OK so last night I flew to Cali picked up my RX7 and drove it home the AZ. I bought a 1988 RX7 GXL. I am completely new to the RX7 platform and these forums so I decided to post up about them instead of doing a search.

OK first there seems to be some coolant loss going on and some air getting into the system. The previous owner said mazda trix told him he needed a new rad. Does this sound like the case from a pinhole leak or do I have a bad seal somewhere internal? What can I do to figure this out above pressure testing the rad and what kinda pressure should it hold?

Next the oil presure gage is pegged below the mark. So I can figure out if its the sender or the gage where about is the sender on the gage and what should the resistance be across it at zero pressure?

The car seems to me to not get the best gas mileage. What should my range be on a stock ported engine? Am I gonna be looking into a turbo engine swap sooner than I want?

There might be an electrical gremlin somewhere. The starter, which is brand new, apparently wont activate sometimes when the car is hot. Since this doesn't seem like a soleniod issue (those usually go bad when they are cold) could it be just bad battery connections? Or is it a failing relay?

Lastly the car still has the auto adjusting suspension on it with I think the original struts. The car has 115,000 on it and rides pretty rigidly. Can I pop the stepper motors off the struts and turn the adjusted manually? If so which way do I need to turn them to get full soft?

 

Bummer--- you could be helping yourself instead of depending upon others hopefully correct answers.

Define coolant loss... If there is no visable sign of coolant loss, it could be one of two things:
#1 a improperlly filled and bled coolant system.
#2 leaking internally on a failed seal (what color are the spark plugs?)

Pegged??? or Below the mark??? Two are completely different. Chances are it is a short or broken condensor for the sender or a bad gauge.

The factory gas mileage is listed on the sheets in the Standard Features and Options sticky thread found at the top of this, the 2nd gen techincal section. Normal non turbo real world mileage is around 15-15 city and 20-25 highway (depending on how you drive)... as a reminder for new rotary owners, make sure you check the oil level at each and every gas fill as well, as the stock rotary engine injects small amounts of the oil into the intake cycle of the engine.

common failing starter symptoms.

No, they can not be adjusted independently, as the AAS computer adjusts them according to driving situations, including cornering (semi active system), but it wouldn't matter, at 75K miles they were used up/wasted and need to be replaced anyway.

 

Should I expect kinda antagonizing answers to questions I ask here? I posted instead of doing a search to start building a familiarity with other members. PLus if I do a search for other threads I'm still relying on hopefully correct information. Wow.

Ok so the term "pegged" comes from the fact that there are these little pegs at the high and low travel limits of most gages. So technically something can be pegged on the low end. I guess I'll do a search to see if I can find some specs to work from since I dont have a service manual yet. For the record its below the zero mark.

 

if it is at the zero mark (not pegged- not even working- pegged would be full on, to the top), the sender is probably unplugged. BTW, the term Pegged comes from the late 70's early 80's when the speedos all had a small peg that limited the speedo to reporting no more than 85 MPH. If you exceeded 85, the speedo was resting against the peg- hench pegged.

and in response to this:
Well that gets you off on the wrong foot... Building familiarty with questions only works if the question has not been already asked 100 times and the FAQ for FC sticky thread has been read.

And nobody did have to answer your thread... be nice and happy that someone has

 

Umm ok. Well could you tell me where the sender is on the engine? I looked but didn't see it right away.

And my starter problem seems to be the clutch deadman switch not starter failure.

 

just under the oil filter on the block. It is round and should have a single yellow/red hooked up to the very end of it.

Not usually if the starter is having problems that are tempature related.

 

The issue with his oil gauge is that someone had it disconnected or hooked up wrong, and it tried to read over the 'max' limit, which turned the needle on the shaft, thus when it's supposed to be sitting at '0', it appears in the negative. To fix, you have to pull the plastic cover off, remove the needle, and reseat it.

 

Yeah apparently its not ver effected by temp. My expirience with starter solenoids is that they stick and wont activate when cold because of congeled grease.

My next problem is I have no idea what fuses are supposed to be where on the inside fuse panel and it looks like some are missing plus a bunch of stuff wont work like my heater fan. Im going outside to investigate.

