The day before yesterday, I traded my 91 Corolla for an 85 RX-7 GS Coupe that's badged as a Turbo, but is most certainly an NA 12A (salvage title). It starts and runs and had wheels, so I decided to drive it home and save the towing expense. May have been a stupid idea.

Brake pedal was really squishy, but stopped the car if you pumped it once or twice. I tripled my follow distance, turned on the hazards (hey, at least those work) and limped it home on surface streets. Good thing, too, 'cause I hadn't gone more than a mile or two when the driver's rear wheel decided it had had enough of my grandma driving, jumped ship, and passed me on the right.

Axle seemed OK, so I jacked it up on the side of the road, put the wheel back on, tightened ALL the lugs (they were all loose, so I guess I was lucky) and continued on.

Overheated twice (rad cap blew). Didn't have any warning, other than increasingly troubling engine roughness, since the gauge cluster is totally inoperative save for the speedo and odometer. Let it cool for an hour while I ate lunch. Had plenty of coolant (shoulda guessed about the overheat issue, since the back seat was full of coolant gallon empties), so I topped it off, checked for leaks, found none, and continued. Second time, I just pulled over and read email on my smartphone for an hour before topping off the radiator and pressing on.

The whole way home the body sounded like ***** Wonka's chocolate factory, and made so many interesting noises. Gonna need some work.

Finally made it home that evening. Pulled it into my alley to clean it out, and when I went to pull it back out, I was almost unable to get it up the inclined driveway and back on to the street. I got as much of a running start as I could, burned the clutch a little, and made it back up onto the street.

So, aside from the legion of cleaning and minor defects that have to be addressed, I've got:

Low power
Overheating
Brakes
Pops and clicks and squeaks and scrapes
Gauge cluster

Brakes and undercarriage, I can take care of, so I'm left with:

Low power
Overheating
Gauge cluster

I'm new to rotaries and the 12A. What do I start with?

I wasn't able to find a good gauge cluster thread. Are they separate gauges, or is it on one big integrated PCB?

Power issue could be the carb. Felt a little bit like the time I lost compression in 2 out of 4 on my 4 boinger though. So mebe the carb is fine, and the carb threads seemed to indicate that if there was nothing wrong with the carb it was better left alone. Also, I live in a state where cars more than 25 years old don't need to be smogged, so I can remove all the emissions stuff.

A perusal of the Internet also seems to indicate that A) Rotaries overheat easily. B) The cooling system is more complicated and includes some kind of oil cooler.

Thanks!

 

First thing I would do is a compression test. I have to ask, didn't you test drive or run the engine before you made the swap for your Corolla?

The cooling system is not complicated. A simple radiator that cools the water. There is a oil cooler, but it's not a complicated system. If well maintained, rotaries stay cool. Over heating is the enemy of a rotary engine though. You may have toasted yours letting it overheat. That would explain the loss of power. If you did any damage, the only fix is a rebuild.