Hey guys...

Car was running pretty good until after I stopped to fill up the gas tank. As soon as I left the station it was running pretty weak. Eight miles down the road I finally pulled over to check things out. When I popped the hood I saw some light smoke coming of the engine and it was ticking like crazy.

I turned the key back on to check the temp but it was fine (reading about 3/8 on the gauge). No high temp warnings or anything like that, and the coolant resevoir is still as full as it should be.

I let her cool down for about 20 minutes and then limped another three miles to work. Now I'm not sure if she'll get me back home or not. I really would hate to burn up my motor, but the gauge still indicated a good temp. Motor is running really rough, and sounds like its missing.

Any ideas? I also checked out all of the coolant lines, especially those going to the beehive. Oil level is good too. I'm afraid I'm stumped here....

 

Yeah -- check your OMP lines... I found out that mine wasn't working (and the lines were very light...there was NOTHING coming from them whatsoever.... so I immediately started premixing. It seemed to have made my car run *slightly* cooler, but then again, less friction will do that. But that would be where I would start, just to be on the safe side.

 

Maybe its not overheating. Maybe you have an ignition problem? Describe the smoke. Amount, location?

 

The smoke is coming evenly from the entire motor surface, basically burning off all of the WD-40, minor oil seepage and everything else that has built up over 20 years. Kind of a light fog coming up off the engine. You can easily feel the heat coming off the engine and loud ticking noises. However, temp gauge still reads normal and oil pressure is good. I believe there is also an oil temperature monitoring system with a warning buzzer in my car ('85 GS) but that didn't sound off either.

I tried to drive it home from work and got about halfway before I couln't stand it any more. It just ran worse the longer I drove it. When I stopped the car and tried to keep it idling, there were lots of popping and sputtering noises coming from the exhaust system. I put my hand behind the muffler and it almost burned me the exhaust was so hot. I'm afraid I might have already scorched my motor.

I checked the Chilton's for overheating troubleshooting and they say that if it's running lean then it might run hot. Since this started as soon as I left the gas station I'm wondering if there might be something that would affect the fuel flow associated with a full tank of gas. I tried running without the gas cap on the way home in case it was developing a vacuum in the gas tank, but it made no difference. I'm going to go back to get her later this evening, and I'll try siphoning off about ten gallons of the gas and see if that makes any difference. It might be a long shot but what the hell else am I going to do? LOL. Man, I sure hope I haven't done permanent damage to the motor.

RX7Carl, you helped me out with my other posting concerning power loss at full throttle. I haven't reuilt the carb yet (Audi comes out of the shop tomorrow, so then I can start on it), but the car always ran better with a near empty tank and a lot worse with a full tank. Any chance these two issues are connected somehow? I don't know enough about the fuel tank/plumbing system to put all these pieces of the puzzle together. Thanks for letting me tap your brains!

 

Well I havent heard anything that would lead me to believe you hurt your motor. Maybe you have a clogged/collapsed cat? Maybe an ignition problem like no leading ignition. Those would explain a sudden power loss.

 

Hmm, definitely some more good ideas. I'm going to work soon, and I'm going to check her out in the morning. Maybe I'll take a spare coil just in case....

 

Sounds like some good ideas. On my way to work now, and I plan to stop by and check her out in the morning. Maybe I'll take a spare coil just in case....

 

Goofy @ssed computer, forum, or operator! Didn't look like my last post went in so I had to rewrite it. Now I check the forum from work and both posts are here!

Alzheimer's disease must be setting in a little early for me! Maybe by next Easter I'll be able to hide my own Easter eggs, what fun!!!!

 

I know just how you feel.

 

OK, I stopped by on my way home this morning and drained about 8 gallons of gas from the tank, then took it for a spin. Of course it made no difference, but I had to check it out.

Next, I switched the coils around and tried it again. Much better! I had replaced the lead coil with a Bosch Red coil about a week ago and it seemed to be an improvement, but now I think it was bad or incompatible. I still had the original coil in the bottom of my toolbox, so I went ahead and put that back on.

I only drove it a short ways, but I'm pretty sure I'm back to having a driveable car again. Going back to work in a bit, so my wife is dropping me off at the car and I'll take my chances and drive it from there. Wish me luck!

 

Oh yeah, I grabbed a coil/ignitor pack off of an '86 and will be doing the direct fire conversion real soon. However, in the FAQ regarding this is specifies that you should use the lead coil pack, and I have the trailing pack. Will this make a difference? I wouldn't think so, but figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Thanks again for your diagnosis RX7carl, once again you were right on the money! I definitely owe you a cold beer or 12!

 

Well, I've got the coil pack torn apart and now I'm a little confused. There is no resistor in it at all, but everything else was pretty much the same. What I'm left with is basically two coils with four wire mounting points. I'm going to assume at this point that I just connect my - wire from the lead coil to both - mounts on the new coils, and the same for the +wires.

I know that some people claim you don't need the resistor anyway, but do you think I'll burn up an ignitor if I use like this?

 

I cant help you with the 2nd gen coils, never done that one. But glad you got the problem solved.

 

Thanks man. I'm now at work and it ran just like it did before this particular issue. Now I just need to get the carb rebuild done and I should be all set. Thanks for all the help, I'm renaming my 1st born son after you now! (We'll just call him RX for short).

 

Just a quick update. I removed the cat and the doohicky in front of it (pre-cat?) today. Much more power but I still need to rebuild the carb. Not too loud either. I was surprised because all I did was clamp on a 5 foot flex pipe from Meijer (cost me about tem bucks with clamps). Not too shabby!