Also I was just doing a search for the TB mod but the only page I saw with a mod write up had a dead link. ANyone have a fresh link?

 

You only want to do the throttle body mod, if you have a Turbo. There are no real gains on a non turbo except when the engine temp is under 120F (and even then there can be serious under lube issues if the E-shaft thermovale has not been shimmed or replaced).

 

Pics of the fuse box covers are in the FAQ

after a search for "TB mod pics"

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...light=mod+pics

 

Huh? How does the throttle body mod relate to the e-shaft thermovalve? I thought that was related to oil and the TB mod had to do with coolant.
Also, welcome to the forums Tony. Dont let people acting hostile get you down (although Icemark seemed quite helpful to me) Just search, read the faq's, and don't post a question thats been asked repeatedly and you'll get along fine.

 

I checked the connection on it and aftercleaning it there was no change. I'm gonna stick a DMM to it tomorrow to see if theres any continuity. So as I understand it the gage should read zero if some thing goes bad but never below zero?

 

See the whole point of the 2nd set of throttle plates is keep you from romping on the engine while it is cold.

But while it is cold, the e-shaft thermovalve prevents the oil from circulating through every possible route- in order to warm up the engine quicker.

See the two work together, one prevents you from ripping on the motor cold, while there is reduced oil flow because of the other.

So if you have a Turbo and want increased throttle response, and do the throttle body mod, then you also want make sure you have full oil flow at all times.

 

Or just drive it gently until it warms up like you're supposed to. No thermal pallet hack needed.

 

Dude, notice that Icemark's name is in BOLD on the left?
<--------------------
It means he is a mod.
Don't be picking fights with mods - it's bad for your health on here if you're planning on staying for a while.

Second, you yourself claimed you're a newbie.
Drop the attitude.
For the most part, most people are willing to offer help, but we're not here to spoon feed you.
If people did proper searches, this would cut the down the number of (repetitive) posts drastically.
Unfortunately, this is not the case.
It would be nice to at least try and help the cause.


FIRST, verify the LOW COOLANT sensor is not broken or bad.
There is an easy conductivity test show in the FSM.

Second, if the LOW COOLANT sensor is good, your cooling system is compromised.
There are lots of areas were coolant is leaking.
Majority (if not all) have been covered, and a good search would've turned up good threads - try and search only in the archive; this might return better threads.

Possible culprits:
radiator cap
radiator
radiator hoses
heater hoses
heater core
throttle body coolant lines
thermowax on throttle body
fill / drain plugs
coolant sensors
engine


As Icemark mentioned, "pegged below the mark" is a contradiction for most people.
I doubt there is anything wrong with the sender - this is easy to verify, as just unplug the sensor to see if this changes anything.
It sounds like the gauge is bad and has been tampered with.

This is answered in the stickies - check the FAQ for FC stickie.


You got $5,000 burning a hole in your wallet?


You've already mentioned clutch switch...

Other possible culprits:
battery terminals
starter itself
ignition switch


Waste of time...
As Icemark has already mentioned, they are junk by now.
If you're cheap, a set of Tokico non-adjustable HP's will do wonders as a upgrade, even though it doesn't have the fancy auto-adjust feature as the stock system.
If you got a little more money, a set of KYB AGX's are very nice with adjustable damping.


So, I dunno if you have noticed, but the majority of your questions can be very involved.
I'm not about to go through every single possiblity and how to diagnose and fix it.
That's a waste of my time; I'm doing this for free.
The info has already been rehashed; a search would've turned it up eventually.
This is why doing a search is one of the most given advice to newbies.


-Ted

 

Like both icemark and ted said. But the only advice I can tell you is "search button" is your bestest friend on here. Use it and you will find a lot of things you can do to your car. But first do the 60k tune up!
Well for the radiator problem why not try to bleed it first?
The starter I is probably connection...

Thats the only help I can give you. Search my friend search..

 

Jeez, did what I say get comlpetely ignored? If it's below zero, it's because the thing was disconnected/shorted and tried to read higher than it's capable of, which causes the needle to rotate on the shaft, so that way when it comes back down, it sits below zero, then when you run the vehicle/etc, it moves upwards, but since the needle is off, it reads extremely low.

