I took my 1985 newly aquired project rx-7 for a 3 min drive, i get home, its smoking again, it appears to be coming from soemthing in the engine, but i cant find it, so i look under car and CAT IS BRIGHT ORANGE AND SMOKING LIKE A CHIMNEY! Do you think its because it needs a new cat (car has 225000 miles on it) or do you think that its leaking a liquid in there and thats whats causing the smoke, or do you thikn it could be doing that because its stuffed with something? anyone with similar problems please help me! :-) Thanks! (I drove it 200 Miles and it was fine, Just smoking when city driving..highway=fine) My AIM sn is "MyJobIsGay" thanks.

 

Chances are the cat is clogged since its glowing, or you are running too rich and its glowing because of that.

The smoke though, it could be a small oil leak which in turn after driving is being blown back onto the exhaust pipes/hot cat, then burning off. I know thats what was happeneing to mine when I still had my cats on.

 

Oh ok, thanks for the reply, where was the oil leak coming from? was it a loose gasket or something? Also, does yours run better without cats? What year is yours?

 

Mines an 84' GS

I had a small leak from the oil pan. And I changed the entire exhaust system at once, header to muffler, and it felt a lot better. It would rev up more freely, added a little bit more power, and even better gas milage once the clogged cats were out of the system.

Of course the side affect is the car gets louder...but who says thats necessarily a bad thing?

 

Before you do anything else, make sure that you did not loose your leading ignition. This will heat your exhaust up in a big hurry, and your engine block will smoke as it burns off twenty years of WD-40 etc. Check it out man.....

 

How do I go about checking out my leading ignition? Location? Thanks

 

Remove the front bottom spark plug, put the wire back on it, lay it on the shock tower so that it is grounded, then crank the engine and watch for spark.

Otherwise, if you have a timing light, you can use that.