Zero10

My girlfriend's family just picked up an 83 rx7 for 50 bucks, on it's way to the wrecker's. The PO insists it has a shot rotor, which his mechanic confirms, although we have not compression tested it as of yet, but I presume it to be apex seals, it has around 200,000km on it, so I suppose it's time. It starts, but does not idle, you have to keep the revs at around 1500 to keep it running, and I must admit, it sounds like a lawn mower on steroids.

The body on it is in very good shape, absolutely minimal rust, hardly coming through the white paint, and none of it looks structural.

The interior... well, how about it... it's toast, the seats are split everywhere, and all the carpet is beat up and faded, the cargo bin covers are broken off, and had holes cut in them for 6x9's, the dash is ugly as well. I guess we will hit up the local wreckers to transplant an interior.

Now, the plan, we are going to rebuild the engine, swap the interior and give it a new coat of paint after repairing the rust. The transmission and such all looks good, however we have not actually _driven_ the car as of yet, although we moved it about 40 feet in the back yard.

So, all that said, I am looking for some questions answered, and some advice, and it looks like I have come to the right place.
I am not the owner of the car, my G/F's dad is (hey, we're only 19), however he is not terribly familliar with the internet or anything, so I'll be doing the posting for this car.
Now, that lengthy introduction aside, I am hoping for some help and perhaps advice as well.

I know it has the 12A engine, which is probably obvious to all of you, and I know that it is carbeurated.
Now, I absolutely hate carbeurators with a passion, especially after hearing all the horror stories about these ones. So, is it a reasonable thing to swap to fuel injection? Are there any bolt-on kits, or is there an easy swap from another rotary?
This car will be used year-round, and we live in Calgary, Alberta, it gets mighty cold here in the winters.

I have lots of experience with other performance cars, particularily my 86 porsche 944, so I am familliar with most everything car related, with the sole exception of rotary engines. I just learned how those work about 2 weeks ago.
I am curious about the rotor housing and seals. On a normal piston engine, many of the long-life or high performance engines will have silicon compound blocks and/or coatings on the cylinders, I have even seen chrome plating on cylinder walls, to reduce friction and increase longevity. Is it possible to do something similar to this on a rotary?

Now, I am going to spark the synthetic oils debate, which I have heard is a hot topic. I am planning on running synthetic oil in it from day 1 (perhaps I will start after the break in). I have heard warnings that it will cause significant oil consumption, but I have also heard that is only accurate for older synthetic oils, and that newer ones will have virtually no difference on a fresh engine.
How much oil will a fresh engine go through if it is run on synthetic?

I am presuming there are no long-term side effects to synthetic oil when I make those statements.

Finally, if there is a fuel injection kit available, is it possible to go to electronic ignition timing, or perhaps altogether to an electronic ignition? Is this a reasonably priced option?

Hopefully I did not make a royal *** of myself with these questions, and I look forward to learning about all of this.

81Rex6port13b

great welcome to the fourm.

most of the cars here are project cars much like yours.

Zero10

Thank you.

I must challenge that statement in your signature, I would bet this rx7 leaks far more oil than yours, it runs for 15 mins and leaks well over a liter.
it just seems to spray randomly from the side of the engine.

Captain Lou

be sure to bring it by the calgary sportscar club when its done lots of rotary folks there

Steve Shulz

The fuel injection kit your looking for is a GSL-SE. For your synthetic oil question, do a search on it and see what you come up with. Basically your spending the extra money for something that doesnt really effect performance on these motors. These arent pistons so the whole lubrication system is different. Rotories get oil metered into the combustion chamber by way of the OMP (oil metering pump) right in with the air/gas mix to lube the apex seals as they make their way around. Synthetic oil doesnt burn as clean either so youve just increased your replacement cycle of your spark plugs. More down than up with synthetics but you will utimately make the decision. The only synthetic I use is for my tranny. Now if want something else to ponder, check out the MMO posts adding to your oil and gas. LOL Welcome to the forum, youve come to the right place!

