All right I am a 1st gen 12a guy and know only a little bit about the 2nd gen 13b.

I am asking a little bit of tech support for a friend of mine.
He just bought an 86 FC for $200. the thing ran pretty well until a few days ago. He hammered out the cats when a local shop told him that they were cloged. it used to only smoke a little at start up, but now the leaves huge billows of smoke when ever you come from a stop or put your foot into the gas at all.

Now at startup it sounds and acts like one of the rotors has no compression I.E. blown apexes. But after you run it for a minute it runs pretty smooth and has alot of power. Blown apexes out..

He pulled the plugs and they were completly fowled. so he took a wire brush and cleaned them up pretty well. ran a little better. has new Jacobs wires.

Now on the FB's you can pour ATF in the engine and let it sit in order to break up the carbon deposits in the engine. can you do this on the FC and if so how would you go about doing it?

Any help you guys could be would be great!!
Thanks all

 

Same way. Used Turkey baster to put a little in each lower hole.

Some people use a breaker bar on the eccentric shaft themal pellet bolt and rock it back and forth to get it worked around in there. It will smoke like mad after you fire it up after this while burning off the ATF, but it works.

Buy new plugs too.

 

ok thanks for that. But does anyone else have ideas what could be the problem with the car??

 

What colour is the smoke? What does it smell like?

 

its a greyish/blue. it really isnt very strong smelling. my friend says he thinks its running rich, but it really dosent smell like fuel at all.

 

Sounds like oil. All of this sounds like oil leaking into the chambers.

Here's one temp fix that's good for both coolant seal failure and oil seal failure.

Tighten the **** out of all the engine housing bolts. There's something like 19 that go around. You may have to yank the engine to get at them all. This will snug everything up inside and hopefully reduce/nix the leak.

Just one idea (originally recommended by my rotary mechanic.) Get some others first. I'm a long way from being your best source of 411 on this.

 

Hey thanks!! I get the feeling that if its something that involved than he willl just rebuild the motor all together.

But thanks for the advice, your the only one so far.

 

Keep asking. You never know who's looking. And try searching. "oil leak smoke" "oil plugs foul" "oil leak seal" Terms like that.

 

Yeah first you dont want to overtighten "the **** outta" the tension bolts, they can break, meaning you need tension bolts and a new front iron. Theyre no thicker than a standard 14mm head bolt, and since theyre about a foot long they can be broken if overtorqued. ITs a good idea in theory, but damn if Id go to that work(minimum dropping tranny, clutch, and flywheel, maximum pulling engine) just for a bandaid fix when you can rebuild a 13b for a few hundred bucks.

Next, anytime you take cats off a car you wil allow it to smoke a bit more. Cats, for whatever reason, will reduce how much a car smokes if it is worn out. Sounds like just worn out oil seals to me, needs a rebuild.

The starting on one rotor then going to 2 could be one of 2 things...oil fouling or water fouling plugs. OIl fouling sounds more plausible, since it sounds like he has bad oil seals too. At shutdown, these thin/wornout seals will let some oil run down into the combustion chamber, and when it gets cranked over it gets thrown onto the plug, fouling it for a second, while the other rotor must not be quite so bad and starts the car. Then the rapid motion draws the oil off the plug enough for it to spark again under high compression, adn it picks up as well. Water can have the same effect on an engine with bad water seals. Such an engine is usually worn out enough that it wont last more than a year if left as-is, but is an excellent rebuild candidate if pulled now.

 

Oops!!

Those were my words, not his, btw!

 

LOL!!!!!

Thanks hypntyz7 !! im gonna tlak to my friend and give him that advice. it sounds pretty sound to me. I think he is figuring a rebuild is enevitable. Thanks everyone!! if there is anyone else that might be able to expound, or give different advice id love to hear it.

Thanks!!!!

 

mine smokes whitend only for a minute or to and smells like gas

 

851stgen12a,

I would change the Spark Plugs first. I had the exact same problem. My uncle's 91 Conv. would do the same thing. It would start very rough like 1 rotor was not igniting and lots of exhaust. Also lots of afterburn(popping sounds) after reving the engine.

I confirmed it with my timing light that 1 rotor was not getting ignition when the engine is first started. So I checked the plugs. The leading plug of rotor 1 had its insulation broken into 2 pieces and still in the plug.

Once I replaced all 4 plugs, the problem went away and I should have also changed the oil since there should be some excess gas that got to the oil.

Hope this helps you.
AR