FAO all S15 drivers..

[Pierscoe1]

I'm trying to decide between an S15, and an FD RX7..

have any of you driven both for a decent ammount of time??

could you share any comparisons?

any of that kind of info would be great..

comparisons between the S15 and any other performance cars you've driven..

Thanks all

Piers

[Nicely]

Personally, I'd get an S15 without having driven either. But that's just me.... :D

[superclarkey]

Can't say i've driven an S15 but that would be my dream car :smitten:

[stevec]

I have driven and owned a 415 bhp R33 GTR vspec,
300+ bhp RS13,
S15 with base stage 1 mods
Pug 205 GTI
Primera GT

The listdoes go on but degrades somewhat ! the Sklyine is without doubt faster than anything I have had, but only a bit in the useable areas...

Let me explain, The Skyline was insane from 0-30 mph then totally bonkers from 120+
but the S15 would have been with it from 30-120 mph then it runs out of puff compared to the big six cylinder RB.

Corners, the S15 is superb..... for a rwd car, in the dry it is predictable and grippy, in the wet it is predictable and not grippy, you know the back end is about to go just before it does,,, wether this is just experience after driving it for 15 months or it is communicative is hard to say.

Braking, the brakes are great, they have some sort of emergency assist if you bang them on hard, and normally they are like 300zx brakes on my S13.

gearbox... 6 speeds, there is a coorect gear for every corner, but it forgives you if you get it wrong, because the turbo is not laggy you can almost drive it like an NA car.
in higher gears it is quite laggy, I.e if you are in 6th and should be in 3rd but if you ask it sensible questions it is responsive.

seating... bit of a let down. 4 normal bodied adults are extremely uncomfortable in it.
It is fine if you have children as the legroom is ok for under 10's or so.

boot space. ok for a couple of bags, a weeks worth of shopping or 2 sets of golf clubs and shoes etc..

Image. People have no idea what it is. it commands attention and gets it everywhere, especially if you give it some, it sounds nice..

I have seen an indicated 145 mph on a test track still pulling hard, looked like it would have done 165-170 if the track hadn't run out, and estimate 0-60 as low 5 seconds maybe a touch under but it is difficult to get grip for a spirited start.

:Plug:
If you decide to get one, I have a chap interested in mine so it may not be around for long... I'm asking 12.5k ono for mine at the moment it is going in Jap performance for 14.5 ono :Plug:

cheers
Steve

[arry]

seating... bit of a let down. 4 normal bodied adults are extremely uncomfortable in it.
It is fine if you have children as the legroom is ok for under 10's or so.

boot space. ok for a couple of bags, a weeks worth of shopping or 2 sets of golf clubs and shoes etc..


So it pisses of the RX7 there then!!! :D

[stevec]

sounds that way fella !!

;)

[muttley]

The S15 comands a better reaction because there are less of them in the country :thumbs:

[glens14a]

Have a mate who got a RX after driving my s14a he wanted a s15 but at the time could not find one. The RX is an import with mods from Japan and is hella quick running 13.1sec 1/4 in the damp, but he has had so much problems with it which seems to be the norm with them. I have drove the car and it is a monster but i still prefer the drive in my s14a and if i could change to a s15 i defo would.

[Meddy]

Not sure if money comes into it but I was toying with the idea of an RX7 before I settled on importing a S15. I was disuaded (spelling?) from the RX7 as the insurance qoute I had was £1980 compared to 1040 for the S15. Im 27 with 5 years no claims and 6pts.

[arry]

and the fact that an RX7 needs an engine build every 60k miles @ £2k+ each time ;)
For me that's a build EVERY 2 years! I'd shit myself to own one

[Rob-S13]

arry you have a rebuild every month!

[Phill]

Also RX's are scarily poor on fuel!

[Martin T]

As a car - the rx7 is great! As a vehicle to own they are total sh1tters.
The one advantage the w@nkel engine has is its weight. Thats it :indiff:
It is shitter than a piston engine in every other way unfortunately :(
Sh1t on fuel
Sh1t on reliability
Sh1t on servicing
Sh1t for tuning
sh1t for costs to get work done as no fecker will touch one!

I would dearly love to have one if I had the kind of money to own one but there is allways a better car for the costs involved :(
i.e. Amazing car if you dont have to pay the bills.
The engines are expected to wear out FFS and they use compression testers (or occiloscopes if they want to do it properly) to work how many miles the engine has left FFS!

[garethbrunt]

As a person who has driven both my own S15 and a very well sorted RX-7 (Miguel's of Newera Imports) as well as being around these cars each day for work, I have to say, I disagree with some comments here.

The RX-7 has no cams, no pistons, no timing belt, etc. No reciprocating parts.. With fewer moving parts, it vibrates less than a conventional piston engine and with less parts needing modification, actually a rotary is a lot more easily tuned than a conventional piston engine. You can't simply slap on a large turbo onto an SR20 and increase fueling and mapping - to get the results that can be gotten from doing same to a 13B rotary engine.

I have bought my S15 because I love the shape and tunability of the car and because I like the idea of a challenge to make my car quicker than Miguel's RX-7.... I know I'm going to have to spend more money than I would have done on an RX-7 to make it equially quick...but I like a challenge.

Miguel's RX-7 is thrashed every weekend, and I mean "thrashed". It comes back from a run with glowing red hot turbos and has just had it's AP racing brakes replaced with Ferrari F50 Brembos because it kept breaking the Ap Racing discs... In 3 years of hard driving, it's engine has been completely reliable. A rotary needs to be kept cool - and Miguel's is built to run as cool as it can get, inclusive of 2 massive oil coolers, water injection, huge radiator and intercooler....

Try driving a standard engined Skyline as quick as this RX-7 (Standard engine) and I would be it would break well before the Rex. Mazda have been building rotaries for over 40 years, so they know how to make them reliable.

A well looked after and understood RX-7 is reliable. Poor examples that have been abused and not looked after suffer like any other car.

I have a lot of respect for the RX-7 and seriously considered getting one myself - but I didn't want to emulate - I wanted to innovate!!
So my plan is to make Miguel's RX-7 dissapear into the distance as I improve my S15.....

Gareth.

[Pierscoe1]

thanks for all the replies..

maybe a little bit of a biased forum here!?!? ;) to be expected I guess.. :D

thanks especially to Gareth.. Exactly what I was after... and also has made the decision as clear as mud for me.. thanks! ;)