I just got an 86 gxl from a guy that says it doesn't run. He said he did the atf trick and now it doesn't start. I took it and changed the spark plugs and it started right up. Smoked forever. I've run the car at various rpm for about 30 mins total and the car is still smoking. It is a whitish blue smoke. Also I have practically no oil pressure at all. At 3500 rpms it might have 20-25 psi if the gauge is accurate. Would these symptoms show signs of a bad motor? If so, what would it probably be?

 

is ther absolutly no pressure or some??
if non at any RPM's check to see if the oil pressure sender is pluged in

 

It's plugged in. It show very little at idle and when I rev it up it doesn't ever pass 30 PSI.

 

woah mad bumpage!

!! (cant wait for the gurus to come into this one..)

I have an oil thermo valve bypass pellet.. not yet installed.. my oil pressure is a tad low, and i get smoke when winding down on occasion.. (as some of you know)..

I just had a thought.. could the lower oil pressure reading be attributed to a ruined control ring? extra pressure just blowing out to the rotor face area? (in riptyde's case)

Or in my case.. something.. uhh similar..?

 

I've only seen/driven a few FCs.. but they all seem to have very little oil pressure at idle (almost none). The stock gauge should go about 1/2way up by 3000 RPM.

At least that's what I've been told, but I dunno. My oil pressure gauge doesn't work at all, so maybe I shouldnt' be talking

 

Now when I start the car, it doesn't smoke until I rev past 4000 rpms and then as soon as I drop the engine speed back down it clears up. But I still have very little oil pressure. Maybe 20-25 psi when at 4000 rpms.

 

Could be a series of problems, smoke over 4000rpm = bad oil rings, which helps cause low oil pressure, probably also the rubber o-ring in the front cover is shot.

 

So it's in need of a rebuild?

 

That's the general idea, though ATF takes quite a bit of time to burn off, so I wouldn't give up hope just yet. When was the last oil change/filter change on that thing?

 

It's not my car, so I don't know for sure, but it has a service sticker that says it was supposed to be serviced 5000 miles ago The oil is full and is still pretty clean, so I don't know if that is true or not.

 

Also when I first started the car up it was smoking at every engine speed. So I ran the car for about 20-30 mins at various engine speeds. After that I shut it off and let it cool down. The next time I started it up it was clean until 4000 rpms.

 

Well, the best thing to do would take it for a long drive, shifting pretty often and usually keeping the RPM's up, if it doesn't clear up after an hour or two (100 miles or so) then it's pretty much definatly the oil seals.

 

It's not legal for the street, reg., insurance,... So I can't drive on the street.

 

Ahh, that makes things a bit difficult. It's hard to say, because sometimes the ATF will get caught in the exhaust and burn off slowly, but once you rev it up (and increase the temp) it burns off more quickly and starts smoking, so it's rather hard to say what it is.

 

****, this sucks. Maybe I can take it to the DMV and pay the past reg. and ask for a day permit to take it to the smog shop, but I will actually take it for a 2 hr. drive.

 

What do you think about the really low oil pressure?

 

the oil pressure should be at least at 30 psi at idle. Lower than that and there is a problem.

If the ATF treatment has been done incorrectly it is quite possible that the water or oil seals have been damaged and it would be leaking internally.

There can also be problems from a bad E-shaft thermo-pelt (typically only 15 psi at idle and up to 45 or so at above 2000 RPM) or bad front cover O ring (typically about 10-15 PSI low at idle higher at above 2000 RPM and lower again above 4000 RPM.

 

After seeing that I had such low oil pressure on the gauge, I decided to test the gauge and sending unit. The gauge was good, but the sending unit didn't seem to be the same as my other rx-7. I hooked the sending unit up to a multi meter and it read 13.xx right of the bat with the car off. When I put this on my other rx-7 it was at 0.0xx. Does this probably mean that my oil pressure sending unit is bad?

 

sounds like it.

Remember though, the body of the gauge must be grounded and the oil pressure sender condensor must be mounted and hooked up correctly for the sender to work correctly.

 

I hope thats the case and I don't really have low oil pressure and that the smoke will just be coming from the ATF trick and its not all the way burned off. Damn I wish I could drive the car on the street to try to see if it is the ATF. Neighbors go crazy when I smoke up the whole neighbor hood.