bizarro

iTrader: (1)

if you want FI, do an engine swap with a GSL-SE 13B engine...while you are at it, get the suspension as well...bigger vented disc brakes all the way around will handle the few extra horsepower a 13B has...

welcome to the forum...good luck on the project and make sure you post some pix

ray green

iTrader: (14)

I certainly encourage you to fix this one up, but just to be sure you don't get the bad news later, you should remove the storage bins behind the seats and check for rust in the wheel wells. This can be easily fixed if not too advanced; if it's bad it also can be fixed but you might want to factor this into your overall plans. By the way, the Nikki carbs on the 12A are really quite reliable and easy to tune and repair, you should give it a chance before investing in the rather expensive alternatives. Welcome to the world of 7's! We'd love to see some pictures.
Ray

slashdawg00110

Welcome aboard. Be sure to check out the FAQ section. It should have answers to many of your questions.

The Nikki carbs on the RX-7s are not bad. Again, the FAQ has tips on mods and other things related to the carb. If you're stuck, get ahold of RX7Carl (aka the goderator) or Sterling. They know the Nikkis inside and out. What you'll find more frustrating than the carb is teh vaccum system. Again, help is available. There is an emissions removal tutorial at mazspeed.com that'll walk you through removing a great deal of the vac stuff - if you don't have emissions testing and/or you have no qualms about dumping a few more pollutants into the atmosphere.

When you said it sprays oil from the side of the engine, if it's the driver's side, you're probably looking at leaking o-rings on the water/oil cooler. Not too hard to fix, but a good opportunity to go with a air/oil cooler like the pre-83 cars.

Again, welcome to the world of RX-7s and good luck.

Zero10

It's on the driver's side, it looks like it's from between the 2 rotor housings.
MMO on oil and gas?... hrm, now I am confused.
Perhaps I will bring my 944 by the Calgary Sports Car Club in the mean-time.
I will try to get some pics, it's not much of a looker.
GSL-SE for the fuel injection? Does that mean it was available for the 12A?

Sorry to knock the carb already, I have no real experience with this one, but I have owned 2 cars with carb's on them, and I have never had so much _fun_ trying to start one in the cold, my 944 is FI, and it's a dream, turn key, go inside, no worries.
Perhaps I will give it a good shot before I replace it, how expensive is it to rebuild? Perhaps we will do it when we tear down the engine.

I've had a look underneath it, and the rust does not look bad under there either, I am really quite impressed given the age of the car, I have not removed the storage bins yet, we are waiting for a clear garage and some warm weather to get started on this, it may have to wait until spring.

Thank you guys for welcoming me to the forum.

MosesX605

Well as a fellow cold-weather rotorhead, I can say that when the carb is working right, starting and running in -20 weather is no trouble at all. The best part about being a western Canadian rotorhead is NO EMISSIONS TESTING!!! That means you can get rid of all that junk on the engine and elminiate most of the troubles that we go through as far as drivability goes. So the Nikki is not a bad thing to keep on there. That being said, FI has it's advantages as well, but there is no 'bolt on' kit for 12A powered cars as such, AFAIK. There was a guy working on one, but he dissapeared, so I imagine that he ran into some difficulties.

Check the FAQ at the top of the page and also check out www.mazspeed.com for some really good technical stuff in their facts and forum section. These cars are quite fun to work on, and even more fun to autocross and race. Good luck.

slashdawg00110

I agree with you, moses. Although it doesn't really get cold in Kansas, I owned my first Rx-7 when I lived in Minnesota. I drove it all winter long with no problems starting even on the coldest days. Soviet Kanukistan? LOL. I used to say I lived in the Socialist Republic of Minnesota.

zero10 - try to take a pic of the oil leak. Oil leaking from between the housings would be the leak-o-death, but I've never heard of it spewing out in that case, just leaking. The oil cooler leak *will* get oil everywhere and is not terminal.

cdrad51

slashdawg, is that your car? if so, where you get those wheels? what size are them?

slashdawg00110

LOL. That's my car, sort of. My brother is a graphics designer. He took a pic of my car and modified it for my 40th birthday. That's why it's black with #40 and the AARP logo. He snagged the wheels from some other pic. I have the stock wheels on my car. Sorry.

cdrad51

well, your brother is a good graphic designer, have to give you that...

