on the stock bottom end. The 7M is a great engine, but it's a bit overshadowed by the simply awesome JZ series.

I Piced The Supra
Reasons:

1. Targa, Love Open Top, And Very Rare.

2. Back Seats

3. Love Torq. Even Though It's Heavy You'll Get Use To It.

4. Comfort.

5. Future 2jzgte Swap. The Ultimate Sleeper.

BUT I STILL CAN'T SLEEP AT NIGHT. I STILL CAN'T SAY ONE IS BETTER THAN THE OTHER. I LIKE RARE OLDSCHOOL CARS. THE ONLY REASON THESE 2 ARE UNDER RATED IS THEIR NEXT GEN'S WERE SO BAD ASS.

(MOST.) PEOPLE EXPECT TO GET SPANKED BY A MK4 TURBO SUPRA OR A FD TURBO RX7. BUT THE 80' GEN THEY SOMETIMES GET OVERCONFIDENT.:mrgreen:

THE REAL REASON WHY I PICKED TOYOTA WAS I SAW IT FIRST:thumbup:

would you mind dumping the caps it's hard to read. also, you can edit a post rather than post a second right after. it's a waste

Sorry, I am a newbie but, I'm a fast learner.
Next thing I gotta do is mastering spelling.
:afro:

Oh and one more thing. Other than the f@ggotry that goes on at rx7club. I've met awesome people in the FC community. I've met Jerry that posts here with his really nice and clean silver FC. I've met this older guy thats probably in his lower 60's that has a mint one owner S5 rx7 and he told me stories of playing with NSX"s on the highway, etc.

For the most part all the older, more mature owners are awesome. Its all the young kids that get into FC's because they are dirt cheap, blow them the **** up and thus leave that omg rotary is teh sux0rs because I'm too stupid to mod it right because I have the competence level of a 2-bit ADHD crack whore stigma that goes around. If you are willing to do it right the first time then it usually works out fine.

Oh and if you plan to buy an NA rex and swap the TII into it. You have to swap out the whole driveline so the trans, the driveshaft, and the rear end with axels with ofcourse a complete TII motor. But in all honesty its all pretty easy and easy as **** to get to. You can drop the rear in under 10 minutes with air tools , driveshaft is splines on one side and 4 bolts to the diff , trans is a mount with a few bolts and about 8 bolts on the bellhousing. And the engine weighs jack ****, with one other person I've easily lifted short blocks into the back of pickup trucks , a full long block is doable with some straining. Plus most 13b's have this nice fancy hook smack in the middle of the engine that you can attach the cherry picker to and yank your lemon out.

PM me if you get an FC, I got parts to sell lol.

I forgot to mention Supramania.com if you're going the supra route. sign up and start learning what you're getting into. Tons of info there, as well as some 600+ 7ms. 2 guys are running over 820 through their 7mgtes on slipping clutches.

Both cars have the advantage of well designed engine bays, and are fairly easy to work on if you know what you're doing. Alot of good info there regarding the 1jz/2jz engine swaps as well.

I like the RX-7 (I've owned one) but I think the Supra is a safer choice.

i agree with 9ball and ALL of what arkadyzv has said.....arks statements about the damn kids moddin fcs and not knowin what they are doin is the number one reason why rotaries have a bad rep. they boost the **** out of em and they lean out and go bye bye.....and 9ball said the supra is the safer choice and its true....


SUPRA



SUPRA
SUPRAAAAAAAAAAA

I am one of those guys you speak of on supra mania

I tried to join supramania but it just keeps saying "registration disabled by admin." any ideas?

i agree with the fact the supra is the safer choice and that is what i am leaning towards but it's pretty much whichever one i can find a good deal that's nearby (nj), good condition,etc. then i'm not going to pass it up especially b/c it's so hard to find these cars in good condition in this area... if anyone comes across a good deal on one of these cars post the link


also should i completly rule out importing b/c almost all of the good deals on very good condition cars are at japanese export companies... how much would it be on top of the price of the car to bring it over here and make it pass inspection?
here is the reaosn for me wanting to import:
http://www.carontrack.com/toyota/supra/006.shtml

^^for that price that is the cleanest supra i've seen and it's a JZA70 (came stock w/ 1jz)
If i did not do that i would eventually do a 1jz swap on my own...

