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I would 't run it without a header. Your ears will bleed. That's not a joke. Not to mention you will burn any paint and possibly the rubber brake lines on the right side of your car. Rotaries are bar none the loudest IC engine on the planet. (I'm not gonna count pulse jets as an engine)
As for the no fire are you running points or electric ignition? Lay the plugs and wires on a bare metal surface in the engine bay, spin the engine over and you should get a spark show. If you have electronic ignition check the J-109 connectors on the side of the distributer sometimes they get loose and it will cause a "no spark" scenario. There is also a fuse in the fuse box that you can check if you are getting nothing at the spark plugs.
I would 't run it without a header. Your ears will bleed. That's not a joke. Not to mention you will burn any paint and possibly the rubber brake lines on the right side of your car. Rotaries are bar none the loudest IC engine on the planet. (I'm not gonna count pulse jets as an engine)
As for the no fire are you running points or electric ignition? Lay the plugs and wires on a bare metal surface in the engine bay, spin the engine over and you should get a spark show. If you have electronic ignition check the J-109 connectors on the side of the distributer sometimes they get loose and it will cause a "no spark" scenario. There is also a fuse in the fuse box that you can check if you are getting nothing at the spark plugs.
I didn't want to run it for long just wanted to make sure I had everything hooked up right.
I will check the ignition tomorrow when I get home. Question though the 2 holes below the exhaust port are for what? The 2 that kind of angle in towards each other. I have a timing light and a spark tester I will check I may have just missed something. LIKE THE MAIN GROUND... lol It happens. Taking the radiator to get it repaired I think 50 bucks... Thats a pretty good deal.
Oh and its electronic ignition. I have a spare set of ignitors and a dizzy just in case.
Ok, I took the inspection plate off of the transmission turned the engine until the flat part of the flywheel was parallel with the exhaust side of the rotor housing. Checked the pulley marks and I'm on the leading mark on that pulley. Checked the rotor and the arrow is pointing to the L1 plug. Pulled the dizzy re-checked to make sure i was line to dot and stabbed it back in still pointing to L1. I tried and tried and could not get the damn thing to fire. Its getting spark on all 4 wires both leading and trailing.
I hear its impossible to install the rotors wrong.. Is that correct?
Starting to wonder if i didn't f*&k up my carb by stripping it. Side note I picked up some acid core solder and finally got the radiator squared away. 3.95 fix for the win.. No leaks at all now.
Ok I took the inspection plate off of the transmission turned the engine until the flat part of the flywheel was parallel with the exhaust side of the rotor housing. Checked the pulley marks and I'm on the leading mark on that pulley. Checked the rotor and the arrow is pointing to the L1 plug. Pulled the dizzy re-checked to make sure i was line to dot and stabbed it back in still pointing to L1. I tried and tried and could not get the damn thing to fire. Its getting spark on all 4 wires both leading and trailing.
I hear its impossible to install the rotors wrong.. Is that correct?
No, you can install them wrong. The early rotarys had a Front and a Rear rotor. That isn't your issue though. You're getting fuel on the spark plugs? Then the carb's doing its job.
I don't know what you're doing with the flywheel. I use the front pulley. Its marked for TDC and there is a nub of wire (I don't know what else to call the nub) on the front cover. Line up the notch on the front pulley to the nub; then stick the distributer in its hole. With the cap removed from the distributer twist it till the Leading pickup is dead on the leading rotor's sender.
If you are getting any spark what so ever you should be hearing noises. Like hellatious backfiring or other engine stumblings. Just toss some spare sparkplugs in the wires (they don't even have to be from a rotary) and see if they light up.
If you have ignition you can always use some "love juice" to get it started. THIS IS BAD ADVICE AND NOT A GOOD THING, but it works ...... Toss a cap full of oil in the carb. It gives the engine a little extra compression for the first time start up. But warning its NOT good for the engine and its gonna smoke like a son of a bitch. And if you don't have ignition at all its just gonna muck things up worse.
No, you can install them wrong. The early rotarys had a Front and a Rear rotor. That isn't your issue though. You're getting fuel on the spark plugs? Then the carb's doing its job.
I don't know what you're doing with the flywheel. I use the front pulley. Its marked for TDC and there is a nub of wire (I don't know what else to call the nub) on the front cover. Line up the notch on the front pulley to the nub; then stick the distributer in its hole. With the cap removed from the distributer twist it till the Leading pickup is dead on the leading rotor's sender.
If you are getting any spark what so ever you should be hearing noises. Like hellatious backfiring or other engine stumblings. Just toss some spare sparkplugs in the wires (they don't even have to be from a rotary) and see if they light up.
If you have ignition you can always use some "love juice" to get it started. THIS IS BAD ADVICE AND NOT A GOOD THING, but it works ...... Toss a cap full of oil in the carb. It gives the engine a little extra compression for the first time start up. But warning its NOT good for the engine and its gonna smoke like a son of a bitch. And if you don't have ignition at all its just gonna muck things
up worse.
