TrevorsTII

so ive heard that turbo'd rx7s catch fire easy and i was wondering how and what usually causes it?..

Molotovman

iTrader: (49)

The Pulsation Dampener. Replace it every 100k miles, and you wont have a problem.

oh, and Search next time.

Turbo II

iTrader: (1)

Little nasty gremlins and I heard all RX-7s catch fire easily, that's why I two of them.

Seriously, they all have the potential from what I've read. Pulsation damper leaks, engine is hot, fire. That's why we all carry a fire puter outer thingy.

Juiceh

iTrader: (4)

I gotta get me one of those....

masao

https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-gen-archive-72/pulsation-damper-failure-victims-read-60160/

Read this!

Makenzie71

Get an S5 primary fuel rail and you'll virtually eliminate the possabillity from PD failure.

zeromage428

all cars could have some part fail and turn on fire....seen a F150 start smoking today on the way back home and saw him go out of control...

Syonyk

An engine, by definition, uses highly flammable liquids/gasses to make power.

Most of the other things in the engine that keep this process working (oil, coolant) are also flammable.

An engine is very zerking hot, especially a rotary engine's exhaust manifold.

Leak of flammable fluid onto hot manifold = fire.

The pulsation damper is the primary cause, though fuel lines, oil lines, and coolant lines can all be responsible. Replace them *before* they fail, and you should be fine.

-=Russ=-

Alex6969

is there a sort of "check list" for those problems? certain areas to check for failures before the show up?

Therotaryrocket85

Also make sure you replace the hoses that go to the fuel rails and all when you replace the pulastion dampener. Mine were quite dry rotted and one was dripping some at cold starts. I replaced all my stuff so i have nice peace of mind now.

Aaron Cake

iTrader: (1)

That's not entirely true. RX-7s really don't catch fire easily. It's not something that you should drive around in mortal fear of.

When it does happen, it is generally due to the fuel pulsation damper, or old dry-rotted fuel lines. Both have been already covered in this thread.

Syonyk

To significantly reduce the risk of a fire:

Replace the pulsation damper with a new one.
Replace the soft fuel lines in the engine bay (there are quite a few - I count 6 off the top of my head, but there may be another one) with new fuel injected rated line (expensive, but won't burst under fuel injection pressure).
Replace all the coolant hoses with new ones.
Replace all the fuel injector o-rings & grommets with new ones.

You may also want to replace the oil cooler lines. A leak here generally won't cause a fire (because it's on the "cold" side of the engine bay, down low), but a leak can make for a not-so-fun day.

Once you do all that, you've replaced basically every old part that can easily cause a fire with a new part that should last for quite a while.

-=Russ=-

TrevorsTII

well i was just wondering i bought a 87 TII and the guy that owned it had it for like a month then it caught on fire and destroyed the engine then he bought a j-spec and put that in there and now i own and dont want it to happen to me..haha..

thanx for the imput..

Trevor