I do my own wrenching, so i am not afraid to tackle both cars if a mechanical failure occured. My budget is 10k dollars. Here in Fl you can still find some pretty nice FDs from the 7k range and up,maybe a tad bit more miles, but I am not afraid of miles as long as the vehicle was taking care of. from the 10k-20k range most FD's will be flawless , stock with low miles, or flawless and modded to the gills.

My 05 RX-8 has 122k miles on her , brought her brand new and have never had any mechanical issues with her. I do all the maitnance myself and drive her hard but not to the point of being abusive, to say the least she gets a good workout when I am behind the wheel.

The FD i checked out last night looked way better in the pictures than in person. Guy was asking 9k but it was in ok condition. The outside severly needed a wax job,terrible paint chips on the front end, the interior was cracking all over the place , the dash and the seats . The car ran , but the guy did a hack job on the wire harness . The only real positive on the car was that the car drove extremely well, and the motor was healthy and pulled very stong with 110k miles on her. I offered 7k cash for it, he declined, oh well....

 

You can do your own wrenching but consider the number of vacuum hoses...
Troubleshooting that section and working on them is a pity with a car lift, imagine what it can be without one and be prepared!
I would do a simplified sequential turbo vacuum setup to reduce their number using new hoses as soon as possible, and start from there

 

A beat up interior is one thing I will not put up with. Especially cracks on the dash. Bad paint can always be repainted, but replacing interior bits can be a pain and very expensive. And with so few FD's around i imagine nice interior parts must be hard to come by. Good to hear that Florida has so many FD's, here in Connecticut I couldn't find a nice one at a reasonable price.

 

A jacked up interior is almost a deal breaker for me, like you said, the car can be repainted, but to re upolster a new interior or to find interior parts , especially for a rare breed like the FD would be a nightmare and very expensive. The dash must be intact at all cost with any car that i am buying, worn leather/cloth seats are ok, because I know a few people in the industry that could redo them, yet intact would be better.

Are the automatic FDs problematic? There is a clean one for sale , also the guy wants 9000 obo?

 

well ive had 2 mr2's and they are the most fun thing ever to drive intake in that car sound ridiculous at high speeds i miss it plus you still get the wow factor since the engine is in the back and most likely you'll want the t-tops id go for that i love the fd but i was a toyota man before my 8 and id go back if the right mr2 is found again

 

I like the wow factor too, the motor behind me, and the fact that there so much fun to drive. Honestly the FD RX-7 was fun and all, but it felt slightly faster than my RX-8, it had more kick down low for sure, but overall it felt similiar in speed. I was really inspecting more to be honest. Goregeous car either way...

 

Never knew FD's were available in auto. Then again this is the US and you must offer an auto tranny on just about anything you may want to sell here. But it just seems wrong on a car like the FD.

 

no intrest in the 3rd gen mr-2? I test drove one not too long ago. Handled very well but not alot of power. Of course i know swaps have been done with the Toyota V6 from an es/camry/solara. Fun car, around houston there arent alot of FDs and are a rarity

 

Rx7! so much prettier

What did you expect us to say? This is a rotory forum after all