I thought of this too. It may be the issue all the fuel mist could be from not getting the compression it needs. I will try it tomorrow I mean these things are basically 2 stokes anyhow.. They love oil..
The flywheel has a flat spot on one side. That spot when parallel with the rotor housings flat side means the engine is at tdc from what I read on one of the posts on this forum. When lined up the pointer is on the Leading mark on the pulley. I also pulled the dizzy and lined up the dot to the line on the lower shaft and stuck it back in with the arrow on the rotor pointing at L1 on the cap. So Im pretty sure its dead on time. My pulley still had the raised dot on it and is impossible to install wrong. I have read about nightmare pulley issues with being able to install the pulley 4 different ways. The raised dot corresponds with a hole in the front pulley and cannot be put on wrong. damn it now im second guessing taking off all the emissions ****... Grrrrr Ill try the Love Juice approach next.
"The early rotarys had a Front and a Rear rotor" wasn't aware they were specific to front or rear. I assumed that they both have gears on one side they could be used in either position. Didn't think that they were different other than where they were located previously.
Got this from another site. Guys name is Tool..
Re timing, that photo doesn't mean anything without knowing you've set the base timing correctly i.e. has it been out and it slipped a tooth when it went back in?
You need to check that the dizzy is in the right place when at TDC. I do it like this:
Set the engine at TDC off the pulley marks
Look at the dizzy cap and find L1
Remove the dizzy cap and look at the rotor arm
Is the lower post on the rotor arm (one of the 2 leading plug posts, the one with the arrow on it) pointing where L1 should be?
If yes, then it's in the right place.
If no, pull the dizzy out and put it back in till you answer yes.
From there you can adjust the timing, but you should be somewhere near the middle of the adjustment. You'll ned a timing light.
Do it with the vac advance tubes removed and plugged.
The dish on the rotor faces a certain way. I don't know why Mazda did that, but they did. I don't think it would affect anything too much though. At least not with a "no start" scenario.
Rotaries are 4 strokes; they intake, comress, combust, and exhaust.
Rotaries DO have the worst first start out of any engine I've ever dealt with (and I've torn up Perkin's diesels). They tend to have lower compression on first start and the seals don't pull fuel out of the carb so good. When the seals make there groves in the housings its all good, but till then its a nightmare.
As long as you have ignition it can be done. From what you've described you don't have ignition. Your compression from your video sounded good; I wouldn't believe that to be your issue. And with wet spark plugs I don't think fuel delivery is an issue either.
The dish on the rotor faces a certain way. I don't know why Mazda did that, but they did. I don't think it would affect anything too much though. At least not with a "no start" scenario.
Rotaries are 4 strokes; they intake, comress, combust, and exhaust.
Rotaries DO have the worst first start out of any engine I've ever dealt with (and I've torn up Perkin's diesels). They tend to have lower compression on first start and the seals don't pull fuel out of the carb so good. When the seals make there groves in the housings its all good, but till then its a nightmare.
As long as you have ignition it can be done. From what you've described you don't have ignition. Your compression from your video sounded good; I wouldn't believe that to be your issue. And with wet spark plugs I don't think fuel delivery is an issue either.
I am getting spark though that's the odd thing. My friend that it was popping flames out the exhaust port when I was turning it over. Ill make a short video tomorrow of the entire ignition timing from the flywheel flatspot to the pulley marks, dizzy and rotor. Maybe that will be easier to judge. It sounded like it was going to start once.. But then my jump box went into FU mode and switched off the start assist. My battery is junk but I have another waiting in the wings. Here is the thread on the flat spot on the flywheel.
OH, ok I didn't know you got fire. Then hells yeah, you're on your way.
Don't torque down the distributer. You can't set it and forget it. Another words you're gonna have to try to start it... then move it a **** hair... then try to start it and move it another **** hair. Then once you get it to run its gonna want to die immediately. Get a buddy to give it some gas to keep it alive till you can use your light to straiten the distributer out.
You can always second guess yourself and ask "did I install the distributer drive gear backwards resulting in the car always being 180 off"? JK
OH, ok I didn't know you got fire. Then hells yeah, you're on your way.
Don't torque down the distributer. You can't set it and forget it. Another words you're gonna have to try to start it... then move it a **** hair... then try to start it and move it another **** hair. Then once you get it to run its gonna want to die immediately. Get a buddy to give it some gas to keep it alive till you can use your light to straiten the distributer out.
