TsaMyar

Hi there, new to the forum. Found an 82 RX7 when I was looking for a second car, so my wife could keep our other car to work with her... fell in love with it, and it got me through a year. A new baby arriving caused difficulties (two seater problem!), so I moved on to a big-ol Blazer. The RX7 has been sitting for almost two years, and I'm getting ready to get her running again. I found some excellent posts about starting an 84(?) after sitting for awhile, and am going to start from there. Are there any other suggestions out there?

When I drove the car daily, the only issue it had was a tranny leak that I had to replace fluid in occasionally.... that and it smoked quite a bit on acceleration, which people told me was a trait of rotaries, so I didn't pay any attention to that. (I'm sure the people behind me did at stop lights)

My other question is regarding the choke. Sitting to warm up for as much as 12 minutes was irritating, but I can live with it. However, I see a possibility that my wife may drive it occasionally, and she often is the last one to leave her office, which is in a not so happy area of town, and I don't want her having to either run out to the car to start it and going back in for 10 minutes, or having her sit in a parking lot, dark, at 8-10PM at night. I've heard the manual choke can be replaced with an automatic. What is involved in this process? (I apologize if this has been asked before, but I did a search and didn't find anything).

Jim

FirstGen7

Running with the choke on should be no problem...

I always just let it sit for about a minute or two and then take off...it should pop back in by itself.

jays83gsl

Just as long as you let it warm up for a COUPLE of minutes, you shouldn't hurt anything. They really don't like cold starts, though.

TsaMyar

Its possible I had something else wrong then also.... Generally on hot days, I would let it sit for 5 or 6 minutes, and it'd be fine... There were a couple times, however, where it would stall the first time I stopped. Of those times, once I couldn't get it restarted at all, and had to have it towed in and cleaned up (they said the plugs were drowned and ruined. Am I doing something wrong? Or, what should I do when it does stall? Should I wait for a minute or two before restarting it?

jays83gsl

You're shifting correctly, right?

J/K, lol

Anyway, did you check your fuel filter? Oil filter? YOu got the sparks changed, you said. What brand did they change them to?

Spray some engine cleaner in there. My truck was doing the same thing (automatic) and that cured it right up.

Snapshot

Auto trans fluid pickles an engine if you aren’t going to start it for awhile but makes it smoke like crazy for like an hour on ist start. You should only have to warm up for a couple minutes at most & then she should run smooth as glass. A bit rough on rainy days though. I’d say clean the carb good, get new plugs, & fuel filter. Cheap & you can do this yourself. Manual choke aint your problem.

vipernicus42

iTrader: (4)

Your choke **** should stay out when you pull it out and the car is cold, and retract itself when it reaches operating temp or so.

You *have* to let the car warm up at least a minute or two before taking off, but in your case make sure that the choke stays out when you come to a stop, until the temp guage reaches operating temp.

You see, what's probably happening is that when you come to a stop and the car is not warm yet, you stall because the choke **** has either pulled in prematurely or didn't stay out in the first place. When you stall a rotary that's cold, it floods. Flooding on our cars is a pain in the ***. To unflood the car you have to take out the plugs, disconnect the fuel pump, crank a few times, put it all back together and start it.

On piston engines, if you let a flooded car sit, the gas just leaks down into the oil pan. On a rotary there *ISN'T* a connection between the bottom of the combustion chamber and the oil pan, so the gas just stays there. If the plugs are fouled and won't fire, and there's still gas coming in from the carb, the car will stay flooded, no matter how long you crank.

Usually you can just get away with taking the plugs out, drying them off, cranking a few times and putting them back.. but it's still a pain in the *** of course. Make sure that you're running NGK plugs. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES USE OTHER PLUGS! There have been suspected cases of Autolite plugs causing major engine damage, just ask wwilliam54!

The moral of the story is: Let your rotary warm up, either by sitting with it, or driving with the choke on for a while. For your wife, just tell her to drive with the choke on until it's warm, and that for the first few stops she comes to, make sure the choke is still out.

The smoke you get on accell, is it blue, white or black? Blue = oil, which is good. Very good in fact. Our cars are meant to burn a small bit of oil (which is injected in with the air/fuel mixture to lubricate the apex seals). White is water, or rather coolant, which is bad. Coolant seal leaks in our cars mean a rebuild is near. Black is fuel, which means you're running rich. The fact that you're running rich is a contributing factor to easy flooding, obviously.

