Okay, lets discuss ATF. The ONLY time I recommend you start pourning ATF into your motor is if your motor sat for a LONG LONG TIME, or may have a stuck apex FROM SITTING A LONG LONG TIME.

In other words USE IT IN EXTREME CASES ONLY!

Its your car, and you can go squirting ATF, Oil, Palmolive, or whatever into the motor, but this NOT the way to unflood a partially flooded motor.

Disable the fuel pump pr push start it. And if you think your car is starting to flood STOP CRANKING!!! If your car starts to flood, all you are doing is exacerbating the problem by cranking it into next week...

Rat

 

J-rat is right in the partially flooded scenario where you are getting comrpession but it's just flooded. You just need fuel cut.

In my case, it had no compression when I first started it. And when I pulled the plugs (after lots of cranking & push starts/clutch popping) the plugs were majorly soaked & fowled.

Push starting it didnt' work because (correct me if I'm wrong) there's 0 PSI oil pressure until the car actually starts under it's own power. So there's nothing to re-lubricate the engine.

A bit of oil may have been better, but I went with the more proven method of ATF.

 

push starting will work but u have to get real extreme with it... use Marvel Mystery Oil instead of atf its designed to burn and can be safely mixed with crankcase oil ( not that it will)
also after compression is regained it may take many tries to purge all the gas\atf mixture from the engine.
if u can hear the compression but it still wont start, take the plugs back out and clean them and spin the engine for 20 secs on then 30 secs off for about 3 times (with EGI pulled) then put the plugs back in and try again. repeat if necessary.

atf/gas in ur oil? uhhh-no. it is possible that u could get minute amounts in there but not enough to make any difference whatsoever. the thin coat of oil that everyone keeps mentioning is between the apex seals and the housings. it just seals compression between the different sides of the rotor. it has nothing to do with the crankcase oil. this oil is injected by the omp it will not backflow.
the crankcase oil is sealed off by the oil o-rings. if gas got past the side and corner seals- which it might but probably wont- it wont go past the oil control rings as these are not dependent on that thin coat of oil.

-Pat

 

There's certainly oil pressure if you're rolling the engine over at any appreciable speed. Now as far as the oil injection working if its just being pulled along, that's questionable.

 

Hey. My engine WANTS to fire but doesn't start. Engine floods very quickly. Could this be the problem?

 

About the ATF....why use it as a last resort? I've read alot of posts over time about how ATF can mess up your 02 sensor, clogg your cats, and have even read about it eating away at watter jacket o-rings. Dont see how its possible for ATF to eat away at o-rings, when the stuff is used it automatic tranmission, which have tons of rubber seals in them along with bands. I've also been taught that 02 sesnors will not be ruined my atf...nor will it clog your cat...how could it when the extremely hot (especially in a rotary engine) exaust temps will burn it off. The only thing i agree with is that it can foul your plugs, which is more than understandable. I agree that it might not be good to do it every oil change or anything, but once in awhile seems perfectly fine to me....not trying to argue just wanna know where your coming from.

 

REALLY!?!?!

So when you finally flood the car, and you are cranking it, and TONS of unburned gas is being dumped onto your chambers, you think it just leaves out the exhaust?!?! Ever taken a whiff of the oil in a rotary after its been flooded?

Rat

 

Okay,

I am NOT bashing the use of ATF. But people seem to forget that ATF, in addition to being a wonderful agent for loosening up motors that have sat for a while, COULD possibly be detrimental to your rotary. Does it ruin your O2 sensor? Probably not...Does it clog your CATS? I hightly doubt that 1 or 2 ATF treatments will fry your CATS, they were probably going bad anyways...

So what can it do? It can POTENTIALLY dislodge carbon in places you dont want it to be dislodged. Then its gonna get dropped into your rotor chambers and its gonna LUNCH your motor.

Its really not up to me when you guys decide to use ATF, there are 2 schools of thought here on the FORUM. One bunch says "HELL YEAH! Put that stuff in your motor whenever you feel like it". The other bunch says "Use ATF SPARINGLY, It COULD POSSIBLY do more harm then good". Funny how the latter bunch seem to be the older members of the forum.

All I do is provide my opinions, its your decision to make...

Rat

*edit* The point I was trying to make is, if you just lightly flooded your car, you MAY want to consider OTHER options then ATF. If its sat for a while, extremely flooded, cussing at you, etc...Then by all means, use ATF

 

RX-7.com has a write up on the flooding situation. I just followed it this past weekend when I got flooded for the very first time. This thread just restates the complex method of deflooding.
It works great, but I didn't replace my plugs, I just cleaned them off. I haven't changed my oil yet, but I already planned on doing it tomorrow. I've never really checked before, but I can smell gas on the dipstick now when I checked my oil.
I know they say it smokes a lot when you finally get it started. But that is probably an understatement. It smokes like hell.

 

Need to add. In fact Rat & I had some communication on this matter. My '89 TII (purchased new in May '89) has needed the atf 4 times since 1992 after sitting for more than 3 weeks in the cold weather. Go to start, no compression. People have said the engine is bad eg apex seals, springs etc. Now I've had to do this 4 times since '92 if I didn't run it for 3 weeks. Had car @ KD this summer and compression readings 6 on every chamber.
Also I would like to add, the omp does not add oil between the apex seal and housing to raise compression. It adds oil for lubrication.