You can always second guess yourself and ask "did I install the distributer drive gear backwards resulting in the car always being 180 off"? JK
Thats funny when I put the engine together I looked at the drive gear and thought about it for a minute. Then was like its the same either way.. I beginning to think the oil down the hatch will do the trick.
damn I guess its time to get the endoscope back out and check to see if i have the front rotor in the front housing.. FML pretty sure it is but.... Second guessing sucks.. lol
I gently applied some love juice and Grandpa rose from the grave... Running like crap but the carb was way out of adjustment. I have it dialed in a little better now its not running as rough and will now idle on its own. You are correct on the sound of this thing with no exhaust.. WOW I ran it for about 5 minutes while trying to dial in the carb adjustments.. My neighbor thats a Nissan freak comes down and asks me wtf that was... lol Anyhow its running and now I can focus on other things. Also fixed the radiator not leaking at all now so thats a good thing. I think the dude I was getting the header from on this forum has screwed me over... I sent the carb and the money And he has yet to even reply to my email or PM's I'm pretty sure he got me. I paif him on the 28th the carb got to his house on the 2nd. Plus I paid 16 dollars to ship the damn carb. I have nothing not even a **** you... The internet is full of awesomeness Good thing is I paid with paypal and will at least recover my 75 bucks I hope.
Sometimes you have to pay people to go away.. I guess in this case I paid with a free carb to the guy and 16 bucks shipping. But thats a small price to pay to find out how someone is.
Picked up Grandpa some new shoes tonight... Still waiting on my header May not even put them on may just sell them. They are really decent wheels with all caps and cap hold down bolts.
I'm not sure I'm even going to keep these wheels. My old set I had Kumho tires on them I used to have a set of these wheels on my old 7 with a whale tail.. The center logo was different more polished not black. Anyhow I don't know what tires are even available in 13 inch anymore. I assume its getting harder to find decent tires in 13 inch. Im actually kind of diggin the steelies with the caps and bands. Once cleaned up they should look good.
I'm going to pop them on one side of Grandpa tomorrow to get a better feel of how they look. Ill take pictures.
Its a 4x4 lol Must be from jacking it up and it not settling back into place. I need my HEADER so I can run the car enough to move it around. Hell it sat for 20 years so It doesn't flex like it did back then. Hell I don't flex like I did back in the day. The tires are 185/75/13 on those wheels. Once I get it up and running I will work on the other stuff brakes, suspension,steering I have a bunch to do but limited funds.
Got these wheels from my neighbor. They are old school but turned out to be 5 lug. I think they are chevy car small and larger pattern. They need to be cleaned up been out in the weather for years.. They are 15 inch. I cleaned them up some but Mothers wheel polish might do alot better on them that purple power.
Does anyone have the street port Racing beat mid pipe I need to know the over all lenght of it. Im going to build my own. 495.00 is outragous for 2 cherry bombs and some tube. I have already made a flange template I figured 20.00 each for cherry bombs and 20 bucks for the 2" pipe at 7 feet long. The flanges will be the hard part since they are 1/4 inch thick or so. But I have the template made already out of aluminum so I will just have to locate some thick steel.
The RB stuff isn't just a pair of glass paks. Its really well built stuff.
Your best bet if you want to make your own is to get some thick wall pipe from RB and a pair of pre-silencers. If you really want to use cherry bombs (they will blow out there packing in a few weeks) you can with the thick wall piping from RB (or where ever).
The thick wall stuff helps with the tin can sound these engines make. Turbo's help quite that tin can noise down
Ive been reading up on different types of exhaust. None of which I can afford right now. Everything from stainless steel packed resonators to lava rock filled.. I needed to start and run the car for a bit so I could get it timed and adjust the carb a little. So I bought a couple cheapo glasspacks just to throw on. They were less than 20 each so I think its ok if i blow them out. Anyhow here is a video of the car running. I know the AC belt is loose
I remember doing a transplant of the bins from my wrecked GSL into the old 79 I had. I bought that GSL for 200.00 it had been rolled over by my buddy. He left it in the tow lot and told me if i paid the bill he would give me the title. The engine was good in it so it was a well spent 200.00 back then. I need the plastic pieces behind the door handles.. Mine are brittle and if you even look at them they break. I also need a good brake booster. I finally got around to working on the brakes. They work but in a panic situation they go to the floor. But just putting around they work great. Actually not sure if its the booster or the master.. Ill just replace both when i can afford it.
Well I had to make a decision and it comes to the point where I have to get rid of Grandpa. I was having fun with the car and working on it in my spare time. But regretfully I must sell Grandpa. I have posted it in the for sale section. 2200 or best offer takes it. I just can't put money into it at this point. Its either the car or go broke. I choose to say afloat so Grand pappy has to go out to pasture.
08-03-16, 10:00 PM
...... Toss a cap full of oil in the carb. It gives the engine a little extra compression for the first time start up. But warning its NOT good for the engine and its gonna smoke like a son of a bitch. And if you don't have ignition at all its just gonna muck things up worse.
Still waiting on my header 
May not even put them on may just sell them. They are really decent wheels with all caps and cap hold down bolts.