btw I am not ruling out the rx7 still looking at them just leaning towards the supra

id say an mk3 supra. Easy to make power. there pretty reliable except for the head gasket issue...mainly because the factory head bolt torque is 55 ft lbs. But when you fix that. put a bigger turbo on it they fly. My 89 that i sold to a friend went 13.3 @ 104 on the stock 175k motor with a leaky head gasket, street tires full 3 inch, intake, boost controller at 15psi. clutch, ic pipes, and a hks vpc. Sold it to a friend and it got a phr t67,50mm wg,680cc inj. greddy manifold. On 17psi it was useless though 3rd yeah 17 lol. My other friend did a ebay t70. On 15psi he went 13.0@118 with a 2.7 60 foot... There sweet cars...love those ma70s

DO NOT go the import route if you ever want to be able to drive the car. You will lose the car indefinitely at customs unless it's shipped as parts, since it will not be able to pass emissions/inspection. Plus, the customs costs on a working motor vehicle are 100% its assessed value, not listed value (so the seller can't say you bought it for 50, and the taxes are gone, they'll assess its value for you at customs). Then IF you can find a place to do the legalization, it'll cost another 6-10k+ to get them legal. I don't know whether crash tests were done to the jza70s as they were the r32/4 skylines so you may have to import more cars to get crash testing and legalizing done for you. You'ld be in for more than 25k just to try and legalize it, and may never be able to. Not to mention it'ld need a vin number conversion, and other mods to just come close to passing the visual part of the inspection (assuming you got to this point, and the shop doesnt look at the engine--which wont pass emissions either without an egr)

If you want to go the 1jz route, buy a jdm imported engine, and rebuild it prior to ever even starting it. And do the swap yourself. There are refs. with pictures to help with this if you're unsure. Otherwise you run the risk of getting an engine that dies early on. It's not common with 1jzs but it's possible to get an engine like this. If you can get by, find the cheapest NON RUSTY body you can on a mk3, engine condition not important if you're doing the swap asap. Otherwise scour craigslist and ebay. You may need to drive 100-200 miles to find the right car, but there are some in the area available.

But please, for your own sake, forget about importing them. It's not going to work.

that's pretty much what i figured it's just that's(car in the link i posted) such a good deal so i figured i would ask anyway

Witch do you prefer:roll:

Hardtop
convertable
sunroof
targa

that might help. If you like open top rx7's convertables are non-turbo

hardtop, sunroof, or targa... not a big convertable fan

If yo like bigger cars with torq get a supra freind and go turbo supra.

smaller cars great handeling find rx7 guru's make him your freinds an get a t2 sunroof.

if you go na, get a 7. It will be dificult driving a na supra. trust me.

with the na 7 you can say " I'm porting it and auto crossing it."

with the supra... you can say your builting it up for autox but it's a supra .

i'm preety sure i'm gonna go with the supra either factory turbo and build that motor up or get a cheap na and put a 1jz in and build that

You know I have a supra just waiting for you sitting outside of my house right now..9psi and is probably making about 275whp..GOOD headgasket:) 3500 and it's yours:)
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d4...IMG_1416-1.jpg

Quote of the year, LOL. Go with the Supra. At least when it comes down to doing the headgasket, you can replace it with a cometic or other good brand and not have to worry about it again for a very long time. The apex seals...I love the 7, but nothing hurts more than seeing something richocet backwards in your rearview mirror after a big misfire.

Both cars should be fun. I don't have any experience with Supra's and I wouldn't mind owning one myself. Rotaries are reliable as long as you maintain them and stay on top of them. Like all cars anything will break if not taken car of. Most rotaries I see break are from poor build, tuning and owners. Lately I have seen that some have been destroying there trannies, clutches or diffs(3rd gen).


I find it easy to work on the FC. Everything is easy to get to, there is a decent aftermarket for the car and with drifting getting bigger there are more companies making parts for them now. Good thing about living in this area is that if you don't feel comfortable working on your FC or not sure how to work on it there is some good companies in the area that can help you.

i wouldnt use an mk3 for a DD but then again neither would a rx7

Good point.

How ironic is it that I am selling this supra to rebuild my series 5 13b turbo engine for my RX7 lol...