I got sun poisoning the day we spent on the broken down boat. I remember the night of day it happened in our motel room. Same symptoms. The worst part for me was sunburn on my legs,I remember the excruciating pain from the air conditioner blowing air on my legs,couldn’t even pull a sheet over me when I was shivering. Driving home in the car had to have s towel over my legs to keep sun off them.
I lived in shorts I was wearing the day I got sun poisoning for a couple weeks,couldn’t stand anything touching my legs. When dead skin started peeling off it came off in sheets notebook paper size.
Very careful about being in sun since,especially fishing.
Surf fishing is my other addiction,being that you have a condo on the beach,do you fish while there and what swims in that area? Furthest south i’ve fished on Outer Banks is Ocracoke island.

 

sounds like you had a worse case of it than I did. I'm not a fisherman, so I don't know what they catch in the surf. There's always 3 or 4 guys fishing in the surf out there. I know they catch red and black drum, blues, and a lot of other fish. Will ask one of my buddies when I venture outside again. We have the longest fishing pier on the east coast about a half mile from me. This is also the home oF the King Mackeral tournament.

My apologies to Amazon. The timing light was in the usps drawer downstairs. Thought it was coming Fedex. Not going outside today. Don't really feel any better than I did yesterday , and my brain is fuzzy, Maybe tomorrow if I'm back to 80% or so. Will have some questions for you before setting timing (never done it on a rotary).

 

Timing questions- bear with me. never set timing on a rotary engine.

1. Can I check and set timing before new rotor button comes in, or should I wait?

2 .I always disconnected the vacuum advance hose on all my cars before setting timing. Nowhere( including the FSM) have I found instructions to disconnect the hose. Should I do it?

3. Red mark on pulley is for leading (bottom), and yellow is for trailing (top). Right?



Looking down on dizzy from top:

4.Right vacuum can is for trailing (top) and Left can is for leading (bottom). Right?

5.Is 800 rpm ok for static timing check?

6. How do I check the vacuum advanced timing with no marks (other than the 2 idle marks) on the pulley?

7 how do I check the cent. advance with no marks on the pulley?

8. Any other info or tricks that I should know?

It may be a day or 2 before I can go outside again to do the timing, or I will wait on the rotor button if you wish.

Thanks!

 

I felt pretty bad for several days,not back to "normal" for couple weeks.

Let me know when you wish to resume,no rush on my end.

 

1)Wait til you get rotor installed,want ignition system 100% to test/eliminate as cause for problems .

2)Facing drivers side fender looking at Distributor,uppermost vacuum can is for Leading ignition. Lower one is trailing ignition,verified by two screws on top of housing to adjust Trailing ignition timing. Leading is adjusted by looosening holdown bolt and turning distributor.

3) 800 rpm is specified idle speed. Start engine and warm til it slows to base idle. Hook up timing light to battery,put inductive clamp on L1 terminal and point light at pointer and pulley,they should be aligned. From pic of your distributor,timing should be very close.
Move your pickup to T1 and observe pin and pulley marks,should be aligned. If marks aren't perfectly aligned,adjust Leading and lock down distributor. Re check trailing.If you adjusted Leading ignition,Trailing ignition will have changed the same amount. Loosen two screws slightly enough to slide vacuum advance unit in/out to advance or retard Trailing timing. Moving away from distributor advances timing,lock down screws.
Remove both hoses from vacuum advance cans. Put timing light clamp on L1 plug wire. Use throttle linkage and accelerate engine smoothly up to @3500 rpm or til timing mark stops advancing,release throttle and allow engine to return to idle. Timing should be back to base timing mark. Do this again to verify results. Hook both vacuum hoses back to their advance cans. Bring rpms up as before,timing marks will advance faster and further.Not trying for exact #s, smooth glitch free repeatable timing advance and retard back to base timing.
Raise rpm smoothly to point of misfire,hesitation and observe timing marks. They should be steady,if jumping around,more investigation will be needed.

One last thing to check,consistency and quality of spark. Pull one connector off fuselink for injectors and one for ecu. There are a total of five fuse links,group of two and group of three. The two somewhat removed from the batch of three are the ones you want to pull one end of connector to disable ecu and injectors.Pull all plugs and stick them in their respective plug wires and lay them on top of engine for a ground and have someone crank engine while you observe spark. Should be blue in color and steady,consistent sparking,all should be the same,if not,more investigation needed. Put plugs back in engine and plug both fuselinks back in. This will be best done after sundown so you can see plugs firing but not too dark to see what you're doing. If all results are good from these tests,ignition system can be eliminated as cause of problems.