 

Ummm..I gotta disagree on this point. I sincerely believe that it does aid in compression.

Rat

 

After our conversation I spoke to Jim Mederer (owner/founder of Racing Beat) "Lubricates seals only. Amount of oil injected is minuscule". Jim has always been very helpful in the past. I've had my first communication with him all the way back in 1988.

 

One thing Id like to do, is to experiement with a factory seal. Have a couple of ideas as to why no compression at various times. I don't have acces to a used one...If anybody has one pm me and I'll take care of postage and something for your trouble. I was going to get one next trip to KD, but car in moth ***** for the winter, so I probably won't be going there until next spring.
Thanks,
Don

 

You can move it short distances and shut if off, but I really recommend killing it w/ a fuel cut switch rather than turning the ignition off. It wont flood that way.Im not an old member by any means, but I am staying as far away from ATF as possible. If there are other ways that dont involve introducing a foreign substance into my motor, Im going with that method. There are NO chances of damaging anything, and its easy as hell. I dont get why anyone would want to do something the harder way unless of course it resulted in a better end product.

 

Turbonut,

um, is that 6PSI of compression or #6 on the piston PSI checker?

 

I know who Jim Mederer is, but the basic fact remains. If oil has nothing to do with compression, then how do you explain the oil/flooding model?

Something has to be affected by large quantaties of unburned gas in the compression chamber, that causes the compression to drop to almost zero. How else can you explain it? What about side seals and the like?

Flooding a piston engine doesnt reduce compression. So how does it affect compression in the Rotary?

I am interested in your theories on the subject, because I cant come up with anything else besides the lack of oil causing compression to drop. Unless you can pack enough gas into the rotor that it causes the apex to ride up on the gas (like hydroplaning), but I dont think thats the case.

Rat

 

When I have to shut my engine off shortly after starting it I just flip off my fuel pump switch and let it die, then turn off the key. Will this prevent the viscious flooding?

 

Oil control rings, Side seals, Corner seals and apex seal all need lubrication from the omp at all times and in the proper amounts to lubricate the engine internals and combat against blow by. I can't think of a very good expanation, but if you have ever used a bicycle tire pump that has sat around for a few years, expecially in the elements, it usually will still work but not give you enough pressure to properly inflate a tire. Now, if you add a few drops of oil to it through the small hole at the top of the pump, give it a few tries and then try and pump a tire up, it will give you the proper inflation. that is because the oil acts as a seal between the metal pump housing and the punp seal. Kind of like water tension, if you put a glass that has water on the bottom of it, it will slide easy across a smooth surface, but if you try and pick it up, it's sort of dififcult and you actually have to put some effort into it.

The compression from the engine tries to blow this oil away from the seals and blow by but the oil retains enough " water tension" to cause compression.

 

I've a got a question.

I went to look at the Rx-7 i am buying, it started right up. But we only had it on for maybe a minute max. Could this have happend. The fuel have dissolved the film of oil on the housing, and Ruined my compression ?

Its ok tell me honestly i can take it, .

 

Agreed.. Which is PRECISELY why oil smells like gas when the motor is flooded. And why compression drops. I cant think of any other explaination.

Rat

 

If your asking have you lost compression for good, breathe easy, you haven't.
The OMP (Oil Metering Pump) assuming that it is still in good working condition, will spurt out some more and all will be fine. What usually happens if you turn off the car before you let it it warm up for at least 5 minutes is that you may flood the engine, but that's another story.

 

I concur with vaughnc on this one. Has happened to me as well.

Dont know if you remember my thread about me "killing" my TII, but it was something like that:

I was boosting way too high (I thought due to the rebuild turbo, but it was actually a disconnected wastegate ), so I thought about replacing the cone filter with the stock airbox, in order to restrict airflow. Stupid guy that I am, I forgot one of the bolts INSIDE the airbox.

Obviously, after a while the bolt got dislodged from the filter (where it was stuck, thus I didnt notice it when I installed the airbox), and headed straight for the AFM, where it was stuck, forcing the AFM at WOT position. I heard the "ping" that it did, and thought that it was detonation The ECU kept throwing fuel as if I was at WOT, while I was actually cruising very lightly because the engine was shaking violently. As soon as I let of the gas, the engine died, I had to pull over, and get towed back to the shop.

To make a long story short, next day I checked everything, found the bold the engine DID have compression, but due to the AFM being stuck at WOT, the engine was flooded to hell and back....twice Cleaned/burned sparkplugs, didnt do any good (shortcircuited), so four new plugs later, engine was just like new

 

Rotor13B gives a good example using a tire pump.....But people on here say apex seals don't "skrink", "change shape" etc. I feel this is exactly what's happening. As my experience in cold weather. What happens after 3/4 weeks in cold...low/no compression. I believe seals will distort in some respect, even if we're only talking thousands of an inch. I believe the gas has the same effect on the drying of seals. That's the direction I am headed, and that's why I want to test the seals, from extremely hot to extremely cold conditions.

 

Everything shinks or expands in different temperature climates. Its a fact of physics. To say it doesnt is stupid.

 

I was just informed by an individual on another post, that cold rotaries have MORE compression then a warm rotary.


Where do people come up with this stuff???

Rat