For a sitting car, you want a full tune-up including:

- Fuel, Air, Oil filter
- Oil change, non-synthetic (10w30 in climates where it can get chilly, but some of the guys in the really southern states run 20w50 because it's thicker and aparently better... but Mazda recommends the 10w30)
- Spark Plugs (NGK BR8EQ-14 or BR9EQ-14. The 9s are for more highway driving, the 8s are more city driving)
- Plug wires, distributor cap and rotor
- Check your brakes
- Check your coolant, it's recommended to do a proper flush of the system using prestone "SuperFlush" or something of the like

Check your timing (or have someone do it), and adjust the idle speed/mixture on the carb. (if the speed is dead-on already then you just have to wait until the car warms up and adjust the mixture screw down until the engine hunts, then turn it back a bit).

I'm being EXTREMELY brief in my explanations right now 'cause I don't have a lot of time. If you have any questions at all, feel free to PM me or post again. You should also run a few tanks of quality gas through with some engine cleaner in it... The old gas probably sucked quite a bit and gummed things up.

Good Luck,
Jon


Edit: Get a Heynes manual. It's the best damn $20 you'll ever spend on your car, I guarantee it.

TsaMyar

Thank you so much... That particular brand of spark plug, is it a special order, or can I pick them up at a Schucks or Napa? I'm not sure whats in there now, but since its been two years, I'm going to go ahead and replace them... probably autolite. I picked up the Haynes book today... I need to replace a couple tires that went south in the sitting, and in the morning I'm going to try the local boneyard to pick up a replacement door handle (When I got the car, passenger side door was missing its outside handle, never bothered to replace it).

Jim

therotaryrocket

read the FAQ page on this site. Don't run your old gas thru the system. I ran autolites for a while, they were new but everyone said to switch to NGK's. With NGK's (which have blue letters on the ceramic) the car idled smoother and I noticed a definite improvment in high rpm performance. The main difference was the exhaust smelled different. Do you think our cars smoked when they were brand new? Why should they smoke now? If you wait like 20-30 seconds after starting it cold, I don't see why you wouldn't go then? If you want to run it hard or past like 4k rpms then it should be at operating temp.

YapaKanichi

**** man you're gonna pop and damn seal going with Autolite. If I new you I'd kick your *** myself but fortunatly for you I don't. Do yourself a damn favor and go to advance auto parts and get the damn ngk plugs. But for your wires go elsewhere.Damn gay *** exact plugs. Listen to these guys when they tell you stiff. I learned to. Also baffled a set of guys that thought a smoke pouring v8 was better than a rotary. Heh well thats all I gotta say 'heh'. But for real don't use Autolites, I work at advanced and make the customers get anything but autolite.

vipernicus42

iTrader: (4)

NGKs are usually on order, since they don't often stock them... but it depends on where you go.

If you haven't put many km on it yet, drain the old gas out and replace it with new gas, then change the fuel filter and add some carb cleaner to the first few tanks. Old gas does horrible things to the inside of things like fuel pumps and carburetors... Sitting fuel takes on the quality of varnish more than gasoline.

Jon

wwilliam54

autolite=devil

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...+killed+engine

btw they did push in on the trailing hole

TsaMyar

OK. You've got me convinced, no autolite ever. Any other brands I should stay away from for other stuff?

Another question, if anyone has suggestions.. At one point, someone attempted to steal the car while I was at work (Night shift).. They messed with the outside lock, which seems to be ok still, but the ignition will turn with any key inserted (house, car, padlock, the works). Should I bother trying to get a new ignition/door lock system, or just a new ignition? Can that even be done?

wwilliam54

nippon denso are fine
jus the autolites are bad

vipernicus42

iTrader: (4)

You can get a new ignition, shouldn't be that hard to get one either from a parts store or from a junkyard.

A good locksmith can make it so that all your doors, hatch, and ignition take the same key

Personally though, I'd get an alarm system and an anti-theft ignition lock device. That way the car can't be hotwired, and if the thief doesn't know he has to, for example, press the brake *and* the clutch to start it, he won't be able to or something like that.

Locks and locking systems are not my forté so forgive me if I've made any mistakes.

Jon

Snapshot

NGK 4 prong is what I've always used w/ no problem. Check the specs for your Mazda OEM stock replacements & go w/ that. You can't use many substitute w/ a rotary.