Question,how far did you drive car the day it ran well,did you put gas in it while out driving?

 

Drove it about 15 miles. Stopped at grocery store and gas station. Restarted at both places. Put about 5 gallons of BP high test in car. No premix.

 

That road trip it ran ok all the way home?. Next day back to running poorly? Understand all timing,spark tests?

 

I answered this yesterday but it didn't print here on the board
It ran finely on the way home. Just a minor miss at 5500-6000 rpm.
Barely ran at all on the next morning
Timing and spark tests were concise and easy to understand.
Thanks

 

Ventured out of the house for the first time today.Installed new Mazda rotor button and new Mazda dizzy cap.Warmed up car and set idle to 800 rpms using car tach.Checked L1 timing. Was way off. Timing light was hitting yellow pulley mark instead of red. Moved dizzy until hold down bolt was all the way to the left in slot to get timing light to hit red pulley mark.
Then checked T1 timing. 45 minutes to break those 2 screws loose beside vacuum can. Moved timing light harness to T1. timing was hitting the red mark here also. Moved vacuum can all the way in and all the way out. No change in timing whatsoever. Rechecked L1 timing and it was still on the red mark. Where do we go from here?

 

if the distributor is stabbed right and the timing is set right, the hold down bolt should be about middle ways of that slot.

just looked up the fsm. the yellow mark is leading = 5 deg ATDC. red mark is trailing = 20 deg ATDC.

http://foxed.ca/rx7manual/manuals/19...7(1)engine.pdf

 

If the leading is yellow, and the trailing is red, that would explain my timing adjustment problems.Evidently I had my colors mixed up.
Will start over tomorrow.
Thanks!

 

Checked the timing this morning with the correct color combination on the timing marks (Thanks Michael).
Moved dizzy hold down bolt back to the center of the slot. Checked leading timing. Right on yellow mark. Good so far. Checked the trailing timing and it was also on the yellow mark. Moved the vacuum can as far in and as far out as it would go. No change in timing at all. Is the advance mechanism broken on the vacuum can adjustment?

 

You can remove distributor cap,rotor and metal shield and observe trailing ignition pick up coil for movement as you slide trailing can in and out.
It is possible it has become disconnected from pickup coil bracket on bearing plate. Not too common but have seen it. Post pics of what you find. Interesting development.

 

Can adjustment all the way in

Can adjustment all way out

The base plate and the pickup both move, but timing doesn't change

 

Does the trailing pickup move by itself or are both pickups.moving when you move trailing can in and out? Possible for you to take a video of this and post it here? Somethings' not right.

 

Only one pickup moving. the one closest to the vacuum can.
Can't upload video to board. Says invalid file type. It says mp4. never had problems with downloading any more videos here.. any ideas ?? Anyone got a phone # I can text it to so they can post it?

 

Or maybe an email address?

 

Sent you a pm.

 

pm answered

 

Looked at both your vids,clearly the slotted adjuster is moving the pickup back and forth. Don't get insulted if i ask if you're certain you had timing light on T1 wire when checking and trying to move trailing timing? If you are then the trailing ignition is being triggered by leading ignition,how remains to be seen. Some tests forthcoming dependent on your answer.

 

Not insulted at all. I'm learning more about this beast every day. About 90% sure I was on T1. Top left wire when viewing engine from driver's fender. Will check again later to be sure and report.
Thanks

 

Trace that wire to T1 terminal on dist cap,double check all plug and coil wires. Ignition coil closest to front of car is trailing coil,follow to T mark on cap,same for leading coil.

 

Checked all dizzy wire connections . They were as you said. Timing light is on T1. Timing light hits the yellow pulley mark just like the L1 did (shouldn't it be the red for trailing?)
I did notice for the first time that the idle would change when I adjusted the can all the way out to all the way in. Maybe 200 rpms or so. The timing would move slightly on the pulley, maybe 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch each way as I adjusted the can. I could swear that it never did this before.

 

OK,how close can you get trailing to Red mark,if you're referring to trailing mark showing on yellow slot in pulley and not changing with manipulation.There is a lot of adjustment in trailing ignition.

 

Not close at all. You can barely see the red notch peeking out from the fan pulley when using the timing light.