Outside observers could call this a midlife crisis car for me. But they would be wrong - I plan to make multiple crisis purchases in my life. So since this isn't a midlife crisis, I searched for similar words, I saw the phrase "fix pickle jam stew". Which seems to fit.
This story starts back in January, at a build party for the upcoming challenge entry Volvo-Miata. One thing you do at a challenge car build party is you talk about all the engines you currently have in your shop that are esoteric, and bonus points if they also aren't even yours. This will naturally lead the group conversation to rotary engines, and soon you will be in dangerous waters. Because someone might say "I've got an FD with a blown motor, and I don't know what I'm going to do with it".
Dangerous waters, indeed.
Please do not use doritos in your engine.
Omg. I would have bought that sight unseen. If you realize you don't want to take it on, I'll buy it.
Dream car for me.
Oh, glad to see this thread get started 😉
wvumtnbkr said:
Omg. I would have bought that sight unseen. If you realize you don't want to take it on, I'll buy it.
Dream car for me.
I will have to admit that while I wasn't looking for a project, at all, at the time, I was struck by the comment.
The FD is, after all, the first car I started looking at on eBay when I was a kid. Before gran turismo, before tuner magazines, before fast and furious. Hell, I even first learned about the Miata because the RX7 was so cool I started branching out to other Mazdas on eBay's old lookup tool. Add in a dash of memories of the FDs I didn't buy earlier in my life, pour over the other cool car models that I waited too long for them to "just get a little cheaper" (looking at you AC 911 and NSX), and shake vigorously.
So I was interested, but next I had a bigger question for myself - could I actually commit? I definitely didn't want to be a tire kicker or waste a fellow grmer's time. This would also be a whole new level of project for me, I'm comfortable with challenge budget play cars, but this wouldn't be that. It would also mean dropping an existing project or two.
I decided to sleep on it, to see if it changed how I felt. For 2 whole weeks I couldn't shake the idea. Many of the people in my life were supporting me going for it, so I decided to ask if it was for sale.
I believe the seller did some soul searching as well, but I got a response back via email that a deal could be made. I went to look at the car, found it to be in very nice shape overall (with notable exception that the engine is very likely toast). I started work on putting plans in place for retrieving.
And the weekend finally arrived!
The RX7 is nice enough that I didn't want to smother it with road salt on an open trailer in the winter in the Midwest. So that meant renting an enclosed. But the trailer rental requires a 3/4 ton or bigger when renting their big enclosed trailers, so I also needed to find a truck. Luckily, my wife's uncle lives relatively close and is a truck guy, so he covered me there.
Between driving to pickup the truck, then trailer, then car, then home, the returning trailer, then truck, then home, I turned 8 hours of driving into probably 16. It definitely would have been cost effective to simply ship the car home, but to be quite honest I'm not sure I'd be able to trust anyone else to load it safely (yes, this is not a rational stance).
Even better than loading your own car however, is getting some friends to help you load and enjoying pizza with a bunch of fun car guys. So that's what we did.
From here
to here (I didn't plan the red, I swear):
To here:
and finally here:
We're now home safe and sound.
Jelly of you Jam.
Are we learning how to rebuild a rotary or shop for JDM goodness or...2JZ...K...LS...
Oh good, I can finally share these from the weekend:
No doubt grabbing those parts for me added a good deal to your 16 hour day. Thanks again for getting them. As always, it was great hanging out with fellow GRMer's.
Great car 
. Awesome seller 👍
I'm going to live vicariously through you. I've always wanted one of those!
docwyte
UltimaDork
3/19/25 9:28 a.m.
FD's are such timelessly pretty cars.
I maintain that a rotary in nearly any condition will start and run if you spin it fast enough.
