Blown rear apex seal - what the hell
 

First of all, I got my motor rebuilt October of 2003 by Tito at Alamo Rotary in San Antonio and has about 23k on it.
Anyway, when my wife was in the hopital after our baby was born, I went to start my car and it wouldn't start. It turns out that it was flooded, even though it had never flooded since it was rebuilt. I got it home and it continued to flood everytime it was stopped for more than a few hours. It actually died a few times while I was driving it. I figured it was the injectors, so I got the cleaned. They were really bad, so I thought it was fixed. Once I got everything back together it barely ran, it sounded like it was only on one rotor. I took everything back off because I thought an injector wasn't connected or something. When I changed out the plugs (which were pretty bad) I decided to do a compression check. It was about 90 on all faces of the front, and 0-0-30 on the rear.
What I can't figure out is when this happened? After it died a few times, everything cleared up and it ran ok. It still seemed to accelerate the same as normal. Once I finally had some time (the baby had to stay in the hospital for another month, so I was up there every day) I pulled the injectors. Next time I started it, it ran like crap.

Also, assuming it blew when I started it after installing the injectors, would the housings be damaged. At the moment, I don't have the time or the money to rebuild it, so its gonna have to wait for a little while. I also don't have any way to get the engine out to check what its condition is because I don't have a garage or anything - just a parking place in front of the 3-plex.

So, with 23k, would any of the seals still be good, or would I have to replace all of them?

I think the seals would still be fine, except for the one you flung.

Alrighty. Do the compression numbers change if the engine is warmed up? Because 90 doesnt seem that good for a rebuild with 23k on it.

^ Yeah, that's not too good... But then again, if you re-used your old housings when you rebuilt, you can't really expect excellent numbers.

The compression #'s will be slightly lower when the engine is warm.

The only way to know what's messed up, is to tear open the block and take a look.

Don't feel too bad; I just blew up my motor too! (lol, j/k)

Also, when I've 'blown' motors, the car will run OK, but the idle's pretty rough... Unless of course you run the thing out of oil... which, I, uh, did the first time... lol. Granted I was 17 at the time and didn't even know what it "rotary" meant.

Sorry about your car... But congratulations on the family!

Thanks for ths support, but you at least blew yours experimenting with a turbo. I blew mine installing fuel injectors.
I think what happened was something fell in the intake and when I tried to start it the first time (the afm wasn't plugged in) it got sucked into the engine where it popped a seal. What that means is that it only ran with a popped seal for a few seconds before I killed it. Other than that, it was just cranked which is low rpms. I'm optimistic that my housing will be reusable, although it looks like my compression wasn't that great beforehand. Would the fact that the car has been sitting for the past 2 months undriven effect the compression numbers? Also, those weren't my original housings. He used some that I thought he was resurfacing, but maybe not looking at those numbers. I might be sending getting "new" housings and sending them off to get ported. Now that I have a daily driver, I might go with a bridge port.
Any other opinions on re-using some of the seals?

The best thing to do right now would be to pull your exhaust off, and inspect the seals through the exhaust ports to confirm that one of them ate it.

There's a possibility that the engine sitting just caused a seal to stick. I wouldn't write the engine off totally unless you pull the exhaust off and see a shreaded seal.

-=Russ=-

^ What he said. With leaky injectors, it doesn't take long for carbon to build up really fast on these engines.

Well, it ran fine before I pulled the injectors, so I don't think thats too likely. I'll go ahead and check that out, hopefully tomorrow. I'll get back to you with what I see. Could that account for the crappy numbers on the front rotr, too?
Also, how do you reccomend turning the rotors? I never figured out the best way to do that.

Either a 19mm socket on the front pulley, or if you have power steering, a socket on that (17mm?) works too.

-=Russ=-

So basically like if you were removing the fan, except you want it to turn?

Yep, its a popped seal. I guess its rebuild time. I'll order the atkins video next week and start studying up on what to do so i'm ready when I get the money. I'm planning on doing the megasquirt, too. I also might have to save extra to bribe the wife (j/k). Im moving in to house in a few months, so I'm gonna wait until I have a garage to do anything.