I was coming home on the highway tonight, I was in 5th gear at about 65mph- then out of nowhere I hear a low rumbling noise & the car vibrated a bit whenever I stepped on the gas. I started losing speed, even when I had my foot to the floor in 5th, so I went down to 4th, and I could hold steady at about 55mph. I shifted into neutral and revved a bit, and the engine just sounded horrid and revved very slowly. I drove the last few miles home in 3rd and 4th gear. However, right before my street was a stoplight that I had to stop at. As soon as the car came to a stop, the engine died- and it wouldn't start again. It still turns over fine, but it just won't start.

When I put the key in and turn the acc on, I get a high pitched beeping/chirping from somewhere inside the dash for about 4 seconds.

Might I just throw in there that this all happened in the night in the freezing rain. =/

Just a little history on the car:
It's a 1991 Convertible with about 84,000 miles on it. The car is all stock. Awhile ago it was taken into Mazda to get it's idle steadied, and it was tuned on 93 gas. I've used 93 in it up until this last tank because gas became so expensive. It's been running fine until now- I've used about a half a tank.

Occasionally when I go to start the car, it'll turn over but won't start up. Usually if I pump the gas pedal quickly about 4-5 times it'll start right up... but not this time!

Any ideas, suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. Please let me know if there's any other info you need, or anything you'd like me to check. I really need to get this resolved as this is the only car I have to get me around. =/

 

Sounds like what happened to my ride when I popped a front apex seal, excluding the beeping. Take out your lower front plug and spin the engine, see if you get 3 pulses, replace plug and repeat on the rear. If you get only 1 pulse and 2 puffs you've lost an apex seal, 2 pulses and 1 puff you've lost a side seal. After that check the engine codes and see if that yields anything.

 

Yup welcome to the rotary world you blew you engine, it is usually very undramatic like that, just crusing than poof nothing, pretty shitty I know.

 

smells like rebuild time for you my friend...

but make a compression test, it should be obvious that one rotor will almost 0 compression and you'll get every uneven bounces on your compression gauge

or maybe you got such a HUGE vacuum leak

... just quick thoughts

 

Run a compression test first. It's the easiest thing to do, and will eliminate all doubt. See http://www.aaroncake.net/rx-7/blown.htm

If that checks out OK, then look for huge vacuun leaks. Around the AFM and tube that leads to the throttle body.

If you can't find any, you may have the rare "stuck injector". I have seen fuel injectors become stuck open, causing the exact symptoms you describe. Remove the upper intake and pressurize the fuel system (turn key to RUN a few times). If an injector is stuck, it will be immediately obvious.

 

same thing happened to me a couple weeks back...I checked everything..... I didnt want to belive it is blown......it sucks!

 

Ugh, you know- my original thought was that the engine had blown. Then I got excited when my roommate said it seemed just like his fuel pump problem and I had totally forgotten about losing my engine. Nooooot a good way to start your day folks- thanks for the replies, I'll get to it today and hopefully HOPEFULLY, it's a stuck injector.

 

Just curious- isn't 84k a little premature for an engine to blow like that? I'm the third owner of the car and I completely baby the thing. Any idea what could have caused it? Sorry, I'm just... crushed right now. =(

In the worst case scenario: how much would this cost to fix? And, how might that cost compare to the price of a TII conversion?

 

not sure about the convertion but from the people Iv talked to in Florida the going rate is abot 3K for some one to do the whole job and if you pull it and put it back in your self less then 2K or if you do it your self about 1K a lil more depending on what else you wanna do or problems you run into........check everything else first though I pulled the upper intake changed all the vac lines made sure injectors were working put it all back together and nothing dif....Also 84K on a N/A does sound a little premature to me to Iv hade 2 N/A's with over 160K miles but Im not....