Well guys, I'm back needing some help. I searched all the boom, kaboom, and grenaded, posts and read them all... and not sure where to take this...

While driving down the road nice downhill slope, in 3rd gear pulling 3K rpms, 30mph, slowing up to a turn, the car went KABOOM, and it went limp. It started to back fire and then died.

We were able to start it up, but it's like running on 1/2 power. Like someone put a potato in the exhaust pipe...

I have checked spark and have spark on all four plugs, put new plugs in there, I also have checked to make sure the auxilary ports are functioning and closed on start up so they are not stuck open, we can get the motor to start up but it's massively rough idle and bouncing from 300 to 1500 rpms... We checked the TPS and it's within specs. We put in sea foam in the oil and in the tank and let it run up to operating temperature and started it up after it cooled again. For some reason my gut is telling me it's with the internals. However, we can hear great compression. I checked the hoses for vacuum leaks and can't find any. We can hear the motor, kind of like a high pitch sound coming from the motor, more rotor noise.

After the sea foam we are not getting the back fires anymore, but it's taking a while now to start it up, seems to be flooding itself again.

Could leaking injectors being causing this?

Frankly when we bought this thing we were told all new vacuum hoses, and the motor was rebuilt. I am about to take off the manifold to see if it's glogged but with the free flowing exhaust we have, I can't seeing that be the problem as we can see straight through the muffler.


Any suggestions will be appreciated...

 

You probably chucked a apex seal. Pull the header off, look at the exhaust ports. If one or both are white ashey looking, then your pretty much looking at a rebuild.

 

That's what my rx did after I blew up the motor last time. I was only running on one rotor. It idled really rough, and it kept stalling out. After trying to start it up a few times my motor completely seized up.

 

compression test is in order sir

 

Confirming what others have said, this is exactly how my 12A ran just after it took out an apex seal on the rear rotor. Extremely rough idle, very little power... Usually if there is a loud BANG and its not your tranny or rear end, the engine just chucked an apex seal.

 

take out the plugs, pull the fuel pump fuse, open the throttle, and turn the engine over

if you hear an uneven swooshing sound , you blown the apex seal and need to rebuild the engine.

"I get three of these questions everyday", Mazdatrix

 

Yep, easy test. Pull one plug at a time (with the ignitors unplugged) and turn it over. One rotor will give 3 solid swooshes and the other will give one. Happened to me :~(

 

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions guys.

3 swooshes in the front, and 2 in the back.

So the rebuild the guy did, if he did, prior to me purchasing the car was ****. Only have put on <2K miles since I bought it from him. Very frustrating...

Now I guess I have to decided on where to buy a reman/rebuild or do a v8 swap.

But I frankly don't want excuses that it grenaded again within 3K months. That's a lot of money on a car I only paid 2750 for. Is there a built tough 13B that is on the market? Even if it's a race one, just as long as it will last at least 2 more years. This is for my son's daily driver.

Just don't know what to do for this thing. I live in Arkansas so any suggestions on where to take it or frankly I might try doing the overhaul myself. But I'd hate to tear into it realizing this guy might not have known what he was doing.

 

It sounds like you chucked a side seal, not an apex seal. If you had eaten an apex seal, it'd be one woosh, not two. I'd contact Kevin Landers at Rotary Resurrection. his rebuilds start at 1k, and if it's just a side seal, you might get out of it really cheap. I'm pretty sure he's in Kentucky or Tennessee, and he builds solid motors that he stands behind..

 

I purchased an Atkins rebuild through ATK motors. First thing I should of done was mark where top dead center was on the crack shaft. 2nd thing is take pictures as I removed the carburetor.

The pulling and install took 6 hours. I could of sorted everything out in a weekend, but something went >>>Ping<<<. The thermostat bolt hole snapped on the water pump housing.

I labeled everything with medical white tape which was useless later. The white tape was black from all the grime.

 

Well I completely stand corrected.

I got the details from the builder. The rebuild was done in August of 2003. All parts were purchased from mazdatrix when he did the rebuild.

So I guess it's not **** since it lasted 5 years. It was just time for it I guess...

Thanks for everyones feedback and help. Hell, I might just try to overhaul it myself....

I guess we can close this thread then...

 

5 years is still not a long time for a rotary to last, especially a 1st gen. The 12A and 13B in the 1st gens tend to last the longest of all rotaries it seems. There are some out there that have made it past 300K miles, still running strong. My 12A made it to 275K KM, about 170K miles. It only blew because of a bad fuel pump, which when pushed hard would starve the carb of fuel and run the engine lean, causing detonation most likely. I knew the fuel pump was bad, just never did anything about it and still ran the car hard. If I hadn't of left the pump the way it was, then I'm sure that engine would have lasted another 100k or so, it was very strong still with good compression.

 

It was street ported? Nice engine but shorter life comes with the higher revs. 5 years not bad if it was run hard and racked up a few kills.