The problems with the 13BT were motor born some, but the major problems with those engines and the FD's were the price point and the design. Before anyone flips...i'll explain.
The worst thing you can do to a Rotary is let it sit. You let them sit, and all sorts of shit starts going wrong with them. With the ridiculously high price point when they came out, $40k plus, you had people buying them as weekend cars, you had them buying them for toys, or for investments. They stuff them into a garage for months, then get into them and head out the driveway to hit boost and blow the carbon out...pop. Saw it numerous times.
Then the fact that if you ran the shit out of them, the design of the car, especially the poor underhood ventillation, caused the cool little vital things like hoses to become brittle and pop, wiring harnesses to become brittle and split and pretty much anything that was rubber under the hood to go to shit.....you have failures related to that too.
So you were either damned if you did, damned if you didn't. I know both ends of them, 2 personally. My 93 with the Automatic had 135,000 miles on it, still going strong. It was owned by a lady in Florida, drove it daily, let it warm up and it was great.
My 93 R1, built by Pettit Racing however....not so good. First motor popped a coolant bypass seal, second motor..same thing, third motor popped an apex and the fourth was just shit from the get go.
But when they ran....they ran like hell. So i'd be happy for them to come out with a new 7....but it's the same as the legend of Loch Ness....yea, it's there according to some folks, but it really isn't.
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