A friend of mine had a "dead" rx7 that he needed gone, so he gave it to me. It is a 1991 NA coupe. He said it "only ran on one rotor"

So i took the free RX7 and gave it the MMO massage. It sat 24 hours. I then pulled plugs, turned it over a few times, and replaced the plugs.

I squirted some Ether on the air filter (cone style) It started easily and ran smooth (but smokey of course) for about 10 minutes, idle was 2k the whole time.

Idle then dropped and finally it wouldn't idle on its own but giving it gas would keep it running with lots of pops out back. Finally it just shut it off.


I'm not that familiar with Rotaries, so I am unsure how to tell for sure if it was running on both rotors. The car is loud as all get out, but I'm sure that is just because of the HUGE Apexi dual exhaust.

Any ideas what to check for? I don't have a compression tester.

 

Go to autozone, they rent compression testers there. Check the FSM, or just do a search for 'compression test' in the 2nd gen forum to find out how to do it correctly. If compression is good on both rotors, then YAY you have both rotors. After that, check for good spark on all plugs (make sure the plug wires are wired correctly, L1 and T1 to the front rotor with L being the bottom, L2 and T2 to the rear).

 

http://www.aaroncake.net/rx-7/blown.htm

 

I picked up a compression tester today.

I put it on the front rotor, hooked up my 325 to the 7 via jumper cables, had my wife floor the throttle and try to start it.

0, nothing, nada. Needle didn't move.

Damn! The compression tester is bad!

But, I throw it on the rear rotor...
90-90-90

I guess a rotary's smoothness, the super loud exhaust, and my rotary newbie-ness combined to fooling me into think it was running ok those 10 mins.

 

a bit off topic, sorry, but ... what was the ether for?