Car flooded (Tried unflood procedure many times and nothing!)
 

Hi I recently bought a '91 n/a rx and I drove the car home fine. It has been sitting in my driveway for a few weeks but I can't get the thing started now. I tried to start it last week and it just cranked. Then I came back today when I had time to work on it and tried everything I found from searching on here. These were my steps:

1. Remove leading spark plugs (they were pretty fouled up)
2. Put small amount of motor oil into the housing via the spark plug hole
3. Unplug the EFI fuse
4. Crank the car for 10 seconds... turn off... crank again... turn off... rinse... repeat. There was definitely fuel coming out of the holes and a little smoke at first.
5. Put brand new NGK plugs in, also took out the trailing plugs at this time and replaced them
6. With everything back together I tried to start the car and again it just cranked but did not turn over. Tried to start it for about 4-5 times for 10 seconds each time and it never once sounded like it wanted to turn over even with giving it a little gas.
7. I took off the leading plugs again and repeated steps 3 & 4, put it all back together and still nothing. Am I missing something cause I did a lot of reading and this seemed to cure everyone's problem. The car was running fine when I bought it and both times I went to test drive it, it started right up. It has a street port & polish, great compression, and freshly cleaned injectors.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! I was a 240sx guy for about 7 years, but this is my first adventure into the rotary world. I'd love to start ripping this thing apart and getting it ready for the track in the spring, but I need to get it started first heh.

check for spark and fuel before you go any further.

Yea I got both fuel and spark. Is it possible that I just have a lot of gas in the rotor housing and I need to put more oil in there to restore the seal? Could it just be flooded so bad that I need to crank it a lot longer without the EFI fuse in to get out all of the gas?

If you have an S5 FC, then you shouldn't need to remove the EGI fuse to unflood it. Just hold the gas pedal down and crank.

Have you checked compression lately? Don't put too much oil in. Getting oil on your new plugs will foul them out again.

If you don't have a compression checker, then simply place your hand over the spark plug holes and feel for even compression. Should be three even chugs per housing.

I've just gone through a week of this as well - first time!

Read everything, tried everything and nothing seemed to work. Here is how I solved it and this is what I posted on the RX7 mailing list (hope it helps):

After a week, I got it started again - yahoo!

I just wasn't using enough oil to seal the chamber.

One thing I have learnt is that using ATF is not advisable - it's
more likely to create a carbon lock and it is highly likely that the
seals won't like it. The compression is lost because the engine oil
has been washed away, just replace with engine oil, not ATF. ATF is
for automatic gearboxes, not your rotary engine. (dumb arse idea).



Badly flooded engine recovery:

1. CRITICAL STEP - pull the EGI fuse (just in case anti choke is not
working).
2. hold accelerator to the floor whilst cranking to clear as much
fuel through the exhaust. Run the starter for around 10 seconds then
stop to rest the starter, run this procedure another 2 times.
3. pull all plugs and clean them
4. place an absorbant white paper towel hard against the plug holes
and support the towel in place with some rags.
5. pedal to the floor, crank the engine for 10 seconds, stop, rest
and repeat.
6. remove your paper towel - it will be damp with fuel and dirty
7. CRITICAL STEP - repeat step 4 to 6 until the paper towel is dry
and clean. Should only take 2 or 3 goes. If you don't get all the
fuel out, you are going to be wasting your time.
8. grab some of your normal engine oil, not ATF (using ATF is a
stupid thing to put into your engine)
9. CRITICAL STEP - using too little oil means you will have to start
the whole process again! Inject at least 1 tablespoon of oil into
each of the lower plug holes (the lower hole has a larger opening to
the chamber). Let it sit for a few minutes then cover the plug holes
with a rag to avoid any mess. Just give your starter a very quick
kick - just enough to rotate the rotors a fraction of a turn. Repeat
the oil injection - another tablespoon in each lower hole. Again let
it sit for the oil to settle. Rag the plug holes again and repeat the
quick starter to roll the rotor to settle the oil. This should
minimise any plug fouling.
10. we should now be back to a normal cold start condition. Make sure
that your battery is fully charged before attempting to start, if we
fail this start attempt we will have to start the whole process over
again.
11. replace the EGI fuse and start the car normally - be prepared for
a ton of smoke out the exhaust and be prepared with the accelerator
to keep the engine going.
12. let the engine come up to normal operating temperature, find a
nice quiet street and redline it!
13. CRITICAL STEP - wash your RX7 and love it again!


Regards
Roland


PS Put your plugs back in in step 11!

Thanks a lot, I have to wait until morning now because my I live in extreme suburbia and my neighbors do not take kindly to noise with this car being insanely loud.

Thanks for the help though. I thought I might not be using enough oil or cranking enough, but I also didn't want to overdo it so I was rather conservative. Never owned an engine quite like this before.

Just as Roland said make sure your battery is charged. Same thing just happened to mine where it cranked but I guess not enough. Do the unflooding then jump it off with another car, mine surprisingly needed about 10 mins. and the battery is still good and the car runs now.

what works for me is to pull both EGI fuses, remove all spark plugs, and crank the motor over until i can barely see any fumes/mist coming from the engine and then let it sit for a good hour or so and try again.

if it still wont start, crank motor for much longer, but only for 15-20 seconds at a time with 30 seconds in between. and then let it sit for like half a day

personly when this happend to my s4 after a week of owning it. all it turned out i had to do what change out the battery and do a compression start (poping the clutch)

yea I'm going to Redskins game this afternoon so I took out the leading plugs, cranked it over a bunch and i'm gonna let it sit until this evening and try again. If all else fails there is a nice hill at the end of my driveway and i could probably pop start it.

Yea it was a combo of the engine being flooded and the battery not having enough charge. Got it running today. Thanks guys