I was at dinner the other night with a group of fellow job interviewees, and during some lulls in conversation at my table I overheard a guy at the other table saying "....they shoulda made up their minds, is it a 2-door or a 4-door?...no torque...255hp...manual..." I presumed he was pooh-poohing the RX-8 and was talking about an RX-7, so I got up and went over to find out what they were talking about.

Sure enough, this one other fella has (or had) a last-generation RX-7 Turbo and thinks the RX-8 isn't worth the metal it's stamped from. Our conversation was very brief as I didn't really feel like "getting into it", but one thing he did say is that his car routinely got 29-30mpg on the highway, it was only around town that the mileage plummeted.

Now, I may never see that fella again so this isn't for purposes of "pwning him", but is that realistic or was he trying to put one over on me? Would a turbocharged FD really do 30mpg on the highway?

 

no

 

according to msn autos the 95 Mazda rx7 got 17 city and 25 highway. It got 255hp with the twin turbo 1.3L rotary.

While the rx7 is an awesome car i absolutely love it. It could never be my daily driver like my 8 can its just not as practical. Thats why the rx8 wasn't branded as an rx7, its just 2 cars from similar roots for 2 different purposes.

The renensis meets todays emissions standards creates almost as much HP as the fd engine without turbos and gets slightly better gas mileage.

 

I don't recall ever getting better than 22-23mpg on the highway in either my FC turbo or FD...of course, this is dependant on how fast you're driving/rpms.

 

Yeah, I saw that, I was just wondering if the "real world" mileage was somehow better. You get a lot of people on the web claiming that their mileage is mysteriously higher than the EPA numbers, but usually this comes from owners of VW diesels and Toyota Priuses (Prius', maybe?), where they're getting up to 10mpg better than the sticker after some bogus-sounding modifications (or NO modifications, the owners are just so damned good at driving in an efficient manner and we should all in their almost-Godly presence).

In any case, 29-30mpg in a TT RX-7 sounded a li'l suspicious to me, thus my asking the question.

 

^yeah it really depends on how hard you rev it.

One of Mazda's quotes was 37.2 mpg at a steady 56mph.

 

You'll find my RX-7 owners don't have much love for the RX-8. The 3rd gen would average about 18/24 mileage wise but you could get them up to about 26 or so if you were really easy on it. That's so hard to do in that car though. In the 2nd gen RX-7's, the Turbo II's didn't get very good gas mileage and mine hovered around 17/20 due to the poorly spinning restrictive turbo. My nonturbo with some mods was capable of hitting 30 on the highway. My best ever was about 27 mpg highway but I also never really tried to get more. I used to drive faster than necessary. I could have bumped it up. I was also able to get 20 mpg in the city.

 

Not all third gen owners look down on the RX8. I absolutely love the RX8 and plan to get one when my MX6 dies. I will always keep my 95 RX7 but I do really like the RX8. As far as gas mileage, I can generally (staying off the boost) get about 23-24 MPG on the highway. That is with a single turbo and alot of other mods. Keep in mind that if I keep getting on the boost then I will probably sink into the single digits for MPG.

 

I actually had a spelling error in there. For some reason I was trying to type the word "many" but only 2 letters came out so it reads "my". Many RX-7 owners, at least on the 7 forum, don't like the RX-8. Of course that doesn't speak for all of them.

 

I own both- they're 2 very different, but both great cars, IMO. The only time I ran all highway miles with the FD (over a dozen years ago) it returned 25 mpg; that was at speeds averaging somwhere around 75 I'd say. 30 mpg would really be pushing it; I'd say it might be attainable if traveling 55mph directly behind a semi's draft.

 

I know a lot of FC TIIs and FDs. Few of them can break into the 20mpgs, and NONE into the 30s. The guy was full of it. My own FC TII was barely able to do 300 miles with one tank, so even 20mpg was a fantasy. It was more like 15mpg or around this mark...
As for the specs, both the last gens (turbo-ed) were easily faster than the RX8, but then again they were clasified in a different category than the RX8....

 

The published mag times for a stock 2nd gen FC turbo was actually a little slower than the RX-8.

Anyway, getting back to the question at hand, when I owned my 3rd gen RX-7 I could give a rats a$$ about mpg. So I have no idea.

 

When I had my `93 FD-R1 I got 22 mpg and drove mostly highway mileage. The final gearing was about the same but it weighed 200 lbs less and had a lower drag coefficient and I'm sure less xsection so I'm not suprised that it got a little better than the 8 cruising on the highway.

 

leaned out FD can get 30 mpg or was it an FC... i don t remember peoples cars anymore. I m pretty sure it was an FD though. Just throwing that out there.

 

low 20's is the best i have ever got from my fd and my fc, and 17 mpg in my 20b cosmo in hiway and babyng it

 

The highest rotary mileage I'e ever seen anyone get was on the freeway in a nonturbo 2nd gen RX-7. It was very possible to get upper 20's if you tried hard enough and had the right exhaust work. It did make a difference on that car.

 

NO--this is from a previous 93 Montego Blue highway driving FD owner.

 

i have an FD i just got that im fixing up. and those numbers dont seem to realistic

 

Yeah, I'll take one of each. And 30 MPG in my FD....never!!

 

My 91 FC na got around 460 to 500 miles on a tank with hwy driving.