 

well if it is truly below zero, then it indeed could be the gauge, but I would be first looking at if the needle had been pulled off and the gauge accidentally dissasembled. Some people when trying to put in alternitive color gauge panels make the mistake of removing the needle which of course is attached to the gauge. Unless they are somewhat skilled, they will not be able to re-assemble the gauge assembly and have it work correctly.

 

Maybe I should clear something up. I'm not a moron I am just new to the rx7. I am actually a senior in college studying manufacturing engineeirng. I just wanted to know the most common causes for these thypes of failures specific to the cars.

I got some bad luck though. I guess I'm a sucker. I dont think I should have gotten this car and hopefully ebay can help me recoup some of my losses since the previous owner blatently lied about a few things. I was on my way back from the gas station about a mile down the road when I started smelling coolant. Then the add coolant light came on. I got it back to my place before it overheated and popped the hood. The coolant hose that feeds the heater had split. So today I turned out some aluminum plugs to cap off the hose on either side of the break and started filling the engine with coolant. I started the car to completely fill the rest of the system and it seemed like I was adding way to much coolant. The i noticed water coming out the front of the water pump. If I filled the top cap full I could see a steady evenly spaced stream of bubbles coming up. As I understand it my engine now needs to be rebuilt. I guess Ill do a search to see if it def needs a rebuild and to see what my options are.

Looks like I'm going to need to come up with $1500 bucks some how. I guess I should have gone with the 1994 Ford Escort Wagon.

 

Well, your water pump is toast.

Still, I'd do a cooling system pressure test before declaring the engine dead. Even if it turns out that the coolant seals are fried, you can try the bolck weld method. Some people have had success with it. I think it's in the archives or somewhere, I forget.

 

I didn't call you a moron nor imply you were one.
There's a difference between "stupidity" and "ignorance".
I assume you know what it is?

Also, being a "senior in college" doesn't automatically mean you have common sense nor are you intelligent about everything in this world.
Think about it.


-Ted

 

You didn't directly but from the start I have been getting talked down to which I hate and implies I have no common sense. I am not claiming to be all knowing but being a senior in an engineering degree closely related to mechanical engineering means I have a pretty good understanding of anything mechanical. Also my job is diagnosing problems with machine tools and repairing them which sometimes entail reverse engineering parts and then machining new ones that wont malfunction. I have the ability to dive into anything mechanical and not get in over my head. I'm not trying to brag but cars or any thing mechanical in nature is not new to me. I know most of the basics, thats why I know most cars have weak areas specifc to their model which is a good point to start when finding faults or doing upgrades.



But what ever. I looked into the CRC block weld stuff and I'm gonna give that a try. I also looked a little closer and it looks like the water pump is leaking at the gasket not the input shaft so I'm just gonna pick up another gasket.

 

Icemark tends to get cranky when newbies come on and ask common questions - understandable. He talked down to me when I first joined and ya wanna know why? Cause I asked dumb questions that had already been covered.

My advice to you is to stay off these forums for a few days. Cool down. And come back later when you're in a better mood and your head is clearer.

You'll find that we're actually a pretty friendly group of people.

iSP33D-for-J3SUS

 

Sorry to say, that if you are even considering using block weld, then you or your parents didn't get your/their moneies worth. Don't they teach anything about metalurgy in your engineering college???

and the water pump leak... sure it is not the weep hole??? (of course that would indicate water pump failure in 99% of the water cooled vehicles out there- don't know if they covered that in your auto mech engineering classes).

 

OMG ok you told me to search and mentioned something about trusting the posts on here. So I did that and trusted the information I found.

Instead of dissing me and my college and my parents it might be nice to know why this is a bad idea. I mean I know a good deal about metalurgy, heat treating and such but since I'm a manufacturing engineer technologist and not a materials engineer the class was just an overview of all engineering material groups. From the posts I looked over it sounded like it worked well and kept the boosted cars on which it had been performed operating for 25k miles or more.

And yeah Im pretty sure its not a weep hole since my car lost all the coolant above the water pump out of it. I guess the people owning water cooled vehicles can rest easy tonight.