Pimpinpinguino

About 2 weeks ago, I drove to school in my 1990 GXL N/A stock RX7 as I had done every day for almost a year now. I remember during the drive how particularly great it was running today and how I loved every second of it.
When I got out of class, I went to start the car but immediately heard a sort of grinding noise which sounded like the starter. I thought nothing of it at the time and it probably isn't the problem but after I tried to start the car again it would just crank on and on.

I tried to push start the car and it wouldn't work. I then called a friend to push my car with his camry to get up around 30 mph and after that it did start but it ran very weakly for a few seconds until eventually dying off again...
I towed it home and proceeded to check everything within my knowledge. I checked the fuel pump which was working perfectly and I even replaced the fuel sock. I then checked the spark plugs and they gave off a strong looking blue arc.
After I saw it sparked I used starter fluid which worked the first few times getting the engine to run very weakly for a few seconds until I stopped spraying. After a few times though, starter fluid wouldn't do anything!

So then I check the fuel injectors and whaddya know? one of the primaries was shot. So to be absolutely sure it would work, I bought 2 new (reman'd) injectors and installed them about 2 days ago. I tried to start it up but got the exact same result as before.
The next thing I did was check the injector pulses with a noid light and, much to my dismay, they were pulsing perfectly...
The only thing left to check im guessing would be the engine compression but the engine was running perfectly when it was parked and if it is bad, I doubt it can be bad enough for the car to not even ignite fuel considering how good it ran before.

Being confused and not knowing what is wrong with my car, I decided to fix everything that I saw could use some fixing to try and isolate the problem.
I replaced all the vacuum hoses, bought a new air temp sensor, new TPS sensor, bought a new BAC, cleaned out the secondary injectors and new primaries, checked for blown fuses and even opened the ECU to check for any burned components.
I even fixed the front speakers!

Now im completely stumped. I have absolutely no idea what it could be!
At one point I considered that maybe it was flooded because it flooded on me once before and had trouble starting but it behaved differently. When flooded, the cranking would sound like it was in slow motion and it would spew white smoke out the exhaust.
The cranking now just sounds perfectly flat. It sounds as if the car isn't getting any fuel at all but the fuel pump and injectors work and the car has a full tank of gas...
(And yes, the starter works fine)

I don't have time to work on it until tomorrow so I cant really test the compression now but considering thats not the problem, any suggestions thrown my way would be greatly appreciated.

lduley

iTrader: (1)

White smoke out've the exhaust can be a bad sign depending on how thick the smoke is.

Also, check your compression, just because it was running good, doesn't mean the engine is healthy. You seemed to of covered the basics and beyond, minus a compression check, that would for sure be the next steo IMO

Pimpinpinguino

Woops. I should have specified that it doesn't spew white smoke now.
I was just saying that the last time it got flooded, it did spew white smoke so that led me to believe that the problem I have now isn't flooding

And yeah, I know compression testing is all that's left which makes me kind of nervous.....
I'll do it as soon as I get the chance

rotary_FD3S

I know this probably isn't the problem but can't hurt to ask. Did u check and see if the cas is working/connected?

lduley

iTrader: (1)

Have you taken the plugs back out to see if they are gas soaked? Course...if not, you will when you check the compression lol

Wraith Zero

Just because you didn't see the signs of flooding don't rule it out.

Pimpinpinguino

Already tried deflooding... No success
And yes it has compression and sounds like it's supposed to

Wraith Zero

If you deflood your motor with a battery on a low charge it will flood again. Also did you try putting ATF or Marvel mystery oil in the lower spark plug holes while turning the engine by hand? It does something to help out your seals. Its how I bring a motor out of long storage and its helped others when "one day my car ran fine, and now it doesn't" happens

Pimpinpinguino

Yeah, I did the ATF trick and made sure the battery was charged.. Absolutely nothing happened
and the car was my daily driver so it never sat long enough to build up top much carbon...
Sadly, I have no time to do anything right now because of school and I really need my car back so I decided to take it to a local rotary mechanic for a diagnosis.
Hopefully by tomorrow I'll find out why a car with fuel, spark, compression, new fuel injectors with good current just stopped working out of the blue

Wraith Zero

I hope you don't get the "you blew an apex seal response"

Pimpinpinguino

Ok the mechanic got the car to start and completely ripped me off...
Turns out my MAF was messed up and all he did was replace it and boom it started up.
All that hard work he did ended up costing me $660 -_-

And now it drives like **** and misfires like crazy
The guy said that the leading spark plugs might be messed up...
I thought that for 660 dollars he would have at least checked the plugs for me if not replaced them but he didn't even take them out..

I asked him why it was driving so slow and misfiring and he said that I "can't complain because it's a 24 year old car and I can't expect to compete with Honda civics" LOL

I honestly think it would have been better for me to take it to Mazda.



So if your car has spark fuel and compression and isn't flooded then check your MAF and your grounds and it should probably start right up and you'll save yourself a lot of money