Got the news yesterday – the seals are blown on the front rotor of the RX-7. Bugger. Will cost around $3k to fix as it involves pulling the motor apart, fixing what needs to be done inside and putting it all back together again. Similar concept to stuffed rings on a piston in a “normal” engine but much harder to repair.
I have great luck with vehicles, no? :)
A replacement 12A engine will cost about $1,500 plus about $500 to install, so it’s cheaper but then you don’t know when that motor will stuff up. At least if they pull apart the current one and fix it, it’s going to last (yeah, right :)
Greg from Holdies did some calling around and found a turbo charged, fuel injected 12A motor for $1,600 – bit tempting but it’d cost another $800 or so to install it and change the rest of the systems to work with it. Then you’d still wonder how long it’d last (has a 6 month warranty which is a plus).
Decided that I’ll go ahead and get it fixed so I called Brad at Rank Rotaries and he’s going to pull it apart, figure what’s wrong with it and give me a better quote to get it all sorted out.
Could be a couple of very lean months coming up…