im new to the world of rotaries- hope i didn't get in over my head!

just bought an 89 turbo this past weekend and was driving it home (LA to sF, CA on I 5) and the coolant buzzer came on. pulled over w/in seconds and immediately turned off the car. coolant overflowed, and was also shooting out of a crack in the neck of the radiator. had it towed back to a repair shop. replaced the radiator, cap and thermostat. they ran a coolant compression test and told me i was "lucky i didn't blow my head gasket." (yeah, i know, no head gaskets) but same same. anyway, DOES THIS MEAN EVERYTHING IS OKAY AND THAT I DIDNT KILL IT? do i need to do a combustion chamber compression test to be totally sure? what's the easiest manner in which to go about getting one done?
if it helps any, i made it home (>300 mi.) okay w/o further incedent (kept it under 5k rpm cruz'd @ 80 [3300rpm] the whole way). the clutch it going out and needs to be replaced so i haven't pushed the car to hard yet.

i also notice now that the idle before the engine is fully warm is around 1.5krpm and then drops to 600 or so- is this normal?

any advice would be awesome!

thanks!

 

when it's fully warm
idle should be around 725-750 rpm

 

The accelerated warmup system is what causes it to idle higher (so the car warms up to operating temp faster). It should be a steady and slow drop (no jumping up and down on its own) to 750.

As far as the condition of the motor goes, the only way to REALLY know is to take it to a mazda dealership and get a compression test for around 60-80 dollars. It will tell you the health of the motor. A cheap method to be sure that you didn't blow a coolant seal on the inside of the motor is to remove the radiator cap when cold and start up the engine. If you see coolant shooting out (as a result of products of the combustion cycle seeping into the coolant system) that probably would mean you lost a coolant seal. But since you seem to have gotten home OK, i'd say you should be fine. I guess since they ran a compression test on the coolant system, nothing is leaking into the motor, or vice versa, so congrats, you did the best thing you could for your car!

As far as the warm idle goes, does it bounce at all?