The Beginning of the RX-7 Turbo II

About 4 years ago I paid off my first car, a maroon ’87 RX-7 SE. There was nothing wrong with the car except that the paint was starting to fade on the sunroof. I was reading on the RX-7 forum all the time looking for projects to start with this car. Since it had an NA (naturally aspirated) engine, there wasn’t much I could do to it compared to the Turbo model. So I started reading more and more about Turbo II RX-7s. Mostly about what I could mod on it with my small budget and still get some horsepower gains. Meanwhile, my friends Nate and Gabe started looking for Turbo II cars for sale on the Internet. They found some nice ones, but they were either too pricy or too far away, and I was still reading up on the TIIs. Each day looking at the ones for sale and learning about them made me want to trade/sell my current RX-7 and get the turbo model even more.

Finally, Nate found a white ’88 RX-7 Turbo II for sale in Joplin, MO. The owner wanted to sell it within a week so he could buy a newer faster car ASAP. Nate said that he would go with me to pick the car up, if I did end up buying it. After seeing the picture of the car,

emailing the owner back and forth for a day finding out info, and giving him a call to talk about it, I was like, I want to buy this car. I asked about all the things I’ve read on the forum that usually are bad on these cars (mostly electrical problems), and it didn’t seem to be showing any signs or symptoms, so the wheels started turning. How am I going to get money for this car? When am I going to be able to make the trip across MO this week? How am I going to sell my current car? At that time I was already talking to Gabe’s brother-in-law, Kevin, for a few weeks about buying my current car, so I already had a possible buyer. I talked to Kevin again the next day and see if he could buy it that week, and I also got to the bank for a loan for the price of the new (to me) car.

Everything seemed to be working out. I made arrangements with the owner to meet him that weekend, look at the car, and most likely, buy it. I told Nate that I was going to pick up the car and told him to get ready to go. He already had plans that weekend, so he backed out. I still tease him about it sometimes that he promised me he would pick up the car with me. J Since Nate couldn’t go, Gabe and I planned on making the long trip. We thought we could drive from central Illinois to the other side of Missouri and back in one day. It was a hot day, and we rode for along time with the windows down because I thought the air didn’t work. This was another funny part of the trip. Really, it worked, but it didn’t work that well in stop and go traffic I drove to work in every day.

We drove through St. Louis on the way:



I brought my camera, but must have been camera shy because this is one of the only pictures I took. It was still pretty hot out, so we decided to try the air at high speeds. Of course it worked fine. Gabe still teases me about that sometimes. Finally, after some St. Louis traffic and a few road construction slow-downs, we made it to Joplin.

We talked a few minutes to the car’s owner and his dad, and found out that the bank would be closing within the hour since we had arrived later than we planned. Gabe and I took a quick look at the car, and the only disappointing thing about it was that it had been in a wreck. That was one of my questions that he had danced around, but now that I’d come all this way, he told me about it. It had a 2-year-old paint job on it, so everything outside was looking good. There were some spots in the engine bay that didn’t get as fixed as they could have, but I was already in love. I didn’t care. We had been on the road for 8 HOURS and I wanted to take my baby for a spin. On the test drive, I could tell that it already was a lot faster than my current car. I probably scared the kid a little, and I wasn’t even driving as hard as the rotaries like it, up to 7-8K on the tachometer. I kept it to 5-6K just to let the turbo boost for a few seconds. When the test drive was done, we had to rush to the bank to get a notary to sign a bill of sale and transfer the title.

Finally, the car was mine!!! The seller was even nice enough to fill up my gas tank on the way out of town. I was driving the new white Turbo II and Gabe got to drive the maroon SE back. St. Louis was only about 5 hours away. Since it was already late in the afternoon, we called our friend in St. Louis to see if we could hang out with him that night and finish the trip home in the morning. I don’t see how truck drivers do it. I guess it would be more of a luxury ride in the big rig than in the compact sport cars. And it was fun taking turns following each other home in the RX-7s. It probably looked pretty cool to people when they saw two sweet-looking sports cars pass them.

We got back home the next day, and there was still one piece of the puzzle to sort out. Who was going to buy the SE so I could pay for the TII? I talked to Kevin a week later, and he was ready to buy the SE. We settled on a price, and the car was his. Remember that Kevin bought this car because it is another funny story.

I’ve got the new car now, so what am I going to do with it? Here’s a couple teaser pictures: before and after shots of the first thing I did to the car on my budget mods.


Before: White Wipers


After: Black Wipers