Motor Fan has published a feature on an FD3S Mazda RX-7 that has been with the same owner for more than twenty years, and has spent most of that time being changed a little at a time rather than built all at once.
Long before he could afford one, the owner had already decided that his first car would be an FD3S. Per the feature, he saved through part-time work and bought a Series 5 car shortly after starting his first full-time job. It is still the same car.
From wheel swaps to a side-port 13B-REW
The car stayed largely standard through his first few years of ownership. As translated from the Japanese-language feature, he recalls: "At the time I was satisfied just driving it" — a set of wheels, weekend drives, little else. What changed the trajectory was a failure: the engine developed trouble and needed repair. Faced with paying for the work anyway, he decided that if the engine was coming apart, it might as well come back faster. The car was subsequently rebuilt with a side-ported engine and a TO4S turbocharger.
The current specification has moved on from there. The rotary is now a side-ported FEED Nürburgring-spec 13B-REW, and the TO4S has been replaced by a Turbosmart TS-1 5862. The feature gives the output as 470 PS (roughly 464 hp) and 52 kgm (roughly 376 lb-ft). The build also includes extensive cooling work, among it an offset-mounted radiator — changes aimed at heat management, a central consideration on a modified turbocharged rotary.
The chassis has been worked in the same incremental direction: added spot welding and a pillar bar for stiffness, FEED F09 Pro Maoh Spec coilovers, Endless MONO4 calipers at the front with big rotors at the rear, and Advan Racing RS-DF wheels.
Built for the street it actually sees
The bodywork is an Afflux GT3 wide-body kit, but the owner deliberately left the GT wing off and kept the factory Series 5 rear wing. The decision reflects his stated preference for balancing performance with street-friendly looks and comfort.
"Performance matters, of course," he says in the feature. "But I don't want to compromise on looks or comfort either. I only do a few track days a year — mainly it's a street car. There are times I'm just cruising, so I chose a quiet titanium exhaust."
That last detail is the tell. A 470 PS side-ported 13B-REW with a deliberately quiet exhaust is a car specified around how it is actually used, not around a dyno printout — and the same logic runs through the chassis list, where the stiffening, brakes and coilovers serve a car that spends most of its time on the road.
Turbocharged rotaries are, as a class, maintenance-intensive engines; what a thorough inspection of one involves is visible in RE Amemiya's 13B-REW teardown, though the feature does not describe this car's service history. More than two decades after buying it, the owner still treats the RX-7 as a work in progress — and says he has yet to grow tired of it. For enthusiasts watching the RX-7 market from abroad, it is a reminder that many surviving FD3Ss are still with long-term owners who keep refining them.