ok, heres the deal. yesterday, i was planning on putting the new exhaust on my girlfriends 300zx after i clocked out(i work at a shop), so i drove the z to work and left my turbo II at her house. for some reason she decides that she needs to go to this grocery store thats a good 50 miles from where she lives, mostly interstate driving. so she goes out there and gets the groceries, then gets in the car to come home. now the bad part:

she said she got in the car, cranked it, and began to pull out of the parking lot. as shes pulling out, she hears a loud noise. instead of stopping or calling, i get a text message. it says: your car is really loud and sounds like its about to explode. its a beating sound though." granted, im at work so i dont really have time to read txts messages, so i didnt actually read it till like 10min after she sent it. so when i read this, im like "WHAT!?", and a to make a long story short, instead of stopping to see whats wrong, she drives the car back to town, stops at another store, and then drives it home. it sits for an hour, and then she drives up to my shop, and i find out that the fan shoud busted a mount and fell onto the fan, causing the fan to eat it until it got stuck and shear off a blade or two.

to summarize, she drove my car about 100 miles with no fan. with the a/c on. to make matters worse, due to an electrical short, the aux fan was unplugged.(i never use the a/c) the majority of the driving was at somewhat high speed interstate driving (65/70 mph) she stopped at a store and she said she was there for about 20 min, so it had a short break during the time she was driving it in town(which has things like red lights and traffic.) when she brought the car up to the shop, i went out and saw the fan and thought. "oh no. this is not good." i didnt have time to really examine it, but other than the temp gauge being pegged out, i didnt see any signs of it having overheated (no coolant spewing, etc.) i cranked it to pull around back about an hour after it was brought up there, and it felt as if it had very little power in the 15 ft i had to drive it to get it inside the fence. temp gauge was still pegged.

i have a really busy weekend so im not going to be able to look at it until my lunch break monday. i have another shroud, fan, and fan clutch from my beater that i can put on it. but im guessing what i need to ask is what kind of damage am i going to see? warped housings? cracked manifolds?


any heads up will be appreciated. and help prepare me for the heartbreak.

 

wow, that sux good luck man.

 

Yay new motor time!

 

almost identical same thing happened to my ex and my first RX7. she heard a lound noise, didn't worry about and kept driving in the city for another 30 min. and called me wondering why it died and wouldn't start again.

popped the alt./waterpump belt and overheated engine...

good luck man

 

i went out there and checked on it(gotta work saturdays - crappy), noticed the belts are all cracked (replaced all when the motor was rebuilt, less than 10k ago). cranked it, started up ok.

hope its not new motor time.... bank account cant handle that at the moment.

 

Women never seems to amaze me....Didn't she see smoke,watch temp gauge,didn't she smell anything burning or smell something funny????...men sorry to hear bro good luck on repairs...

 

Your engine may be okay once you fix the rest of the problems. These engines seem to be able to take a lot of heat. If it still starts as well as before you will probably in the clear.
Saw a video of some idiots once, who disconnected all the coolant lines and fans. They redlined it till it died and caught fire. Can't remember how long it took but it did quite well considering.

 

after you replace the fan etc... take it for a drive if it seems ok do a coolant seal test and if it passes that your good to go. as long as she didnt run it out of coolant it should still be good. the fan only works in neutral and very low speeds the rest of the time its pretty much useless.

 

You are mistaken. Contrary to your statement these engines are very sensitive to heat. He mentioned the temp gauge being pegged which will more than likely result in a blown coolant seal.

If there isn't sufficient cooling (proper fan), even if there is coolant in the motor, it will overheat and eat the seal.

Don't let her drive it again. Especially after the rebuild.

 

so i guess i should look forward to the smell of sweet smoke after i get the fan replaced, huh?

.....joy.

 

I'd be Compression testing the engine.You already know about the Coolant Ordeal...my Two Cents is:why put Good parts on a Fried Engine?..See if it's Screwed First.

 

just because the gauge is pegged doesnt mean your fucked, and it probably ran like **** because they dont like to run when theyre that hot. i had a heater hose pop off and shut it off casue i was at a light, started it up enough to turn off to a parking lot and it ran like crap. cooled down, tightened hose, more water, back to normal. fix everything and test it, you could come out fine. ive also run hot at the track, to the point of some steam coming out the overflow, and i just let it run and cool down and it's held up so far, not saying that this is a good thing, but theres a chance your engine is fine

 

fix the fan and drive it and see if it runs right...no point in sitting here and playing with yourself.


Ps. Is your girlfriend hot? it makes it a little closer to alright if she is really hot.

 

My car has pegge dthe temp many many times, and it is still fine, runs liek when i bought it.

 

if it was mostly interstate driving, you might be safe

best of luck, i hope everythings all right

 

I lost all my coolant once and the temp gauge took its sweet time going up. I had the radio up pretty loud and my dash cover was blocking my idiot cluster, so I drove it for a few minutes without coolant. I dont have any cooling problems now and my coolant seals seem fine. The engine still pulls hard a year later. Fill it up with coolant, replace the shroud and fan and belts and keep monitoring the coolant level.

 

I wouldn't worry about it, as long as you don't have coolant coming out of the exhaust. I'm pretty sure that the fan is used primarily when there is no air to pass through the radiator, as in, you are at a dead stop. So as long as she was doing some fairly steady driving on a highway, you should be ok. Especially if you car is not showing any blown coolant seal symptoms.

 

yeah, my car blow a heater hose 4 months ago and the car shot steam from everywhere lol. the temp gauge shot to well above the H. I waited for it to cool down, drove it to a spot, filled it with water, drove for 1 block, turned it off, waited, put more water and ****, the hose was so busted, the water I put in just ran out like nothing, needless to say, I replaced the hose. after 4 months and she is doing fine

 

its good to know it might be alright. i pulled a fan and shroud off my parts car, but i gotta crapload of stuff to do tomorrow, so i wont be able to get it fixed till monday. hope its alright.


and yes, my girlfriend is hot. i mean, that is the other reason to drive an rx-7 right, to attract hot girls?

 

I'm surprised no one's said this yet. At highway speeds the fan isnt used. The clutch disengages once your moving fast enough for the air to naturally flow through the rad. The fan's only used for slow driving and idling conditions. You should be alright.

 

But...he said she did a lot of stop-and-go driving in town. And the gauge was pegged when she pulled in.

.....

Compression test it before working on it. Even a poor-man's test is better than nothing. Why waste time fixing (fan, shroud, belts) a toasted motor? KNOW it has compression before working on it.


I don't care if she IS hot, I wouldn't date her anymore. No girlfriend of mine will EVER be that stupid. I'm sorry, but if you hear a loud sound and don't call the owner / check it out..you are DUMB.

 

Dude dont ever let a girl drive your car, or better yet dont let anyone drive it except yourself !!

I already put enough time and money into my car where I know I'm the only one who deserves to be driving it.

You definitely dont want someone driving your car that wont know what to do if something bad is going on and doesnt realize until theyve completely fucked it up.

 

Note To Self: Do not let ANYBODY but yourself drive your FC.

Sorry to hear about this man, i hate when this sort of thing happens to me... Seems like everytime i lend out my vehicles something bad happens, or its dirty when it comes back. I guess all you can do is make the best out of a possibly bad situation.. look at the bright side.. this might be your chance to drop a 20b in there

 

does it still run?

 

Based upon this, I have come to the conclusion that people from Cincinnati are dumbasses.