Captain Lou

do the cars rust under teh storge bins?

my car has some expected rust on the rear wheelwells, but its on the outside edge so i htink its prepariable.

someone did mention its better to replace teh whole quarter panel instead of trying to fix.

any ofyou RX7 tuners in calgary? im always interested in learnign hands on from someone that knows

i'll get dirty andyou show me what to do best way (for me) to learn

Zero10

The oil leak of death?... are you referring to a warped rotor housing or something? If that's what's wrong with the car, then I will be hitting wreckers looking for some straight ones.
It's an odd leak, I've never seen anything like it, I didn't even believe it leaked for the longest time, until once when I was standing there, it just started spraying out, pretty quickly, then it just stops out of the blue. Most confusing.
It looks like the project was just delayed until the new year, we are currently short a place to store/rebuild the car, until the LeBaron is removed from the garage. Oh well. I will keep reading here, learn what I can before we go tearing into it.

cdrad51

slashdawg00110

Zero10 - if you can get some pics, that would help a lot. I've not heard of a LoD spraying oil out like that. It sounds more like the o-rings at the base of the oil cooler. But I don't know why it would suddenly stop.

ray green

iTrader: (14)

I'm not so sure about this. My 84 GSL was dripping oil when I first got it. When I cleaned off the engine I discovered the oil was coming from the seal between the housings, just in front of the 12A logo and at about that height.

Apparently a previous owner of this 100,000 mile plus engine had used epoxy to seal up the leak, you could see the epoxy smeared along the seal for about 4 inches. So that might be one solution short of a motor rebuild.

Still, when I got it the engine was dripping and leaking about a quart every 1000 miles and I was thinking engine rebuild. However, to my surprise I managed to essentially fix the oil leak by simply switching to 20-50W Castrol and adding a bottle of engine leak sealer at every oil change.

It didn't happen overnight, but over the next few months the engine leaked less and less oil. I put 30,000 miles on that engine without a problem, until the car got rearended early last summer (I'm still planning to get more miles out of that 12A somehow, until it really does need a rebuild).

Apparently the seals between the housings get old and "dried out", especially on cars that have been sitting, as mine was before I got it. The thicker oil and the engine sealer may be able to reverse this situation somewhat. In any event it's a cheap fix!

Ray

Zero10

Well, this car sat for 11 months before they bought it, and that was 4 months ago, so it has been sitting, although it was run 3 times since they got it.
I would have to look at it again to tell you if it's the oil cooler, and it's really inconvenient to get to, let alone pop the hood (it's in a terrible place right now),so I will not be able to get pictures, for a little while.

I will post them as soon as I am able to take them.

Stupid question, I have rebuild a few piston engines before, with great success, and we are planning to rebuild this rotary. Is there anything there that would be outside my skill level?

dewey

Just bought 82 rx7 mint condition interior and exterior only 74500 miles and runs great the only problem that Im haveing is in the morning when I warming up the car once I pull the choke it start but, missfireing. Is this a normal thing? because once the car is warm up it doesn't missfire

Captain Lou

my car idles and spuuutterws rough on a cold start as well

i hope its normal or jsut a tuning issue

dewey

Yea sounds like that too but even thoug only does it in the morning when I use the choke whow long have u had your car?

Captain Lou

sorry my typing sucks **** i should really proofread my posts

i have had the car a couple weeks now,

and only done the basics so far
new oil plugs etc

and when i engage teh choke the engine runs really rough until it warms up some,

then its solid

Zero10

Here is a stupid question.
What are you guys talking about pulling the choke.
Are you actually under the hood pulling something?
I was always told to start a car with a carb just put the gas to the floor once then start it.